Klaif Challenges County’s Certification
Mayor Pro Tem surges past
challenger in final count
By Lenny Roberts
It may or may not be over for Ojai attorney Leonard Klaif, whose 10-vote lead over incumbent Ojai City Council member Carol Smith was erased on Friday after all the provisional votes were counted. Provisional votes are hand-counted after absentee ballots are tabulated.
Klaif said Tuesday he wants the county to decertify the results of the 11th-hour comeback by Smith that resulted in his apparent defeat, and demanded a recount at the county’s expense.
“How can they certify something that they don’t know is accurate?” he asked.
Frustrated by not getting telephone responses to his concerns, Klaif sent an e-mail to county and city officials Tuesday afternoon, (see below) which stated, in part, “(1) how did I lose 20 plus votes, and (2) how did Ms. Smith gain 49 votes in one day?
“The residents of Ojai have the right to know that the election results accurately reflect the actual vote. No reasonable person can stand behind the results at this time.”
Mark Lunn, Ventura County clerk and recorder, did not return a phone call placed by the OVN Tuesday, but in a published report Monday, acknowledged that Klaif was questioning the validity of the final count.
According to the State of California, if a voter’s name does not appear on the election roster at his or her polling place location, the person will be required to show proof of current residence in order to receive a provisional ballot. Ballots for such voters are placed in provisional ballot envelopes and researched by election officials. A provisional ballot is not counted unless the elections official establishes from the records in their office the claimants’ right to vote prior to the completion of the official canvass, or by order of the Superior Court in the county of the voter’s residence.
According to numbers posted online Friday by the Ventura County Elections Division, Smith, Ojai’s mayor pro tem, finished behind Paul Blatz and Carlon Strobel, 52 votes ahead of Klaif. The top three vote-getters will be seated alongside Sue Horgan and Betsy Clapp when the Ojai City Council reconvenes Dec. 14. Blatz won a special election in June, defeating Klaif for the position vacated by longtime Councilman Joe Devito. Strobel, former Ojai city clerk, replaces another longtime council member, Steve Olsen, Ojai’s current mayor, who decided not to run in the Nov. 4 election. By law, the county must certify election results with the state by Nov. 30.
Following are the number of votes and the percentage of the total votes for each candidate: Paul Blatz, 1,675, 25.09 percent; Demitri Corbin, 672, 10.07 percent; Leonard Klaif, 1,122, 16.81 percent; Dennis Leary, 557, 8.34 percent; Carol Smith, 1,174, 17.59 percent; Carlon Strobel, 1,445,21.64 percent; write-in votes, 31, 0.46 percent.
Klaif’s Tuesday e-mail to
county and city officials:
Sent: Tuesday, November 23, 2010 2:38 PM
Subject: election 11/2 Ojai City Council
Dear various County of Ventura and City of Ojai officials:
As I assume you all are aware, I am/was a candidate for the Ojai City Council in the November 2, 2010 election.
At this time I know the following:
a) following the posting of the vote on Wednesday, November 17, I was trailing Carol Smith by three votes for third place;
b) the vote totals posted on Friday, November 19, had me trailing Ms. Smith by 52 votes, a swing of 49 votes;
c) That I had 20 something fewer votes on Friday than I had on Wednesday;
d) That prior to last Wednesday to Friday, the usual post election day swing between Ms. Smith and myself was in single digits, with the greatest swing being, I beleive 14 votes.
e) That the election was certified on Friday, November 19th and that notwithstanding the obvious problem outlined above, the results remanded certified.
This presents two rather obvious questions: (1) how did I lose 20 plus votes, and (2) how did Ms. Smith gain 49 votes in one day.
Yesterday, I spoke with a gentleman named Martin in the County elections office. He advised that the election officials were aware that there was something askew and were in a meeting trying to figure out what happened that would explain the numerical questions raised above. He promised that someone would call me back when they had figured this out. When I had not received a call back by mid-morning today, I again called and left a message on Martin’s answering machine. At this time, almost 2:30 on the afternoon of November 23, I still have not received a return call.
Based on the foregoing, I hearby demand that the vote for the Ojai City Council be de-certified. How can you certify a vote when you know it is not accurate, when you know that something is askew and you apparently do not have a clue what when wrong?
The question of certification is critical because it triggers the time frame I (and others) have to ask for a re-count. At this time, I do not know what the vote count really is–how can I decide whether to ask for a re-count? How can I decide, under the circumstances outlined above, whether I want a recount of all the votes, just provisional votes, etc?
I am also asking, in addition for the decertification for the County to pay for a recount. You all obviously made an error, but at this time, three or four days after the error was made, have no idea of the nature of the error. Why should I, or my supporters, have to pay for a re-count when it appears that you have not done your job correctly in the initial count.
Finally, I direct the following to members of the Ojai City Council and Ojai officials: I am advised that there will be a special City Council meeting on November 30th. I am asking that the election be added to the agenda. At some point the City Council will be asked to certify or ratify or approve the election results. How can you do so if County officials are unable to explain such obvious and/or unexplained inaccuracies? I ask that absent a solid explanation from County officials that the City demand that the County conduct a recount at County expense, or in the alternative that the City of Ojai pay for a recount.
The residents of Ojai have the right to know that the election results accurately reflect the actual vote. No reasonable person can stand behind the results at this time.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Leonard Jay Klaif
I guess my vote counted after all.
We best be careful then OjaiGuy, He will end up giving China a 99 year lease for the whole valley and we will all have to move out because their military will force us out.By the way, how did you like their missle they lanched off our coast a few weeks ago?…
I saw Jimmy Carter in town today. He’ll set this thing straight.
Had the county found the error on their own and not certified the erroneous results, we would not be in this mess. It took the citizens raising hell that forced the County to look into the results. Let’s not forget Politics play a part in the counting of our votes too.
The County says they found a “clerical error”. For one precinct in Ojai, they say the vote by mail ballots were put through the counter a second time and they were supposed to zero out the old count in the master data base and replace it with the new count. Instead, they zeroed out and replaced the votes tallied as precinct votes. This in itself brings up the question why they would think the new count was any more valid than what was in the data base. We can only HOPE they were following accepted procedures.
This race is down to six tents of one percent of the total votes cast for Ojai’s City Council. This in itself should trigger a re-count. The sudden win for Smith (Klaif was ahead 7 votes) occurred in the count of “Provisional Votes” where the County admits that people living outside the City were given ballots for the City. The county says they corrected this by creating new ballots for these voters outside the City, but did they?
We should ask our City Clerk, City Council, and County Supervisor Steve Bennett.
1. Are we confident this is an isolated case and has NOT gone undetected in other Ojai counts or precincts?
2. Have we actually verified the explanation for the error?
a. Do we know which precinct it occurred in and verified the change in count provides the new results as reported?
b. Has an independent expert verified that the error is possible and verified the new count? Has the expert reported the severity of this system breakdown and the probability this breakdown and others it could extend beyond this incidence or race, e.g. could a “Clerical Error” cause Camarillo votes be counted as Ojai votes and vice a versa?
3. Has an independent expert verified provisional votes from those outside the city did in fact NOT get counted as City votes?
If the answer to any of these questions are no, it seems a re-count is the must simply way to verify we have had a fair election. Anything less simply is not a democracy.
Yeah…Were these election workers part od SEIU Local 99?
The VC Star reports that County Clerk-Recorder Mark Lunn revised flawed election results for nine races in an amended certification Wednesday, allowing candidates in the contests another five days to seek a recount.
The amendment came less than a week after Lunn certified the results on Nov. 19, then discovered that elections workers had miscounted votes for races in Camarillo and Ojai
http://www.vcstar.com/news/2010/nov/24/county-revises-election-results-candidates-have/?partner=popular
What is most disturbing is that Lunn thought the numbers looked suspicious BEFORE he certified the vote but he took the word of those working UNDER him that it was accurate…
I guess the Fat Lady has sung.
Hey Len,
It’s easy to understand…It’s just a good example of the government we have now, who was it in the Govt that said “We make up the rules as we go…” and the other one that is great is,”We will polevault over the fence”?
Face it we have loss control of our rights especially our right to a fair vote. Look whats going on at the airports, groping childeren? Your a Lawyer Len, it’s this a 4th and 14th ammendment right issue? But it’s forced on us.We need to just roll over and play dead I guess, because no matter what they will tell us that 2+2=6 and we “BETTER” accept it.
“Something is rotten in Ojai”. We need a recount.
Funny how Suza is the mouth peice for the powers to be in Ojai that want to self promote thenselves.AKA their own little kindom.
Len, I didn’t care for you much in the beginning but after hearing you speak and your platform I changed my oppinion of you. Anyways, I wrote a response on the skatepark article and it may show you how alot of us in Ojai are starting to see what some of these people are up to. Thanks again Len
The latest County election results show Carol Smith leading Lenny Klaif by 4 votes, not the 52 votes reported earlier.
No election should be certified when the count has been so mishandled.
Dear All,
Bottom line is that somewhere along the line I was credited with 24 less votes than I had the day before. Today, ten days later, I was given additional votes, and some votes were deducted from Carol smith’s total, with Carol being credited with a total of four votes more than I.
I have yet to be given any sort of explanation of why I had votes taken away or where they found additional votes to add to my total.
If I am given an explanation that makes some sense I am prepared to accept the results. Without such an explanation, how can anyone accept the results?
Len Klaif
Dear humanitarian of the year(s),
Not personal. Click link above and decide for yourself if the count makes sense.
When Sue won the last election fair and square I sincerely congratulated her, as I would any other candidate. I enjoy working with all the city council members and bear no grudges.
We have a responsibility to make sure every vote is counted accurately, no matter what the outcome.
It’s that simple.
Suza, We begining to gather this is something personal for you. Carol or Lenny?
If the above numbers made your head spin, consider just this one single point:
On November 19, after all of the 154 provisional votes were added, Klaif gained only 1 vote.
Smith, on the other hand, gained 60 votes which put her well over the top to win…
Because Klaif received only 1 vote, it seems likely that the loss of votes on Friday night was the result of votes that were supposed to have been tallied BEFORE the provisional votes were to be counted.
This brings up a serious question about the legitimacy of the provisional votes as well as the counting of the votes in general.
The fact that there was a reduction (an actual subtraction) between the votes reported on Wed 17, and the final count reported on Friday, November 19 should have been a red flag for the county elections staff.
The City Clerk race total was reduced by 35 votes. No explanation was given.
Throughout the counting of the vote returns (see link below to view an excel sheet), the City Clerk vote total was more or nearly equal to the total votes shown for City Council divided by three.
If the City Clerk totals went negative on one day, we would expect the votes for all council candidates to do the same, but this did not happen. In fact Carlon Strobel’s votes went up by 13 and Carol Smith went up by 17.
You could make the assumption that most provisional voters simply did not vote for the City Clerk seat, but this is highly unusual since the daily reporting of City Clerk votes ALWAYS exceeded the council votes except once, and then it was within 2 percent of the council votes.
It’s also of interest that those candidates that represent 61.5 percent of the total votes cast for the City Council election before the provisional votes were added, had their votes reduced.
Corbin’s vote total was reduced by 33 and Klaif’s was reduced by 32 (both were very close to the 35 vote reduction for City Clerk), Blatz went down by 21, and Leary went down by 6.
This does not make sense and justifies further investigation.
As we look closer at the race between Klaif and Smith for City Council some other abnormalities are revealed. As of November 11, there were a total of 6,522 votes counted and Klaif was ahead of Smith by 7 votes.
Klaif had received 17.2 percent of the votes cast and Smith received 17.1 percent.
On November 19, after all of the 154 provisional votes were added, Klaif gained only 1 vote.
Smith on the other hand gained 60 votes which put her well over the top to win.
It is highly unusual that Klaif would suddenly drop from his normal 17.2 percent of the total votes to only 0.6 percent of the provisional votes, and equally unusual that Smith would suddenly increase from her normal 17.1 percent of the vote to 39 percent for the provisional votes, 20 points greater than she had ever received in any daily report.
Because Klaif received only received 1 vote, it seems likely the subtraction mentioned above was the result of votes that were supposed to have been tallied BEFORE the provisional votes were to be counted.
There are enough abnormalities that a re-count, at least the provisional, is justified and that an explanation is needed regarding the subtraction of votes. This should be performed at the expense of the County that has been charged with counting our votes.
For a complete analysis of the vote see:
http://www.ojaipost.com/2010/11/ojai-city-council-election-irregularities/
The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks.
Thanks to all the voters who put Carol over the top! Democracy in action!!
Lenny thanks for your post. You are a class act.
The Ventura paper has reported that the County Election people met on Saturday to take a closer look at things, and that they WILL correct the count if there has been an error made in counting.
How could Carol Smith win over Len? Is it possible people vote without thinking?
I spoke with a County election official about an hour ago. He admitted that it appears the count for the Ojai City Council race is off. He said that they hope to have the problem figured out and new results released tomorrow morning.
So, congratulations to Paul and Carlon, and most likely congratulations to Carol, and maybe congratulations to me.
Thanks to everyone who voted, regardless of whom you voted for.
Len Klaif
The citizens of Ojai should demand an answer from the county election clerk Mark Lunn as to how, just before the final votes were certified, there was a sudden drop in Lenny’s votes and an increase to Carol’s. Something smells fishy and WE WANT ANSWERS. If Carol won fair and square, then good for her…she will probably be run out of office in a couple months anyway…but if something got screwed up we have to demand to find out.
If Carol is mayor, then congrats (deleted)
Please turn over a new leaf and don’t make Ojai wish you weren’t elected….put on your happy face! If you govern well, the people will come around and be on your side. A story of triumphant redemption with kindness and good governance!
It is time to unite behind the winners of the city council race and put the past behind us. Negative comments about Ms. Smith are not helpful and look like sour grapes. I wish all of them good luck including Lenny who is great.
This is very disappointing news. Lenny should be there and let’s hope that folks wise up the next time around — if we are lucky enough to have him run again.
Election endorsement by a nonprofit is against the law. Read the ad she ran. 2 local nonprofits are quoted,(witout the “”) when are they going to retract? The IRS penality is pretty stiff. Will she have to recuse herself from all things LIBBY. Read the ad and see if they have a conflict. P.S. The ad was run in this local paper OVN.
It’s time to stop the “My Turn to be Mayor” game. Carol is the least popular of the newly elected Council. The new Mayor should be Paul with the most votes or Betsy Clapp with the most votes from the last election. It’s my turn is wrong, the people have spoken for a change. 3 of the Council members together have less than 3 years expirence.The last 4 plus years of lack of direction from the Council needs to be changed not EXTENDED. “It’s my turn” only allows for the same mistakes to continue.
Pathetic, how do you lose already counted votes?
Feelin’ for ya, Len.
I’m damned near heartbroken that Klaif didn’t win—isn’t the third time supposed to be the charm?—and that’s saying a lot because (1) I don’t even live in “Ojai Proper,” i.e., couldn’t even vote for him if I wanted to; and (2) From what I DO know about Klaif, it’s safe to say we’ve never voted for the same presidential candidate…
Yet I ALSO know “Lenny” to be honest; earnest; intelligent; focused: In short, everything a politician and/or aspiring politician SHOULD be. (And, from what I’ve seen, everything Smith is NOT.)No, I couldn’t vote for Klaif, but don’t think for minute that I’m not affected by who DOES end up on the Council—much like the fluke of geopolitics that separated East and West Berlin; i.e., I DO share a zipcode with Ojai Proper/am subjected to all the same ordinances… with NONE of the “perks.” (Steve Bennett “represents” THIS part of the 93023. Which is to say, this part of the 93023 has no representation/voice/clout AT ALL.) So, yes, I’m a tad sad: Smith is the ANTI-[Supreme Court Justice] Kennedy. One’s a thoughtful, reasoned “wild card,” the other’s a fly-by-the-seat-of-her-Patchouli-scented-pants pol whose only “constituents” are the groovy folk. (Albeit, the valley’s RICHEST groovy folk… I mean, did you see the size of Smith’s ad’s? If you didn’t know better, you’d think George Soros backed her campaign! I do happen to know better, however: Soros was too busy ensuring Boxer’s and other California-destroying pol’s reelections to bother with piddly little Ojai’s City Council campaign.) PLEASE don’t be discouraged from running again, Mr. Klaif; with Bruce Roland’s passing, there is approximately one smart AND honest “challenger” left in these parts!