Our Public Servants Choose to Deceive the Public about Election Results

How can an election be determined on only 40% of the vote???

California has 30 days to report all the mail-in and provisional ballots. Since closing polls saves money, the majority of voters in Mendocino County use mail-in ballots. The County Elections page disingenuously reports 100% votes counted when only 40% of votes were counted in that report.

In that 30 days when the majority of the votes are counted and NOT REPORTED, campaigns change, lives change, decisions are made, all based on counting less than half the votes. When I asked Sue Ranochak, the elected official in charge of these things, she replied that it has always been done that way, even when Marcia Wharff was in charge. Keith Wyner asked Secretary of State Alex Padilla, who referred him to IT. His answer was that it is a software issue.

If it is neglect or a software issue, it is still a matter of our public servants deliberately or negligently deceiving us, the voting public, as to the true results of the election. THE SYSTEM IS FLAWED!!!!

When asked, our county elections official, Susan Ranochak, responded:

The way we've reported our election night results haven't changed.  The number of precincts reporting is always 100%.  The reason for this is all precincts have reported whether it's one vote in the precinct or five hundred.  It's also imperative that the polling places are included in the these results as 100% accounted for.  That in no way means that all the votes are counted.  That is why we identify the report as the final election night report.  When the canvass is complete and the results are posted  we label that report as the final official results.  We do not use the term final official results until we have completed the canvass.

Your are correct some counties have provided additional updates.  It is up to the individual registrar how many updates they will provide during the canvass.  I choose to wait until the canvass is complete and only do one update.  This is not something new.  I've done this during my tenure as Assessor Clerk-Recorder/Registrar Of Voters.  My predecessor Marsha Wharff also thought this was the best route too take so this has been going on for a considerable length of time in Mendocino County.

 "this" refers to deceiving the voters about the results of an election for a month. 

Discussing how the movement continues after Bernie's defeat.  Ugh!

What happened with my run for office?

Although the group that first tapped me to run for office, the Mendocino Women's Political Coalition, didn't endorse me, nor did my own political party, the Democrats, I garnered 25% of the vote.  And although I was still in debt the day of the election, by the end of the month, donations rolled in that paid all the campaign $8000 monetary expenses and enough left over for postage stamps for the thank you notes.  The final cost to me was in stress, a touch of PTSD, and the return of my childhood bruxism habit that I once again must train myself to quit!  My gain was in "political capital."  I'm not sure what that is or in which bank it is kept, but people look at me in a new way, now. 

I used to be a vocal citizen that the politicians pandered to by smiling, listening and nodding.  Now I see the politicians glance at me from the corner of their eye and start calculating, what's my next move? are they for or against?  The faces of ordinary people shine when they look at me.  I've developed some new friendships.  For sure, although I seem to know an astounding number of people all over the county, and in 3 counties, and I am sought after for radio interviews, I'm not sure I have a woman friend, someone I could be totally myself and disclose my inner secrets.  But through this social justice work, I am happy to say that I may now have several new female friends with whom I maintain a close relationship.  I used to be such a solitary rhino in the wild, and now people are massing up beside me.  I guess that may be part of the political capital.  I'm not sure....

Anyway, I didn't get the $100,000+/yr job as County Assessor-Clerk-Recorder.  If I had, I could have afforded all the dental transplants after I had ground my teeth down from the stress of the political office.  Instead, I have returned to being a plump old school nurse eking out a tiny impoverished living supporting myself and my adult son and feeling blessed each day that I have one more precious day of life to make this world a better place.

Under the Microscope

Doug Losak, the interim County Council, showed up Monday morning to talk to my boss at work.  It seems that 3 years ago, I applied to the County for a temporary property tax reduction, part of the 2009 American Recovery & Reinvestment Act.  It required COMPS attached to assist the Assessor in deciding how much to reduce my taxes during the economic recession.  They kept the application for a year, and then phoned me to say that they denied it based on that there were no COMPS to compare it with. 

The problem Doug brought up was that my application was printed on used paper.  The reverse side were student report cards that had been misprinted, which I mined out of the recycle bin.  I save a ton of money on paper by mining recycle bins for clean flat, uncrumpled pages.  Occasionally, I hit the jackpot and find 1/2 ream of misprints all in a nice clean pile! 

Although I had scribbled over every name or other identifiable info, you could still make out the names when held up to the light.  Over 2 years ago, I brought up the issue of confidential info in the recycle bin to my boss.  She has since inserviced everyone on FERPA privacy laws, and confidential info is now consistently shredded. 

But someone in the Assessor's Office is scrutinizing my records to try to get me into trouble.  They probably figure, everyone's got some dirt on them and they are set out to find it.