Chaffee Recounts Chiefee
According to the OC Registrar of Voters, Doug Chaffee has requested a recount in the election for Fullerton City Council in which he finished 90 votes behind former Po-lice Chief Pat McKinley.
90 votes. A seemingly insurmountable lead, really. After all, any errors in counting are just as likely to go against Chaffee as for him. It sure seems like a fool’s errand, but what the hell, gotta give it that last shot, right?
Not too sure how this effects next Tuesday’s swearing in of McKinley since the recount will not have happened.
Frankly, in light of the money Doug has spent over 3 elections, one can hardly blame him. Stranger things have happened.
Who knows, maybe the ROV didn’t count that little stack of paper ballots over in the corner. Over there. No, over there. Behind the potted plant.
Behind the potted plant or the “pot” plant. Either way the county ROV is in need of leadership.
It’s certainly within his rights, but seems a waste of time. The Chief will be seated on December 7 regardless.
After election night, the count went against Chaffee every single day. He’s not going to find a missing ballot box. This is Orange County, not Cook County.
Estimates are that a recount will cost him $1500 to $3000 per day. My guess is that he will give up after a day or two when he’s not seing any significant changes. I’m not sure that the OC Democratic Party has even $3000 to help him out!
Another victim of the 3 strikes law!
McKinley’s first official action: The Ice Pick Ban.
Interestingly, on election night, November 2, 2010, all of the ballots from each of the Fullerton Precincts were taken to the Fullerton Police Department, as a collection point on their way to the ROV (Registrar of Voters) in Santa Ana.
I thought the ballots were taken directly from each Precinct to ROV in Santa Ana, but that was NOT the case for Fullerton Precincts.
I thought the ballots were taken directly from each Precinct to ROV in Santa Ana
They’re not. I’ve worked in multiple elections, and the ballots from our precinct were always taken to an intermediate collection point; from there, they were taken to Santa Ana by ROV staff. (Which makes sense; from a security and chain-of-custody standpoint, you don’t want election volunteers driving voted ballot boxes in their personal cars from San Juan Capistrano or Seal Beach.)
During the Recall Replacement election in middle October, 1994, all of the ballot boxes were taken to the Fullerton Police Department. The counting was also performed by the Orange County Registrar of Voters. The logical person to ask about why the boxes do not directly go to ROV would be the Office of the ROV. I myself am very curious as to why ROV has different policies for Fullerton municipal ballots.
Maybe that’s where 100 dead PAVs get their votes thrown into the mix.
When I worked the 2004 polls, we took them to city hall where OC Sheriffs, CHP, and FPD were waiting to collect them.
Government agencies in Orange County use whats called a trunked radio system. The infrastructure is shared by police, fire, city public works, the courts, park rangers, and the REGISTRAR of VOTERS.
A little background on how this works. Each agency or municipality is assigned their own “channels” called talkgroups. When the system was installed about a decade ago, Orange County made an asinine and tremendously EXPENSIVE decision ($$ millions more) to use encryption on all police and court system talkgroups. This prevents outsiders like you and me from eavesdropping on police communications. It’s the same type of encryption used by the Secret Service and FBI. Encryption might be justified in some high-crime areas, but not here. Hell, LAPD doesn’t even use encryption.
But the Registrar of Voters here in OC uses ENCRYPTION on their radios. On election day, there will be hours of radio traffic hidden by encryption.
What does the Registrar of Voters have to hide? Seriously, I’d like to know. The radio traffic should be routine conversations. Must be nice for the ROV having another way to conceal corruption and incompetence.
I call BS on that!
Can’t really blame the cops for wanting to be encrypted. They have a lot to hide.
I assure you that these men are strict professionals. By the book.
Except for that time they got busted for farting on an unconscious victim. That was a hoot.
I’m sure there’s no funny business going on with those radios.
Would anyone know why Ed Royce was “hanging out” and doodling around with the poling sheets that hang on the poling station door at Maple School on election night?