Dude. What is going on?

Balancing work and family sometimes makes it difficult to sit down and write.  I write all day at work, and usually by the evening, I am all written out and headed to the gym or to play softball with my friends.  Lately and despite not writing too much, many of my friends have seen my name in the paper or on the radio and laughingly ask me, "Dude. What is going on?"  And my stock answer is "Dude. F___ those guys," and then we die laughing before I explain.  For those who know me well, I am one of the most calm and unshakable people out there.  There is freedom in only truly caring about that which is important and then letting the rest go.  Being the son of one of the biggest shit talkers on the south side of Chicago, what other people think does not bother me.  Go ahead, talk shit.  It motivates people like me.

In addition, you are instantly my friend until you are not by your choice and by your actions.  I believe that all people have an inherent value simply for being alive and always deserve respect until they have proven otherwise.  That said, I gravitate towards people who have sound moral foundations and are strong in their convictions.  Understanding that there is always a gray area around truth, I cannot tolerate outright dishonesty.  Outright dishonesty causes the loss of my respect almost instantly with little prayer of allowing myself to be fooled twice.  So then, the explanation to my friend's question becomes one of honesty.

After my first wife and I divorced in 2015 and because she works for Congressman McClintock, I removed myself from local politics in order to give her space in her world to heal.  We both needed it, and now things are very good.  Remarkably, my wife and my ex-wife celebrate Mother's Day together with all of our children.  My ex-wife is, in some respects, still a part of my life, and it works and is good.  So, when 2022 rolled around, I had not spoken to anyone in local politics aside from comments on blogs for nearly seven years and apparently most of these folks thought that we had moved back to Chicago.

Then at the beginning of 2022, the election office in Nevada County started playing politics with a group of citizens and with COVID, bullying them, and lying to the public about it.  I was given outrageous videos demonstrating how county elected officials and employees were treating its own citizens about whom the County was telling bald-faced lies.  I told all of my friends that helping these folks was a one-off, and I was going to finish my PhD when the mess was finished.  Inevitably, and after seeing firsthand the demeanor and foul character of some of the elected officials and employees, I went a little further and asked Gregory Diaz for a public election record - a copy of Natalie Adona's check indicating that she paid the filing fee for her candidacy for his office.  He straight up refused to give me a public record which he was legally required to disclose.  As I walked out of the election office and after being treated in the same bullying manner with which he treated his constituents in January earlier in the year and in my head, I said to myself, "F___ those guys."  Absent that moment, I would likely be enjoying my life working and studying history, as I had been.  The problem is that I cannot.  Our country is sick.  Our government does not seek the betterment of those whom they serve, but its own betterment.  Our government bullies and mistreats those whom they serve and lies about it.  At that moment on one hand, I was done, and on the other hand, I was just beginning.  So, I sued Gregory Diaz arguing that, if he did not give me the check, his chosen successor could not be on the ballot.  What happened in court?  Simple.  He coughed up the check, because it was required by law.

Nevada County Election Office Ballot Fiasco - Email to Us Any Issues with Your Ballots for Us to Investigate and Document

Another election and more random ballots flying around.  As many of you know, my mother-in-law has Alzheimer's disease and has been getting progressively worse over time.  Most of you have met her and have seen her bright, joyous smile and have experienced the often time randomness of her thoughts and her confusion related to the most mundane items.

Before she got really bad, she lived on Annex Avenue in Grass Valley but has not lived there since 2016.  From Annex Avenue, she moved to live in Penn Valley with us.  In June 2020, she moved to a facility and then came back to live with us again in December 2020.  We definitely received her ballot for the presidential primary in April 2020, and I am pretty sure that she voted.  By the time the presidential election rolled around in November of 2020, she could not use a remote for a TV and could no longer even answer the telephone, as she could not figure out which buttons to push.  Consequently, and despite receiving a ballot at our residence in Penn Valley, she did not vote in the 2020 presidential election.  During the recall in the fall of 2021, her ballot never came to our house.  Last week, my wife got a text that my mother-in-law's ballot for this cycle was in the mail.  So, we went online to find out where it was going because it never arrived last time.

According to records from the Nevada County Election Office, my mother-in-law's ballot was mailed to her old Annex address.  She has not lived there for at least five years.  After she moved from Annex, her ballots were coming to our house in Penn Valley, but now the ballots are going back to Annex.  The Nevada County Election Office states (and provided documents) that my elderly mother-in-law, who cannot use a remote control or a landline telephone, re-registered online or through the DMV on May 16, 2021.  Well, May 16, 2021, was a Sunday, and my mother-in-law had no interaction with DMV until October of 2021 when my wife took her to renew her identification.  There is absolutely no way that she could have registered online.  By May of 2021, she could not remember her middle name and was driving me crazy every time the TV would turn off, because she watched too many episodes of Law and Order SVU and could not figure out how to turn it back on.

In conclusion, the Nevada County Election Office has no idea where many of these ballots are going and who will be receiving them.  Clearly, the voter registration system is broken.  We need your help.

If you have any issues or know of any issues related to the mailing and receipt of ballots, please email me at barry@barrypruett.com, so that we can investigate in an effort to resolve these issues.  It is absolutely ridiculous that this type of incompetence is happening in our county and in our state.  We can fix these problems together, and I look forward to speaking with you.

Enforcement Policies of Nevada County Mask Mandates Need to be Clarified

Last night, we watched the Los Angeles Rams defeat the San Francisco Forty-Niners in the NFC Championship game played at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.  Currently, California is under an executive order signed by Gavin Newsom requiring citizens to wear a mask in all public areas.  To the left is a maskless governor with an already ill and maskless Magic Johnson in a public place (yet again) violating his own mask order.

Twitter @MagicJohnson

At this point the mask mandates, and those who enact or support them, are just silly.  Nobody is following these ridiculous orders, not even the governor who signed the executive order.  Further, neither the state nor Nevada County has an articulated enforcement mechanism at all.  Finally, and based upon these haphazard policies, the Nevada County election office has resorted to enforcement by physical force.  In fact, when asked Gavin Newsom was asked by media about enforcement of his mandate, he responded that he had “faith” in residents to follow the dictate. The lack of enforcement policies is inexcusable and leading to little government dictators changing policy on a whim thus leading to physical harm of constituents.

It is time for the Nevada County supervisors to lead on this issue.  They need to make clear what their enforcement policies.  If the supervisors value liberty, they would enforce the governor's mask mandate in the same manner which he enforces it.  We trust our fellow man to do the right thing.  I frankly rarely agree with Gavin Newsom on any topic, but in this instance, I agree with him whole-heartedly.   As Newsom has made clear, he has purposefully executed an emergency mask mandate with no enforcement mechanism and has commented to the media that we should trust our fellow man to do the right thing.  Regardless of the efficacy of masks and, for argument purposes, conceding that they are 100% effective in preventing infection, it is about a mandate which dictates to the public rather than the request which the governor has plainly made. 

At this time, the Nevada County supervisors need to lead.  Sue Hoek, as chairman of the board of supervisors, should direct staff to draft a resolution indicating that the county will follow our governor's lead and simply ask our local citizens to wear a mask in the county office.  While the supervisors may think that they work for the staff at the county, that fact of the matter is that staff works for the supervisors who work for the people.  If staff refuses to draft the resolution in the manner dictated by Sue Hoek, a template can be provided to her by a number of citizen groups who are sick of these mandates, and she can put it on the agenda.  That is her job.

As discussed in yesterday's post (and I know Sue Hoek agrees with this axiom because she is a strong, patriotic, freedom-loving woman), we are constantly on a journey from ancient authoritarianism towards true freedom and liberty.  Sometimes while on this journey, we as a society take two steps forward (the Declaration of Independence) and then take one step back (Dredd Scott).  In order for freedom and liberty to succeed, all of our collective steps must always be forward and towards freedom and liberty.  Any government mandate is a step backward towards ancient authoritarianism and away from our American way.  If we are a people that value freedom and liberty, and as Gavin Newsom said, we have to trust our fellow man to do the right thing, and the Nevada County supervisors should do the same thing and tell the county citizens that the county will not be enforcing these silly mask mandates and tell the public that they trust them to do the right thing for their neighbors.

Nevada County Elections Office Has Gone COVID Crazy

Today, The Union reported on the "altercation" at the Nevada County Elections office on January 20, 2022. To summarize the article, the proponents of a recall of our five county supervisors allegedly forced their way into the election office when confronted with the new election office mask mandate.  Below is the reaction (from January 19, 2022) of the politician who is currently running to be the head of our county election department when the recall proponents entered the election office. Her reaction is not entirely professional given the demeanor of the proponents and the fact that the sheriff's office did nothing for reasons to be discussed below.  

In a glaring omission, what the article wholly fails to mention is that the proponents want to recall the supervisors related to the county's COVID policies about which the paper has previously reported here and here.  All of these people are actually fighting about COVID mandates. Given the facts as presented to us by the CDC over the past two years, these COVID mandates are getting a little out of hand, and folks are arguably tired of COVID policies which have lost almost all support.

I spoke with a law enforcement individual today, and his response was that, clearly, the reaction by this politician was not her finest moment and that she clearly could use some additional skills in dealing with people.  I am informed that, in a private setting and if asked to leave an establishment, an individual can be cited for trespass.  This policy makes sense, as individual businesses choose whom they serve, as is their right.  On the other hand, law enforcement does not have the ability to enforce a mask mandate in a public building to which constituents have a right to enter.  This axiom is especially true for an election office which must transparently, and without bias, conduct this recall whether the government disagrees with the proponents or not.  There was also some discussion of the politicians politicizing COVID and politicizing the election office.  

It is understandable that folks are getting tired of these dictatorial mandates. First, the CDC told us not wear a mask (even an N-95), because they are not effective in preventing the spread of COVID.  Then, they told us to wear three masks.  Then Fauci told everyone that, if you are fully vaccinated, you do not need to wear a mask.  Now, we are back to mask mandates despite the vast majority of people being vaccinated or having had COVID.  Based upon these instructions and countless other misguided instructions over the past two years, we all have whiplash and, consequently, trust the government a lot less.

Let's review what we have learned during and from COVID.  The COVID vaccines, which California intends to mandate all children to be vaccinated for school, do not stop the spread of COVID.  We do not need the CDC to tell anyone this simple fact, as we have eyes.  Many of our friends and neighbors, both unvaccinated and triple boosted, are coming down with COVID.  The fact of the matter is COVID is here to stay regardless of your mask mandate or your vaccine mandate.  After two years, it is high time to start living with it.

Such sentiment brings us back to the election office.  These politicians have a balancing act for sure.  They must balance their duty as public servants but also protect their potentially vulnerable staff.  I would bet my house that both politicians in our election office and most of the staff are vaccinated, so why freak out?  Politics.  One politician is running for office and the other is trying desperately to get his heir-apparent elected, so create a scene and get some free press (i.e., politicize the election office) and demonize your own constituents.  Some heavy-handed politics, for sure.  In addition, and during the middle of our local election season, the politician in the video above admits that her boss (the head of our election office) was "out of the country" on Thursday.  If these two politicians are so concerned about their staff getting COVID and so concerned about the public, I would think that they would be responsible enough to not get on an airplane and travel abroad before potentially bringing back COVID to their office and infecting the entire staff before the busiest time of their public service - the 2022 primary election.  In fact, this type of hypocrisy is what is really frosting a lot of folks and driving them to resist these hypocritical government mandates.

Here is a news flash to Nevada County...we are all going to get COVID, and the arbitrary mandates are not going to stop that commonsense realization.

These dictatorial mandates are simply getting old and tiresome, and they clearly do not work.  It is commonsense.  Simply listen to the ever-changing guidance from the CDC over the past two years.  Listen to the scientific debates going on in the real-scientific world and not what Pfizer is telling you.  We are in a new normal, so it is high time to stop the crazy and get back to living and breathing and working.  It is also time for our local election office to get back to work and stop the nonesense.

Bad Election Policy Coming from the Nevada County Election Office and Washington DC

At this moment, the US Senate is embroiled over the "Freedom to Vote Act." Democrats are even threatening the nuke the filibuster in order to entirely revamp the national and state election systems on a partisan, party-line vote. Some pretty heavy-handed politics for sure. The question becomes why. Democrats say that they need to expand voting access. One of our candidates, who recently moved to Nevada County from Washington DC and is running to head our local Nevada County election office, vehemently supports the policies as outlined in the "Freedom to Vote Act." I believe that any rational American agrees with expanding voting access and making it easy for legally registered voters to vote. That said, and in expanding voting access as outlined in the "Freedom to Vote Act," partisan politicians, including our local candidate, support election policy which sacrifices election security for easy voting and is ultimately very dangerous to our democracy. Allow me to explain is more detail.

We are a republic and elect leaders who we think will implement good policy which creates a healthy democracy. While experience in running elections is desirable, electing an election official who supports good and sound election policy is paramount. It is paramount, because the health and vibrance of our democracy foundationally depends upon the legitimacy of our elections. There can never be a shred of doubt as to who won an election. If there is any doubt in the legitimacy of an elected official, the very foundation of our democracy is seriously damaged.

Look no further to the actions of certain presidential candidates who point to their opponents' illegitimacy. The Washington Post wrote, "Al Gore conceded after the Supreme Court curtailed his legal efforts to count more ballots in Florida, but many Democrats continued to view Bush as an accidental, if not illegitimate, president." Hillary Clinton, who handily lost the 2016 presidential election, called the winner, Donald J. Trump, an "illegitimate president." In lieu of posting a link to the millions of times which Trump has opined on the 2020 election, there is no doubt that Trump and over a third of Americans, question the legitimacy of Joe Biden. And presently, Joe Biden is calling into question the 2022 elections which has not even happened yet. As a side note, the legacy media seem to believe that somehow Gore's, Clinton's, and Biden's questioning the legitimacy of elections is okay, but when Trump questions the legitimacy of elections, then (and only then) our democracy is imperiled, and the world is about to end, but I digress.

The "Diaz Experience" - Screwing Up Elections for a Decade

Our little, sleepy Nevada County has been plagued with horrible elections officials for over 10 years.  The Union is reporting today that our current election official Gregory Diaz screwed up the voter guides again.

The article is here.

When are we going to get someone that actually knows what they are doing and can manage an election...

 

"Nevada County Ballots and Sample Booklets - What really happened?" - Yubanet

Pascale Fusshoeller, YubaNet, wrote this balanced article today. I was going to write something about the inconsistencies among statements to the Court during the Measure S hearings and statements to the public in connection with multiple delays in getting voting information to folks. That said, Pascale says it better than I would have and in less time!

"A news release, sent late this afternoon by Nevada County's Clerk-Recorder appears to contain several inaccuracies and statements contradicting earlier explanations, possibly even omissions in declarations made to the court. At issue is the delay in mailing the vote by mail ballots and the sample ballot booklets for the November 4th election."

This rest of this fair and balanced article on Yubanet is here.

This morning, The Union also did a balanced article on the election debacle.

"'I’m very concerned about the integrity of the voting process,' Lamphier said in a statement issued Monday. 'People need to have confidence in government and this kind of thing hurts us all. Candidates spend thousands of dollars to have a timely official candidacy statement before the voters to help them make informed choices before they vote,' he added."

 

"'There is also the issue of candidate mailers sent to voters to coincide with ballot mailings,' he said. 'These also cost thousands of dollars. With local elections often very close, these kinds of mistakes can make all the difference in who gets elected or how people vote on ballot measures,' Lamphier said.'"

 

The rest of the article in The Union is here.

 

Sample Ballot Complaint Filed Against Gregory Diaz in 2014 Primary Election

Once again, Nevada County has finished an election, and once again, the election code is violated.

"[W]e have confirmed reports of voters in Nevada County that the ballot order on precinct ballots for a number of offices, including federal/state/local offices, differ from the ballot order for these offices in the sample ballots issued by your office to voters. We have confirmed these discrepancies in over a dozen precincts. Your office confirmed this was a problem in 27 precincts (These precinct numbers are on Attachment A under BT8). The County stated they had not had an opportunity to check if other precincts were experiencing this same problem. Observed variations include at least one or more offices on regular precinct ballots provided to voters in these precincts. Your office has acknowledged these discrepancies."

"The discrepancies violate Elections Code section 13112 which specifies that the ballot order shall be determined by the random selection process provided in that statute. These discrepancies may affect the outcomes of races in which the ballot order discrepancies have occurred."

The entire complaint can be read on Yubanet. In his response to the complaint and while being interviewed by KNCO, Gregory Diaz reluctantly admits that "there is a possibility that some people could have mis-voted."

The trials and tribulations of the elections office under the absent leadership of Greg Diaz has been widely documented by respectable media sources in the community including here.

The saga that is Gregory Diaz continues...

Diaz (quietly) admits his reading of election code was wrong - George Boardman [updated January 21,2013]

UPDATE: Dutifully, our local leftwing blogger comes to the defense of his dearest friend. Jeff Pelline points out that Diaz does have an excuse for his mistake. Pelline and Diaz point out that defending Diaz's wrongful interpretation of the law will cost taxpayers unnecessary dollars in legal fees. First, spending taxpayers' dollars (to the tune of nearly $3 million) did not cross either of their minds in 2010-2011 during the AtPac lawsuit. Second, I challenge both Pelline and Diaz to point to a single county in the great state of California that shares their wrongful interpretation of the election law. In response to this challenge, we will hear crickets from the peanut gallery, because that single county does not exist. The take away here is that Diaz was wrong and spinning the story (again) and Pelline is dutifully defending his favorite elected official with flowering rhetoric (again).

"County Clerk Recorder Gregory Diaz, who likes to issue mind-numbing press releases that promote the competence of his office, has quietly admitted that his novel interpretation of a section of the election code was wrong."

"Diaz sent a certified letter to Patricia Smith, chair of Americans for Safe Access Nevada County, conceding he was wrong when he told the group it needed 9,923 valid signatures instead of 9,131 to qualify a medical marijuana initiative for the ballot."

"The information was buried in a press release from ASA-NC announcing its first meeting of the new year. “Now that we have excluded the over and under votes to calculate the number of signatures we needed, I am certain our initiative will pass,” Smith said in the press release."

The rest of the article is here.

Pot supporters v. Gregory Diaz - What is really going on?

Lately, I have been reading about the dust-up between the Americans For Safe Access - Nevada County ("ASA-NC") and Gregory Diaz in connection with the number of voter signatures required to approve a ballot intiative in California. ASA-NC contends that pursuant to the election code they need to collect 9,131 signatures, but Gregory Diaz asserts that they need 9,923 signatures. Who is right, and what is the big deal?

Let's take a look at the elections code.

Cal. Elec. Code sec. 9107 provides as follows:

"The county elections official shall ascertain the number of signatures required to sign the petition by obtaining the number of votes cast within the county for all candidates for Governor at the last gubernatorial election preceding the publication of the notice of intention to circulate the initiative petition." [Emphasis added.]

Based on the California law, ASA-NC needs 20% of that number of votes cast for all candidates for Governor in the last race.

According to the records of the Nevada County Elections office and in 2010 (the last gubernatorial election), the number of votes cast for all candidates for governor was 45,657. Therefore clearly, ASA-NC needs signatures representing 20% of 45,657 which is 9,131.

Now, this is where things get weird and in fact downright dumb.

Gregory Diaz, the elections offical, states that ASA-NC needs to obtain signatures representing 20% of all votes cast for all candidates for Governor in 2010 PLUS signatures representing 20% of all votes not cast for any candidate for Governor in 2010. It is so clear and obvious that this interpretation is mistaken and erronoeous that there has to be something deeper at play. Thankfully, The Union is also onto this erroneous interpretation as is seen here and here.

So what is going on? Well, this erroneous interpretation is directly attributable to a mistake made by Gregory Diaz in 2011 in connection with the judicial recall petitions as discussed here.

The number of signatures required, which the county elections office provided, was inaccurate. The recall of trial court judges is specifically provided for in Article II of the California Constitution.

Subdivision (b), section 14 of Article II provides that the signatures required for recall of a trial court judge would be 20% of the number of votes for that judge in the most recent general election. When the judge runs unopposed and therefore does not have her name on the ballot [Cal. Elec. Code § 8203(a) and as happened in Nevada County], the amount of signatures must be 20% of the votes cast within that judicial jurisdiction for the countywide office which had the least number of votes in the most recent general election [Cal. Elec. Code § 11221(c)(1)]. The only countywide office in the most recent general election was the office of Treasurer/Tax Collector in 2010. The total number of votes cast for that office was 38,354.

So the required number of signatures for the judicial recall should have been 7,671, which is 20% of 38,354.

However, the number of signatures needed to recall the judges, as provided by Gregory Diaz, was 9,927. So, what gives?

If Gregory Diaz always counts "under votes" (votes not cast for any candidate and in contravention to California law) in his calculations, the required number of signatures to approve the recall would have been 20% of the votes cast for treasurer in 2010 (38,354) PLUS the number of votes not cast for either candidates for treasurer in 2010 (11,270). Based on math, 20% of 49,624 is 9,925. There is a difference of two - but why - after all it is math and math does not lie. There were only 7 "over votes" (voters that voted for both candidates) which (as usual) equals only 0.01% of the total vote.

This number provided by Gregory Diaz was 9,927 which just so happens to be exactly and precisely 20% of the total votes cast in November 2010, and there is the mistake. Gregory Diaz failed to apply the law correctly in 2011 in connection with the number of signatures required for judicial recalls, and he is covering for it now with an absurd interpretation of California law much to the detriment of ASA-NC.

In the 2010 gubernatorial election, there were only 14 "over votes" which (as usual) represented only 0.03% of the total votes cast. When we are dealing with hundreds of a percent, it is easy to hide your mistakes to the layman, but for someone with experience in election law that can add it is not difficult to figure it out.

If the legislature intended recall petition and ballot intiatives to be qualified by a percentage of votes for an officeholder PLUS all of the under votes for such office, then the legislature would have just made qualification based upon the total number of votes cast in any given election, because the number of "over votes" rarely exceeds 0.05% of the total vote in a given election.

The long and the short of it is this...nothing will ever come of it.

Regardless and whether or not correct, Gregory Diaz will accept and certify the number of signatures submitted by ASA-NC in an amount exceeding his stated requirement of 9,923 signatures. Gregory Diaz will allow the pot initiative to go on the ballot in order to avoid litigating the issue over the amount of signatures required to qualify the initiative.

The only way the signature issue is dealt with correctly and legally is if someone challenges ASA-NC's petitions and the final number of qualified signatures lands directly between 9,131 and 9,923.

It is a safe bet for Diaz to cover his "you know what" knowing that the likelihood of someone challenging the petitions is slim and knowing that if a challenge does happen the result will likely not end up between 9,131 and 9,923. At this point, the whole analysis is academic, and the truth will never see the light of day. As always, so goes the affairs in the Nevada County Elections office..."Like sands through the hourglass, so are the Days of our Lives."

Editor's Note: NEITHER A SINGLE COUNTY NOR THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA COUNTS VOTERS THE WAY DIAZ IS ADVOCATING. The California Secretary of State follows California election law and does not count under votes when calculating the required number of signatures for a ballot initiative. In 2010, the total number of votes cast for all candidates for Governor was 10,095,185 (not counting under votes). California law requires that proponents of a statewide initiative petition need 5% of the number of votes cast within the state for all candidates for Governor at the last gubernatorial election. Using these numbers, 5% of 10,095,185 is 504,760.

Guess how many signatures are required by the California Secretary of State to qualify a statewide ballot initiative? Why it is 504,760.

Orange County had 879,937 votes cast for governor in 2010. Orange County requires 20% of 879,937 to qualify a ballot initiative as seen here.

Los Angeles County had 1,971,076 votes cast for governor in 2006. Los Angeles County required 20% of 1,971,076 to qualify a ballot initiative as seen here.

Math is amazing, isn't it? It always tells the truth.

Dead Voters in Nevada County

Through some local volunteers making phone calls to local registered voters, they discovered a substantial number of deceased individuals who were still on the Nevada County voter rolls. This occurrence gave them great concern, so they contacted me in order to do an analysis of the current Nevada County voter rolls in order to ascertain whether those deceased individuals were still registered and voting.

They obtained a voter roll dated August 15, 2012, from the Nevada County Elections office. We compared the oldest 400 voters with the social security death index, and then verified the results that we could by getting some of the death certificates from the Nevada County Recorder's office and other research. In Nevada County, California, the recorder (custodian of death certificates) is also the registrar of voters. The research was done by one person checking one person at a time and took 10 hours. It is possible to check the entire list automatically against the social security death index, but it costs about $600. Personally, I did not want to pay $600 to search the whole list.

What we discovered is as follows:

1. Out of the 400 oldest voters in Nevada County (we have about 60,000 registered voters in our small county), we found 31 deceased registered voters who died between 2001 and 2012.

2. Out of those 31 deceased registered voters, there were 15 permanent absentees deceased voters (vote by mail).

3. Also out of the 31 deceased registered voters and according to Nevada County records, we found two of those 31 who actually voted after they died – one decedent (who died on November 19, 2005) voted twice by absentee (2008 primary & 2009 special election) and one decedent (who died on April 5, 2007) voted in person in the most recent primary election (2012).

It is my understanding that our local officials do not deny that these 31 deceased people were on the voter rolls as of August 15, 2012. It is my understanding that our local officials deny that someone cast a ballot in person for one decedent. They stated that it was some sort of bar code error, but they have provided no evidence. They do not know how the other decedent cast a mail ballot in 2008 & 2009 or why he was still receiving one.

Because a mail ballot was received and cast for a deceased individual, this instance demonstrates a lack of proper oversight in comparing signatures of the actual voters to the signatures on the registration cards. Apparently, the county's electronic signature scanner does not work as well as they assert. How could the signature of the deceased individual possibly match the one on the ballot which was cast?

Bottom Line: We have potentially hundreds of deceased individuals on our voter rolls locally, and thousands of deceased individuals on our voter rolls statewide.

First, the policy in the Nevada County elections office needs to change. If from my home computer and with limited resources, I can do an accurate analysis, why is not being done by the registrar of voters?

Second, there are multiple reports of individuals not receiving mail ballots and one report of an individual receiving two mail ballots. Why are live people not receiving ballots, but deceased individuals are?

The foundation of American democracy is founded upon fair and accurate elections. Election Day is a very special day - we are all equal. A single ballot does not know race, gender, age, or nationality. One person - one vote is the definition of equality. If we are having dead people casting votes in Nevada County, we have a problem that goes to the very foundation of our system.

Effort to Recall Local Judge- Just the Facts Ma'am

In an email, the recall proponents have pointed out a couple of inaccuracies in the information that has been provided both to The Union and to the recall proponents by retired judges and two clerk-recorders.

First, the amount of signatures required, which the county elections office provided, is inaccurate. The recall of trial court judges is specifically provided for in Article II of the California Constitution.

Subdivision (b), section 14 of Article II provides that the signatures required for recall of a trial court judge would be 20% of the number of votes for that judge in the most recent general election. When the judge runs unopposed and therefore does not have his/her name on the ballot [Cal. Elec. Code § 8203(a)], the amount of signatures must be 20% of the votes cast within that judicial jurisdiction for the countywide office which had the least number of votes in the most recent general election [Cal. Elec. Code § 11221(c)(1)]. The only countywide office in the most recent general election was the office of Treasurer/Tax Collector in 2010. The total number of votes cast for that office was 38,354.

So the required number of signatures for recall is 7,671, which is 20% of 38,354. This number is over 2,200 votes less than Gregory Diaz told the citizens for recall and The Union.

Although this section of the Constitution defers to any local rule that might differ, but there is no such local rule.

Secondly, Mr. Bollinger (a former clerk-recorder) did not remember correctly from the previous recall.

There is a memorandum from county counsel to Mr. Bollinger which states that a replacement for a recalled trial judge is elected.

A link to the memorandum is here. I have no idea how the memorandum ended up on Humboldt County's website...that could be an interesting story.

Especially in the case of elections, it is important that the facts get out to the electorate in an accurate fashion. Hopefully, our local electeds (former and current) make a better effort to get the facts straight before attempting to influence public opinion.

Incidentally, an exhaustive recall guide is found in Humboldt County here.

Nevada County Clerk-Recorder To No Longer Accept Passport Applications

"Nevada County Clerk-Recorder Gregory J. Diaz announced today a regulation from the United States Department of State will halt the Nevada County Clerk-Recorder from being a passport acceptance facility. The Nevada County Clerk-Recorder will no longer accept passport applications on November 30, 2011."

"Diaz said the regulation, as part of the Federal Passport Acceptance Program, prohibits facilities that issue birth records from being an approved passport acceptance facility- a location where residents apply for passports. After residents fill out their applications, the paperwork is sent on to the United States Passport Services, who ultimately issues the passports."

"Regrettably and as a practical matter, since we are required by state law to continue to process birth certificates, the Nevada County Clerk-Recorder will cease operating as a passport acceptance agency on November 30th, 2011. The closest passport acceptance agency is at the Auburn Post Office located at 371 Nevada Street, Auburn California."

A copy of the press release dated October 28, 2011, from Diaz is on Yubanet and can be found here.

Actually and what Diaz does not want the public to know is that the closest passport acceptance facilities to Nevada City are the Grass Valley Post Office and then Placer County Recorder's office.

We need real leaders in this County that will work together and collaborate to find solutions to problems. Greg Diaz is not one of those people. Much like Nate Beason, who mightily supported Greg Diaz in last year's election, Diaz is a "my way or the highway" kind of person.

While we will continue to dig deeper into the passport issue, a collaborative solution is readily available, if Diaz was remotely competent and collaborated with others.

First and according to the folks at the Placer County Recorder, the Placer County Recorder's office change operations significantly to satisfy the new regulations, but they did it to continue to provide the passport service. Greg Diaz -lazy? Probably.

Second and has been done in Minnesota and Iowa, instead of forcing folks to drive the Placer County Recorder's office, the County could have requested the Auditor's office or maybe Nevada City to become a passport acceptance facility.

Third and another solution that would be great for the community, the Helling Library could become a passport acceptance facility. A passport facility gets paid $25 per application and would provide much needed revenue for the library. Given the revenue to the library would not be a lot, but this solution does provide some revenue to the library and folks would not have to drive to the Placer County Recorder's office.

We need smart and competent government. We need community-minded elected officials that will find solutions through collaboration with the public before making rash decisions.

This is yet another example of the failure of government to think out of the box.

Diaz Deposition Released

George Rebane and The Union are both reporting that the deposition of Greg Diaz has been released...finally. The Union will be doing an extensive report tomorrow.

The deposition transcript is here.

What I found this interesting was on pages 38-39 of his deposition, Diaz denies knowing what "code" is in apparent effort to demonstrate that he did not know the type of access that he was giving to Aptitude Solutions.

In the video below (Diaz debate with Kathleen Smith in 2006), Diaz not only states that he knows what code is, but affirmatively states that as the VP of a national software firm he understands the significance of code and how a single line has significance.

See between 9:51-11:47



Diaz also conceded that he breached the contract twice. First, he admitted to authorizing the Aptitude access to the server housing AtPac's code. Second, he admitted to not telling AtPac of the breach. These two admissions show conclusively liability on Diaz for breach of contract. As for copyright and trade secrets, we will never know as the server to which Aptitude copied the software was scrubbed to a defense department standard. It is readily apparent, however, that the insurance carrier saw the potential for damages in excess of $1.9 million.



I look forward to The Union's in-depth coverage tomorrow.

The Nevada County Cover-up - Stan Meckler

Editor's Note: Kim and I spent all weekend in South Lake Tahoe (beautiful!), as the kids are in Chicago visiting my parents. Just caught this article in The Union which is reprinted in its entirety below.

Nevada County finally settled the AtPac lawsuit. They say it only cost the taxpayer $100,000. ONLY? This suit could have been avoided for $15,000 at the very beginning, and that's when the trouble began.

County Clerk Recorder, Greg Diaz told the Board of Supervisors that the county could handle the change of software vendors without the help of AtPac, the previous vendor. Eventually, AtPac sued Nevada County, Aptitude Solutions and Greg Diaz in Federal Court over copyright infringement that could have been prevented for $15,000.

It became very clear in the depositions that neither the Clerk/Recorder's office nor the county was qualified to do the software change-over.

The details of the case have been well reported in our local media, including the depositions of county employees. During this time, the Federal Judge ruled that “there was a willful destruction of relevant evidence” by county employees, a very serious charge.

Here's where it gets interesting. Greg Diaz was called in to give his deposition to AtPac's attorney. That deposition has never been released publicly because the county has refused to do so. Shortly after Mr. Diaz's deposition, AtPac filed for a summary judgment against the county, Aptitude Solutions and Mr. Diaz. Why? Was Mr. Diaz' deposition so damaging that AtPac felt that a summary judgment was in order? Then the county asked AtPac to enter into mediation. Again I ask, why? The timing of all this is very suspicious.

Recently, the county stated that the lawsuit was resolved to everyone's satisfaction. However, the county insisted that further documents and depositions will not be released and no further comments would be forthcoming. The county is initiating this document embargo, not AtPac. What is the county trying to hide?

Here are a couple more questions: If the county was not at fault, why did the county's insurance pay $1.9 million to AtPac to settle the suit? Also, how much will the county's insurance premium increase due to this large payout?

The county doesn't want you, the taxpayer, to know who was at fault or whether any county employee has been reprimanded or fired for their part in this legal fiasco. That is a cover-up!

You and I deserve better from our employees. How can we trust our elected officials when they refuse to tell us the truth? We have seen these types of cover-ups and lack of transparency up to the highest levels of our government for many years, but I don't think we expected it here in Nevada County.

Make no mistake about it, this is a cover-up!

We must insist that the Board of Supervisors release the Greg Diaz deposition and let the public decide who is at fault. There is no excuse for this kind of behavior on the part of the county.

So, what do we do now? We must all write letters to The Union newspaper and express our opinions. Call KNCO and tell them that you would like to see them investigate this cover-up. You can write to the Sacramento Bee and tell them about another act of corruption in our county.

Call your Supervisor and demand that all documents be released. Remind them that they work for you and you are a voter who cares about your community.

Our Constitution is built on the principle that the people are supreme and that the government does the will of the people, not the other way around. It's time for our county government to get reacquainted with that concept.

Stan Meckler lives in Nevada County.

First Settlement Offer in AtPac case $30,000 - The Union

"Nevada County paid $1.9 million in a lawsuit settlement this week, nearly $1 million more than a settlement offered earlier in the case. County officials maintained Thursday that nothing had changed between the offer and the final settlement, other than the hundreds of thousands racked up in legal fees.

"In the switch from Aptitude to AtPac, county employees and Diaz, allowed Aptitude access to AtPac's trade secrets, AtPac said in the suit filed in the Eastern District of California federal court in Sacramento. County officials denied any wrongdoing in the settlement, which was announced Tuesday.

"AtPac originally offered to settle for $30,000 in fall 2009 — before it filed a lawsuit in the case, Thomas said.

"Thomas pointed out that AtPac also had offered to settle the case for $1 million last year, and called into question the county's legal strategy.

"'Instead...the county engages in months of litigation and racks up legal fees,' Thomas said. 'And then they settled. Who's the Einstein that settled on that strategy?'"

"AtPac offered the settlement in September 2010, said County Board of Supervisors Chair Ed Scofield.

"'At that time there was no indication the county had done anything wrong,' Scofield said. 'The $1 million seemed very extreme and the defense cost was minimal at that time.'"

The entire story in The Union is here.

My experience with Michael Jamison and Diaz is that they are both very dishonest and will spin facts beyond the point of truth in order to cover their wrongdoing. My experience with Ed Scofield is that he is a straight shooter who tells it like it is...whether you like it or not.

While Michael Jamison (who recently resigned) asserts that neither he, nor the County staff, nor Diaz did anything wrong, we see the honesty of Scofield in the article when he said that "at that time there was no indication the county had done anything wrong."

I would posit to the people of the County that after Diaz' deposition and after AtPac filed for summary judgment, the County (and the County's insurance) knew the writing was on the wall and it was time to pay for Diaz' wrongdoing. Insurance will only pay at settlement if, and only if, they think that they will end up paying more at trial.

The County's insurance paid a total of $2.745 million. Clearly, insurance attempts to minimize these claims...and clearly the insurance knew that if this case went to trial they would be on the hook for far greater than $3 million.

So, yes, settling was a business decision by the board of supervisors and the insurance company, but to assert that the settlement was not based on Diaz' and the County misconduct is just absurd.  Diaz and the County need to give The Union a copy of Diaz' deposition and prove us all wrong.

Nevada County Settles Gregory Diaz Lawsuit for $1.9 million

Nevada County officials announced Tuesday that they settled with Auburn software firm AtPac for $1.9 million in its lawsuit against the County and Gregory Diaz.

"Insurance is expected to cover all but $100,000 of the cost, according to a document filed by County CEO Rick Haffey and Assistant CEO Laura Matteson. The remaining funds will come from the county's budget."

"AtPac provided software to the county's Clerk-Recorder office through 2008, when it lost its contract to Florida-based Aptitude Solutions. In February 2010, lawyers for AtPac filed suit against Aptitude, the county and Clerk-Recorder Gregory Diaz, claiming the county infringed on AtPac's copyright in the switch over from AtPac to Aptitude and that AtPac's trade secrets were exposed to Aptitude, a competitor."

Earlier in the case and according to Mike Jamison, AtPac offered to settle the matter for $1 million.

The rest of The Union story is here.

Now, Jamison is spinning the amount of fees and played The Union. Today's article is here. Jamison (who recently resigned) released a statement stating that litigation was going to cost the County $1.75 million. Is he lying?! According to the facts he gave The Union...

Cypress total bill was $725,000 of which...
The County paid Cypress $507,500
Aptitude paid Cypress $217,500

According to Jamison, Pillsbury fees were being split by Aptitude and the County...

Where in the world does Jamison get $1.75 million in fees to the County?!

$507,500 to Cypress from the County...then Pillbury was going to get $2.5 million to go to trial ($1.25 million for the county and $1.25 million from Aptitude)???

Trial is set for December 13th.

If the total legal fees from now until trial are projected at $2.5 million - that is about 33 attorney hours per day at $500 an hour for every day (including weekends) from now until trial. That is about 6 attorneys working non-stop for five months on only this case. Yeah right.

They have been litigating this for a year and a half. Up until now they have been spending about $47,000 per month...but Jamison says that they were going to spend nearly that much every three days until December? Please...that dog don't hunt.

Now, we know why Jamison resigned and shows that The Union needs to dig a little deeper instead of taking the County's public statements as fact...

County Reimbursed for a Portion of their Attorney Fees in the AtPac case

Rick Haffey, Nevada County CEO, stated in his Friday memo that CSAC-EIA reimbursed the County in an ammount equal to $618,758.10 from the County’s insurance carrier CSAC-EIA. This reimbursement is for defense costs in the Atpac litigation matter.

Insurance companies are emotionless and the stingiest companies on the planet, so for the County to get reimbursed for a portion of the fees, there must be a darn good reason. It is good for the County and its citizens to know that the County's insurance is finally involved...especially on the eve of the hearing on the motion for summary judgment which is set for August 29, 2011 (originally set for July 5, 2011).

If the federal court makes a determination of liability against the County at the summary judgment hearing, it will be very bad news for the County. As I said before, insurance companies are emotionless and the stingiest businesses on the planet. They make decisions based on risk of loss, not emotion. Hopefully, "risk of loss" will take over from "emotion."

County ordered internal investigation in AtPac case

"Nevada County hired a consultant in early June to investigate why evidence critical to a potential multimillion dollar lawsuit was destroyed, despite an order from the county's top attorney to preserve all information pertinent to the case.

"According to a document obtained by The Union, the county approved up to $3,000 to pay SC Consulting to conduct the internal investigation.

"AtPac Inc. filed suit against the county, Clerk-Recorder Greg Diaz and Florida software firm Aptitude Solutions in Sacramento federal court in February 2010, claiming the loss of its intellectual property when Nevada County's Clerk-Recorder's office was switching software providers from AtPac to Aptitude in 2009.

"The lawsuit is ongoing, and to date, the county has spent more than $1.2 million on outside legal counsel to defend the case, which is scheduled to go to trial this fall. Oral arguments for AtPac's motion to find summary judgment in its favor — without going to trial — are scheduled for Tuesday in Sacramento.

"In April, federal Judge William Shubb sanctioned Nevada County for scrubbing — erasing all information — a computer server in October of last year. The server contained information on the transfer of county data from AtPac to Aptitude — information material to the case, according to AtPac's legal team.

"'The spoliation (destruction), combined with other deceptive discovery practices by defendants, indicates that without some sort of sanction, a fair and just resolution of the action will be impossible,' Shubb wrote in an April order issued in the case.

The rest of the article is here.

Below are two excerpts from Judge Shubb's order:

"While many other servers were virtualized and presumably scrubbed by County of Nevada, only the AS-Nevada server was owned by Aptitude, stored at County of Nevada, and used for making the transfer from AtPac’s software to Aptitude’s software. Its relevance to the dispute involving AtPac and Aptitude, and the need for treating it differently than other servers, was clear. The fact that all evidence relating to the scrubbing was concealed from plaintiff until after it took place is further indication that defendants knew the scrubbing was not appropriate. Scrubbing the server despite its potential relevance demonstrates willful ignorance or worse, not an innocent misunderstanding." 

"Defendants had an obligation to preserve the AS-Nevada server at the time it was destroyed, and they willfully destroyed it."

The only thing that The Union keeps leaving out of their stories about the County's destruction of evidence is that Judge Shubb found that the destruction of the evidence by the County was willful - willful means that the County did it intentionally. Basically, Jamison hired a consultant to inform the citizens that it was an accident...contrary to that which an impartial judge already determined. 

George Rebane has another article related to this matter and it is here.

Judge Shubbs entire order in connection with the willful destruction of relevant evidence is here.

Jeff Ackerman: Pursuit of lawsuit simply shouldn't suit voters

With news last week that the county's financial woes continue and that more of its employees will lose their jobs and some services probably impacted, or cut, can someone tell me why our five elected members of the Board of Supervisors continue to throw hundreds of thousands of our dollars at a lawsuit they may, or may not, win?

I'm asking you because the five elected guys say they aren't allowed to tell us. It's all “hush-hush” behind closed-doors kind of stuff and they probably think we're too “legally challenged” to understand. Never mind it's our money they're spending.

In a nutshell, the county previously used a local vendor called AtPac to handle its registered voter database. Then Greg Diaz got appointed county elections chief and decided to switch vendors, going with a company out of Florida called Aptitude Solutions.

That decision didn't sit well with the local vendor, mostly because it claims the county gave Aptitude some of its trade secrets in the swap and so it sued the county and Diaz in federal court a year and a half ago.

Here's some math to consider:

AtPac offered to settle the suit for a million dollars, but the county refused, opting instead to spend $1.2 million and counting to fight it. The Board of Supervisors recently voted to pay its previous law firm in the case the balance of a $750,000 (the equivalent salaries of two full-time sheriff's deputies for the next seven years or so) bill it owed up to the time that firm was let go because it really had no federal court experience. Supervisors then agreed to a $500,000 (the equivalent salary of a full-time public defender for the next five years) contract with the new law firm, which apparently has more federal court experience.

As a recovering gambler (my name is Jeff Ackerman and I used to bet football, baseball and … yes … hockey), I wouldn't bet the farm on this one. I have read some of the court records and it appears to me that there is at least some merit to the case, which is probably why it has been allowed to proceed.

In April a federal judge pretty much chastised the county for “scrubbing” or destroying data critical to the case. “The spoliation (destruction), combined with other deceptive discovery practices by defendants (county), indicates that without some sort of sanction, a fair and just resolution of the action will be impossible,” ruled the judge.

Florida-based Aptitude's parent company Lender Processing Services Inc. (LPS) was subpoenaed last week by California Attorney General Kamala Harris in a wide-ranging probe of mortgage and foreclosure practices.

The rest of the article is here.