Shepard releases memo alleging election errors in 16th District
Former Republican challenger David Shepard, R-Porterville, released a memorandum Thursday that alleges various “administrative errors and likely violations” among three of the four county election offices that comprise California’s 16th State Senate District.
Shepard originally conceded in January, after losing to Democratic candidate Melissa Hurtado by 13 votes, following a two-month recount process that resulted from the near-split midterm race.
But in his memo, Shepard alleges that he likely lost due to errors committed by the counties of Kern, Fresno and Kings in their counting process during the election and subsequent recount.
“Of the four counties that comprise Senate District 16, likely illegalities were uncovered in three of those counties,” the report read. “Because of these errors, effective legislative governance in the State of California was likely compromised due to the inaction of the various registrars of voters.”
The 10-page report alleges that Fresno County refused to accept 10 vote-by-mail ballots on Dec. 8, 2022 “despite publicly informing numerous elections observers that (they) would accept voters’ cures until 5 p.m.” of the same day. In Kings County, the report said, election officials “refused to provide voted ballots for inspection” and failed to provide an “adequate review” of their vote-by-mail ballots during the recount.
Elections officials in Fresno and Kern confirmed Thursday that they had never received a copy of the report, and that the media inquiry was their first hearing about it. Kings County Registrar of Voters Lupe Villa did not respond to immediate requests for comment, while Fresno Registrar James Kus said early Thursday morning that his staff would further review the report’s claims.
“The Fresno County Clerk/Registrar of Voters Department is committed to adhering to California and federal election law and maintaining the highest level of service to the voters of Fresno County,” Kus said via email Thursday.
“The department looks forward to continuing to build upon our history of election integrity and voter access during the 2024 election cycle.”
In Kern, “at least one ballot” was argued to have been wrongfully miscounted. The memo then criticized the Kern elections office for providing the public “misleading” numbers in their count updates that it felt were “oftentimes substantially underreporting” the number of uncounted ballots.
As it was a contentious issue at the time, then-Registrar of Voters Mary Bedard explained in December that the discrepancy between estimates of unprocessed and processed ballots was a combination of the confirmed number of signatures they had on hand with their rounded estimate of what was left, figured by the number of remaining ballot trays, which in sum gave the impression of an exact number.
“Orange County estimated their remaining ballots at 404,593 when it was actually 383,167, a difference of over 21,000 ballots,” Bedard said as an example, explaining at the time that this algorithm was commonly used across California.
In response to Shepard’s memo, Kern County Registrar of Voters Aimee Espinoza stressed that the grievances listed are not substantiated, and found it unfortunate that Shepard’s campaign did not forward her office the information to review.
“I can understand his frustration by losing in such a close race,” Espinoza said. “But I hope that people understand this report is based on (Shepard’s) opinion and I also hope it doesn’t deter voters or further their distrust in elections.”
Among the state election code laws cited in the report is a reading of article II, section 2.5 and a “ballot Argument in favor of Proposition 43, which says one’s right to a vote is ‘meaningless if you can’t be sure that your vote will be counted.’”
“Elections shouldn’t be decided by courts or government officials — elections should be decided by the citizens who vote in them,” the report read.
Espinoza countered that such a system could significantly compromise an election’s integrity.
“For the registrar of voters, who are voted by people, we are an extension of those who voted us into office, to make sure people’s votes are counted,” Espinoza said. “Regular voters can count on me to make sure their votes are counted.”