(Good post on Harmer’s BS claims – he’s trying to suppress the vote to steal an election he lost. – promoted by Robert Cruickshank)

In what I believe is the closest Congressional race in the country, Jerry McNerney held a 121 vote lead as of Wednesday morning.  Absentees counted in Alameda and Santa Clara counties have increased his margin to 568 as of this morning, but those counties were his strongest ones.  Now Harmer wants to challenge the signatures (and stop the counting of) of mail in ballots when the voter is not there to respond.  

Now Harmer has filed a lawsuit against the Contra Costa County election officials claiming the right to challenge the signatures on absentee ballots, even as those voters are not present to respond.  

Congressional District 11 GOP nominee David Harmer will seek a court order in Superior Court in Martinez this afternoon to stop the vote-by-mail signature verification process in Contra Costa County.

Harmer, who ran against incumbent Democratic Rep. Jerry McNerney on Tuesday, says his team should be allowed to challenge the signatures on vote-by-mail ballots.

Contra Costa Election Clerk Steve Weir disagrees. He says the county’s written procedures and guidelines clearly state that observers may challenge the process of counting ballots but not individual signatures.

Challenges to a specific voter’s right to cast a ballot must be made through a pollworker at the polls or through a challenge of a voter who has requested a vote-by-mail ballot, Weir said.  This allows the voter to respond to a challenge of his or her right to cast a ballot.

“While Harmer has claimed irregularities, not one instance has been presented to us,” Weir said.

Harmer ran best with the early voting, but as election day votes were counted, McNerney slowly caught up.  Many (apparently including Harmer’s campaign) believe that late absentees will favor McNerney.  

In Contra Costa County, the ballots at issue are those that were mailed but not received by last Friday, those delivered to the polls on Tuesday, and provisional ballots.  I understand that there are well over 10,000 ballots.

I have heard nothing from San Jaoquin County where over have of the voters are, but I am suspicious that the far-right is out in force to stop a full and fair count.  Florida 2000 anyone?

There is a hearing today on a TRO.  

For those watching the November 2010 ballot, last week over 760,000 petition signatures were turned in to state officials to place the “Save Our State Parks” initiative on the November ballot.  434,000 valid signatures are needed.  

The concept is to take the funding of state parks out of the state’s annual budget and replace it with a trust account funded by an $18 annual vehicle fee on most vehicles.  Vehicles that have paid the fee would then have no entry charge as at present.  

Sorry if this story has already been passed on.  I’m been away and did not see one.  

Short diary, but I saw this story and wanted to pass it on.  According to the story, Joan Buchanan and Mark DeSaulnier support all of them, while John Garamendi opposes all of them.  

http://www.ibabuzz.com/politic…

Although an election day has not been set, and everything is fluid, this seems pretty relevant to me in deciding who to support.        

The activities of Dean Andal, the Republican nominee running against Jerry McNerney for Congress in CA-11, have come up in a grand jury investigation.  

This week, the San Joaquin County Civil Grand Jury released its report investigating misconduct by the San Joaquin Delta College Board of Trustees.  It found that the Board had “squandered millions of dollars in taxpayer money and breached open government laws by sharing closed-session information to developers outside regular meetings.”  Tracy Press  The confidential information apparently disclosed illegally was given to Andal and his associate, big Republican contributor and Sacramento developer Gerry Kamilos.

The grand jury investigation concerned the development of a site for Delta College.  Two sites were considered.  Consultants hired by the Board and the Board’s own staff each recommended a site offered by the City of Tracy.  But the Board voted 4-3 for a site offered for development by a Gerry Kamilos enterprise, PCCP Mountain House, LLC.  Things went south fairly quickly.  The Grand Jury found that the Board’s decisions wasted millions of dollars of public funds.  Regarding Andal:

“a closed-session meeting of the Delta College Board of Trustees was held on February 9, 2006, where Delta College’s attorney and administrative team informed the Board of Trustees that PCCP would be missing the deadline for the delivery of the Letters of Credit, which would result in a breach of the contract.  The Board then discussed the possibility of returning to the deal offered by the City of Tracy.”  

The very next day, one or more of the Board members relayed confidential information about the “breach of contract” discussion to Kamilos and a person the grand jury called his “consultant.”  The media has identified that consultant as Dean Andal.  Indeed, as the Tri-Valley Herald wrote:

“The day after the closed-session meeting, the report says, phone calls and a faxed letter indicated that one or more board members had relayed confidential information about the “breach of contract” discussion to the developer and his consultant, Dean Andal, the Republican nominee for the 11th Congressional District seat in November.”  

Although not discussed in the media at present, Andal is more than just a consultant to Kamilos.  According to a 2007 Stockton Record story, Andal:

“is a director of Service 1st Bancorp in Stockton and also works closely with developer Gerry Kamilos, the builder primarily responsible for the Mountain House community outside Tracy. Andal earned at least $210,000 from Kamilos’ various businesses last year, according to financial records filed with the county.”  

Further, according to an SEC filing of  Service 1st Bancorp, Mr. Andal has been a principal in Gerry N. Kamilos, LLC, a real estate investment concern, since 2005. SEC  

By the way, it should come as no surprise, but Kamilos and his wife each contributed $4,600 to Andal’s campaign in June 2007.  They have also contributed the maximum legal amount to John McCain. Open Secrets

So what does it mean?  The grand jury is raking the Board over the coals for wasting millions of dollars with this Andal enterprise. The grand jury says that the Board’s consultants and staff recommended a different company, but the Board voted 4-3 to go with Andal’s firm anyway.  That decision has cost taxpayers millions of dollars.  Then, in 2006, the Board met in closed session and discussed the possibility of getting out of the Kamilos-Andal contract, due to a breach by that firm, and returning to the deal offered by the City of Tracy.  The very next day, Kamilos and Andal allegedly were tipped off with confidential information passed to them.  If true, passing the information was illegal.  I confess that I do not know the details of this, but from how it reads, I assume  Kamilos and Andal promptly cured their contractual breach and kept the Board on the hook for their lucrative contract.

This smells to high heaven.  Not only should the Board members be investigated, but Dean Andal has some explaining to do.