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Election Audit Lawsuit

This Page: https://https://copswiki.org/Common/ElectionAuditLawsuit

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Background

This lawsuit is regarding the 1% manual audit which is mandated by California Election code section 15360. That code specifies that all ballots cast including Vote-by-mail ballots, are to be included in the set of ballots from which 1% of the precincts (or batches) are randomly drawn, then hand-tallied and compared with the computer result. The following graphic puts the overall process in context.

Case_Summary_Graphic2.jpg
Graphic describing election flow and audit process

In San Diego, approximately 285,000 ballots were excluded from the audit process, about 37%. Ray Lutz of Citizens Oversight asked that they be included in the audit, and the Registrar of Voters, MichaelVu, declined. This lawsuit was then filed to compel compliance with the law. The initial injunction could not be processed in time to stop certification of the primary results. However, Judge Joel Wohlfeil said the plaintiffs were likely to prevail, and he said the request for declaratory relief was not moot. The trial is to be held Oct 4-7, 2016 in San Diego Superior Court, Department 73.

Please see the following topic for background and all related files. Review the current topic to find all related posts to this project.

Images

%IMAGEGALLERY{titles="off" columns="6" warn="off"}% (Just attach your images to this topic and they will automatically be added to the gallery above)

Timeline

  • 16 Jun 2016 - Initial lawsuit filed in Pro per for declaratory relief. Main Complaint and Exhibits

  • 17 Jun 2016 - Press Conference regarding the lawsuit

  • pdfM1658 2016-06-16 Lutz vs. Vu -- Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief -- Ray Lutz, Alan Geraci CitizensOversight

  • Contracted services of Alan Geraci, Attorney.

  • Filed amended complaint, adding request for injunctive relief

  • 28 Jun 2016 - Second press conference introducing Alan Geraci

  • 24 Jun 2016 - Filing of Temporary Restraining Order / Injunction to stop certification in San Diego.

  • 30 Jun 2016 - Reply of County filed.

  • 06 Jul 2016 - Hearing before Judge Wohlfeil in San Diego Superior Court, Dept. 73

  • 07 Jul 2016 - Deadline to certify elections by counties in California

  • 24 Jul 2016 - Ruling by Judge Wohlfeil, See M1670

  • 01 Sep 2016 - Deposition of MichaelVu, San Diego Registrar of Voters.

  • 09 Sep 2016 - 12 Sep 2016 - Deposition of RayLutz

  • 15 Sep 2016 - Deposed witnesses Diane Elsheikh, Charlie Wallis

  • 23 Sep 2016 - Trial Readiness meeting. Trial date changed to Oct 4.

  • 23 Sep 2016 - Telephonic appearance by witness Julie Rodewald, retired county clerk and registrar for San Luis Obispo County.

  • 03 Oct 2016 - Pre Trial press conference.

  • 04 Oct 2016 - Start of the Trial

  • 11 Oct 2016 - Last day of the Trial

  • 26 Oct 2016 - Statement of Intended Decision published by the Court.

  • 10 Nov 2016 - Objections submitted to the SOID

  • 01 Dec 2016 - Case Status Conference (3pm)

  • 10 Jan 2017 - Judgment in our favor

  • xx Jan 2017 - County appeals the ruling (because they think later VBM and provisionals should not be included in the sample.)

  • 15 Mar 2017 - We appeal the ruling (because we believe provisionals should also be included in the sample).

  • 15 Aug 2017 - Notice of record filed (full transcripts of trial)

  • 24 Aug 2017 - AB-840 Amended to restrict required manual tally to early VBM and polls ballots (not required to include later VBM nor provisionals).

Links in response to San Diego County Counsel Questions

San Diego County Attorney Timothy Barry (representing the County and Michael Vu) has asked me a number of questions during the first part of my deposition. Here are some links and information I promised to provide. In addition, the Media Summary, below, has been updated to include all collected media on this site relevant to this proceeding.

  • SnapshotProtocol -- A description of the procedure developed to provide oversight to election audits. This procedure is continuing to be refined as we extend it to other states.
  • ElectionTeam -- Procedures and information related to extending the SnapshotProtocol to our first target, 175 top counties in the nation.
  • OpenBallotInitiative -- Proposal to use off-the-shelf equipment to image ballots and then allow various parties to apply any recognition software they want, including proprietary and off-the-shelf products. This approach streamlines any challenges to the election as anyone can easily buy digital media containing all the ballot images and conduct a 100% audit if they want to, or view them all manually.
  • ElectionIntegrity -- The overarching project which contains a number of sub-projects.
  • Elections.WebHome -- We have started a "web" space which is dedicated to archiving audit information. California Counties have been loaded into this archive and we are extending to other states.
  • PrecinctRosterReview -- This is the work our team preformed in August and early Sept 2016. The official preliminary report is not yet published.
    • Precincts with zero crossover NPP voters

| Seq | Precinct | Area | NPP/DEM | NPP/NPP | | 32 | 110150 | Rancho Penasquitos | 0 | 33 | | 219 | 160310 | Clairemont E | 0 | 23 | | 344 | 223500 | Pacific Beach | 0 | 31 | | 422 | 272700 | Normal Heights | 0 | 37 | | 485 | 307400 | South Park | 0 | 49 | | 560 | 365000 | Encanto W | 0 | 44 | | 762 | 409210 | Carlsbad | 0 | 49 | | 877 | 423900 | Vista | 0 | 12 | | 950 | 433300 | San Marcos | 0 | 22 | | 991 | 442800 | Imperial Beach | 0 | 45 | | 1082 | 459490 | Escondido | 0 | 6 | | 1157 | 472200 | El Cajon | 0 | 16 | | 1181 | 476010 | El Cajon | 0 | 37 | | 1246 | 499200 | Spring Valley | 0 | 22 | | 1303 | 516800 | National City | 0 | 37 | | 1332 | 528200 | Chula Vista | 0 | 49 | | 1346 | 529520 | Chula Vista | 0 | 56 | | 1392 | 532580 | Chula Vista | 0 | 36 | | 1394 | 532610 | Chula Vista | 0 | 54 | | 1418 | 538500 | Chula Vista | 0 | 25 | | 1431 | 546600 | Ramona | 0 | 12 |

  1. precincts out of our sample of 66, about 1/3

---++ Summary of articles submitted ([[Common.NewsMedia][All]]):

Discussion List

See ListServe for all email discussion lists and to add more. %KEYWORDTOPICLISTSERVE%

  • Ray Lutz talking to Media at initial press conference, 2016-06-17:
    IMG_1651.JPG
Metadata
ProjectName Election Audit Lawsuit
ProjectDescription Lawsuit against the San Diego Registrar of Voter regarding the incomplete audit in the June 2016 Primary Election
ProjectType IssueOversight
ProjectParents ElectionIntegrity
RelatedKeywords ElectionIntegrity
ProjectStatus Inactive
PublishStatus Published
ListServeTopic ElectionIntegrityList
Attachments
NameSizeDate
IMG_1651.JPG 143844 22 Aug 2016
RayLutzGivingInterviewInFrontOfROV.jpg 86066 22 Aug 2016
ShreddingTruckInBackground.jpg 113263 22 Aug 2016
FBStreamImage.JPG 53751 22 Aug 2016
Capture.JPG 33511 22 Aug 2016
Case_Summary_Graphic2.jpg 168412 29 Aug 2016