Donna Frye “Count The Vote” Vigil; Petition to “Count the Votes”

Friday, November 12, 2004, 12:15 —by Joe Crawford
This item was posted in San Diego Events, San Diego Politics category and has 9 Comments so far.

Today only:

Please join us, community leaders and civic organizations at the San Diego County Registrar of Voters (5201 Ruffin Road, Suite I San Diego, CA 92123) for a “Count All the Votes” Vigil on Thursday, November 11 and Friday, November 12 from 4pm to 6pm.

We need to let the Registrar of Voters know that we honor their dedication to the democratic process and support their efforts to count all the votes cast on November 2, 2004. We will be collecting affidavits from voters asking that our political leaders ensure that democracy prevails and that all of our votes are counted.

Many thanks and we look forward to seeing you at the vigil.

Keep the faith and the aloha spirit,

Donna Frye for Mayor Campaign
www.DonnaFryeForMayor.com

Registrar of Voters
5201 Ruffin Road, Suite I
San Diego, CA 92123

On Tuesday I attended her rally downtown, pretty good turnout for a legally challenged underdog mayoral candidate. A lot of excitement in the air. Democracy is rad.

Update: There’s an Online petition here to count the vote and fight these johnny-come-lately lawsuits.

You don’t wait until after the game to challenge the rules of the game. If people had objections to write-in candidates, they should have filed their lawsuits BEFORE the fact, not after the fact.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Voice Your Opinions. Join Today.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

9 Responses to “Donna Frye “Count The Vote” Vigil; Petition to “Count the Votes””

  1. Reza said on Friday, November 12, 2004, 13:44

    It was the responsibility of the City Clerk and City Attorney to bring an objection to her candidacy if it was indeed illegal.

  2. SMASH said on Friday, November 12, 2004, 14:28

    Joe,

    I didn’t vote for Donna, but I don’t support the lawsuit to stop the count.

    I am concerned, however, that our two-stage election system, which was designed to produce a winner with a clear majority, is broken. When all the votes are counted, regardless of who comes out on top, that person will only have the approval of 35 percent of San Diego voters. And that’s just not how it’s supposed to work.

    The fact is, there’s just no room for a write-in candidate in a run-off election. But that’s exactly what happened in this case: Murphy and Roberts got the most vote in the first round, so they should have been the only candidates on the ballot in the second round election.

    At this point, I believe the most practical course of action would be to finish the vote count, and declare whoever gets a plurality to be the winner. Once the process is complete, however, we need to fix this system for the next time. Either we’re going to have partisan primaries, where each party choses one candidate for the general election, or we should make it absolutley clear that write-ins are not allowed in the second round of voting.

    I’m disappointed that whomever ends up the winner won’t have earned the support of a majority of the voters. Like I said before, it’s not supposed to work this way.

    Our election system is a mess. Let’s clean it up.

  3. Pierre CARION said on Friday, November 12, 2004, 21:46

    As a french guy living in San Diego, I must say that I’m a little bit confused/amazed by this election.
    I must also confess that I don’t understand very well the overall mechanism of the elections in the US.
    In the previous comment, SMASH seems to imply that this election was a “run-off” ando so, the “write-in” candidate should not be allowed. Did I miss something here ?

  4. oso said on Saturday, November 13, 2004, 13:45

    Reza and Smash, I agree with you both. At this point, the winner of the plurality needs to confirmed as mayor and we should give him/her our support.

    Smash, I also agree that we need some serious electoral reform and clarification. Have you heard of Instant Runoff Voting? I think it’s time this was proposed here in San Diego. (City Beat, in fact, already did)

    Pierre, I think Smash called it a run off because there were originally only two candidates and perhaps also because they were both in the same party. Very cool to see a French blog about San Diego.

  5. SBuhk said on Sunday, November 14, 2004, 12:10

    I support Donna Frye and strongly support Instant Runoff voting for all elections, Instant Runoff Voting
    website    . I agree that the City Charter and the municipal code conflict but keep in mind they are that way due to several supreme court rulings and it appears someone forgot to modify the charter or the municipal code. If Donna Frye got 33% of the vote and Ron Roberts or Dick Murphy got the 35% we would not be having this discussion.
    We voted, count them. Fix the City Charter or Municipal code for next election.

  6. MAS said on Sunday, November 14, 2004, 14:32

    Looks like someone bought the domain “recallDonnaFrye.com”, but the WhoIs isn’t saying who owns it.

  7. Jeff Agnew said on Tuesday, November 16, 2004, 16:01

    I agree that the challenges should have been filed before the election. And I disagreed with the effort to stop the counting of the votes (http://leftcoastlaw.net/2004/11/new-runoff-election-between-murphy-and.html). But I don’t see this issue in partisan terms between the candidates. As far as I’m concerned, even though it’s not Donna Frye’s fault, it’s a travesty that the City Charter is being ignored. If someone was challenging a violation of free speech rights would you want the First Amendment ignored?

  8. El Oso, El Moreno, and El Abogado said on Wednesday, November 17, 2004, 17:51

    Peppermint Tea Notes
    I wish that Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi would publish her novel on the internet. It would do wonders for the credibility of online publishing and if she is really only concerned about communicating ideas and not making money, publishi…

  9. Joe Guirate said on Monday, November 22, 2004, 18:05

    When you write a check it what you put in long hand that is the amount withdrawn from your checking account not the numbers on the upper right hand side I think that cab apply to your vote counting program the best Joe

Leave a Reply