Hollister
– The county’s final vote tally shows that Tracie Cone narrowly
lost her bid to unseat Supervisor Reb Monaco. But Cone still has
questions about the election.
Hollister – The county’s final vote tally shows that Tracie Cone narrowly lost her bid to unseat Supervisor Reb Monaco. But Cone still has questions about the election.
On Nov. 17, Cone’s lawyer, John Picone, sent a letter to John Hodges, the county’s registrar of voters, asking Hodges to look into reports of voting irregularities at the Ridgemark Tennis Club. Picone wrote that one voter, Alan Swain, had approached Cone’s campaign with complaints that he’d experienced difficulty casting his vote.
Picone told the Free Lance that he and Cone hope to meet with Hodges today.
“We don’t want people to politicize this yet, because there’s nothing to politicize,” Picone said. “Tracie hasn’t made any decisions at all about what to do or not to do.”
According to Picone’s letter, Swain cast his ballot on an electronic voting machine at the Ridgemark polling station. However, Picone wrote, Swain was unable to select Cone’s name when voting for District 4 supervisor, although he was able to select and deselect Monaco’s name. A poll worker attempted to address the problem, but Swain was only able to vote for Cone “after he picked up the voting machine and shook it vigorously.” Picone’s letter also reports that Swain had trouble casting his vote for state Assembly candidate Anna Caballero.
Picone’s letter asks Hodges to investigate the complaint. It also asks for a comparison of the number of votes cast overall at the Ridgemark polling station and the number of votes cast in the District 4 race, and for any report that poll workers made regarding the irregularity. Picone said that if there’s a large discrepancy between total votes and votes in the supervisor’s race, it would provide “circumstantial evidence” that other voters had encountered a similar malfunction.
Hodges confirmed that he’d received the letter and asked his staff to investigate. However, Hodges said, his office is busy canvassing ballots, a process in which a small sample of ballots are counted by hand; the hand count is compared to the machine count.
“We’re right on top of it,” Hodges said. “We’re going to try to take care of this as quickly as possible.”
District Attorney John Sarsfield said his office has been told about the complaint; once he receives the complaint in writing, Sarsfield said, he will notify the secretary of state’s office and launch a full investigation.
Monaco said he has no comment.
When contacted by the Free Lance, Cone said she was bothered by Swain’s account because of irregularities in past county elections.
“I just think it’s disturbing that someone would have that kind of problem,” Cone said.
She confirmed that she’s waiting to hear back from the elections office before deciding on any further action, but added, “How could we live with ourselves without asking those questions?”
When Cone, who is the former publisher of the Pinnacle newspaper, went up against Monaco and Hodges for the District 4 seat in the June primary, she received 82 fewer votes than Monaco. Hodges, who received the fewest votes, was eliminated from the race.
According to the county’s final vote count, which was released on Monday, Monaco received 60 more votes than Cone in the Nov. 7 election. The breakdown was 50.78 percent for Monaco and 49.22 percent for Cone.
Other problems with electronic voting machines were reported earlier. Hodges has said voters reported difficulty selecting their choice on statewide propositions; those voters cast paper ballots and the machines were fixed.
Swain did not return calls asking for confirmation and comment.
Anthony Ha covers local government for the Free Lance. Reach him at (831) 637-5566 ext. 330 or [email protected].
