SLO County woman owes $4,500 for election recount, court said. She still won’t pay
The woman behind the ballot recount for the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors’ District 2 election continues to fight the cost of the process, despite a court ruling ordering her to pay.
As the recount requester, San Miguel resident Darcia Stebbens is required by state law to pay the San Luis Obispo County Clerk-Recorder’s Office a total of $53,346 for the costs it incurred during the recount.
In May, County Clerk-Recorder Elaina Cano sued Stebbens in small claims court when she refused to pay the remaining $4,448.21 of her bill.
After two days of testimony at the Superior Court’s Grover Beach branch, Commissioner Leslie Kraut ordered Stebbens to pay the bill as well as Cano’s $90 court costs.
On Sept. 14, Stebbens filed an appeal for Kraut’s decision with the San Luis Obispo County Superior Court — with the hope that she won’t have to pay the remaining bill and even be issued a refund for part of what she already paid, she told The Tribune.
The case will return to court on Dec 4., according to court documents.
Recount requester disputes three charges
State law requires the recount requester to pay all costs created by the recount, Kraut wrote in her decision.
California code also empowers Cano, as the county’s elections official, “to determine what is necessary to conduct the recount, ‘including, but not limited to’ additional supervision, administrative costs, and legal costs,” Kraut wrote in her decision.
“(Cano) has proven all costs listed were incurred as a direct result of the defendant’s request for a recount,” Kraut wrote. “There is nothing unreasonable or untoward about the listed costs for copies and materials, or for the entire labor costs incurred.”
Stebbens, however, does not agree that state law gives the county’s head election’s official final say in the total cost of the recount, she told The Tribune — but she did not cite any law that supports this point of view.
Stebbens disputes three charges: county counsel hours, benefits packages for staff who worked on the recount, and printed recount guidelines distributed to staff and observers. She said the County Clerk-Recorder’s Office overcharged for the recount, and made the process cost prohibitive for the average citizen.
“This is supposed to be a way for citizen taxpayers to come forward and have some transparency in the elections process,” Stebbens told The Tribune. “I believe that what she charged and how she charged would make it so that no one in their right mind would do this.”
During the appeal process, Stebbens hopes to reverse Kraut’s ruling and potentially recover more funds — though she didn’t share which other charges she disagrees with.
“That’s going to have to come out in court,” she said.
Cano, however, told The Tribune that she supports Kraut’s ruling — which states that Cano has final say over how to manage and charge for the recount within the boundaries of state law.
“I have followed all laws and regulations,” Cano wrote in an email. “All costs, again as stated in the regulations, are borne by the requester. The requester must pay the cost of the recount as these costs would not have been incurred but for the requester’s particular recount request.”
