From Sausalito to the White House, the election process worked
The final outcome for a seat on Sausalito’s city council being determined by just two votes after a full recount is one part of a bigger story.
The background is after votes were initially counted, incumbent Sausalito council member Joan Cox was losing by a single vote to newcomer Ian Sobieski.
Sobieski had 1,877 votes while Cox trailed with 1,876. She did what any candidate does in a similar situation. Cox asked Marin’s Registrar of Voters for a recount.
Election attorneys specializing in recounts indicate if the difference between winning and losing is 10 or 15 votes, the outcome can change after a manual recount. That’s because small scale mistakes are inevitable. Any margin larger than 15 votes is generally hopeless and a recount futile. Donald Trump proved that truism in Georgia.
When the manual count of 5,453 Sausalito votes was finished, it was discovered Sobieski lost one vote resulting in a final total of 1,876. Cox lost two votes, finishing with 1,874. Cox, a gracious loser, says the recount was fair and congratulates Sobieski.
Recounts aren’t cheap. Cox personally paid a little over $10,000 for the task. In the future it would be appropriate for the county to absorb a recount’s cost in races where the margin of victory is 10 votes or less.
There are tales about candidates who won or lost by a single vote, but in real-world politics it’s really more about fate and luck. Cox, who avoided person-to-person campaigning due to the pandemic, was one of many candidates nationwide who couldn’t take advantage of their people skills to pull out a win.
The Sausalito recount demonstrates Marin County’s vote counting process is impeccable. Registrar of Voters Lynda Roberts and her staff conducted a fair, accurate and honest election. The system worked. From all accounts that happened, not just in Marin but across the nation. We witnessed a highly charged election conducted in the midst of a pandemic by professional and patriotic civil servants who demonstrated their commitment to country above party.
In the past, there have been a handful of Novato-area sore losers questioning the impartiality of Marin’s Elections Office. Any attack on the electoral system’s integrity without verifiable proof whether at the town, county or national level is a cowardly stab in the back to the foundation of our democratic republic.
The Cox- Sobieski manual recount presented an ideal method to evaluate Marin’s registrar’s integrity and competence. Roberts and crew passed with f lying colors.
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Tamalpais Union High School District trustees have long skirted state rules regarding financing of campaigns to raise or maintain school parcel taxes. Like other revenue-hungry agencies, the district approaches the red line when using tax receipts for “informational” advertising campaigns without explicitly uttering the verboten words, “vote for our tax.”
Tam Union goes one step further using its school- based tax- deductible charitable foundations to fund these campaigns. Nearly $92,000 in 2020 alone was diverted to politics instead of providing students promised educational amenities. It creates an uneven playing field since those opposing parcel taxes can’t take deductions for their political contributions.
Marin’s Coalition of Sensible Tax Payers has now challenged one of those practices. They’ve filed a formal complaint with California’s Fair Political Practices Commission contending Tam Union’s “multiple mailers for its 2020 parcel tax campaigns were an inappropriate use of public funds.”
COST isn’t singling out Tam Union. Their request for a FPPC investigation “signals our intent to closely monitor various Marin agencies’ future expenditures of public funds on communications related to tax and fee increases and renewals.”
Utilizing charitable school foundation donations for campaigning also deserves an examination. It’s a timely topic for Marin’s incoming grand jury to investigate once it’s empaneled.