Case filed against ISD833 to get all the Votes Counted

From South Washington County Citizens for Progress:

THANK YOU for your support and donations!  Because of the outpouring of community support, we were able to reach our first fundraising goal of $5000+ for the Court Bond Fund by Monday (11/30) afternoon! That was $5000+ raised in about three days - this is an amazing feat and couldn’t have been done without all the hard work of all of our supporters! Well Done!

Today [12-2] the  Notice of Contest and Election Contest Under Minnesota Statute § 209.021 documents have been filed at the Washington County District Court as well as served to South Washington County School District 833 School District Clerk, Dayna Bentdahl, the School Board Clerk, Katie Schwartz and the Washington County Auditor, Kevin Corbid. This marks the beginning of the community contesting the Canvassing Board’s decision to pass Ballot Question 2 thereby disenfranchising five voters when the Board failed to recognize the five challenged ballots as “No” votes. By contesting the election, we are not asking a judge to overturn an election result; we are requesting that the judge enforce the election result by recognizing that the voters’ intent on the five ballots was to vote “No” and that the Canvassing Board erroneously threw those ballots out.  The result of the court recognizing the five ballots as "No" votes will be the election ending in a TIE, which would DEFEAT the $96 Million (before interest!) bond!

That means that together with you and others in the community, we will have been able to defeat BOTH bond Questions 2 & 3, resulting in saving District 833 residents and taxpayers $146.5 Million (with interest, totaling $258.4 Million) in additional debt and property tax increases. That is HUGE!

Even though the complaint has been filed and served on the respective parties, our work is not done.  There is still much more to do, so we still need your help and support to see this issue through to the end.  That means that the $5000 Court Bond fund was just the beginning: in order to continue this fight, we will need to continue raising funds to pay for the work that has to be done, and we cannot do it without your help and support.

So…our next stage of fundraising begins NOW. We need to raise $9000 over the next two weeks in order to cover the additional legal fees that a case of this magnitude requires. Think that can’t be done? Think again: it was with YOUR help that $5000 was raised in THREE DAYS! Imagine what together we can do in two weeks!

Like the lesson learned from this election - EVERY VOTE COUNTS - we also know that every donation counts toward the pursuit of justice by rectifying the voter disenfranchisement caused by the Canvassing Board’s decision to not count the five contested ballots as “No” votes. Please join us by donating TODAY. Please also SHARE this information with friends, neighbors and local businesses so they can also have the opportunity to join all of us in supporting this important issue.

We will continue to use the SWC4P PayPal donation site to take donations as well as accepting checks/cash payable to SWC4P.  We will also set up a crowd-funding site to make it easier to donate to this cause, as well as organizing opportunities to call on local businesses (as a team in person and/or by phone) to encourage their participation with our fundraising efforts (dates tbd).

Won’t you please donate today so we can continue the fight? 

Thank you again for your support! We CANNOT do this WITHOUT YOU!

Sincerely,

Andrea Mayer-Bruestle – SWC4P Chair

Susan Richardson – SWC4P Treasurer

PO Box 251482

Woodbury, MN 55125

SWC4P2015@gmail.com

Facebook.com/SWC4P

School District Referendum Ballot Question Will Be Challenged in District Court

This is a press release regarding the: 

The Uncounted Ballots that could be Accepted to Save $96 Million Tax Dollars

How you can help:
Case filed against ISD833 to get all the Votes Counted

Quote:

Today (12-2-15) a Notice of Contest and Election Contest was filed with the Washington County District Court in Stillwater, Minnesota by Attorney Erick Kaardal of Mohrman, Kaardal & Erickson, P.A. The Plaintiffss named in the complaint are ISD 833 residents Susan Richardson, Andrea Mayer-Bruestle and Leilani Holmstadt with South Washington County Schools, ISD No. 833 named as Defendant. 

The Plaintiffs are challenging the ISD 833 Canvassing Board’s November 20^th decision to declare five ballots cast in the November 3, 2015 election as “non-votes,” which resulted in passage of the ISD 833 Ballot Question 2 ($96 million general obligation bonds sought for the construction of a new middle school and renovation of a the current Oltman Middle School for the Nuevas Fronteras Elementary School): a favorable outcome for the school district.

The Plaintiffs maintain that the Canvassing Board did not follow Minnesota Law (M.S. § 204.22) in determining a voter’s intent when evaluating the contested five ballots by not focusing on the ballot itself without speculation or making efforts to determine the voter’s intent in a manner other than provided by the statute.

The Plaintiffs also contend that the Canvassing Board did not properly apply the canons of construction in making its determination, instead finding the five ballots as “ambiguous” or “non-votes.” Furthermore, the Canvassing Board never made a finding for each of the five ballots that it was “impossible” to determine the intent of the voter.

If the Canvassing Board had not erred in its determinations and instead had found that the five contested ballots were “No” votes, then $96 million Ballot Question 2 would have been declared defeated because of a “tie”: 6840 voting “yes” and 6840 voting “no.”

The Plaintiffs are requesting that the Court reverse the Canvassing Board’s decision to declare the identified five ballots as “ambiguous” or “non-votes” and declare the five ballots as “No” votes thus restoring election integrity and re-enfranchising the voters who cast the contested five ballots.