Audit of CDP Vote Starts Today

A review of each and every vote cast for the California Democratic Party Chair’s race begins today with Kimberly Ellis calling on her opponent, Eric Bauman, to recuse himself from the review.  The reality is Bauman’s team has every right to be present for the review or Ellis’ team ought to recuse themselves too.  You can’t have your cake and eat it too, but that’s what Ellis wants.

Here’s her announcement:

Bauman Recusal and Audit Start

OAKLAND, Calif. (May, 22, 2017): The Kimberly Ellis campaign is calling on Eric Bauman and anyone associated with his campaign team to recuse themselves from any involvement in the current audit of the election materials related to the California Democratic Party Chair’s race.

Further, the campaign is requesting that the current Executive Director stay on in his current capacity until the audit has been completed and evidence is reviewed.

Our campaign hopes other elected Democrats throughout California join us in our call for impartiality, which requires Eric’s complete recusal from anything related to the audit, including communications with staff. The validation of the election can only come from confidence that the process was fair and impartial.

Tomorrow, May 23, 2017, at 9 AM, the audit will begin at the CDP’s headquarters in Sacramento. The audit team will be lead by former CDP Controller Hilary Crosby, a certified public account and professional auditor. She will be accompanied by current San Benito County Chair Gregory Rivera and past Regional Director Martha Gamez, as well as other members of the Ellis campaign team. It is critical that the delegation has confidence in the outcome of this Chair’s race so that we might move forward, irrespective of whomever wins.

Should the election results stand, we will congratulate Eric on his well earned success. Eric Bauman has every interest in proving the election was fair and untainted.

Meanwhile, California Republicans and national Conservatives are eating the party’s lunch over this fracas.

To his credit, Bauman is reaching out to unite the party via this video message.  Bauman’s support of the vote audit and his confidence in the numbers seem to indicate the totals will hold up.  And while the Ellis team states Bauman has every interest in a fair election, she should have every interest in uniting the party when the vote is validated.

There have been a lot of rumors about the election from the number of registered delegates “vote counts” showing Ellis with a large lead to a large number of invalidated ballots due to no signature.  When all is said and done, its a small election and its conducted publicly.  It’s a hard election to cheat and accusations of cheating simply make it that much harder to unify.  And we need to unify.