Recount Says Berkeley's Measure R Did Lose, Legal Action Pending

Measure R Loses Recount By J. DOUGLAS ALLEN-TAYLOR
The recount of Berkeley's Measure R has left the medical marijuana
initiative 166 votes short of victory, and supporters still
dissatisfied with the count hoping that legal action would overturn
the outcome.

Measure R spokesperson Debbie Goldsberry said that the recount
uncovered hundreds of Berkeley voters whose votes were not counted
because of improperly filled-out provisional ballot forms, and a
thousand UC Berkeley students whose votes were not counted because
their names could not be found in the Alameda County Registrar of
Voters registration database.

The measure sought to end limits on the number of plants allowed to
medical marijuana users and would have allowed Berkeley's three
medical marijuana institutions to move anywhere within the city's
commercial zone.

"I'm convinced that if we had properly counted all of the actual
votes in Berkeley, Measure R would have won," Goldsberry said. "But
the decision of the registrar's office is final."

Alameda County Assistant Registrar of Voters Elaine Ginnold said
that while there were small discrepancies in the Measure R count
"they had no material impact on the results of the election."

Ginnold said that one of those discrepancies was 20 fewer ballots
than the number of voters who signed in on election day at the Side B
precinct station at the Northbrae Community Church on The Alameda in
Berkeley. Despite a search by registrar's office workers during the
recounts, those ballots were never recovered. In addition, the voter
count and actual ballots were off "by one or two votes" in a number
of other Berkeley precincts. "But there will always be that type of
discrepancy in any election," Ginnold said.

The vote count discrepancies Ginnold referred to were a different
issue from the uncounted votes referenced by Goldsberry.

Goldsberry said that in the case of the thousand UC Berkeley student
voters not found in the database, "the students' names may have been
there, but the workers just may not have been able to find them
because of the way in which they were listed and the way the workers
were searching." Goldsberry said the uncounted votes involved
students who lived in UC dormitories.

She said that the largest number of improperly filled-out
provisional ballot envelopes came from two Berkeley precincts. "We
suspect that workers in those precincts were not giving proper
instruction as to how to fill out the envelopes," Goldsberry said.
"That's something which is just going to have to be looked out for
and corrected in future elections."

The battleground for Measure R now shifts from the counting room to
the courts, where Berkeley-based Americans For Safe Access have filed
a state lawsuit contesting the election. That lawsuit involves
ballots cast by computer in the Nov. 2 election.

Goldsberry said that many of the uncounted paper ballot votes were
discovered after the filing of the lawsuit early last week, and so
will not be at issue in the legal proceedings. "We're just going to
have to suck that up."