A Congressional candidate is suing the state’s chief elections officer over provisionally certified voting machines.
Chris Bish joined Paul Preston, president of New California State, in filing a lawsuit on Oct. 25 in Sacramento Superior Court alleging that a voting system retroactively acquired had not been tested and certified by Sacramento County and had only been provisionally certified by the Secretary of State’s office.
“Many of the items…are allegedly conditionally certified pursuant to the California Voting System Standards (CVSS) without specifying what parts of the voting systems are fully certified, what parts are conditionally certified, and which parts are totally uncertified,” wrote the plaintiffs’ attorney Robert Thomas in the opening pleading.
Underlying the lawsuit is an Oct. 25 Sacramento County Board of Supervisors meeting where there was an agenda item about receiving approval from the Secretary of State to backdate a $5.5 million voting system contract that allegedly expired prior to June 30th, according to the complaint.
“Our election was certified for the June 7 primary on July 15th but if they had an expired contract on any piece of our voting equipment on June 30, they couldn't legally certify the vote,” Bish said.
Bish campaigned to represent the 6th Congressional District in Sacramento and surrounding areas as a Republican, however she did not advance out of the June 7 primary.
She alleges in the lawsuit that she was irreparably harmed by the use of the voting system that was not certified because no one can be sure the results were accurate.
“They were using the voting system before the 25th on an expired contract so they couldn't certify it,” Bish told the Southern California Record. “The Sacramento Board of Supervisors put it on their agenda thinking nobody would look.”
The lawsuit names Secretary of State Shirley Weber, Sacramento County Clerk Registrars Hang Nguyen, and Courtney Bailey-Kanelos and asks $100,000 be paid to Bish, $100,000 paid to Preston, and $10,000 paid to each Sacramento member of New California State.
“We came up with $100,000 from election expenses for the June primary and legal fees,” Bish said.
The complaint is currently being amended.
"We filed it as an emergency to stop them from renewing the voting machine contract," Bish added. "Although the judge did not allow injunctive relief, he did not dismiss the case."