Tom Courbat, Election Monitoring Coordinator
Tom Courbat has been working on election integrity issues since the time of the November, 2004 general election.
For three elections Tom served as a poll worker and poll inspector (supervising precinct workers), thus gaining valuable inside knowledge of election processes at the polls.
He worked under the guidance of Dr. Judy Alter and Dan Ashby in a parallel election project in San Diego in 2005, and in the mayoral recount that year as well.
He has provided occasional ad-hoc assistance in the CA-50 (Busby/Bilbray) group objecting to the use of the Diebold machines contaminated by “sleepovers,” and has extensively studied the Ohio 2004 and Florida 2000 electoral debacles.
Tom is the former finance director of Riverside County, CA, and a 25-year veteran of local government at the executive management level. He has worked for the City of Pasadena, and the counties of Los Angeles, Shasta, and Riverside. In addition, he won three elections and served 10 years as a board member of the Murrieta County Water District, so he has a perspective from a candidate’s point of view as well.
Mr. Courbat holds a B.S. in marketing management and research from California State University at Los Angeles, and an MBA in financial management from California State University at Chico. He has completed ½ of the courses required for an MBA in public administration.
Election integrity (EI) has become a passion for Tom. In April, 2006 Tom became director of a budding DFA-Temecula Valley (Riverside County, CA) election integrity project called Save R Vote, and assembled and trained approximately 70 volunteers to monitor the election process for the June 6th primary. On July 11, 2006, Save R Vote presented a 13-page report detailing serious election security problems and corrective recommendations to the Riverside County Board of Supervisors.
In November 2006 Tom expanded the Save R Vote monitoring team to 200 volunteers, and has continued to produce election monitoring reports that have resulted in significiant reforms in the conduct of elections in Riverside County.