Kpete Leads Way: Sues Repub Elections Official for SLOW-COUNTING paper ballots

[Land Shark]

A "writ of mandamus" in plain English = having a court tell a govt official to DO HIS JOB.

The PROBLEM? San Diego County Registrar of Voters Mikel Haas's announced policy of waiting until Thursday, two days after the election, before even beginning to count the paper ballots that must be made available at the polls for any voter that requests one, according to the recent order of the CA Secretary of State.

Now, I'd say it's particularly important for someone in the public who actually wants to see democracy "faithfully executed" (in a nice, and not lethal, way) to instruct an elections official to do his job when the elections official wants to slow-count paper ballots, apparently figuring that the gods of elections had decided that democracy would hereafter be invisible and electronic. News Flash: There are no gods of democracy except We the People, and We never intended this electronic bullshit.

Kpete also read some Land Shark post somewhere that predicted exactly this kind of crime against democracy, which slow counting of "emergency paper ballots" also has the additional effect of inflating Republican numbers on election night (as more Dems than Reps opt out of electronic ballots) and then DELAYING the process of catchup by the Dems due to slow-counting by Republicans Like Mikel Haas. This is the very same Mikel Haas of "sleepovers" fame (a trend spreading across the country now) whereby electronic voting machines are sent to volunteers homes for 1-2 weeks prior to the election when it takes only one minute and one machine to hack the election. Not that the machines are safe with Haas, mind you, they most certainly are not, but the sleepovers mean that we'll just be forced to shrug our shoulders and not know WHO to blame if the election is in fact hacked, thanks to the sleepovers' spreading of plausible deniability on a county-wide basis. www.nosleepovers.org

The SOLUTION? Kpete has emerged from her "prolifically recommended" but anonymous status as a poster on DU, and has now stepped up to put her real name on a lawsuit, along with the name of the appropriate defendant elections official. For starters, with the assistance of her attorney she skipped right past the trial court and filed directly with the Court of Appeals:

If I recall correctly, Kathy Peterson (fka kpete) stated:

"I'll be damned if you're going to treat my paper ballot as a second class ballot just because I refuse to cast invisible ballots on worthless touch screen voting systems where we're all forced to pretend the results are correct when nobody actually has ever seen or counted the touchscreen votes at any time. I consider this deliberate policy of slow counting paper ballots to be retaliation against those who choose real democracy over virtual democracy, which is the last thing an official should be instituting who is sworn to uphold the law of one person one vote and equal protection."

I thought it was Very Clever for kpete to throw Bush v. Gore's rule of "uniform and nondiscriminatory vote counting rules" right back in their face!! : ) Well, that's not an approved quote so I can't be sure I got the expression exactly correct, unlike the ones in the press release language below, which are correct.


But, I know kpete.

Kpete is a friend of mine.

The world needs more kpetes.


The press is beginning to notice. <http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/10/31/election2006/sandiego/3_04_3010_30_06.txt>
So, in light of her example, Who's next?

PRESS RELEASE

On Monday October 30, 2006 San Diego County voter Kathy Peterson filed a lawsuit directly with the California Court of Appeals, seeking a writ of mandamus compelling Registrar of Voters Mikel Haas to do his job: to treat the ballots of all voters with equal dignity and respect as required by both the US Constitution as well as the California Constitution. Specifically, Haas' office has announced an intention to not even start counting paper ballots until Thursday, two full days after the election, whenever those paper ballots are the ones requested by voters at polling places in order to avoid voting on DREs with their invisible ballots and secret vote counting. (At least a large chunk of absentee ballots on paper will be counted on election night along with DRE or touch screen votes)

Ms. Peterson is represented by Carlsbad attorney Ken Simpkins, who has also served the cause of democratic elections along with attorney Paul Lehto in the election contest involving the 50th Congressional District in California, the Busby/Bilbray race to replace imprisoned former Congressman Duke Cunningham.

Asked for comment, Ms. Peterson stated "there's no cause for any form of voting to be discriminated against with late counts and second class service, particularly when it's the only visible, indelible, transparent form of voting we have: paper ballots. The whole idea that the professionals in charge of voting in San Diego County would institute touch screen electronic voting and thereby make the vote counting secret and invisible, and then go even further and retaliate against those forms of voting that the public can in fact see and verify, and where the votes are not so easily changed, is outrageous. When it comes to voting and ballots there are no second class citizens, but the ROVs office is acting like there are. Until learning about this recently, I certainly thought that Registrar's office would be reminding the public and teaching the public about the importance of treating all voters' ballots equally."

Supplemental to the main cause for relief, the lawsuit asks that the polling locations notify voters in writing or verbally of their option for "paper or plastic": Either a paper ballot or an invisible touch screen ballot. Whether this option exists in any given jurisdiction or state and whether it will be advertised at all or announced will vary from place to place. Check with your local voting office regarding options in your jurisdiction.

The lawsuit, set for expedited decision prior to the election and served on the defendants on Monday as well, seeks additional relief to guarantee an adequate supply of "emergency" paper ballots, which are required by a California order of the Secretary of State to be available to any voter upon request, as well as for distribution to all voters in the event of a meltdown or other voting machine breakdown. Preliminary indications are that absentee ballots, another "paper ballot" option, are being requested in far higher numbers than in the most recent off year federal election in 2002.

As its third and final form of relief requested, the lawsuit requests a peremptory writ regarding "sleepovers" of electronic voting machines, seeking appropriate security logs and precautions to be instituted, since the Registrar of Voters has failed completely to secure the machines, apparently preferring plausible deniability of scattering the voting machines to innumerable volunteers for one to two weeks over the accountability