Absentee Vote Tally Resumes as Smith Drops Challenge

County workers began tabulating about 50,000 outstanding absentee ballots from the Nov. 6 election Friday, after lawyers for Democratic attorney general candidate Arlo Smith dropped their demand that the vote count be halted.

County Registrar of Voters Donald Tanney said his staff would immediately begin processing the ballots in the same manner they previously were tallied. Officials hoped to have the count completed by Tuesday and certified the following week.

“There’s nothing really to change,” Tanney said. “We intend to work through the weekend and have the results certified before the Board of Supervisors on the 27th.”

Attorneys for the Smith campaign withdrew their demand to halt the count during a hearing Friday before Orange County Superior Court Judge Francisco Firmat.

While most local races have already been decided, council races in Costa Mesa and Anaheim are still close enough to be decided by the remaining absentee votes. And as long as the vote count remains incomplete and uncertified, victorious candidates--no matter how large their winning margins--cannot be installed in office.

At issue was whether Tanney was required to compare signatures on applications for absentee ballots with signatures on original affidavits of voter registration before counting the votes. Tanney, following guidelines issued by the secretary of state, contended that he did not have to do that, while Smith’s campaign believed it was required by law.

“Our original purposes have been clearly satisfied,” said Allan Stokke, an attorney for the Smith campaign. “We wanted to draw attention to the fact that illegal votes were being counted.”

Smith intends to press forward with a second lawsuit challenging the legality of the bulk of absentee ballots cast statewide. That lawsuit, filed against the secretary of state’s office, which issued instructions to county registrars on how to process absentee ballots, is set for a hearing in Santa Ana on Nov. 30.

“We’re going to go with the other case. It makes a lot more sense,” said Smith campaign manager Marc Dann. “Instead of litigating it twice, we’re going to litigate it once.”

The Orange County vote count had been frozen since last weekend, when attorneys for Smith’s campaign obtained a court order requiring Tanney to either change his method of processing absentee ballots or stop counting altogether until Friday’s hearing before Firmat.

Smith had been ahead of Republican candidate Dan Lungren by about 29,000 votes before the absentee ballot count began. But Lungren steadily closed the gap as the absentee votes were counted, passed Smith on Wednesday and declared victory on Thursday. Smith has not yet conceded defeat, saying he will wait until his legal challenges are exhausted.

The Smith campaign has charged that the Republican Party may have improperly submitted applications for absentee ballots on behalf of voters. Because no safeguards have been used to check the validity of the applications, the Smith camp contends that all potentially tainted absentee ballots should be declared void.

But the Smith campaign so far has failed to produce any evidence of signature-forging on the part of Republican campaign workers.

“The ultimate goal is to see that the law is followed,” Stokke said. “The election officials who are in charge of the process have let down the public.”

Darryl Wold, an attorney for the Republican Party, said the Smith camp’s lawsuit is an empty threat. “There’s no legal basis,” he said, adding that it would be “absolutely impossible” for a judge to disenfranchise 500,000 voters.