Recall Election Numbers

COPs (2007-12-11) Raymond Lutz

This Page: https://copswiki.org/Common/M383
More Info: Blackwater, Blackwater West, Local Politics, Election Integrity

The Vote Count - Potrero Recall Election - December 11, 2007.

A group of about 20 people observed the election. They signed us in, had us agree to a sheet of rules. At about 8 p.m., Debra Seiler gave a short speech at the counter. They walked us back to a caged room where the ballots were held in a single mailroom tray. The ballots were already removed from their envelopes at that point, a surprise to many of the observers.

The group was then led to a conference room where they set up for counting. Two people were the readers, one to read and one to check. They swapped jobs every twenty minutes or so. Two other people were the talliers. They each had checkers. The first person tallied the first two recall and replacement items, the other person tallied the other three.

The process was very monotonous. The reader would say "Recall Question Number 1. Jerry Johnson. Yes. To succeed, Terry Stephens. Recall Question number 2. Mary Johnson. Yes..." and so forth. I caught the entire process on film so we can study the process. The counting completed at about midnight. I left at about 12:20 am.

Total Registered Voters: 509 Ballots Received: 306 Ballots Counted: 280 Late Ballots uncounted: 10 These were deposited in the drop box in Potrero. Rejects 16 2 signature mismatches. One signed ballot, etc.

Recall Questions Yes No Jerry Johnson 187 (67%) 93 (33%) Mary Johnson 189 (67.5%) 91 (32.5%) Gordon Hammers 196 (70%) 84 (30%) Janet Wright 186 (66.4%) 94 (33.6%) Thell Fowler 176 (62.9%) 104 (37.1%)

Seat Questions: Terry Stephens 176 (100%)

Janet Goode 177 (100%)

Brenda Wise 68 (28.5%) Carl Meyer 170 (71.4%)

Edward Boryla 48 (21.3%) William Crawley 177 (78.7%)

Tina Mc Cunney 161 (74.5%) Anita Meneses 55 (25.5%)

Of course, it was of little value to count the ballots for Terry Stephens or Janet Goode, since they were the only people running. Some people tried to write in "No One" to try to leave the seat vacant.

All the incumbent pro-Blackwater slate of planning group members were replaced by the Stop-Blackwater group. YEA!

My congratulations to all the people of Potrero who made this happen, and congratulations to the new slate of Planning Group members.

--Raymond Lutz

P.S. The fact that we were able to capture the entire count on film raises an interesting question: Why not scan all ballots in every election and make them available on the internet for the public to look through? The actions of the Registrar of voters would come down to chain of custody and getting the ballots scanned. The actual counting can be handled by thousands of volunteers at home at their computers, all double checking each other. That's what I call open elections. (No more "central tabulator" dangers!)