It has been said that elections have consequences, but it’s more accurate to say that ballots are made of blood and money.
Ballots can determine whether you’re safe walking the streets and how much of your paycheck is taken by the government. Ballots can even determine whether children will be taken from their parents, and parents from their children, in a military draft.
Given the stakes, ballots should be carefully watched.
On Wednesday, Connecticut Superior Court Judge William F. Clark cited evidence of mail ballot fraud to overturn the recent Democratic primary election for mayor of Bridgeport, the state’s largest city. The evidence included hundreds of hours of video surveillance. “The videos are shocking to the court and should be shocking to all of the parties,” he said.
Maybe not so shocking. A city employee affiliated with the incumbent mayor’s campaign was recorded apparently stuffing ballot boxes to help the mayor to a come-from-behind win, and just weeks earlier, Connecticut’s State Elections Enforcement Commission had recommended criminal charges for the same city employee in connection with the handling of absentee ballots in the 2019 mayoral primary, which of course was won by the now-incumbent mayor.
What’s shocking, at least to some of us in California, is that there was an investigation at all.
That’s not the way we do it here.
In California, we have barreled through changes to voting equipment and procedures, adopting electronic voting technology, automatic voter registration, mail ballots sent to all voters, unattended ballot drop boxes, ballot harvesting and a requirement for counties to accept mail ballots up to seven days after the polls close, even without a postmark.
In February 2020, voters were assured by then-Secretary of State Alex Padilla that electronic voting technology would still include a paper ballot for verification, but things turned a little sketchy when voters asked to see those ballots.
In March 2020, a Long Beach group sought a recount of a city tax increase measure that had squeaked to a suspiciously late-breaking 16-vote victory. Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan informed the group that it would have to pay more than $100,000 just to have county workers retrieve the paper ballots, and then pay for the recount. Even a full recount of the ballot scans would potentially cost about $200,000 because of the need for tech workers and electronic viewing stations.
After a partial recount of the scans found numerous “variances,” meaning the machine read the ballots incorrectly, the Long Beach group asked the county for a cost adjustment to complete the recount, but Logan refused. And when the group sued over the prohibitive costs, Logan responded that it’s not his problem if changes to the law and technology made recounts unaffordable. L.A. Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff agreed with Logan.
When Los Angeles County residents who were outraged over violent crime in their communities collected more than 715,000 signatures to force an election to recall District Attorney George Gascón, Logan’s office rejected nearly 200,000 signatures, enough to declare that the recall effort had failed.
It’s the law in California that proponents of a failed initiative, referendum or recall petition have the right to see all the rejected signatures and the reason for the rejection. Voters might reasonably expect election officials to carry out this responsibility promptly.
But in L.A. County, Logan’s office sharply limited the time and facilities available for viewing the rejected signatures. The recall proponents had to go to court for relief, and Logan was ordered to provide more access.
The recall proponents went back to court after they accumulated evidence that Logan’s office had improperly rejected tens of thousands of valid voter signatures. They also demonstrated, through a public records request, that Logan had overstated the number of registered voters in L.A. County by hundreds of thousands in a report to the Secretary of State. Because the signature threshold to qualify a county recall is 10% of the number of registered voters, the threshold for qualification was set improperly high. Given the new numbers, it appears likely that the recall proponents actually did collect enough valid signatures to put the Gascón recall before the voters.
But instead of announcing an internal investigation or review, Logan fought the lawsuit, just as he did when the Long Beach Reform Coalition sought a reasonable cost for a recount. Using your tax dollars to pay for lawyers, Logan was able to stall and delay, running up withering legal bills for the voters who were exercising their rights under the law.
However, last week there was a significant development in Case Number 23STCP02365, Committee to Support the Recall of District Attorney George Gascón v. Logan.
L.A. Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff, the same judge who ruled for Logan in the Long Beach case, denied Logan’s motion to strike any challenge to the accuracy of the voter rolls. Instead, Beckloff invited recall proponents to amend their petition to the court, writing that the allegations related to the voter rolls “are not ‘irrelevant, false or improper’ and therefore cannot be struck.”
Beckloff also let stand allegations that Logan’s signature verification process violated the due process and equal protection rights of petition signers. The California Code of Regulations, Title 2, Section 20960, sets out specific, detailed procedures that must be followed for signature verification. If you’re wondering, the Registrar is not allowed to have one standard for mail ballots and another for recall petitions.
The case is proceeding to trial, probably in March. Gascón potentially could face a recall election before his term is up.
And, if the recall proponents can sustain their funding for the lawsuit through all the stalling, attorneys will be able to conduct discovery, extracting documents and testimony from Dean Logan’s office. Perhaps they can do what the Board of Supervisors and Secretary of State Shirley Weber refuse to do — end Logan’s arrogant practice of battling to prevent voters from simply checking the accuracy of election results, signature verification and voter registration records.
Write Susan@SusanShelley.com and follow her on Twitter @Susan_shelley
