Two weeks after the results of the May 12’s District 3 City Council election were finalized, a candidate-requested recount of the ballots not only confirmed the initial result, but solidified it. Two votes were added to Christian Anthony Horvath’s winning total, one to Candace Allen Nafissi, making the final count 1,424 votes to 1,411.
Nafissi subsequently announced she will file a lawsuit, claiming that the process and plans for the All-Mail-In Special Runoff Election, set by Redondo Beach City Clerk Eleanor Manzano, were “grossly flawed,” according to Nafissi representative Stevan Colin.
“If you asked me in one word to describe this election and the election process: disaster,” Colin said. “Never again in Redondo Beach should one be subject to this.”
The problem begins with the envelopes that accompany mail-in ballots, Nafissi said.
“There are 37 votes that the County [Registrar] has as being cast, and those envelopes cannot be found. There were eight people looking for them on Monday and four people on Tuesday, and they couldn’t find them,” Nafissi said of the two-day period over which the recount was held. “I have serious concerns. There are a tremendous amount of inadequacies in the system, and a lot of concerns in the processes that [she] took.”
“Ballots are not cast with the County,” Manzano said. “I know Nafissi asked for certain names to be searched for. If those names were not found, we did not receive the ballot — or those people did not vote.”
“I have never before seen a recount of an all mail-In election that proves that all mail-In elections should be banned in the State of California. This election was a disaster from beginning to end,” Colin said. “This was a system subject to gross manipulation and we saw in the neighborhoods, specifically around the precinct around Jefferson Elementary School.”
Colin referred to what he called an “above-average increase in the number of voters” from the area relative to those that voted in previous elections. He cited Havemeyer Lane, Carlson Lane, Spreckles Lane and Morgan Lane specifically. “People on those four streets, with no history of voting, are all of a sudden jumping out of airplanes to get to the polling places to drop off their ballots.”
Now, Colin said, Nafissi will be moving this to the court. Nafissi has 30 days to file a challenge, beginning from the day the election was certified. “It’s going to be up to a judge to review the whole process that was in place and to make a determination as to whether the process was flawed,” Colin said.
Manzano disputes the accusations of irregularity, saying that the procedures that the city uses are the same for every election, and that they are uniform with elections across the state of California according to recommendations from election consultants, Martin & Chapman Co.
“We have a procedure manual from our consultants that is used to ensure that that the voter envelopes are all the same. Those are spelled out in election code, what an envelope has to look like, what detail information is on there,” Manzano said.
The May 12 election was unusual in one circumstance, as 209 more votes were submitted for this race than in the March 3 General Election’s City Council race, 2,835 to 2,626. The traditional thinking, as demonstrated in the 2013 Mayoral runoff election between Steve Aspel and Matt Kilroy, is that voter turnout drops in runoffs.
“There are too many irregularities happening in a District 3 election,” Colin said. “This is a typical, normal district. It’s very sleepy, and all of a sudden it’s like a giant that woke up from a deep slumber.”
The recount was held at City Council chambers, beginning at 10 a.m. Monday. Poll workers recounted each ballot individually, by hand. The count showed that three ballots were not counted due to a mechanical error in the vote tabulation machines. A second session, consisting of envelope inspections, occurred on Tuesday, June 2.
“Ensuring that residents feel comfortable about the election process” was the point of the recount, according to a statement released by Nafissi.
“I’m confidant in the accuracy of the counting, but the recount has revealed numerous inadequacies in the process that everyone should be concerned about,” she said. “Nothing about our democratic process is more important than than the accuracy and completeness of our elections. These things are only brought to light by losing candidates in close elections.”
Nafissi elaborated in an interview, saying that a further examination of ballots and envelopes on the following day was intended to ensure that the City Clerk “was consistent,” and that the election process was “fair.”
At each step in the process, Manzano cited state election code for her decision making, as well as recommendations from Martin & Chapman.
“I’m not sure where she’s coming up with those comments,” Manzano said. “We’ve done 12 elections, three of them vote-by-mail, and it’s been the same process every time. Any updates to our procedures come from our consultants, and our consultants procedures are based on the election code. It’s been very fair and the integrity has been very high. Every ballot that has come in, based on the election code, has been counted.”
Nafissi paid $3,300 for the first day of the recount, and $1,500 for the second day.
Horvath was not in attendance for the recount, as he was studying the City Council agenda packet for his first meeting as a councilman, on June 2. He did, however, have representatives at the count including his wife, Michelle Charfen; political consultant Larry Fox; and former District 4 City Council candidate Julian Stern.
“I feel very confident in the work that the Clerk did, and even more so after coming today and seeing the checks and balances, and I feel very confident in the election results,” Charfen said.
“It feels unfortunate that there’s a distrust of the Clerk,” Horvath said, stating that he “trusts the process, whether or not it went our way.”
“I told Candace that I thought it was prudent to do a recount, and had it been that close, I’m sure we would’ve done a recount too…There’s always room for added transparency.”
There was a small fracas early in the proceedings Monday morning, when a man identifying himself as a lawyer “representing an interested third party” attempted to cross the bar to examine the proceedings, according to Manzano. That led to an appearance by City Attorney Michael Webb, who determined after discussion that if the lawyer would not provide identification as to who he represented, he would have to stand with other observers in attendance.
When asked, the man didn’t provide any indication of his identity, saying that he was there “as an independent observer.”
The lawyer was later identified as George Yin, an attorney specializing in election law with Kaufman Legal Group. Yin later replied “no comment” when asked who he represented.
Nafissi says that she believes Yin was hired by the Redondo Beach Chamber of Commerce, endorsed Horvath. In April, Easy Reader reported that the Chamber’s Political Action Committee spent $25,883 in support of Horvath’s campaign.
Both Marna Smeltzer, CEO of the Chamber, and Michael Jackson, Chairman of the Chamber’s Board of Directors and head of the Chamber PAC, said that the Chamber did not hire an election attorney for the runoff.
“I feel very confident in the next steps I’m going to make, I’ve always had the voters in mind when I make choices,” Nafissi said. “It’s going to be a long road, but it’s pretty easy to see these improprieties.”
