Jones campaign mulls lawsuit as 2nd District recount starts 

Update: On Dec. 29, requester Darcia Stebbens asked county officials to halt the recount of the 2nd District supervisor election.

More than two weeks after a recount was filed in the razor-thin Nov. 8 contest for 2nd District county supervisor, San Luis Obispo County workers began to manually retally the election's 23,400-plus votes on Dec. 28.

But losing candidate Bruce Jones' campaign said it's less concerned about the actual recount now and more focused on potentially challenging incumbent Bruce Gibson's 13-vote victory in court.

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• Photo By Peter Johnson
• RECOUNT IN PROGRESS San Luis Obispo County Clerk-Recorder Elaina Cano explains the process of a manual recount to observers and candidate representatives on Dec. 28.

"The recount we don't think is going to change [the outcome]," said Erik Gorham, a spokesperson for the Jones campaign. "We're not saying the machines are crooked—we think it will be identical. ... If it's going to change, it's going to change in the relevant materials."

What Gorham is referring to is the 12-bullet point list of requests for "relevant election materials" that recount filer Darcia Stebbens asked Clerk-Recorder Elaina Cano to compile and produce for her review prior to the recount.

For the past several days, Stebbens and Cano have been discussing and negotiating that list and ran into several disagreements in the process, according to both parties. Her requests demand access to various types of 2nd District ballots, as well as voter rosters, chain of custody information, names of precinct workers, and more.

According to a breakdown of the relevant materials that Cano provided to New Times, Stebbens was allowed to review most of what she asked for, but not everything. Those determinations were based on the relevancy of each request to the recount, Cano said.

Although Gorham said he believes Cano is "slow rolling" the production of some materials—which the sides are still at odds over—he asserted that the Jones camp has identified roughly 20 ballots potentially worth litigating. He described them as "disenfranchised" voters who, for instance, went to the wrong precinct to vote and ended up in a location outside of the 2nd District.

"A lot of these were rural people. They went to xyz church that used to be their precinct. ... Almost all of them were conservatives," he said. "We could win there. We're looking at things like that."

Stebbens and Richard Patten—two local election skeptics—have been examining the materials, taking notes, and providing daily updates to the Jones camp, Gorham said. The groups are also working with prominent Republican Party election lawyer Charles Bell. Gorham said that the Jones campaign is helping fundraise for the estimated $80,262 recount.

On Dec. 28, after days of discussions and ballot sorting, Cano kicked off the manual recount in a conference room inside the SLO County Government Center. With about a dozen candidate representatives and observers watching and 16 people on four recount boards seated at tables, Cano described the recount procedures and ground rules.

Cano explained that the recount boards are made up of county poll workers, members of the county grand jury, and members of the SLO County League of Women Voters. Only candidates or candidate representatives would be allowed to challenge ballots as they are counted.

"Frivolous or mass challenges are disruptive and unnecessarily prolong the recount," Cano instructed.

As she spoke, Stebbens stood in the back of the room taking notes, flanked by Patten. Jones was present, but Gibson was not. Gibson later told New Times by phone that he does not see a reason to attend the recount proceedings.

"I've got a job to do," said Gibson, who noted that he already took the oath of office for his fifth term. "Our volunteers are awesome and engaged and when the campaign put out a call to come, please, be observers and participate in this, we got a great response."

When asked about the Jones campaign's focus on examining election materials and the potential for litigation, Gibson deferred to a recent post made on Facebook by his campaign strategist, Tom Fulks.

In his post, Fulks wrote: "After sitting in on the District 2 supervisor election recount process taking place now, it seems evident—to me anyway—the SLO County GOP doesn't really care about the final vote totals. Sure, they'd like to win this seat to preserve their 3-2 majority on the Board of Supervisors. But this 'recount' reeks of performance art, a public drama focused more on tearing down local government and democracy than on one supervisor's election."

Gibson called Fulks' words "spot on" and added that he's not worried that a legal challenge would threaten his narrow victory.

"They are going to have a bit of an awakening if they try to take this to court. The court is going to demand evidence, and they don't have it," Gibson said.

But Gorham countered that if the Jones campaign does decide to move forward with a lawsuit, it will be because Jones believes the claims are legitimate and that a challenge has a real shot at succeeding.

"If there's no path forward, the campaign will step away," Gorham said. "My gut feeling on this is if there's a path forward, we'll know it in a week or two and start pursuing it immediately." Δ