Election integrity

RAY LUTZ OPTS NOT TO RUN FOR CONGRESS IN 53RD DISTRICT; WILL LEAD DEVELOPMENT OF BALLOT IMAGE AUDITING PLATFORM, AUDITENGINE.ORG

By Miriam Raftery

November 4, 2019 (El Cajon) – Ray Lutz announced today that he will not run for the 53rd Congressional district seat being vacated by the retirement of Susan Davis, after earlier forming an exploratory committee for the race. Lutz, an engineer and founder of the Citizens Oversight watchdog group based in El Cajon, previously challenged Duncan Hunter in the 52nd Congressional district before redistricting shifted his residence into the 53rd.

Lutz has long been an activist on election integrity issues, including training the public to provide oversight of election audits. Now Lutz says he intends to focus on developing an auditing service to be available by the 2020 elections. It will allow election officials, candidates, and oversight groups to conduct a thorough and independent review of any election that uses paper ballots and equipment that creates ballot images.


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HEAR OUR INTERVIEW: RAY LUTZ, CITIZENS OVERSIGHT FOUNDER, SPEAKS OUT ON BILL AMENDMENT THAT WOULD NEGATE HIS COURT WIN AGAINST SAN DIEGO’S REGISTRAR OF VOTERS

 

By Miriam Raftery

September 10, 2017 (San Diego) – After Citizens Oversight sued San Diego’s Registrar of Voters, a judge ruled that in future elections, the 1% manual tally must include mail-in ballots dropped at the polls or received days after the election, as well as valid provisional ballots.  But now a last-minute amendment slipped into Assembly Bill 840 by an organization of election officials  would eliminate that requirement statewide – a move Lutz says puts election integrity at risk and could allow tampering with certain ballots to occur undetected.

Listen to our interview, originally aired on KNSJ 89.1 FM Radio, by clicking the audio link amd scroll down for highights. Also hear about a major difference in votes cast late vs. early – and why Lutz believes if all the local ballots had been examined, it may have changed the outcome in the Democratic presidential primary.

Audio: 


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VOTER's WATCHDOG: CITIZENS OVERSIGHT FILES OPPOSITION TO AB-840, SAYS AMENDMENTS WOULD GUT ELECTION AUDITS IN CA

 

Watchdog group that won lawsuit says last-minute amendment inserted by election officials would allow 40 to 70 percent of ballots to be omitted from audits

By Miriam Raftery

September 1, 2017 (San Diego) --- Citizens' Oversight, a nonpartisan group that focuses on election integrity, announced today that it has filed written comments in opposition to CA AB-840, a bill which will make drastic changes to the one-percent manual tally of elections, which would omit 40% or more ballots from the scrutiny of this important audit process. Local Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez-Fletcher (D-San Diego) is a coauthor of the bill.

ECM asked Vu late Thursday for comments. Vu replied via email, “The amendment came through and is sponsored by the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials (CACEO) and is supported by the Secretary of State and the County."


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CONGRESSWOMAN SUSAN DAVIS COSPONSORS THE VOTER EMPOWERMENT ACT

 
May 29, 2012 (Washington, D.C.) --  More than 3 million Americans had difficulty voting in the 2008 election for a number of reasons. To improve our voting system, Congresswoman Susan Davis (D-San Diego) joined her Democratic colleagues to introduce the Voter Empowerment Act to protect the right of Americans to choose their government.
 
The Voter Empowerment Act includes language from two Davis bills – the Universal Vote by Mail Act, which would eliminate barriers to voting by absentee ballot and the Election Integrity Act, which would prohibit top elections officials from participating in the political campaigns whose results they oversee.

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WILL YOUR VOTE BE COUNTED? PANEL ON MIDTERM ELECTION ISSUES JUNE 30

 

Since it is easier to rig an electronic voting system than it is to rig a Las Vegas slot machine, citizens are rightly concerned about who is counting the ballots and how we can be sure that the real winners are sworn in.” --Linda Poniktera, executive director, Psephos

 

By Miriam Raftery

 


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Support community news in the public interest! As nonprofit news, we rely on donations from the public to fund our reporting -- not special interests. Please donate to sustain East County Magazine's local reporting and/or wildfire alerts at https://www.eastcountymedia.org/donate to help us keep people safe and informed across our region.