This is the Daily Press story that lists the "problems" that were evident and challanged in the 2006 election.

Republicans to challenge election results: League of Women Voters, others to join in complaint over polling place irregularities.

Source: Daily Press (Victorville, CA)
Publication Date: 05-DEC-06 Byline: Ryan Orr

Dec. 5--SAN BERNARDINO -- Representatives from the High Desert Republican Headquarters today plan to challenge the entire Nov. 7 election just as the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors is set to certify the results. Poll watcher Bernadette McNulty said she is basing the challenge on polling place irregularities that she says disenfranchised voters. McNulty has been a polling inspector and poll worker for 20 years. She was also a candidate for Apple Valley Town Council. "I started watching at 6 a.m. on Nov. 7 and didn't finish until 4 a.m. on Nov. 8," she said.

McNulty will be joined by residents from Helendale as well as representatives from the California League of Women Voters. The representatives from the GOP headquarters will formally request that the supervisors move the certification from the consent calendar to the discussion calendar for public comment.

"A better thing to do would be to convene the grand jury and have them take testimony from people," said McNulty.

In a press release, High Desert Republican Headquarters officials cited numerous problems with the Nov. 7 election, including: --failure of voting machines --insufficient printers with paper rolls --jamming of paper rolls in printers --insufficient paper ballots and incorrect paper ballots that omitted some candidates and key measures

--ballots from the wrong cities delivered to polling places --inadequately trained and supervised poll workers --the Registrar's failure to send absentee ballots and voter materials to many voters

--delivery of voter materials to voters after the election.

McNulty believes that someone in the Registrar of Voters office grossly underestimated the number of paper back-up rolls needed. She estimates that polling places were short by 50 percent due to the fact that ballots were twice as long as they usually are. The paper rolls are used to make a hard copy back-up record of cast ballots.

Election irregularities at the National Guard armory in Apple Valley were the worst, said McNulty. She said there were ballots delivered there that omitted certain races and others that were from the wrong city all together. She said she went to the Registrar's office to observe the tabulation process and officials there showed her 122 ballots from the armory that were voided because a poll worker had instructed voters to write their names on them.

"I'm in support of investigating the discrepancies that have been noted," said Dan Seagondollar, who also lost in a bid for Apple Valley Town Council.

The problem with claiming that voters were disenfranchised is that they then have to prove that the number of disenfranchised voters are enough to change the outcome of the election.

"That's hard to prove," said McNulty.

"I'm not sure that any of this would change the results of the election," Seagondollar said, "but then again, who knows ?"

Registrar expects all votes to be tabulated by Nov. 30.

Source: Daily Press (Victorville, CA)
Publication Date: 21-NOV-06

Byline: Ryan Orr

Nov. 21--SAN BERNARDINO -- Two weeks after voters went to the polls, 25,000 to 30,000 ballots still haven't been counted, according to San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters Kari Verjil.

What seems to be a lingering delay and vote-counting problems, is actually pretty routine according to the registrar and officials from the Secretary of State's office.

"It's not really that they're having problems," said Amy Thoma, press secretary for Secretary of State Bruce McPherson. "The state gives counties 28 days to certify the election, that period of time is called the canvass."

That means that all counties must have their votes certified and submitted to the secretary of state by Dec. 5.

"We're feeling extremely confident about where we are in the process," said Verjil who expects to have the votes tabulated by Nov. 30.

The remaining ballots are a combination of provisional and absentee ballots. Thoma said each signature on an absentee ballot must be compared with the signature of that voter's registration card.

Verjil said there are about 10,000 provisional ballots that still need to be processed. Those are even more time consuming because many of the voters requested provisional ballots because they were not on the voting roster. The registrar's staff has to find each of those names in the system to confirm they are registered. Verjil also said if voters went a polling place in a city where they don't live, then the registrar has to erase the votes for the races that pertain to that particular city.

"Usually about 90 percent of those are valid," Verjil said of the provisional ballots.

The 2002 general election had 294,361 voters and it took 20 days to certify the votes. The 2006 presidential general election which had a 79 percent increase in voter turnout from 2002 took 27 days to certify. The ROV Web site was last updated at 5:18 p.m. Monday and the total turnout was 323,379, not counting those left to be counted.

"I'm excited about how smoothly the election ran, the turnout was much higher than the June election," Verjil said.