Specter of hanging chads postpones Oct. 7 recall election
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Monday postponed the California gubernatorial recall election scheduled for Oct. 7. The federal court sided with American Civil Liberties Union arguments that voters in six counties would have to use the same outdated punch-card voting machines that proved to be less than accurate the 2000 presidential election.
The ACLU also argued that voters could just as easily decide whether or not to recall Gov. Gray Davis in the regularly scheduled March 2 presidential primary and protect the rights of voters to have their votes counted at the same time. By March all six counties will have replaced the punch card machines with more up-to-date arrangements, in the case of Santa Clara County, touch screen machines.
The six counties include the heavily populated Santa Clara, Los Angeles and San Diego counties plus the more sparsely populated Sacramento, Solano and Mendocino counties. Forty-four percent of California voters who registered for the 2000 election live in those counties.
The California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley was expected to file an appeal of the 9th Circuit Court’s decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The court stayed imposition of its decision for a week to allow time for appeals.
In Morgan Hill, both Republicans and Democrats said they wanted the recall to go forward.
Ben Gilmore, a conservative Republican, said he had no idea if the decision would hold up under Supreme Court scrutiny.
“But I have a suspicion that it will not,” Gilmore said Monday. He said he thought that the result of the election might change if voting were held later than Oct. 7.
Gilmore just returned from the Republican Convention in Southern California over the weekend where, he said, Tom McClintock, another Republican conservative, made an impressive showing before the press.
The candidate has been making headway in his campaign to win the governor’s spot against the more moderate Arnold Swarzenegger.
Gilmore described the recall as, not so much a political movement as a populist movement.
“Throughout history populist movements have often been leaderless,” Gilmore said. “The recall in California is an example. These bumps along the road would jump (the movement) off the track if it were just a political movement,” he said. “If Supreme Court doesn’t move in and the election isn’t held, my guess is that it will feed the energy of the citizen’s revolt.”
City Councilman Greg Sellers, a Democrat active in the party, said he hopes the election will proceed as planned.
“It’s been so distracting on so many levels,” Sellers said, “let’s just get it over with.”
The cost to counties of the special, unscheduled election was estimated to be more than $60 million at a time when counties are struggling with severe cuts in funding because of the $38 billion budget deficit. Postponing the election until March originally would have saved money. However, counties have already spent a considerable amount printing and mailing ballots.
Tom Kinoshita, a longtime Morgan Hill resident, said he has been against the recall from the beginning.
“If the ruling is allowed to stand and the election is delayed until March, I think the tide is turning. There is less and less support for the recall,” said Kinoshita, who noted he was talking as a private citizen, not as president of the Morgan Hill School Board.
“We elected a governor in November. The recall is not the best way to go. Most of us have some problems with Gov. Davis, but what happened is not entirely his fault,” Kinoshita said listing the national economic downturn and manipulation of energy prices.
Kinoshita noted that the recall is costing the state an estimated $67 million plus and Santa Clara County $5 million.
“And if the election is delayed, it will cost us even more,” he added.
Voting on the two propositions included on the Oct. 7 ballot have also been postponed, and await future developments in the Supreme Court. Proposition 53 allocates state funding for schools and roads and Proposition 54 would keep California governments and schools from keeping track of students and employees because of their race.
