Third Day of Recount Going on Fourth Day at ROV

The final tally from the manual recount for SJC Council in D8  is 17,230 votes for Sylvia Arenas and 17,162 for Jimmy Nguyen, a 68 votes difference.   This is the third day of the voter-initiated recount and  Jimmy is challenging 118 VBM ballots and is looking at duplicate ballots.   He is paying about $1,600 a day for a limited recount since he did not have the funding to go full out.  

The rule of the recount is that it has to be consecutive and if there is a break in the process, the recount is considered to be over.

Sylvia Arenas Sworn In as Councilmember of D8

In a calculated move,  Sylvia Arenas was quietly sworn in over the weekend as the new Councilmember of SJC D8.   Typically, the newly-elected officials are sworn in early January with all the pomps and circumstances and not on the weekend in December just before Christmas where the city offices are basically shutting down.

However, with the voter-initiated recount started this week and anything could happen at the ROV with their unimpressive records of missing ballots and accusation of possible fraud, Jimmy Nguyen with his lawyer and consultants might have a chance to overturn this election or at least will try to.

Arenas is just hedging the bet and tries to make it difficult for any judge or jury to overturn an election against a  presiding elected official.

There are a number of VBM ballots that the ROV has rejected due to no matching signature.   A lot of them are from Vietnamese-American voters so Jimmy is focusing his earliest effort on these.  The second focus is the duplicate ballots to ensure that they are the same as orginals.

Jimmy Nguyen is planning to challenge hundreds if not thousands of ballots.   His strategy is to  find many mistakes as possible.   His objective is two folds - to overtake Arenas if possible and if not, to have a strong case for a lawsuit.

ROV To Release D4 Ballots for Forensic

Three weeks ago, the judge presiding on the lawsuit of the ballot recount of  SJC Council D4 race had asked the ROV to release the requested batch of ballots.   Tomorrow is the deadline for the ROV to submit the ballots to an independent forensic lab  to test for possible fraud at the request of Manh Nguyen.

If the result concluded that there is evidence of fraud, the county counsel will likely nullify the election result.  

One of the  contentions of the lawsuit is that there might be a ballot (s) where the original has different markings with different ink.  The difference is striking enough so that it can easily be seen as if there are two people marking the ballot.    If forensic can prove that the ink used to mark the ballot is the same ink that is being used to initial  and mark the duplicate, Manh Nguyen will have a case of fraud.  

But this is only one of many strategies that Manh Nguyen is aiming for.   He will also contest the fact that there are still hundreds of missing ballots that are unaccounted for and in a race where there is only 12 votes difference, Lan Diep's victory should not be declared by the ROV.  

Stay tune for the a legal fight that will drag out well into the summer.