Oakland Election Officials Defy Judge’s Order in Manual Recount in Mayor’s Race

Hayden and a small group attended the initial ballot extraction phase of the review, but said the Board of Supervisors and Alameda elections officials continue to flagrantly ignore the egregious violations of the California Election Code, violating the Judge’s order.

Dear Judge Seligman,

I am a member of the Election Integrity Team Alameda County California, (EITACCA), a concerned citizens group made up of members of the major political parties, non-partisan citizen groups and unaffiliated persons.

Six of us attended the initial ballot extraction phase of the review that you ordered.  Please find the attached graphic of our experience.  To sum it up, the Board of Supervisors and Mr. Dupuis continues to flagrantly ignore the egregious violations of the California Election Code (CA ELEC) as has been done since at least the June Primary, beginning with the right of citizens to observe any and all election procedures.  Today, despite numerous objections made during the elections cycle to both the ACROV and the Board of Supervisors, citizens were again kept behind a customer windows barrier more that 10 feet away from ROV workers sitting at tables doing the extraction.

Today’s summarized points:

1. 1. Batch boxes were already in the room, had been unsealed without observation by the public since we were not informed. The public was denied our right to observe by not being informed of the date, time, and location of the extraction and unsealing of the OUSD #4 ballot batch boxes.  Because Mr. Dupuis knew that the Cast Vote Record identified the precise ballot location of where all the 154 of 393 batches of OUSD #4 suspended ballots were, and that their scheduled isolation had already been completed, what was the purpose for the staged event on February 1st?  When asked why the public had not been notified in order to observe this initial extraction, Deputy Registrar Cornejo said that she was out on leave and did not know why the public was not informed of the scheduled event, (CA ELEC 15004). [Who, then, made this decision?]

1. 2. ‘Sufficiently close access’ to observe and make verification of the process was not made available, (CA ELEC 15104).

1. 3. Observers were not informed which table was working on what batch, by written numbers on a whiteboard or otherwise and therefore could not discern where/when to track specific batches that were being extracted.

1. 4. The screen information facing the observers to show what boxes/batches were being extracted was never updated from the starting batch as they moved through the process; therefore, observers had no idea which batch each of the tables were working on.

1. 5. Attorneys were not given a summary report of batches to relate to the Cast Vote Records in order to know what to observe nor what to expect to be pulled from what box.  We had brought our own information; however, since observers were not able to see what was going on, we could not check against the data because the batch numbers were not anywise identified.

1. 6. At the end of extractions, the ballots were left in the room which had ready ROV keycard access; therefore, they are NOT secured. The ROV employees simply walked away from the unsealed re-boxed ballots that were then put on mobile shelves in the back of the room.  Although this infraction was pointed out to the Deputy Registrar Cornejo, she claimed that the ballots were ‘secure’ as they were.  However, to secure means ‘sealed’ and in a room that has controlled access so no one can tamper with the ballots.

1. 7. Public view of the chain of custody was not made available to us (CA ELEC 15004).

We respectfully request that you make clear to Mr. Dupuis that he must follow California Election Code in the second phase of the review to commence on Monday.  Specifically:

• • We want to be present to watch the batches of ballots if they have since moved them to another room.
  • Observers must also be given sufficient proximity to verify task accuracy.
  • We would like to have an observer seated at each table where the review is conducted.
  • We insist that the ballots be resealed in the batch boxes at the end of the review.

Thank you for your kind consideration and juris prudence in this matter.  We share with you the desire and work to keep this Republic of, for and by the people.

Sincerely,

Alison Hayden

Jackie Cota Carron

John Guererro

Gerald Pechenuk

Mindy Pechenuk

Ned Nuerge

In January, the NAACP affirmed several questions about disqualified ballots that can be answered only with a manual recount.

• Nearly 3,100 votes were considered overvotes and not counted (voters selected more than one candidate in the same ranking).
• 1,355 Votes in Alameda County were tossed out due to mismatched signatures. Approximately 300-400 of these ballots belong to Oakland voters.

These ballots, if counted, could potentially overturn the mayor’s race, the NAACP says.

If elections officials can’t or won’t follow proper procedure during a manual recount, the only conclusion is that they are manipulating elections. What will the consequences be?