CA recall election has been postponed

[Dan-H]

http://www.comcast.net/News/DOMESTIC...a059ffd18.html


SAN FRANCISCO - A federal appeals court postponed California's Oct. 7 gubernatorial recall election, ruling the historic vote cannot proceed as scheduled because some votes would be cast using outmoded punch-card ballot machines.

In what was the last of about a dozen legal challenges to the attempt to unseat Gov. Gray Davis, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Monday it is unacceptable that six counties would be using outdated punch-card ballots, the type that sparked the "hanging chads" litigation in Florida during the 2000 presidential election.

The appellate panel agreed with the American Civil Liberties Union that the voting machines were prone to error and that Davis' fate could be decided later. By that time, the counties have promised to replace their punch-card machines under a court order in separate litigation.

The counties include the state's most populous region, Los Angeles, in addition to Mendocino, Sacramento, San Diego, Santa Clara and Solano. They represented 44 percent of the state's registered voters during the 2000 election.

State officials, who conceded in court documents that the punch-card voting mechanisms are "more prone to voter error than are newer voting systems," were likely to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"In sum, in assessing the public interest, the balance falls heavily in favor of postponing the election for a few months," the court said.

It was not immediately clear how the decision, if it survives, would impact the campaign in California's first voter-driven election to unseat its chief executive. The court stayed imposition of its decision for a week to allow time for appeals to the Supreme Court.

One possibility is that the nation's largest and most liberal federal appeals court might move the election to the next regularly scheduled primary on March 2.

The Davis camp, and major Democratic and Republican candidates hoping to succeed him, have been waging an all-out campaign blitz of broadcast messages, fund-raisers and appearances throughout the state.

The San Francisco-based appeals panel overturned an Aug. 20 ruling by U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson of Los Angeles, who said he would not delay the recall election. Wilson said it would be acting against the will of California's voters. In July, Secretary of State Kevin Shelley said more than 900,000 signatures of registered voters were collected to force a recall, and by law had about less than three months to call the hurry-up election.

State law also required Shelley to move from the March ballot to the recall ballot the only two voter initiatives that qualified for the ballot. Voting on those measures also has now been delayed.

One measure, Proposition 53, allocates state funding for schools and roads. The other, Proposition 54, prohibits California public governments and schools from tracking employees or students by race.

In other lawsuits, civil rights groups unsuccessfully fought to move Proposition 54 to the March ballot to give minorities more time to study it. In addition, some counties, to cut costs and conduct the election on a hurry-up schedule, were reducing the number of polling places, a move civil rights groups said would disenfranchise minority voters in areas with low voter turnout.

The case is Southwest Voter Registration Education Project v. Shelley, 03-56498.

[Dan-H]

any bets that this one will go to the supreme court and get overturned?

[Scott]

For some reason this doesn't surprise me, but it does however, dissapoint me
Scott

[Robert J. Yates]

Politics=pro sports

[02_WHITE_TJ_X]

Maybe now you will have a chance to get Mickey Mouse on the ballat to go along with all the other clowns you have running

[DanB98TJ]

It'll give all those illegals a chance to get their new driver's licenses and register to vote, too.

[mrblaine]

Let's see if I have this right. The voting mechanism was good enough to elect Davis, but now it's not good enough to recall him.

That about right?

[Dan-H]

you got it Blaine.

[PK99TJ]

The 9th circuit court of appeals really is very consistently in its own little world over there.