SAN DIEGO -- The results of the 50th Congressional District special election runoff are a federal issue, not a state one, a Superior Court judge said Tuesday afternoon in dismissing a lawsuit that would have forced the county registrar of voters office to recount the ballots from the June election.

Voters Barbara Gail Jacobson and Lillian M. Ritt recently filed the lawsuit against the election's victor, Republican Brian Bilbray, and county Registrar of Voters Mikel Haas.

The plaintiffs, who earlier asked the registrar to conduct the recount, also asked in their lawsuit for Superior Court Judge Yuri Hofmann to determine a reasonable cost for the recount. Haas' office told them they would have to pay as much as $150,000 for the work involved in a hand recount of the votes.

The lawsuit centered on the election to pick a temporary replacement for the now-imprisoned Randy "Duke" Cunningham, the former Republican representative who pleaded guilty in November to taking more than $2.4 million in bribes. The district stretches from Escondido south to Del Mar and into parts of San Diego.

Just a few days after the election, the California secretary of state's office notified the office of Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., that it was OK to seat Bilbray, based on an unofficial count showing Bilbray with a lead of about 5,000 votes over Democrat Francine Busby.

Hastert then swore in Bilbray as the new congressman, despite the fact that the election results had yet to be certified.

During the brief hearing, Judge Hofmann said the matter is one the U.S. House, not the state, must now address.

"Once the House asserts exclusive jurisdiction and selects a candidate, the court no longer has jurisdiction," Hofmann said.

Seattle attorney Paul Lehto said Republicans knew that once Bilbray had been sworn in, it would be highly unlikely that Busby or any other candidate would file a complaint with the House, since they wouldn't want to be perceived as sore losers. Lehto said the federal statute is wrong and should allow for any voter, not just candidates, to file such a protest.

In a brief phone interview Tuesday, Busby said that she was not aware of the federal statute that would have allowed her to file a protest with the House of Representatives.

But the judge's decision was wrong, she said.

"It's outrageous that this judge just said the state of California doesn't have jurisdiction over our own elections, over this election," Busby said. "What happened today should be of concern to all voters."

Neither Bilbray nor Haas could be reached for comment late Tuesday.

Jacobson has said that part of her reason for filing the lawsuit revolved around the fact that Haas allowed precinct workers to take voting machines home with them in the days leading up to the election. Hass has said the practice is common across the state as registrars scramble to have voting precincts up and running early each election day.

However, the plaintiffs and some experts on voting technology say allowing precinct workers to take the machines home is particularly fraught with risk because the machines are not only far from the public eye, but can easily be hacked into and the votes manipulated.

After the hearing, Bilbray attorney David King said that under federal statute once Bilbray was sworn in, any of the other candidates -- Busby, Libertarian Paul King or Independent William Griffith -- had 30 days to contest the validity of the speaker's action and force a recount.

"And no one did," King said.

Plaintiff Jacobson said she has not yet decided whether to appeal Hofmann's decision. Her attorney Lehto said that they have not given up on the struggle to curtail the use of the high-tech voting machines.

"Will the fight continue? Absolutely," Lehto said. "The question is: Is this really the right vehicle to take this all the way to the (U.S.) Supreme Court?"

Jacobson said that too much is at stake to stop fighting the use of machines such as the ones used in San Diego County and many jurisdictions across the nation.

"I look at this as an American issue, something that will benefit all people and all parties," said Jacobson, a registered Democrat.

- Contact staff writer William Finn Bennett at (760) 740-5426, or wbennett@nctimes.com.