The June primary election, including the race for Clerk-Recorder in Nevada County, was certified on June 29, 2022. Assistant Clerk-Recorder Natalie Adona received 22,800 votes, 67.89% of the 33,585 ballots cast by voters in that race. Jason Tedder received 7,843 votes (23.35%) and Paul Gilbert received 2,942 votes (8.76%) according to the official cumulative results.
Former spokesperson/senior advisor for the Recall Gavin Newsom campaign Randy Economy, a former SoCal radio personality and candidate for the State Board of Equalization District 4 in the June primary election, requested a manual recount of the contest and access to documents, materials and information, including all ballot envelopes, all Conditional and provisional ballots cast, the assisted voters list and more. A copy of the letter was forwarded by the Elections Office to local media today.
In his letter to Greg Diaz, the current Clerk-Recorder, Economy states he is requesting the recount “on the behalf of the ROV candidate Jason Tedder.”
Randy Economy did not respond to a request for comment before publication. We asked, via email, “What is your interest in the race of Clerk-Recorder/Registrar of Voters in Nevada County? Did you approach Jason Tedder with the idea, or did he ask for guidance? A manual recount, requested by a candidate or voter, is not cheap – do you plan on fundraising or will you personally finance the recount?”
Tedder could not be reached via email or phone to confirm he is aware of the request. However, the Word document forwarded by the Elections Office to local media shows in the file info it was created by a user named Jason Tedder on July 4 and modified by a user named Randy Econmuy five minutes later.
Recount mechanics
A recount for the position on Registrar of Voters requires the appointment by the governing body, the Board of Supervisors (BOS), to appoint an officer other than the elections official, to appoint and supervise the special recount board (four people.) [source: CA Election Code 15625]
The BOS will consider a resolution to appoint an outside elections official at their July 12th meeting. The cost of the recount is billed to the person requesting the recount.
A detailed estimate of the cost was not available at publication time, but a 2002 manual recount for only one supervisorial district lasted 3 days to recount, inspect and ascertain voter’s intent. At the time, no outside election official needed to be hired for the process and no additional documents were requested. The daily cost, in 2002, was slightly over $1,000 a day. The manual recount did not change the outcome, Drew Bedwell won District 3 with a 19-vote difference.
This time, the manual recount alone will involve all 37,990 ballots cast. The recount is open to the public.
PRA appears to show Tedder contemplating hiring his spouse as Assistant Clerk-Recorder
Through a Public Records Act request, we obtained an email sent by Human Resources Director Steven Rose in response to a query sent by Tedder before the election. Tedder asked about hiring practices for an Assistant Department Head for an elected office and concluded the email with the question: “Can an elected department head have their spouse employed in the same office directly under his/her supervision?”
The Nevada County Clerk-Recorder/Registrar of Voters position in 2021 was listed with a total pay and benefits of $240,834.00 on Transparent California. The Assistant Clerk-recorder total pay and benefit package was $174,317.00 in 2021.
July 6, 2022 at 8:00 AM update: This morning, we checked Jason Tedder’s campaign website. It appears to be defunct, with the exception of the “News” page which displays three news releases.
Thank you for this detailed reporting on the recall request. I read the local paper’s coverage of the same story and left with a bunch of questions. Your article answered them all thanks largely to the research you did. Good journalism!
“Recount request”, not “Recall request”. Apologies.
Thorough journalism. Good job.
I doubt Mr. Tedder or anyone working on his behalf truly doubts the outcome of the election. This seems like part of the national strategy from the GOP to sow doubts about elect integrity nationwide.
Thank for continued diligence and excellent journalism. This is why I am a subscriber to Yubanet.
Thanks for being on top of this. As Jeff said above, this is almost certainly a part of the nationwide effort by the GQP (Q for Qanon), aided by Putin, to sow distrust in our elections to erode our democracy. The GQP is also trying to find ways to overturn future elections. The 2020 efforts by Trump and Jan. 6 were just a warmup. The worst is yet to come if we allow it.
So this was the guy that was going to bring the community together and bring back confidence to voting. It looks to me like he and his wife saw us tax payers as a big pay check for them