California Passes Law to Mandate “Certified Voting System” After Shasta CO Goes to Hand-Counted Paper Ballots – Shasta Supervisor Kevin Crye Facing Recall

In January 2023, as reported by The Gateway Pundit, Shasta County, CA courageously voted to end their contract with Dominion Voting Systems during a tense meeting of the county supervisors.  Supervisor Patrick Jones led the charge to end the contract while Supervisors Chris Kelstrom and Kevin Crye joined him in the 3-2 vote to terminate.

The then-acting county CEO, Patrick Minturn said it would cost the county at least $1 million to bring in new electronic voting systems and train employees.  So Shasta County supervisors instead voted not to bring in any voting machine and instead resort to hand-marked, hand-counted paper ballots.  This apparently struck a nerve with some locals and the State Assembly.

Since the vote for a hand-marked, hand-counted paper ballot, Shasta Co Supervisor Kevin Crye has faced a recall petition that had received almost 5,000 signatures of the required 4,151 to qualify the recall as of September 12th.  The recall vote is likely to appear on the March 2024 ballot in Shasta County.  You can support Supervisor Kevin Crye and read up on his uphill battle here.  The election aspect of this podcast begins around 29:45:

California Assembly Usurps Local Control Over Elections

Just a few weeks after Shasta County voted to cancel their contract with Dominion Voting Systems, which did not require a reason but did require 30-days notice, California Assemblymen Gail Pellerin, the Chair of the Elections Committee, introduced AB 969.  The bill sought to essentially ensure all jurisdictions use a certified voting system and abandon “manual vote counts”.  On September 8th, 2023, the bill was adopted and immediately implemented due to its “urgency”.

From AB 969:

“Existing law specifies procedures for manual vote counts for a semifinal official canvass in a precinct…after the polls have closed, commencing a public count of the ballots cast, unopened, to ascertain whether the number of ballots corresponds with the number of signatures on the roster. These manual vote count procedures apply to all elections in which ballots are counted by hand.

This bill would prohibit an elections official from performing a manual vote count in a semifinal official canvass pursuant to the above procedures in any contest held on an established election date, as specified, where there are more than 1,000 registered voters eligible to participate in that election as of 154 days in advance of the election, or in any contest held on a date other than an established election date, where there are more than 5,000 registered voters eligible to participate in that election as of 154 days in advance of the election…”

AB 969 also added Section 19207.5 to the Elections Code.  19207.5 reads:

19207.5. (a) An elections official or the governing body of any jurisdiction that administers elections shall use a voting machine, as defined in Section 361, or a voting system, as defined in Section 362, that has been certified pursuant to this division, to do all of the following:

        (1) Provide sufficient numbers of voting machines or voting systems for accessibility pursuant to Section 19242 and the Help America Vote                 Act of 2002

        (2) Tabulate votes.