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Court of Appeal:
Ballots-by-Mail May Be Scanned Before Election Day
Third District Rejects Candidate’s Contention That Los Angeles County’s System Violates Elections Code
By a MetNews Staff Writer
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RAJI RAB candidate |
The Third District Court of Appeal on Friday held that in 2020, the Office of Los Angeles County Registrar Recorder did just what a statute authorizes by proceeding, 10 days before the March 3 primary election, to scan mailed ballots into the computer system, rejecting a defeated congressional candidate’s claim that the office breached the statute by beginning to count ballots before the polls had closed.
Raji Rab—who came in fourth in a field of five candidates for the seat held by Rep. Brad Sherman, and recaptured by him in a November runoff—contended that there was a violation of Elections Code §15101(b). Although that section allows election officials, in localities having the necessary computer equipment, to begin processing “mail ballots on the 10th business day before the election,” include the “machine reading” of ballots, it specifies that “under no circumstances may a vote count be accessed or released until 8 p.m. on the day of the election.”
Rab argued that the Registrar-Recorder’s Office violated that prohibition because the county’s system, in scanning the ballots, converts them into images which are instantly decoded into cast vote records (“CVRs”) and accessed by Smartmatic Tally.
Writ Proceeding
A writ proceeding was instituted in Sacramento Superior Court by the candidate against then-Secretary of State Alex Padilla (with incumbent Shirley N. Weber now substituted). Judge Laurie M. Earl rejected Rab’s theory, saying:
“The Court interprets ‘machine reading’ to include, and thus to permit, scanning ballots. To leave no room for confusion in the future, the Court reiterates: Elections Code section 15101(b) allows the County to start scanning ballots on the 10th business day before the election.”
Earl said that even if the county does “tabulate ballots as soon as they are scanned, the Court is not convinced this would violate section 15101(b), as long as the results were not accessed or released prior to the close of the polls on Election Day.”
Rab’s Brief
Rab insisted in his appellate brief:
“Whether by a person or by a computer, Election Code § 15101(b) strictly prohibits access to CVRs under any circumstances until 8 pm on the day of the election.”
He argued:
In Election Code § 15101(b) there is no mention of the term ‘scanning’. No one should be allowed to ADD OR FIT any term that is not specifically stated in the election code, otherwise we will be destroyed by the corrupt and clever manipulators.”
Hull’s Opinion
Justice Harry E. Hull Jr. authored Friday’s opinion affirming Earl’s judgment. He wrote: “Rab suggests that by interpreting Elections Code section 15101, subdivision (b), to allow ballots to be scanned prior to election night, the trial court improperly inserted qualifying provisions into the statute. We disagree.
“In interpreting ‘processing’ as defined to include scanning, the trial court was simply applying a ‘plain and commonsense meaning’ to the term ‘machine reading,’ particularly as that term is read ‘in the context of the entire statute,’ which provides authority and instructions for the processing of ballots by counties that have the ‘computer capability’ to process ballots in an election….An argument that Elections Code section 15101, subdivision (b), did not plainly authorize counties with computer capabilities to scan vote by mail ballots 10 business days before the election cannot be sustained.”
The opinion does not set forth why the court has opted to decide the issue despite mootness.
The case is Rab v. Weber, 2023 S.O.S. 1743.
Repeat Candidate
Rab is currently a candidate in the 2024 primary for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Sen. Dianne Feinstein. He also faulted vote-counting machines when he ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2018 and for the Los Angeles City Council in 2019.
In 2022, he again ran for Congress, in the district represented by Sherman, coming in sixth in a field of seven contenders. He came in fourth in a field of seven candidates in a contest for Sherman’s seat in 2016 and third out of four candidates in 2018.
In 2020 and 2022, he ran as an “Aviator/Educator/Entrepreneur.”
Copyright 2023, Metropolitan News Company