To follow up on Art’s report. I attended this morning’s meeting of the Board of Supervisors where Chairman Norby altered the agenda to address the swearing in of the First District representative before the remaining items. On hand were several camera crews and reporters as we await closure on this First District BOS Special election.
After Registrar Kelley provided an overview of the recount process conducted at his office, a group of citizens and attorney’s were each given three minutes to address this pending action.
Speakers representing Trung Nguyen were attorney Michael Schroeder and Steven D. Baric of the Republican trial lawyers association. They requested a postponement of the vote as they were filing an action with the court today to intervene in ruling on the disputed ballots and their contention that a full recount as per Section 19253 did not occur. Supporting the delay were a few compassionate Vietnamese citizens and former Garden Grove City Councilman Mark Leyes. Attorney Philip Greer, representing Janet Nguyen, said that the process used was valid and that Janet should be declared the winner and sworn in.
Each of the members of the Board posed questions for the Registar and County Counsel. Supervisor Campbell made a valid point related to the instruction for absentee ballots. While the voter data does indicate that you should not mark the ballots other than placement of your vote, it should also indicate that if you do add ANY marks to the ballot it will be thrown out. He suggested that Registrar Kelley add that text to future absentee ballots. Neal received favorable comments for the work done by his team. He was following instructions by the Secretary of state and or his predecessor.
Without reporting on the comments of each Supervisor let me simply report that the Board voted to delay any action until next Tuesday.
You have heard of politicians “working the room.” As I departed from the Hall of Administration I saw both lead attorney’s being interviewed to convey their respective arguments.
Schroeder, Rauckakus and Corona must go!
Maybe all the paper ballots should be tossed and only the electronic votes counted. I think then Tom would be the winner.
But if the vote is invalid because of whatever…. Then the Governor should appoint… the 4th place candidate to the empty office.
“Then the Governor should appoint… the 4th place candidate to the empty office.”
Eww, no. Talk about the voters being disenfranchised on that one.
The residents of the first district have been unrepresented since December when Correa was sworn in to the Senate.
This just goes to show how really irrelevant the supervisor position is. It’s all about politics, but let’s face it, District 1 has not really been suffering with no one at the wheel.