Strumwasser and Woocher has issued this news advisory about this recent court order. The advisory begins:
- A Superior Court judge has ruled that Alameda County and its Registrar violated both the Elections Code and three separate provisions of the California Constitution in denying voters their recount rights in a 2004 election.
In 2004, Berkeley voters requested a recount of an election for a citizens’ initiative conducted on a Diebold electronic touchscreen voting system. Exercising their rights under section 15630 of the Elections Code, which provides that a voter may examine “all ballots … and any other relevant material as part of any recount,” the voters asked to see the copies of the votes redundantly stored in the voting units, the audit logs from those machines, the results of Logic & Accuracy system tests, and the chain-of-custody records for system components. Former Alameda County Registrar Bradley Clark refused to provide any of this “relevant material.” The voters filed suit.