Dec 11, 2007 12:02 am US/Pacific
Cloutier Challenging Vallejo Mayoral Loss In Court
VALLEJO (CBS 5 / BCN) ―
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Gary Cloutier, Vallejo Mayoral Candidate
CBS
Gary Cloutier, who lost his Vallejo mayoral bid by three-votes to Osby Davis, is challenging the results in court alleging that a manual vote recount was tainted by "human manipulation and malicious meddling."
Cloutier held a news conference Monday afternoon at Vallejo City Hall to announce that he asked the Solano County Superior Court to issue a temporary restraining order to prevent the election results from being certified because of "irregularities."
Davis told CBS 5 in an interview Monday evening that he was "disappointed" in Cloutier's decision to seek court action.
"I'm sure the voters in this community are going to be frusted also," he said.
A CBS 5 / SurveyUSA poll conducted Monday showed a majority of Vallejo residents agreed with Davis. Of the over 500 adults surveyed, 51% said Cloutier should not contest the election and 57% said they believed Davis was the winner. The poll's margin of error was plus or minus 4.3%.
A judge scheduled a hearing on Cloutier's inunction request for Tuesday morning.
"He ain't nothing but a sore loser," a heckler shouted during Cloutier's news conference.
"I'm here to make sure this process is fair and accurate," Cloutier responded.
He said a ballot was found in a garbage can in a recount room at the Vallejo Registrar of Voter's office, and he suggested there could have been other ballots discarded. He cited an alleged five-vote discrepancy between the machine-counted votes on election night and the manual recount, which he said is enough votes to tip the final tally in Davis' favor.
Patrick Farrell, a Vallejo resident who observed the manual recount on Cloutier's behalf, said that he personally saw a two-vote discrepancy between the machine-counted votes for the precinct he was observing and the manual count. He said there was another two-vote discrepancy in the tally of a second precinct. Cloutier alleged that the ballot with a vote for him found in the garbage can was the fifth missing vote.
Farrell said he observed chaos in the room where ballots were being recounted.
"Ballots were all over the place, on the floor, on tables, people were grabbing them from each other," Farrell said. "I don't believe it was an accurate count."
In a letter to county supervisors, Cloutier listed a number of other alleged procedural improprieties in the way the recount was carried out, including the fact that many of the people conducting the recount were Vallejo residents and that one of the counters was allegedly seen having lunch with one of Davis' observers.
Cloutier was initally declared the winner when he led by five votes on election night and was sworn-in Dec 4. A recount finished late last week determined that Davis actually won by three votes and Davis is now scheduled to be sworn-in this upcoming Tuesday night.
(© CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Bay City News contributed to this report.)
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