MADERA COUNTY – The election which seems it will never end between Lucy Salazar and Steve Duncan for the Madera Unified School District Area 5 Trustee position will have to wait a few more months for a winner to be decided.
This morning Madera County Clerk Rebecca Martinez along with Attorney Michael Linden of the Madera County Counsel’s Office (Lozano Smith) went to court in order to extend the deadline for certification of the November 6th election from December 6th 2018 to June 6th, 2019. The matter was heard before the Honorable Judge James Oakley in Department 45 of the Madera County Superior Court.
While Oakley granted the initial request for the deadline extension, Madera Unified’s Attorney Kevin Dale complicated the matter by saying that the district did not have standing in this case to call for a special election unless the courts nullified the results of the November election.
According to Dale the California Education Code gives clear parameters for replacing a trustee that vacates his position but that since there has been an elections this is no longer a vacated seat. Dale is also concerned that if the school district did call for special elections that the district might open itself up to litigation from either of the two candidates involved in this race.
For Dale the solution to this matter is for Madera County to go back to the courts and say that since they are unable to certify the election because of the errored ballots, the court needs to set aside the previous vote and set the parameters for the special election. Further, until the courts rule the Area 5 trustee seat vacant, the school district cannot by California Education Code make the call to request a special election.
He believes that Mr. Duncan and Mrs. Salazar should be involved in the hearing of setting aside the results of the November election. “They should be heard in this matter too.” Dale added.
Dale also cited the cost of a special election as one factor to be considered. But according to County Clerk Martinez the entire cost of resolving this issue is being paid for by ProVote Solutions of Porterville, CA (the company responsible for the misprinted ballots which caused the confusion to begin with).
As BVN reported on November 16th, 2018, the Madera County Election Department discovered a mistake was made by the County’s contracted ballot printer. Approximately 400 voters in the Madera area were sent ballots that included an extra local contest. In other words certain races were included on voter ballots where the voter did not live in the area for that particular race.
After receiving a call from a concerned voter the Friday before Election Day, the Elections Department immediately notified the ballot printer and officials began looking into the issue. The contracted ballot printer, ProVote Solutions of Porterville, CA confirmed that they were able to identify both the mistake and the remedy to prevent it from happening again.
The Elections Department conducted extensive research while carefully maintaining the integrity of the process and was able to determine the complete number of ballots affected. Once the research was complete they began notifying affected candidates. In all but one contest the issue did not impact the outcome of the election based on the election results so far.
Of those 183 counted incorrect ballots, 85 of them were in the Madera Unified School District Trustee Area 5 race between Lucy Salazar and Steve Duncan. On election night that race was within one percent. But since that night, the difference has expanded to Mrs. Salazar being ahead but never exceeding the 85 misprinted ballots. Because of the number of errored ballots, and the small margin between the two candidates, Ms. Martinez does not feel she can certify the election at this time and feels the only remedy in this case is to conduct another election with the correct ballots.
According to Deputy Madera County Counsel Michael Linden (Lozano Smith), in order for a new election to be conducted, the Madera Unified School District would need to make a request to the county clerk’s office. Yesterday, before the Thursday morning hearing, MUSD board president Ed McIntyre said the board will meet on December 11th to vote on a resolution on this matter, however with Dale’s assertion that the district has no standing to make such a request who knows what the next step will be?
The MUSD Area 5 Trustee position has been vacant since the resignation of Al Galvez on July 26, 2018. Because of the short time to the regularly scheduled board election MUSD could not appoint a replacement. With the delays in the certification, it is not known at this time when a replacement will fill the Area 5 seat on the board. But two things are certain. First, the replacement will not be designated as soon as next month. Second, unless two taxpayer funded government attorney’s can come together for a solution very soon, there may not even be a special election on March 5th, 2018 to finally put an end to this election.
