On March 12, a California Superior Court in Shasta County issued a 4-page order in Shasta County Citizens for Justice v City of Shasta Lake, cv-174130. Recently, a recall petition was circulated to recall a city council member in the city of Shasta Lake. The councilmember obtained evidence that someone who is not a resident of Shasta Lake helped circulate the petition. UPDATE: here is the decision.
The councilmember asked the court to order the city not to hold the recall. But the court declined to stop that election. The judge wrote, “Even assuming there was evidence that signatures were gathered by a non-resident circulator, there is no statutory or constitutional authority for the Court to enjoin a recall election on the ground that signatures on a recall petition were obtained by a non-resident petition circulator. The statutory scheme for remedies relating to improper signature gathering is to hold the circulator accountable, not the signator.”
California and Pennsylvania are the only states that still try to enforce in-district, or in-jurisdiction, residence requirements on circulators. Recently, some California elections officials have warned circulators of in-lieu of filing petitions that the circulator must be a resident of the county and district. This has been frustrating, because the constitutionality of the California in-district residency requirement is pending in federal court, and the Secretary of State has told the court that the residency requirement is not enforced. However, she has not communicated that to county elections officials.
Richard Winger,
Please post the ruling of the court.
A look at Election Code Section 11046 requires that the
declaration shall include a statement that “the circulator is a registered voter in the jurisdiction of the officer sought to be recalled.”
Election Code Section 11045 states: “Only registered voters of the electoral jurisdiction of the officer
sought to be recalled are qualified to circulate or sign
a recall petition for that officer.”
I note Election Code Section 18600 relates to the circulation of obtaining signatures for recall petition
by give false statements. Has anyone charged the offender circulator with the crime covered by this statute!?
I am dealing with a simular problem in Los Angeles County, viz., a person that circulated signatures in lieu for a statewide candidate, while he was a claimed ex officio member of another counties central committee.
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Chairman, American Independent Party of California
The opinion is not on the web page of the Superior Court of Shasta County. I obtained it because a very helpful employee in the Shasta County Superior Court scanned it for me, and then e-mailed it to me. I don’t have her name, but her direct line is 530-229-8158. Another phone number for the clerk of that court is 530-225-8990. Maybe she would scan it for you as well.
LAWS on the books are deemed in force regardless of ANY MORON comments by any MORON bureaucrat.
Election area – with voters — everybody else is a political alien from another dimension.
Bowen has told elections officials to count signatures gathered by out-of-county circulators, while saying that the circulators themselves might subject to prosecution if they commit perjury in the process:
http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ccrov/pdf/2010/january/10038rd.pdf
Note that the legal threat cited in this document is perjury in the affadavit. It is not violating the Elections Code prohibition on out-of-county circulators. The document seems to me to acknowledge that the Elections Code provision is unenforceable.
The problem is that she doesn’t tell candidates any of this. She simply cites the statute. For example (near the top of page 2):
http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/2012-elections/june-primary/pdf/congress-qualifications-2012.pdf
But election officials also read the instructions to candidates. So they get both messages. That might explain why different counties tell circulators different things.