A Superior Court judge said that San Diego County didn’t properly audit votes from the June primary election, a lapse in quality control that could allow for errors and fraud to go unnoticed.

The error will have no impact on the election results because the judge said that there was no relief he could provide to the plaintiff since the outcome of the contests had already been finalized.

In an order filed July 25, Judge Joel Wohlfeil said that the San Diego Registrar of Voters Michael Vu wrongly excluded provisional and some vote-by-mail ballots when completing a hand-count of votes from 1 percent of county’s precincts.

“There could be massive election fraud in the portion of the ballots not counted,” said Ray Lutz, the national coordinator of the Citizens Oversight Inc., the watchdog organization that filed the lawsuit. Lutz said that he doesn’t know one way or the other if anything illegal occurred because the audit was not comprehensive.


Wohlfeil said the error in San Diego has occurred in other counties as well but did not identify them.

County spokesman Michael Workman said nearly 8,000 ballots were counted in the audit and zero discrepancies were found. Mail ballots that were counted ahead of the close of precincts were included in the audit, but mail-in votes that arrived later and provisional ballots were not.

Lutz’s lawsuit and the judge’s order brings attention to the election law, Workman said.

“This lawsuit and this court document raise questions about statewide practices,” he said. “We, along with other counties, are seeking clarification” from the secretary of state.


It would be up to the legislature to provide clarity to counties if there is a statewide issue with the way votes are audited, he added.

In hearings for the lawsuit, the county said that it would take additional staff and cost around $100,000 in order to count provisional ballots and all mail-in ballots. Expense and time, Wohlfeil said, are no excuse for not satisfying the legal requirements of the audit.

“The San Diego County Registrar of Voters is obligated to allocate its resources appropriately in order to comply with the law,” the judge wrote. “If Defendants are unable to do so, they must seek redress with the legislative or executive of government, not the Court.”

With just over three months until the Nov. 8 general election, Alan Geraci, an attorney for Citizens Oversight, said he is seeking an agreement with the county to make sure that audits are properly completed and prevent the lawsuit from moving into the discovery process and trial. He said he anticipates that there will be some sort of resolution, either through a settlement or a legal decision, before polls open.


Wohfeil wrote “there is a reasonable probability” Lutz and his organization would win in court, and that the county is obligated to count both mail-in and provisional ballots in its audit.

Citizens Oversight members said they are certain that Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders won the California Democratic primary, but election fraud robbed him of a victory.

“It is the belief of many people in this county, including me, that Bernie Sanders was the primary’s winner,” said Dwana Bain, an attorney with the organization.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won the statewide primary with 53.1 percent of the vote, while Sanders received 46 percent. (In San Diego County it was 51.4 percent for Clinton, 47.6 for Sanders.)


Even without a reversal in outcome in California, or even with no support from the Golden State, Clinton had secured more than enough delegates to receive her party’s nomination at last week’s Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

In 20 major polls conducted in California before the election, Clinton bested Sanders in each. Citizens Oversight accused the media of making up poll results with the Democratic National Committee to show support for Clinton. Lutz said he could tell that Sanders was more popular based on the size of his rallies and from talking to voters.