Pubdate: Tue, 11 Jan 2005
Source: Berkeley Daily Planet (US CA)
Copyright: 2005 The Berkeley Daily Planet
Contact:  http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1238
Author: J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California)

MEASURE R LOSES RECOUNT

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."