A California Court of Appeal issued this opinion a few weeks back, but did not deem it suitable for publication. I filed a request for publication, as did the defendant Ventura County election officials and the California State Association of Counties.

Today the court ordered publication and included this new opening paragraph:

The California Election Code makes provisions for those who wish to observe election workers processing and counting mail in votes. The observers must be sufficiently close to the election workers to do so. Here we determine “sufficiently close” does not mean breathing down the necks of the election workers.

This is the first published court opinion I am aware of that construes the meaning of California Election Code 15104.

The case is Election Integrity Project California v. Lunn.