Nguyen

I.

This is a petition for writ of mandate seeking to vacate a decision after an election contest over a seat on the Orange County Board of Supervisors. In this opinion we explain why, on balance, this matter should proceed by way of the more deliberative and thorough process of appeal, rather than the hastier route of a petition for writ of mandate.

Here is the background: In a February 2007 supervisorial election that included many candidates, Trung Nguyen was declared the winner; Janet Nguyen was the runner-up by seven votes. Janet Nguyen then asked for a recount. To be specific, she asked that all absentee ballots, that is, paper ballots, be counted manually. As for the ballots cast by direct recording electronic voting system—often called “DRE”—Janet Nguyen merely asked for a rerun of the electronic tabulation, essentially a downloading of the electronic memory of the voting machines. She did not ask for a hand count of the paper ballots that are automatically printed within the machine (but not given to the voter) when a voter votes by a direct recording electronic system. In essence, her recount centered on the paper ballots.

The recount as conducted by the…