DC group may appeal Stark County voting machine lawsuit loss
It's been more than 17 months since a Washington, D.C,.-based organization filed a suit seeking to undo a decision by Stark County to buy new Dominion voting machines.
And so far, after several rounds of exchanging legal briefs and a non-jury trial in August, the group Look Ahead America has no wins to show for its efforts.
The organization has less than two weeks to decide whether to continue its legal battle by filing an appeal after a judge last month dismissed its lawsuit. The group has said former campaign staffers of former President Donald Trump founded Look Ahead America.
Stark County Common Pleas Judge Taryn Heath in an 18-page ruling issued Oct. 20 rejected Look Ahead America's arguments.
Heath ruled that the Board of Elections and any government body were permitted to discuss in executive sessions the purchase of any public property, including voting machines.
Look Ahead America had contended in a complaint filed in May 2021 that the Board of Elections illegally deliberated about purchasing 1,450 new Dominion ImageCast X voting machines in four private executive sessions from December 2020 to March 2021. By state law, any decisions of a government body based on discussions in an illegal executive session are invalid. Look Ahead America argued that Heath should invalidate the county's purchase of the voting machines because they were based on illegal executive sessions.
More:DC group files open meetings lawsuit against Stark County Board of Elections
Look Ahead America reviewing options after Stark County lawsuit dismissed
In August 2021, Heath dismissed the Stark County commissioners and Dominion Voting Systems as defendants in the case.
Commissioners had reluctantly voted to comply with an Ohio Supreme Court order to approve the funding and purchase of the machines. That meant legally that Look Ahead America could not get an injunction to freeze or reverse the order and delivery of the Dominion machines, which had already occurred by August 2021. Nor could the group seek an injunction to block the use of the Dominion voting machines in the November 2021 election and subsequent elections or force the Board of Elections to return the machines to Dominion.
More:Judge dismisses key defendants in Stark Dominion voting machine lawsuit
Look Ahead America's attorney Curt Hartman said he and his client were assessing options. As of mid-week, the 5th District Court of Appeals had not yet received a notice of appeal, which the group has until around Nov. 21 to file.
"There's nothing that came out (of the proceedings in the case) that advanced the interest and openness and transparency in government in this case," said Hartman, a Republican and former Hamilton County Common Pleas judge.
'Ridiculous from its inception'
“It was the absolutely appropriate legal opinion (by Judge Heath)," said Samuel Ferruccio, chairman of the Stark County Board of Elections and the chairman of the Stark County Democratic Party.
“The judge made every appropriate legal response holding that was necessary. She absolutely was following the law with respect to the trial. ... The case was ridiculous from its inception as far as I’m concerned, and that’s my opinion. This case was basically to try and raise funds for the Trumpsters. It was totally without merit.”
The crux of Look Ahead America's argument was a provision of the state's Sunshine Law that lists the reasons government bodies can meet in executive sessions where the public is excluded from the meeting.
The statute says public bodies can meet in executive session, "to consider the purchase of property for public purposes, the sale of property at competitive bidding, or the sale or other disposition of unneeded, obsolete, or unfit-for-use property ... if premature disclosure of information would give an unfair competitive or bargaining advantage to a person whose personal, private interest is adverse to the general public interest."
Look Ahead America argued that no public body in Ohio can meet in executive session to discuss the purchase of property for public purchases unless "premature disclosure of information would give an unfair competitive or bargaining advantage to a person whose personal, private interest is adverse to the general public interest." And since there was no indication that premature disclosure of information on the voting machines discussion would give anyone an unfair advantage, the Stark County Board of Elections was not permitted to discuss the purchases of the voting machines in executive session, Hartman argued.
Heath ruled that the "premature disclosure" clause only applied to "the sale or other disposition of unneeded, obsolete or unfit-for-use property" and not the first permitted executive session reason of "to consider the purchase of property for public purposes."
She cited the Ohio State Bar Association's Ohio Administrative Law Handbook and Agency Directory as agreeing with that interpretation of the statute. As well as the Ohio Attorney General's Ohio Sunshine Laws 2022 manual and a 5th District Court of Appeals decision in 2013. Heath said no court in Ohio has ruled in favor of Look Ahead America's reading of the Sunshine Law.
On Aug. 8, Heath held a trial without a jury, which was agreed to by the parties. Ferruccio and Jeff Matthews of the Board of Elections testified that they with other present board members discussed the purchase of voting machines in the executive sessions. And they discussed no other topic.
Heath wrote in her ruling that much of Look Ahead's arguments about the validity of the board's executive sessions became moot because the Ohio Supreme Court in May ordered the Stark County commissioners to fund the purchase of the Dominion voting machines.
More:Ohio Supreme Court: Stark commissioners must fund purchase of Dominion voting machines
"Based upon the extensive public statements in the meeting minutes and transcripts and recordings, the Court is convinced beyond doubt that the Board of Elections engaged in no 'secret deliberations' and fulfilled its obligation of 'accountability to the public,'" Heath wrote.
Are Stark County's Dominion voting machines safe?
The members of the bipartisan Stark County Board of Elections along with Matthews, also the former chairman of the Stark County Republican Party, and the board's deputy director, Regine Johnson, a Democrat, have repeatedly said that the new Dominion machines accurately count votes.
Johnson said Wednesday, "If we were experiencing problems in the tabulating of votes or recording of votes in (the Dominion ImageCast X) machines, we would not use them."
Travis Secrest, the Stark County Board of Election's Republican election system's manager, said audits required by state law and Ohio Secretary of State directives before and after each election have verified the machines' accuracy in counting votes since the machines were delivered the summer of 2021. The audits require the Board staff to check test votes before elections that are then zeroed out before use by voters and actual voting results after elections.
For randomly selected polling locations, board staff verify by hand that machine vote totals match hand counts of votes on paper receipts generated by the machines that voters check before they cast their ballots on the machines, Johnson said.
Reach Robert at robert.wang@cantonrep.com. Twitter: @rwangREP.
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Look Ahead America faces deadline to appeal Stark voting machines case
