The defenders of “Our Democracy” are at it again.
Last September, Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state Legislature filed a lawsuit seeking to remove a qualified initiative, the Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act, from the November ballot before voters can adopt it.
Now there’s another attack on Californians’ constitutional direct-democratic powers: a bill that would effectively shield county election officials from oversight when they reject voter signatures on recall, initiative or recall petitions. referendum.
The proposed legislation is Senate Bill 1441, introduced by Sen. Ben Allen, D-El Segundo. Under current law, if a recall, initiative, or referendum is determined to have an insufficient number of valid signatures, supporters have the right to review the rejected signatures and the reason for the rejection. The exam must begin promptly, but there is no time limit for completing it and there is no fee.
SB 1441 would impose a 60-day deadline for the review process and require proponents of the measure to pay, in advance, daily, whatever the cost of personnel and equipment needed to review the signatures, according to the county.
This bill is sponsored by Los Angeles County and was prompted by the fact that supporters of the petition to remove Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon attempted for approximately 14 months to review nearly 200,000 signatures rejected as invalid. But it was Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan who blocked, delayed and obstructed the signature review process.
On July 6, 2022, the Committee to Recall Prosecutor George Gascon collected 715,833 signatures on the recall petitions, 148,966 more than the 566,857 required. By law, the number of signatures required to qualify the recall of a county official is 10 percent of the number of registered voters in the county according to the most recent voter registration report filed with the Secretary of State , dated January 4. 2022.
With a workforce of about 400 workers, mostly temporary employees, the county disqualified 88,464 signatures for not being registered to vote, 43,593 as duplicates, 32,187 for having a different address, 9,490 for an incompatible signature and thousands more for various other reasons. In an August 15, 2022 press release, the Registrar’s Office announced the rejection of 195,783 signatures, leaving the recall approximately 46,000 signatures short of qualifying for the ballot.
The proponents exercised their right to review the rejected signatures, but Logan’s office told them they could only review the signatures three days a week, between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. The number of volunteers they could bring was limited to 14, and they had access to only seven computer workstations, manned by the Registrar’s staff.
Review of signatures began in September, and by October, project supporters were asking a judge for relief from what they saw as arbitrary and capricious county restrictions, unreasonably slowing the review process signatures rejected. The judge agreed with the developers that the county needed to provide more resources and availability so the work could be done. Logan appealed the decision, further delaying everything.
By July 2023, nominators had reviewed about half of the rejected signatures and found significant errors by the registrar’s office. For starters, a Public Records Act request had revealed a discrepancy in the number of registered voters in the county. Logan’s office stated in writing that as of December 31, 2021, “the number of active registrations in Los Angeles County was 5,438,400.” But that’s nearly a quarter of a million fewer registrations than the county reported to the secretary of state at almost exactly the same time, and it would mean recall supporters only needed 543,840 signatures , not 566,857. Additionally, advocates found that tens of thousands of people on active voter rolls no longer lived in Los Angeles County.
The proponents determined that at least 20,587 valid signatures were wrongly rejected. Another 5,597 were rejected for signature mismatches due to the county’s failure to comply with existing signature verification regulations.
Although they had not completed review of all of the rejected signatures, supporters filed a lawsuit, citing evidence that they had collected at least 546,234 valid signatures and that only 540,338 to qualify for the poll.
However, with unlimited tax dollars to spend on an outside law firm, Dean Logan has been able to fight in court from then until now, running out of time. This week, recall supporters gave up, unable to set a trial date. Voters will have the opportunity in November to vote against prosecutor George Gascon, as polls have long suggested.
Now that you know what happened with the wrongly discarded signatures, discrepancies in voter registration numbers, and Registrar Dean Logan’s determination to fight any attempt to audit his office’s work, what do you think? Are you on a bill that would allow counties to completely avoid review of invalidated signatures by filibustering for 60 days or simply setting unaffordable fees?
Find the names and contact information for your representatives in the state Legislature by going online to findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov. The bill is SB 1441. Let them know what you think.
The California State Association of Counties (CSAC) supports SB 1441. You may want to call the county supervisor who represents your district to ask why county clerks should be shielded from liability if they wrongly reject signatures valid on petitions.
You probably didn’t know before that the Governor and Legislature sue to have a qualified initiative removed from the ballot before you can vote on it, or that the Los Angeles County Registrar fought in front of the court to forever delay judgment in a case involving temporary workers. valid voter signatures.
But now it is. Make your voice heard. Protect democracy, for real.
Email Susan@SusanShelley.com and follow her on Twitter @Susan_Shelley
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