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This DHS official oversees the Effort to recall Arcadia Councilman David Fu fails security of federal elections. He wants to ban voting machines.
By Joe Taglieri joet@beaconmedianews.com
By Doug Bock Clark, ProPublica
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n attempt to gather enough signatures to force a recall vote for Arcadia City Councilman David Fu has failed, recall organizers announced Wednesday. After weeks of voter canvassing throughout Council District 1, recall supporters fell short of the 1,600 signatures needed for a place on the ballot, according to organizers. The effort garnered 1,450 signatures, Councilwoman Sharon Kwan said. “In the process of gathering signatures, our team connected with a large number of District 1 voters and heard widespread concerns about accountability, transparency, and leadership,” according to April Verlato, who led the recall effort and represented CD1 from 2016-24. “Many residents also expressed fear of retaliation if they signed the petition. The fact that so many people still chose to engage with us — despite those fears — speaks volumes about the depth of discontent in the district.” Fu did not respond to a request for comment. In a rebuttal to the recall notice, he called the effort “a third fabricated attempt by a former councilmember who desperately wants to regain power. It’s a cynical effort to undo the results of a fair election.” Recall supporters launched the signature drive after Fu led a council censure action against then-Mayor Sharon Kwan. “My job is to do the right thing for Arcadia,” Fu wrote in his rebuttal. “In this case, the right thing was to reprimand unprofessional, dishonest behavior by the Mayor. That’s what a censure is: a reprimand for unacceptable conduct. “The public overwhelmingly supported the censure, as did every member of the council except the Mayor,” according to Fu. Deputy City Manager
Arcadia City Councilman David Fu. | Photo courtesy of the city of Arcadia
Justine Bruno confirmed that the deadline to submit the recall petition elapsed on Wednesday and the recall process has concluded. She added that the City Manager’s Office “treats allegations of intimidation seriously. We have no written or verbal reports indicating that any District 1 voters feared retaliation for signing the recall petition,” Bruno wrote in an email to HeySoCal. com. “Had a petition been submitted, all voter information and signatures would be confidential and exempt from disclosure under applicable elections and public records laws. Such information would only be accessible by the City Clerk’s Office and the City Attorney’s Office, and not to Council Member Fu or any other external parties.” Recall proponents say their effort stems from Fu’s alleged “pattern of retaliation, misuse of authority, fiscal recklessness, and disregard for the City Charter,” according to the campaign’s notice of intent filed in November.
In a mass email Wednesday, Verlato said recall supporters hope that voters remember the alleged fear of reprisals when Fu runs for reelection. “We don’t want a representative that we can’t trust and who is willing to put the unions’ money grab before the residents who live here and pay the taxes that fund those unions’ salaries,” Verlato wrote. Fu was elected to a fouryear term in November 2024. Arcadia council members can serve for a maximum of two terms in office. The total number of signatures gathered since last fall was unclear. At the Aug. 19 council meeting, Fu initiated efforts to censure and remove Kwan. According to recall proponents, the next day Kwan was scheduled to meet with an investigator regarding a sexual harassment complaint she filed against Fu. See Recall Page 31
“The timing raises serious concerns of retaliation and abuse of power,” the notice document states. An independent investigation firm contracted by the city found none of Kwan’s harassment allegations were sustained, according to Fu at the March 3 council meeting. I want to be very clear. An investigation result does not always reflect what actually happened,” Kwan said in an email to HeySoCal.com. “In situations like this, especially involving sexual harassment, the truth is often only known by two people, the person who did it and the person who experienced it. “Women rarely get full justice in these situations. And in many cases, the person responsible is not held accountable. That is not because nothing happened. It is because these cases are difficult to prove within a system that relies heavily on witnesses and third party accounts.” Kwan said investigators relied heavily on interviews they conducted “with people within Councilman Fu’s circle, his colleagues and those close to him. That raises serious concerns about objectivity,” the District 2 councilwoman said. “I spent hours sharing my experience in detail. I know what I experienced, and I stand by it. “After I filed the complaint, what followed was retaliation. The pattern was clear. Instead of addressing the behavior, there was defensiveness, hostility, and repeated efforts to undermine my credibility. “During public comment, residents raised concerns about his personal history, and he himself stated publicly that he is on his third
This story was originally published by ProPublica. ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive The Big Story newsletter as soon as it’s published.
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n his top post at the Department of Homeland Security, David Harvilicz sets policy on protecting the nation’s elections infrastructure, including voting machines. He’s also the co-founder of a company with James Penrose, who helped hatch debunked conspiracy theories blaming hacked voting machines for Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 presidential election. Penrose assisted in a push to seize voting machines to overturn Trump’s defeat. On social media, Harvilicz has called for doing away with voting machines, saying they are “eminently vulnerable to exploitation.” In a March post, he wrote that “DHS needs to ban voting machines for all federal elections. The time is now.” He also has repeatedly questioned the validity of Democratic electoral victories and pushed for Republicans to overhaul electoral systems to their advantage. Election experts as well as current and former DHS officials say Harvilicz’s central role in overseeing the security of electoral systems and voting machines is especially concerning at a time when the administration is taking unprecedented steps to relitigate Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen. That includes the FBI’s seizure of 2020 voting records from Fulton County, Georgia, and having a team working for Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, take custody of voting machines used in Puerto Rico in 2020. See Voting machines Page 03
“The security of our election infrastructure depends on leadership that is trusted, impartial and grounded in evidence — not individuals who have promoted conspiracy theories about the very systems they are now responsible for protecting,” said Danielle Lang, vice president for voting rights and the rule of law at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan pro-democracy organization. “Placing someone with that background in charge of policies affecting election security can undermine public confidence in our elections at a time when trust is already fragile.” DHS didn’t answer detailed questions about Harvilicz or his team, providing a more general statement about the work done by the agency. “DHS and its employees are focused on keeping our elections safe, secure, and free,” it said. “Every single day appointees at the Department of Homeland Security work to implement the President’s policies and keep our Homeland safe.” Harvilicz didn’t respond to questions about his DHS role. Harvilicz’s X account notes his post as DHS’ assistant secretary for cyber, infrastructure, risk and resilience policy but says he’s been detailed to the Defense Department. (Such temporary assignments are typically done in 120-day increments.) Harvilicz was appointed to the DHS job around July, taking on a role that in the past has largely focused on shaping policy to protect the nation’s critical infrastructure, including its election