Vote recount lawsuit dismissed

COURT: Supervisor candidate Linda Soubirous had sought audit logs and records.

September 28, 2004

By MICHAEL CORONADO / The Press-Enterprise

A Superior Court judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Linda Soubirous seeking electronic audit logs and other records associated with a recount of the March 2, District 1 Riverside County supervisorial race.

In the lawsuit, Soubirous asked for results from logic and accuracy tests of the voting units and the redundant memory - those votes stored in the internal memory of each of the county's 4,250 voting machines.

If successful, the lawsuit could have had far-reaching impact, establishing guidelines for the kinds of electronic information made available during future recounts.

In his ruling, Superior Court Judge James S. Hawkins said the county did not violate election code when it refused to provide Soubirous the redundant vote data, chain-of-custody documentation and audit logs she had sought in the action.

Soubirous and her attorney, Gregory Luke, also asked for all "relevant election material" under state law in "evaluating the accuracy of the county's vote tally."

Hawkins said the county has the discretion to determine the nature of the "relevant material" that "may be examined as part of any recount and the county did not abuse its discretion."

Soubirous said she would appeal the decision.

"I believe the decision was in error because it leaves voters at the mercy of election officials and the manufacturers of voting machines," she said.

She said the issue was a national concern and not just focused on Riverside County.

In the March election, Soubirous lost the supervisoral race to incumbent Bob Buster, who avoided a November runoff by 45 votes.

After the election, she asked for a recount, which showed Buster still winning the election and avoiding a runoff by 35 votes.

Not satisfied with the recount process, Soubirous demanded access to information collected electronically during the recount, which the county rejected. Joining Soubirous in the lawsuit was VerifiedVoting.org, a nonprofit group, and a bi-partisan pair of Riverside County voters.

Hawkins also said Soubirous failed to "show a likelihood of future harm" if the county is allowed to conduct future elections using the electronic voting terminals. Hawkins instead called the contention a speculative prediction.

County Registrar Barbara Dunmore said the ruling reaffirmed the integrity of the recount process.

"What the lawsuit (result) did was affirm that the registrar had the discretion and exercised it properly in regards to the information that is available to the recount parties," Dunmore said.