Testimony against the promotion of
Dean Logan to Acting Registrar of Voters
in Los Angeles County
Dec.11, 2007.
On
Dec 11, 2007, Judy Alter of Protect California Ballots, along
with 8 other election protection activists, testified before the
Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors regarding the assignment
of Dean Logan as the Acting Registrar of Voters. Judy had previously
testified to the Board of Sup in the Summer of 2007 on the same
issue, also trying to prevent the appointment of Dean Logan.
Despite this testimony
(video),
Logan was appointed by unanimous vote with an annual salary of
$175,826 (ref. look under County Operations.)
- Promoted over more worthy candidates: Current
audit of the L A Elections Division by the LA County Auditor.
(LA Times & LA Daily News 12-4-07).
The problems reported include the promotion of less qualified
candidates to higher positions and this kind of action leads to
low morale. Logan participated, until recently, in not conducting
background checks on job applicants and new hires. Audit found
ex-felons convicted of robbery and other such crimes were hired.
Logan moved them to less sensitive positions and is now conducting
background checks. Other problems found during the time he has
been second in command in LA County were similar to problems reported
in King County WA under his direction
- Questionable background: Before becoming Registrar-Recorder
in King County WA in 2003, Logan served directly under Washington
State Secretary of State Reed who knowingly broke WA law when
he allowed the use of uncertified Diebold software in several
elections. This was at the same time that CA Secretary of State
Kevin Shelley decertified the Diebold Company for using uncertified
software.
- Indequate education: Logan does not have a
college degree, has only had two summer programs worth of training
to be a registrar of voters and before coming to LA County had
only 3 years of experience as a registrar / county clerk. He
does not appear to be qualified for the job of Los Angeles County
Registrar-Recorder.
- Used illegal software: In the 2004 primary
and presidential elections Logan used uncertified software to
count absentee ballots and stopped the use of proper and long
used record-keeping practices for the absentee ballots and envelopes,
thus, the officials did not count all the ballots and did not
reconcile the total ballots received with the ones counted and
rejected. These actions contributed to the big mess in King County
- Fired whistleblower: Logan fired Nicole Way,
the long time absentee ballot supervisor for repeatedly telling
him that the numbers coming from the new counting software were
not right. He forced her to sign the reports about the absentee
ballots against her will and then used her as a scapegoat for
the problems of the handling of these ballots discovered in two
reviews. She won a mediation hearing and was reinstated.
- Lies about his own errors: Bev Harris questioned
Logan on TV about the 3 hours of deleted audit log of the main
tabulator from election night in 2004. He denied that the data
was deleted but claimed that no activity occurred during that
time. Harris responded that she had 5 update-reports from about
every half hour, signed by him in ink, during the time when the
audit log had no data and he said there was no activity.
- Lies about equiprment: On TV Logan claimed
that no modems were connected to tabulator on election night,
yet Bev Harris saw 24 hookups to a location where modem data was
received. Harris also showed the trouble and transmission reports
from poll workers who had trouble sending their data via modem.
- Refuses public record requests: Currently a
voter from Washingtion state and blogger on soundpolitics.com,
Stephan Sharkansky, is suing Logan for not responding to public
records requests
- Lies about his own failures: Logan lied to
the public about how smoothly the 2004 election process was, even
though uncounted absentee ballots were discovered, provisional
ballots were not processed correctly and other problems arose
as stated above. In two separate reviews of the 2004 election
and Logan’s performance as Registrar, employees described
the department existing a constant state of crisis, that Logan
had poor managerial skills, that morale was low because he hired
inappropriate and unqualified staff.
Sources to support the statements made in the above
testimony:
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