Will Secretary of State Debra Bowen weigh in on the Trung Nguyen appeal?
On May 2, 2007, the Court of Appeals in Orange County will decide whether to take up the writ filed by ersatz Orange County Supervisor Trung Nguyen. The issue at hand — do the paper ballots created by electronic voting machines have to be recounted as part of an overall recount?
In the 2006 election, then State Senator Debra Bowen ran on the issue of electronic voting. She sponsored a bill, Senate Bill 370, which among other things, mandated that paper ballots created by electronic voting machines “shall” be counted “for any full recount”.
A recent Orange County election for Supervisor was decided by seven votes on election day. The candidate who lost, then-Garden Grove Councilwoman Janet Nguyen, requested a recount, as I certainly would have done. As part of her recount strategy, Janet Nguyen had the paper ballots recounted manually looking for errors. Then, mid-recount, seeing that she had picked up enough votes to probably be in the lead, her campaign made a tactical decision to switch counting methods and requested that the remaining ballots — the electronic ballots — be recounted by simply redownloading the memory sticks and that the paper balloting receipts generated by the electronic voting machines not be recounted.
On the face of it, this would seem to tread right into the very area covered by Bowen’s SB 370…
Ultimately, Janet Nguyen was declared the winner by three votes, and was sworn into office as an Orange County Supervisor, based on the recount method I described above. Her opponent, Trung Nguyen, filed an election contest. The trial judge ruled that recount requestors have the right to change counting methods and have the right to ignore the paper ballots produced by the electronic machines.
The Legislature’s office of Legislative Counsel then weighed in with an opinion holding unequivocally that the electronically created paper ballots must be recounted for any full legal recount, which didn’t impact the judge’s decision.
Ever diligent, Trung Nguyen’s campaign filed an emergency writ with the Court of Appeals. While 98.5% of these writs are summarily denied, the Court of Appeals has ordered briefing on this matter. Janet Nguyen must file her brief by tomorrow and Trung Nguyen must file by May 2nd. Thereafter, the Court of Appeals will figure out what they are going to do in this matter.
What is fascinating to me is the absolute silence from the Secretary of State’s office. Given that the primary legal issue involved here is one that Debra Bowen has time and time again made a central theme to both her candidacy and her administration, it would seem to me that by now she would have weighed in.
It really does beg the question as to whether Bowen is all talk. Or whether she used an issue to help her get elected, but really isn’t passionate about it, after all.
To be honest, I don’t think that Bowen filing a brief in support of Trung Nguyen’s case will really influence whether the Court of Appeals decides to move forward on this writ. But it will be very telling about Bowen and her sincerity (or lack thereof) if we get to May 2nd and there is only silence from her office.
In the meantime, I am on a Host Committee for an upcoming event for Supervisor Janet Nguyen, and she is busy coming up to speed as a new County officeholder. What else can she do? It’s all in the hands of the courts… (and, frankly, it’s quite an uphill battle for Trung Nguyen’s cause.)