If somebody was going to take your vote away, don’t you think they should tell you first?

Introduction

Thank you for your interest in this very important issue regarding the power and integrity of self governance in Marin County.

Many of you have contacted me by phone, email and regular mail to whom I have not yet been able to respond. I will, but in the meantime, I want to get this Flood Tax Revolt organized so that we can be as effective as possible and make our democracy live.

The Voter Disenfranchisement

June 25, 2007 concluded the 7-week period during which the “voters” returned by mail the “ballots” which the Marin Public Works Department had distributed to its list of property owners. June 25th was the cut-off date by which the Clerk of the Supervisors was to receive the votes.

At issue is a proposed $40 million “fee” for “flood control” that would be administered by Marin Public Works in conjunction with the Ross Valley Flood Control District. It would include the dredging of the base of Corte Madera Creek.

The flood “fee” was approved by a slim majority of 65 votes. But the rub is over 20% of the ballots were thrown out along the way because, unlike any ballot I have ever seen, I had to date it, print my name and then sign it.

When 20% of the votes languish in the toilet so as to achieve a simple majority to enact a measure (which if it were named a “tax” would have required a Proposition 13 2/3’s majority), a certain bad smell inevitably arises.

For this reason, I decided to spearhead a timely-filed demand for a recount. I wanted to examine the ballots in the toilet.

Fortunately, with the help of Registrar, Elaine Grinnold, and others, on July 23rd I did. With the Registrar and her assistant, I personally helped count the ballots that had been disregarded because the voters did not sign them.

We counted 1718 disregarded votes. 1678 were disregarded because the voter simply failed to sign the document. Of those, 736 were “Yes” votes and 942 were “No.”

The “No’s” won by 206 votes.

If these disregarded ballots had been counted, along with those that were signed, the Flood Tax would have been defeated by 141 votes.

The ballot is a two-sided 4 x 8 ½” piece of card stock. On the voting side a “Yes” box and “No” box are prominently displayed on the right. Below that and across the bottom is a signature and date line. Although there is plenty of room for it, there is no warning, in bold or otherwise, that one’s failure to sign would trigger the disregard of one’s vote.

On the other side of the ballot, there are instructions. Instruction 3 tells the voter to sign the ballot in bold. Even though there is room for it here, too, no warning is given whatsoever. The only notice is placed in the smallest print at the bottom buried among other text is the line. It says “Ballots received without a signature will not be counted.” Very small print and not even in bold.

Never in our thousands of years of collective voting experience has any one of us ever had to sign the ballot where we make out vote count.

Don’t you think if you had never in your voting life signed a ballot, that the imposition of the requirement to do so merited sufficient warning that failure to sign meant invalidation of vote. We get more warning on our mortgage papers, auto loans and other instances in modern life where we may lose a valuable right.

The Proposed Lawsuit

It is my intention to file a lawsuit called an Election Contest and ask a Marin County Superior Court Judge to throw out the Yes vote and replace it with the No vote.

I will based the suit on the grounds that eligible voters were denied the right to vote by the failure of the authorities to provide reasonable and adequate notice of the consequences of the failure to sign your name, and, that if that denial had not taken place, the result of the election would have been different.

The deadline for this August 9, 2007.

Financing the Lawsuit

My heart has been warmed by the various citizens who have called me and emailed me with expressions of understanding of the feeling of having been had.  The outpouring has generously included money donations.

I need your money. The value of my time is exceeded only by the value of what the Flood Fee Election has taken away from us. Your donations will help pay the out of pocket expenses and some payment the time it is going to take to turn this embarrassment around.

You can send your checks to me directly, or, if you send them to the Marin Health Fund, a bona fide tax exempt organization, you can write the donation off and the Health Care Fund will pay the money to me. For further instructions, go to: http://www.marinhealthfund.org/

What else can you do?

Email me so that I can develop a way of easily communicating among us.

ford@fordgreene.com

Write letters to the editor of the Marin Independent Journal.  

Letters to Editor
Post Office Box 6150
Novato, California 94948-6150
 
Email: opinion@marinij.com


Go to Board of Supervisors Meetings and tell them how you feel in Open Time.

Go to your local government meetings in Fairfax, San Anselmo, Ross, and Larkspur and let them know how you feel.

Check this website for updates.

Whatever you do, do something. Get up and make a call. Do not let the avalanche of all of life’s picayune details overwhelm you into forgetfulness.

Thank You,