Experts Sought in Vote Dispute

To fight challenges to Riverside County’s touch-screen voting system, the county’s attorney will urge the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday to hire outside legal counsel specializing in elections.

The move comes as the county’s registrar of voters is overseeing a recount of votes in the March 2 supervisorial election at the request of candidate Linda Soubirous, who lost the chance for a runoff against incumbent Bob Buster by less than one-tenth of a percentage point.

County Counsel William C. Katzenstein wrote the board that retaining outside counsel is necessary because the effectiveness of the county’s voting system is being questioned.

“It is vital that the integrity of our [voting] system be maintained to ensure voter confidence in the election process,” he wrote.

The county was the first large jurisdiction in the nation to use electronic voting. Registrar of Voters Mischelle Townsend said that with the debate over electronic voting, hiring an attorney who specializes in election law is a smart move.

“We really want to have assistance in assuring [that] our touch-screen units, which have operated flawlessly since we installed them in November 2000, will continue to be used,” she said.

Katzenstein was unavailable for comment Friday, but his assistant, Joe Rank, said that correspondence from Soubirous and her supporters indicated that they may sue the county, and that the lawsuit could be precedent-setting for other jurisdictions that are switching to electronic voting.

The recount centers on a battle between Buster, who has served on the board for 12 years, and Soubirous, the widow of a sheriff’s deputy killed in the line of duty who has the backing and campaign donations of public-safety unions.

On March 2, Buster received 50.09% of the 49,175 votes cast, while Soubirous got 34.51%. A third candidate, former Lake Elsinore Councilman Kevin Pape, got 15.4%. Had Buster not received more than half the vote, he and Soubirous would have faced off in the November election.

Soubirous requested the recount in an extremely detailed letter dated April 2, and has retained two Los Angeles attorneys.

The recount, which began Thursday, is expected to take a week. County workers hit a problem Friday while tallying provisional ballots. Alfie Charles, spokesman for Sequoia Voting Systems, which supplied the county’s machines, said there was confusion over whether tallies were coming from provisional ballots or regular ballots. He said the matter was quickly cleared up and would not affect results. Provisional ballots allow people to vote whose eligibility to vote has yet to be determined.

Townsend said this was the first time the county had used electronic ballots for provisional voters, and those votes would be re-tallied at the end of the recount process.

In addition to seeking a recount, Soubirous’ supporters have filed a complaint against Townsend with the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission, and have alleged that Sequoia employees tampered with the county’s vote tabulation equipment after the election. Townsend has asked the district attorney to investigate these allegations.

On Tuesday, Sequoia sent a letter to Secretary of State Kevin Shelley denying the claims.

“We completely reject and resent the suggestion that employees of Sequoia performed anything but contractually required and legally authorized technical support during the recent election,” wrote Tracey Graham, president of Sequoia.