Kanitha Matoury 2024 Oakland City Council At Large Candidate Interview On Ballot Name Controversy

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Oakland News Now Blog – vlog by Zennie62 YouTube. Zennie62Blog.com is the original blog post for this content.

Kanitha Matoury 2024 Oakland City Council At Large Candidate Interview On Ballot Name Controversy.

At ZennieReport.com we have the post “The Big Mess That Was A Joint Statement By Oakland City Council At Large Candidates On Ballot Placement Problem” at this link: https://ift.tt/dCSWKa6

And here’s the main problem: https://ift.tt/dCSWKa6

Joint Statement by Oakland City Council At-Large Candidates: Kanitha Matoury, Selika Thomas, LeRonne Armstrong, Cristina Tostado, Mindy Pechenuk, Fabian Robinson, Charlene Wang, and Nancy Sidebotham

Dear Honorable Supervisors and Distinguished Members of the Board,

We, the undersigned candidates for Oakland City Council At-Large, are united in bringing to your attention a critical issue concerning the integrity and visibility of the Alameda County electronic voting machine interface during the recent election. This matter directly impacts the transparency and accuracy of our electoral process and raises significant concerns about the precedent it sets for future elections.

Specifically, it has come to our attention that the same visibility issue encountered in the 2022 Oakland Mayoral campaign where not all candidates appeared on a single screen — reoccurred in this election. This problem may have significantly affected voter recognition of all candidates on the ballot, including those listed beyond the initial screen view.

Our Concerns

We have received reports from voters, including supporters of Kanitha Matoury, indicating difficulty locating candidate names on the voting machine interface. This included instances where voters needed to request poll worker assistance to identify candidates. Members of our campaigns personally experienced this issue and can provide testimony and photographic evidence of the screens used during voting.

This lack of visibility equivalence raises serious questions:

With eight candidates visible on the initial screen, how were voters informed there were additional names that weren’t readily findable?
Why were no prompts or clear instructions provided to candidates in advance so they could advise their supporters where to find them on the machines?
Why wasn’t the design standardized to require voters to acknowledge all names before making their selection, much like a standard “terms & conditions” prompt?

Such a design flaw violates the principles of fair ballot access and may contravene state and federal laws, including the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) and California Elections Code Section 13200, among others.
Election Data Discrepancies

Polling data and initial election results indicate discrepancies that further warrant scrutiny:

In pre-election polls conducted by SOS Oakland and the Chamber of Commerce, Kanitha Matoury ranked solidly in fourth place, with substantial rank choice voter support.
Initial election night results placed her in fifth place, but the second update that night suddenly dropped her to seventh, below candidates with smaller campaigns — an outcome inconsistent with prior data.
Then in subsequent voter tally updates, Kanitha’s rank rose back to 5th place-suggesting the voter machine vote count was a much lower percentage of voters than paper ballots at the in-person polling stations.

These anomalies necessitate a review of whether the voting interface’s visibility flaws contributed to the irregularities in vote accumulation.
Our United Request

We respectfully request the Alameda County Board of Supervisors to delay certification of the election results until an independent review is conducted. This review should include:

Verification of electronic voting machines and paper ballot counts at in-person polling stations.
An evaluation of whether the intertace design adhered to legal and transparency standards
An acknowledgement by the Alameda County Office Of Registrar that vote counts could have been lower than expected for Kanitha Matoury and Selika Thomas.
We are not challenging the outcome to favor any specific candidate. However, the integrity of Oakland’s future elections is paramount. This issue undermines voter confidence and calls for immediate corrective action to uphold the principles of fairness and transparency in our democratic process.

Thank you for your consideration of this urgent matter. We look forward to your response and action to ensure all votes cast by Oakland’s residents are accurately reflected and every candidate is afforded equal visibility.

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