Citizens' Oversight Projects (COPs)
This web site is dedicated to enabling citizens to provide needed oversight to our democracy.
At present, Citizens Oversight is focused only on deploying AuditEngine. Our goal is to audit all elections, contests, and ballots independently (and not by insiders).
Our most recent prior large project was the emergency shutdown and eventual closure of the San Onofre nuclear power plant. We are no longer providing intense oversight of that situation as we have already provided our best suggestions. All the information about that project is still on this site.
Letter to DOJ to investigate the 2024 Election
This is a HOT action! Many people are concerned about the integrity of the 2024 election. Kamala Harris has declined to challenge anything or ask for additional scrutiny. Democratic institutions are shying from challenging the results. However, the DOJ can also perform oversight of this election, and it must act quickly!
The letter starts as follows... read it yourself!
I. am writing to respectfully request that the Department of Justice (DOJ) initiate an investigation into the 2024 presidential election in light of reports of bomb threats, voter intimidation, voting system theft, documented "back doors" in that equipment that can be used to maliciously alter the results, and related concerns. It is vital to ensure that all election-related records are preserved and made transparently available for independent verification by the public, campaigns, news organizations, and other interested parties.
- https://copswiki.org/Common/M2028 -- Click here to read the press release, letter and to sign the petition!
AuditEngine
Citizens Oversight has been involved in election oversight, including audits and procedural review, since 2005. In 2019, announced an important project to create Ballot Image Audit service AuditEngine, which can be used by election officials, campaigns, candidates, and oversight groups, to audit any election that uses hand-marked paper ballots and scanners that create ballot images. We are now working to deploy this solution nationally.
- Visit the Audit
Engine Landing Site - Visit the Audit
Engine Documentation Site - Summary of Audits performed:
- AuditReports <-- Provides a summary of audit reports, correspondence, etc.
Election Audit Oversight
It is extremely important for citizens to participate in providing oversight of election audits, where election officials are auditing themselves. That's like asking people to flag down a police officer and ask for a ticket if you are speeding. Self-audits will rarely find anything because the people conducting the audits tend to "fix-up" the audit results innocently, not realizing that the audit samples should not be corrected.
Citizens' Oversight is expanding our election oversight scope to the entire US! However, we will be focused primarily on the TOP 175 counties in the nation, comprising more than 50% of registered voters, and then secondly turning our attention to the TOP 20% of the the top 20% of the states (i.e. the top ten states). At this point, we are most specifically focused on providing oversight to the audits in the top counties in CA and FL.
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M1881 2018-10-25 Oversight of November 2018 General Election -- RayLutz CitizensOversight -
ElectionOversightFlorida2018August -- Recent push to video record audits in Florida.
- ElectionAuditLawsuit -- Lawsuit over short-cutting the 1% manual tally in San Diego (and other counties in CA) by omitting later-received Vote-by-Mail and Provisional ballots from the audit process.
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BallotAccessLawsuit -- We are suing the registrar of voters in San Diego to get access to the voted ballots from the 2016 election.
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M1851 2018-06-01 Election Audit Oversight for 2018 Primary Season -- RayLutz CitizensOversight
M1781 2017-07-28 Press Conf: Lawsuit Filed to Allow Ballot Review -- RayLutz CitizensOversight - M1735 2017-03-19 Early VBM Discrepancies in San Diego 2016 Primary -- RayLutz CitizensOversight
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SanDiegoPrimaryContest2016 2017-02-02 San Diego Primary Contest 2016 -- RayLutz CitizensOversight
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WelcomeElectionOversightNewbies -- START HERE
- VOLUNTEER AS AN ELECTION INTEGRITY OBSERVER -- SignUp
- Organizing Page for the 175 County Strategy: ElectionTeam
- Related databases and information archives, we have dedicated an entire web for this purpose: Elections.WebHome
SIGN UP NOW Click here to sign up!
Risk Limiting Audit Research
Citizens Oversight has conducted Monte Carlo simulations of various types of audits that are based on a sample of ballots or batches of ballots. As a result, our recommendation is to focus primarily on Ballot Image Audits and use RLAs only to validate the images of consequential races.
- BRAWL Whitepaper -- Balanced Risk Audit with Workload Limitation
Learn about Risk Limiting Audits and compare them with Ballot Image Audits and more traditional Batch Comparison audits. We introduce a method that arose from our Monte Carlo simulation.
As a result of this analysis and our experience with the reality of how election officials cut corners and "fix-up" audits so the result looks clean, we have now decided that long-term RLA audits are not feasible. Read more:
- M1938 2019-11-30 The Four Fatal Flaws of RLA Audits -- RayLutz CitizensOversight
EasyVoting Project
Citizens in our democracy should NOT be faced with ridiculous hurdles to be able to vote. In this project, we fight voter-suppression scams, such as: * Registration deadlines far ahead of the election. * Purging voters from rolls based on name similarities with people in other districts or on obituary lists. * Too-few voting locations with limited capacity. * Long lines at polling places. * High registration documentation requirements or with partisan bias. * Confusing information sent out about the date of the election or location.
Visit the project page: EasyVoting
StopNukeDump -- Deal with the 3.6 million pounds of nuclear waste at Camp Pendleton
We took the California Coastal Commission and Southern California Edison (SCE) to court, and we reached a settlement where they had to work to move the waste to a new location. This also meant that unfortunately, they will continue to move the waste into the ridiculous facility only about 100 ft from the water and literally inches over the high-water mark.
Here is some references about our lawsuit and the result.
- M1786 2017-09-04 San Onofre Settlement To Move the Waste FAQs -- RayLutz CitizensOversight
- M1784 2017-08-28 Settlement Agreement On Nuclear Waste Filed with Court, Press Conf -- RayLutz CitizensOversight
- M1748 2017-04-07 Settlement Talks Announced in Suit Challenging Nuclear Fuel Storage at San Onofre -- SouthernCaliforniaEdison SouthernCaliforniaEdison
- M1749 2017-04-07 Edison agrees to negotiate new home for nuclear waste from San Onofre -- JeffMcDonald UnionTribune
We are now promoting two main solutions:
Pendleton Option
https://copswiki.org/w/pub/Common/M1908/igp_310378cc906fb4d1c195ade820303604_MoveTheWasteInland-Banner.jpg
The HELMS Proposal
- HelmsProposal - Click to read details of our technical proposal for Hardened, Extended-life, Local, Monitored, Surface (HELMS) criteria for dealing with nuclear waste
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sign the public-support petition -- HelmsPetition
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M1786 2017-09-04 San Onofre Settlement To Move the Waste FAQs -- RayLutz CitizensOversight
- M1784 2017-08-28 Settlement Agreement On Nuclear Waste Filed with Court, Press Conf -- RayLutz CitizensOversight
- M1748 2017-04-07 Settlement Talks Announced in Suit Challenging Nuclear Fuel Storage at San Onofre -- SouthernCaliforniaEdison SouthernCaliforniaEdison
- M1749 2017-04-07 Edison agrees to negotiate new home for nuclear waste from San Onofre -- JeffMcDonald UnionTribune
General Overviews
- Annual reports summarize our activities:
- CitizensOversightStatusUpdate2019
- CitizensOversightStatusUpdate2018
- CitizensOversightStatusUpdate2017
- CitizensOversightStatusUpdate2016
- Click here for a printable copy of our brochure (PDF FILE).
- Have a project you think we would be interested in sponsoring? Propose it here: ProjectProposal
Latest News Releases from CitizensOversight
Visit the PressRoom for all news releases from CitizensOversight
- M2056 2026-06-08 1% Random Draw (2nd) San Diego 20260608 -- RayLutz Citizens Overight
- M1995 2023-02-28 LAA Report Card (Matt Braynard) -- Matt Braynard Look Ahead America
- M1748 2017-04-07 Settlement Talks Announced in Suit Challenging Nuclear Fuel Storage at San Onofre -- SouthernCaliforniaEdison SouthernCaliforniaEdison
- M1642 2016-02-02 Attorney General Kamala D. Harris Lodges Lawsuit Over the Aliso Canyon Gas Leak, Citing Violations of State Health and Safety Laws -- Attorney General Kamala D. Harris Attorney General Kamala D. Harris
- M1607 2015-06-24 TURN Joins Petition for Modification of Settlement -- Freedman Matthew TheUtilityReformNetwork
- M1584 2015-04-29 Southern California Edison Review of Documents Affirms Independent San Onofre Settlement Process -- SouthernCaliforniaEdison
- M1511 2014-10-23 Coalition Moves to Stay San Onofre Settlement to “clean house” of corruption at the CPUC -- RayLutz Citizens Oversight Coalition To Decommission San Onofre
- M1438 2014-05-13 RATEPAYER ADVOCATES TO SPEAK ON $3.3 BILLION SAN ONOFRE BAILOUT OF GIDDY UTILITY INVESTORS -- RayLutz CoalitionToDecommissionSanOnofre
- M1433 2014-05-08 Labor, Customer Groups and Community-Based Organizations File Comments Supporting State Regulatory Settlement Regarding San Onofre Nuclear Plant -- Maureen Brown SouthernCaliforniaEdison
- M1421 2014-04-11 CDSO-501 CDSO Objection to Motion to Adopt San Onofre Settlement -- Coalition To Decommission San Onofre Citizens Oversight
Active Projects:
Events
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LATEST Publications from CitizensOversight
News Releases can be found at PressRoom. These are other documents such as white papers, research and letters. Visit CitizensOversight for all publications and news releases.
Projects
See Common.COPsProgram for a list of all projects and an overview of our project concept.
Collaboration Areas
- CommonCalendar- Month-at-a-glance format for all events relevant to East County
- CalendarUpdate - Quick list of the events for the next 2 weeks.
- EventList - Edit this topic to include your events! See HowToAddEvents for details.
- ListServe - Sign up for our email lists
- ListServeEtiquette - Common courtesy when mailing to 100's of subscribers.
- ManagingListEmail - Does it seem like you're getting too much mail? This should help.
- NewsMedia %U%- submitted media in all categories, and anyone who submits them.
- CopsVideos - Videos produced and distributed by CitizensOversight
- OtherVideos - Videos referenced but not produced by CitizensOversight
References and Resources
- TheConstitutionOfTheUnitedStates - Great reference!
- DeclarationOfIndependence - Important document!
- PoliticalResearch - Papers on Trends and policy analyses
- CreatingMessage - How to generate talking points.
- EventSetup - Tips for running meetings, press conferences, rallies, etc.
Other Stuff
- BasicInstructions - When you first start using this wiki to report on a strange event, I will refer you to this topic to get you started!
- WikiUsageTips - Some secrets about using this wiki
