California

California: Dominion Voting Systems sues Santa Clara County to block release of public records | Dustin Manduffie/Courthouse News Service

Dominion Voting Systems claims they were forced to submit private financial information to Santa Clara County when applying for a contract to supply voting systems. That information is now at risk of being disclosed through the Freedom of Information Act and the California Privacy Rights Act. Dominion ultimately won the contract for up to eight years, with an option to renew for two additional two-year terms, but they now face the possibility that their financials will be splayed across the internet for all to see, according to a complaint filed by the company Thursday. The company initially rose to fame during the 2020 United States presidential election because of unproven allegations that they rigged their voting machines to favor Democratic candidate, and now president, Joe Biden. Since that time, Dominion has come under increased scrutiny by Republican politicians, prompting the records requests that led to Thursday’s lawsuit. Dominion claims as part of the process that led to their winning the contract, they had to send the county detailed financial documents, along with proprietary information “about the technical and functional components of their voting systems, as well as the personal identifying information of key employees.” That includes 47 pages of audited financial statements produced between 2015 and 2017 — each page of which was marked “Confidential & Proprietary — No Part of this Document May Be Disclosed or Copied,” according to the complaint.

Full Article: Dominion Voting Systems sues Santa Clara County to block release of public records | Courthouse News Service

California recall reality: Newsom could be replaced by candidate with far fewer votes | Maura Dolan/Los Angeles Times

For weeks, legal scholars have debated whether the recall election of Gov. Gavin Newsom could be found unconstitutional if Newsom failed to realize a “no recall” majority of the ballots cast and was ousted by a candidate who received fewer votes than he did. Although it’s impossible to predict how courts will rule, many experts say the current recall process has long survived legal challenges, and probably would again, even if a fringe candidate won on Sept. 14 and became governor with a minority of overall votes. That view is based on court decisions on election law, especially rulings stemming from the recall election of Gov. Gray Davis, when voters removed Davis in 2003 and replaced him with Arnold Schwarzenegger, a popular actor who went on to win reelection. In that case, more people voted for Schwarzenegger than Davis so the candidate with the most votes won. Even so, California’s recall scheme permits a candidate with fewer votes to prevail over an incumbent, as was demonstrated by the state’s last successful recall of an elected legislator. In 2018, voters recalled Sen. Josh Newman (D-Fullerton). On the recall question, 41.9% voted to retain Newman. On the second ballot question, in which voters are asked to select a successor, a Republican won with only 33.8% of the vote. An incumbent who faces a recall is not permitted to be named as a successor candidate on the second part of the ballot. “Maybe I should have been reinstated,” joked Newman, after reading a recent essay by legal scholars who helped spark the current debate by arguing that California’s recall law violated the federal Constitution.

Full Article: Newsom could be replaced by recall pol with fewer votes – Los Angeles Times

California: Election officials ‘fast and furious’ as recall plans condense a year of prep into 70 days | Andie Judson/ABC10

Less than a year ago, the world waited with baited breath for the results of the 2020 presidential election. Now, just 10 months later, California is back in election season. And while it may feel all to familiar, this  special election is one of few and far between. “We have not had a gubernatorial recall since 2003,” said Sacramento County spokesperson Janna Haynes. “That’s the only one we’ve had in the history of California.” 18 years later, Sacramento County is prepping for our state’s second recall election. “Normally at this time of the year, we’d already be preparing for our June Primary in 2022,” Haynes said. “So, we are working fast and furious.” Compared to a general election, California election’s offices have had a very short time to prepare since the recall was announced. Haynes said they traditionally take more than a year for election prep, but for this recall, they have 70 days. Between preparing ballots, filler pages, envelopes, voter files and logistics, it’s a heavy lift. But the two things that are making it simpler for Sacramento’s Elections Office is that there will only be around 30 in-person vote centers compared to the 84 last November. That means less staff and overall workflow for elections officials.

Full Article: California Governor Recall: Elections officials prepping for race | abc10.com

California recall candidate list draws confusion | Michael R. Blood and Kathleen Ronayne/Associated Press

The official list of who’s running in California’s recall election of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom remained unsettled Sunday, with conservative talk radio host Larry Elder maintaining he should be included but state officials saying he submitted incomplete tax returns, a requirement to run. Elder’s next recourse is to go to court to get on the…

How California could recall its governor | Michael R. Blood/Associated Press

 California will hold a recall election Sept. 14 that could remove first-term Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom from office. The date was set by Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, a Democrat and Newsom ally, after election officials certified that enough valid petition signatures had been turned in to qualify the election for the ballot. Republicans are hoping for an upset in a heavily Democratic state where the GOP hasn’t won a statewide election since 2006. The election will be watched nationally as a barometer of the public mood heading toward the 2022 elections, when a closely divided Congress again will be in play. Here’s how it works. California is one of 20 states that have provisions to remove a sitting governor in a recall, 19 of them through elections. The state law establishing the rules goes back to 1911 and was intended to place more power directly in the hands of voters by allowing them to recall elected officials and repeal or pass laws by placing them on the ballot. Recall attempts are common in the state, but they rarely get on the ballot and even fewer succeed. However, in 2003, Democratic Gov. Gray Davis was recalled and replaced by Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Full Article: EXPLAINER: How California could recall its governor

California’s recall election will cost $276 million, recall date set for Sept. 14 | Michael R. Blood and Kathleen Ronayne/Associated Press

California on Thursday scheduled a Sept. 14 recall election that could drive Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom from office, the result of a political uprising largely driven by angst over state coronavirus orders that shuttered schools and businesses and upended life for millions of Californians. The election in the nation’s most populous state will be a marquee contest with national implications, watched closely as a barometer of the public mood heading toward the 2022 elections, when a closely divided Congress again will be in play. The date was set by Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, a Democrat, after election officials certified that enough valid petition signatures had been turned in to qualify the election for the ballot. The announcement will set off a furious, 10-week burst of campaigning through the California summer, a time when voters typically are ignoring politics to enjoy vacationing, backyard barbecuing and travel. Many voters have yet to pay attention to the emerging election, while polls have shown Newsom would beat back the effort to remove him. Republicans haven’t won a statewide race in heavily Democratic California since 2006. Republican candidates have depicted Newsom as an incompetent fop whose bungled leadership inflicted unnecessary financial pain statewide, while Democrats have sought to frame the contest as driven by far-right extremists and supporters of former President Donald Trump.

Source: California sets date for recall election targeting Newsom

California: Future of Los Angeles County election recounts could hinge on Long Beach Measure A lawsuit | Hayley Munguia/Long Beach Press Telegram

A lawsuit over the scrapped effort to recount the results of Long Beach’s Measure A election last March — which could determine how LA County handles future recount elections — is set to head to trial. The ballot measure, which passed by 16 votes out of nearly 100,000 votes cast, indefinitely extended the 10-year, 10.25% city sales tax that voters passed in 2016. The Long Beach Reform Coalition, a group that opposed the measure and argued throughout the campaign that the city had not been a good steward of the money it received from the tax already, sought a recount of the election given its razor-thin margin. But the process, members of the group have said, was far more expensive and less transparent than the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s office initially claimed. A spokesperson for the Registrar-Recorder said the office cannot comment on pending litigation, but attorneys for Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan wrote in recent court filings that every aspect of the recount process was conducted lawfully. The recount in question began April 8, 2020, but Ian Patton — a representative of the Long Beach Reform Coalition who officially requested it — had to cancel the effort after less than a week because of the high costs. The organization has claimed the county’s process has effectively barred the public from being able to have full confidence in the election results. So the Long Beach Reform Coalition sued Logan last May, seeking a full, manual recount of the election at the initial estimated costs and for the county to change its ballot-sorting and -counting process moving forward. The lawsuit will go to trial on Wednesday, July 7.

Full Article: Future of LA County election recounts could hinge on Long Beach Measure A lawsuit – Press Telegram

California: Federal judge tosses local lawsuit that echoed Trump claims of election fraud | Brooke Staggs/Orange County Register

A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed with prejudice a lawsuit filed by California Republicans that echoed false allegations made by former President Donald Trump about the validity of the 2020 election. The lawsuit, filed in January by a conservative election watchdog group and 10 failed GOP congressional candidates against a slew of state and county elections officials, claimed the November election in California was rife with “mass irregularities and opportunities for fraud.” The plaintiffs argued that such conditions have been brewing in California for years, but were exacerbated by changes made last year to make sure all voters in the state had access to a ballot during the COVID-19 pandemic. But those arguments, similar to claims made in dozens of other lawsuits disputing the 2020 election, were rejected. Federal Judge Andre Birotte wrote in a 13-page ruling published Tuesday that the plaintiffs didn’t offer concrete evidence that problems affected the outcome of California’s November elections. Birotte also said he agreed with the defendants’ statement that the lawsuit amounted to “an incremental undermining of confidence in the election results, past and future.”

Full Article: Federal judge tosses local lawsuit that echoed Trump claims of election fraud – Orange County Register

California: ‘They’re really on a rampage’: Departing San Luis Obispo County Clerk-Recorder reflects on election conspiracies, racism | Lindsey Holden/San Luis Obispo Tribune

In a surprise move, San Luis Obispo County Clerk-Recorder Tommy Gong on Friday announced he’s resigning his position and leaving the area — exactly one month after enduring hours of election misinformation and racism at a Board of Supervisors meeting. Gong, the first Asian American elected to countywide office, will move to Contra Costa County in July to start a new job as a deputy clerk-recorder. On Friday, he told The Tribune the decision to leave was primarily motivated by a desire to be closer to family in the Bay Area, although attacks on his office following the 2020 election “probably played a factor” in his choice. Prior to making his exit public, Gong sat down with The Tribune to discuss the impacts of election conspiracy-mongering and anti-Asian racism and how his office can move forward and instill faith in the county’s voting system. … During the meeting, one caller made an explicitly racist comment asking if Gong is “a member of the Chinese Communist Party.” “It was interesting because we were hearing all of the scripted comments and everything, and your mind kind of goes numb as you’re listening,” Gong said. “That one did stick out, I will say. I was like, ‘Did I hear that right?’ You know, (it) was a little surprising. And my staff was with me, and it was like, ‘Oh yeah, wow.’” Gong grew up outside of Modesto, where his family ran a local chain of grocery stores. When he was going into kindergarten, Gong’s mother warned him that children may “call you names” or make racist comments. Hearing the racism at the meeting made Gong think back to that time.

Full Article: SLO elections official talks racism, voting misinformation | San Luis Obispo Tribune

On California’s Central Coast, anti-Asian bias and the Big Lie | Marak Barabak/Los Angeles Times

The Big Lie — the fiction that the 2020 election was riddled with fraud, costing President Trump a second term — has spread like a cancer. In Phoenix, Republican state lawmakers caved to the GOP’s lunatic wing and approved a harebrained canvass of Maricopa County ballots. Emboldened Trump backers are now challenging election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and elsewhere. (Not that it will change anything.) In California, the nuttiness has spread to San Luis Obispo County, the midpoint between San Francisco and Los Angeles, where the denialism took an ugly, racist turn. President Biden easily defeated Trump in the county, 55% to 42%, a margin of nearly 21,000 votes. That’s no cliffhanger. “Joe Biden won the election,” county Supervisor John Peschong states without equivocation. He’s no Democratic shill. His Republican credentials include service in the Reagan White House and decades as a GOP campaign strategist. Biden’s victory was also confirmed by a partial hand recount, a standard practice under California law. Still, at a board of supervisors Zoom meeting in early May, nearly 150 people pressed baseless assertions of fraud and questioned the use of Dominion voting machines. The technology firm has faced some of the more fantastical claims by Trump and his sympathizers. Many protesters expressed doubt their votes were counted, or claimed balloting machines were manipulated to change results.

Full Article: Racism and Trump’s election lie on California Central Coast – Los Angeles Times

California: The Newsom recall could cost $400 million. Who pays for it? | John Myers/Los Angeles Times

It’s well known that elections have consequences. They also have price tags. With signs pointing to a special election this fall at which voters could remove Gov. Gavin Newsom from office, local officials from across California believe the cost of conducting the election could run as high as $400 million. The estimate is four to five times higher than rough guesses bandied about in recent months and is equal to a cost of about $18 per registered voter — more than double what local elections officials say was spent on California elections in 2018. It’s a price they say counties, which are struggling to cover pandemic-related costs for health and human services programs, will need the state to cover. “There is an urgency to this,” said Donna Johnston, the registrar of voters in Sutter County and president of the California Assn. of Clerks and Elected Officials. Johnston’s group bases its $400-million estimate on a preliminary tally of costs from the November 2020 election, for which every registered voter was mailed a ballot and in-person voting was subject to strict rules designed to minimize the risk of coronavirus infections.

Full Article: The Newsom recall could cost $400 million. Who pays for it? – Los Angeles Times

California: Improve the State’s Election Infrastructure, Urges Little Hoover Commission | YubaNet

California’s elections are free, fair, and secure, but the state can do more to improve its election infrastructure, the state’s independent government watchdog recommends in a new report. In California Election Infrastructure: Making a Good System Better, the Little Hoover Commission recommends creation of an open source voting system and the statewide use of risk-limiting audits. “The 2020 election was the most secure election in history,” says Chair Pedro Nava. “But California cannot be complacent and should take steps to improve its election infrastructure in order to keep up with evolving technology and knowledge.” The Commission held a hearing on this topic in 2019 and released a letter to the Governor and legislative leadership to consider important questions related to elections security, such as the need for funding to improve equipment. This report builds on the Commission’s past work and adds specific policy recommendations. In its report, the Commission finds that California relies on a for-profit model for election equipment security. The Commission recommends that the state develop and adopt an open source elections system, which would be more transparent, save money, increase versatility for counties, and aligns with a state goal to use open source software across government.

Full Article: Improve the State’s Election Infrastructure, Urges Little Hoover Commission – YubaNet

California’s elections official exodus | John Myers/Los Angeles Times

If all politics is truly local, it should be huge news when someone like Kammi Foote decides enough is enough. As the registrar of voters for Inyo County, Foote spent 14 years on democracy’s front lines in a job that is equal parts educator and administrator. California gives wide latitude to its 58 counties in how to run elections, and a corps of veteran registrars call the shots across the state. But something has changed. Registrars with decades of experience are calling it quits, stymied by the ever-growing list of election mandates that come without the funding to make them a reality — made worse by the personal and professional threats made by voters amped up on partisan rage and destructive conspiracy theories. Now, months before a likely recall election followed by the 2022 campaign season where political maps will be redrawn and voters will need help navigating the changes, California finds itself in the midst of an election officer exodus. Foote stepped down Friday as Inyo’s chief elections officer, the eighth registrar across California to resign since last November’s election. At least one more registrar is expected to resign in the coming weeks. Some have been on the job for almost three decades. “I think, if anything, it’s just a sense of being worn down and tired,” Foote said about her decision to leave. “In 2020, we found ourselves working seven days a week, months on end, under tremendous pressure.”

Full Article: Essential Politics: California’s elections official exodus – Los Angeles Times

Kammi Foote, Inyo County California Clerk/Recorder/Registrar of Voters, is leaving office. | Charles James/Sierra Wave

Kammi Foote announced her resignation effective Friday, April 9 to the Inyo County Board of Supervisors at their regular Tuesday virtual meeting. Foote has been with the county for almost twenty years, the last ten years in elected office as the Inyo County Clerk/ Recorder/Registrar of Voters Office.

Full Article: Kammi Foote, Inyo County Clerk/Recorder/Registrar of Voters, is leaving office. – Sierra Wave: Eastern Sierra NewsSierra Wave: Eastern Sierra News

California: After Historic Election, Legislators Consider Keeping Voting Changes | Guy Marzorati/KQED

California’s 2020 election was marked by historic levels of voter participation amid rapid changes in the voting process. The COVID-19 pandemic spurred state lawmakers to broaden voting options in the name of safety. For the first time, every voter was mailed a ballot, while early voting was expanded and polling places were abandoned in favor of countywide voting locations. In a report released Wednesday, the National Vote at Home Institute gave California its highest score, praising the state for policy changes implemented in 2020. “They did achieve monumental success in terms of the adjustments while dealing with the pandemic,” said Amber McReynolds, the institute’s CEO. Now, lawmakers in Sacramento have to figure out which changes to keep. That work begins on Thursday, when the Senate Elections and Constitutional Amendments Committee is set to consider legislation that would extend the state’s universal vote-by-mail provisions for another year. That would cover special elections (and any potential recall election) held in 2021.

Full Article: After Historic Election, California Legislators Consider Keeping Voting Changes | KQED

California: FBI, Sacramento-area law enforcement prepare for possible violence at Capitol | Sam Stanton/The Sacramento Bee

Federal law enforcement officials, hate-crime specialists and social media platforms are warning of the possibility of nationwide attacks at state capitols and in Washington, D.C., in the days leading up to the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden. One federal law enforcement source said Monday that authorities had no specific information about planned activities at California’s state Capitol, where weekly protests have been staged since election day by supporters of President Donald Trump and his false claims that voter fraud cost him the White House. But the source, who was not authorized to speak publicly, confirmed to The Sacramento Bee that FBI field offices nationwide have been alerted to the possibility of violence through Inauguration Day and have set up command posts to interact with state and local law enforcement, including the California Highway Patrol, which has jurisdiction over the state Capitol. “The CHP is all over this,” the source said. “The bottom line is, certainly law enforcement is all over this and will be prepared.” Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday that the Capitol has “a heightened, heightened level of security” and that a decision on whether to activate the National Guard would be made “as needed.” “Everybody is on a high alert in terms of making sure that everybody is safe and protected,” Newsom said. “People’s free speech can be advanced, but there’s no violence.”

Full Article: FBI, CHP on alert at CA Capitol for inauguration violence | The Sacramento Bee

California: Voting Issues in Alameda County Raise Questions About Election Management | Guy Marzorati/KQED

It was mid-morning on Election Day when Julie Mendel, a poll worker at a voting location at Mills College in Oakland, realized that something had gone horribly wrong. A voter had approached her with a printout from a ballot-marking device, a machine that spits out a voter’s choices onto a piece of paper (the voter’s ballot) after they have made their selections on a touchscreen. The voter then submits the ballot into a collection bag. For more than three days of voting, Mendel and her fellow poll workers had told voters that the piece of paper was a receipt, with the actual votes submitted electronically though the machine. She had heard the guidance from a higher-ranking poll worker at the location, and never questioned it until she looked closely at the piece of paper the man was showing her. It read ‘Official Ballot.’ “We felt really awful just about the possibility that we had told these people to walk away with their votes uncast,” said Mendel. For the rest of the day, Mendel and other poll workers scrambled to contact the Alameda County Registrar of Voters Office, trying in vain to get clear guidance and help correcting their error.

Full Article: Voting Issues in Alameda County Raise Questions About Election Management | KQED

How California reached historic voter turnout despite pandemic, distrust | Lewis Griswold/CalMatters

Full Article: How California reached historic voter turnout despite pandemic, distrust | cbs8.com

California: Hawthorne men accused in voter fraud plot to obtain 8,000 mail ballots for ‘nonexistent or deceased’ persons | James Queally/Los Angeles Times

As judges around the U.S. continue to dismiss claims of voter fraud by President Trump and his supporters, prosecutors and election officials in Los Angeles County said Tuesday that they had uncovered evidence of an actual attempt to fix an election — albeit a small, local one. Carlos Antonio De Bourbon Montenegro, 53, and Marcos Raul Arevalo, 34, were charged with multiple counts of voter fraud after allegedly trying to register 8,000 “fictitious, nonexistent or deceased” voters to receive mail-in ballots. The scheme was part of an illicit bid by Montenegro to become mayor of Hawthorne, according to a criminal complaint made public Tuesday. Montenegro and Arevalo allegedly used three recently registered post office boxes and Montenegro’s home address to submit the fraudulent applications, which allowed election officials to quickly flag them as suspicious in mid-October, according to Dean Logan, the county’s top election official. While court records show at least 29 mail-in ballots were issued to people Montenegro and Arevalo had allegedly ginned up, none of the ballots were tallied in the general election, Logan said. The case, he added, highlights how difficult it would be to carry out the widespread voter fraud President Trump and others have claimed was rampant in the 2020 election. “What this does is it illustrates that election officials here as well as across the country take these issues very seriously. This was 8,000 registrations in a jurisdiction that has 5.8 million voters,” said Logan, noting that the fraud narratives being pushed across the country would have required election officials to fail to notice misconduct on a massively larger scale.

Full Article: Hawthorne men accused in voter fraud plot to obtain 8,000 mail ballots for ‘nonexistent or deceased’ persons – Los Angeles Times

California: Trump falsely claims fraud in Los Angeles elections. The truth is there were few problems | Matt Stiles/Los Angeles Times

Voters may have differed on their ballot choices in last week’s election, but they seemed to be in agreement on one thing: Drop boxes are a great idea. The boxes sprinkled around Los Angeles County were a “phenomenal” success, according to the county’s top election official. President Trump thinks they’re evidence of fraud. Spoiler alert. They’re not. The president Wednesday tweeted a long-debunked video showing election workers collecting votes from a drop box on Nov. 4, the day after polls closed, suggesting that the process is evidence of fraud. In fact, the boxes had been closed and locked the night of the election, when the polls closed, and it took time for election workers to collect them in the following days. Under state law, mail votes cast by election day will be collected and counted until Nov. 20. The spurious suggestion of fraud is the latest in the president’s strategy to question the results of the election, in which former Vice President Joe Biden was declared the winner Saturday. Fact checkers have since debunked concerns about the drop boxes, more than 400 of which were spread from Lancaster to Long Beach.

Full Article: Trump falsely claims fraud in L.A. elections. The truth is there were few problems – Los Angeles Times

California: How To Vote In A Pandemic When You’ve Lost Your Home In A Wildfire | Isabella Bloom and Marco Torrez/CalMatters

In August, as lightning strikes ignited fires around his Napa County home, Ian MacMillan escaped the flames with his wife, three kids and mother-in-law. A month later, when another wildfire roared through Northern California’s wine country, they had to flee their home again.“It sounded like a war zone,” MacMillan, 41, said. “The fire was blazing, the winds were bad and you could hear the propane tanks going off.” This time, their house didn’t make it.MacMillan spent the next few weeks attending to urgent matters, like finding a place to live. Now that he and his family are temporarily settled, however, he is planning to pick up his ballot at the post office where his mail is being held. “I’m crossing my fingers and hoping it’s there,” he said.California has tried to make it easier for residents to vote during the pandemic by sending a vote-by-mail ballot to every registered voter. But for MacMillan and thousands of others who have lost their homes to wildfires this year, mail-in voting poses a unique set of challenges. “Ballots, in some cases, were mailed when the fire was going on and may have been destroyed in their mailbox or in their homes,” said John Tuteur, the Napa County Registrar of Voters. Replacement ballots can be mailed outside of voters’ registered counties, even out of state, as long as they are requested by October 27.