On March 26, a California state trial court refused to restore Kelly Honig to the primary ballot. She is running for Assembly, 42nd district, and is a Democrat. She is Mayor of Westlake Village. Honig v Weber, 26WM000078, Sacramento Superior Court. The 42nd district contains parts of two counties, Los Angeles and Ventura. Honig picked up paperwork to qualify for the ballot in the Ventura County Elections office, because it is far closer to her home than the Los Angeles County elections office, which is in the southeast corner of Los Angeles County. Westlake Village is on the western edge of Los Angeles County.
The election law says she can only pick up papers in her county of residence. So even though she had enough valid signatures and there were no flaws in her petition or other paperwork, the Secretary of State kept her off the ballot, and Judge James P. Arguelles sided with the Secretary of State. Here is the decision.
The California Democratic Party, which had endorsed one of Honig’s Democratic opponents, filed an amicus curiae brief urging the court to keep Honig off the ballot.
Here is a statement from the candidate’s attorney: “Statement of Steven Churchwell, election law attorney for Kelly Honig, regarding the court’s ruling yesterday refusing to order the Secretary of State to place her on the ballot for Assembly District 42:
Assembly District 42 includes parts of Ventura and Los Angeles Counties. Kelly Honig, a candidate for Assembly District 42, filed more than 10 documents with Ventura and Los Angeles Counties. She completed her filings 2 weeks before the deadline. The one mistake she made was filing her Declaration of Candidacy in Ventura County instead of in Los Angeles County, the county of her residence.
The Secretary of State waited until March 19 to inform Ms. Honig that the SOS was not going to place her on the ballot, even though its letter stated, “Ventura County should not have accepted your filing fee or issued you a declaration of candidacy and nomination papers.”
The court denied her petition for a writ of mandate to place her on the ballot. The court reasoned that the appellate courts have applied the doctrine of “substantial compliance” to requirements for ballot initiatives and referenda, but not to candidates. Candidates must “strictly comply” with all of the requirements. Even if that is true, the distinction makes no sense. Why are ballot measures more deserving of the protection of the courts than candidates for elective office?
The court said the Ventura and Los Angeles County Registrars, and the Secretary of State had no duty to catch the error, even after weeks of interaction by all three with her on multiple occasions.
Finally, when verifying a signature on any “election petition or paper,” every elections official is required by Elections Code Section 105 to check the residence address of the signer. The signature on a Declaration of Candidacy is that of the candidate. Had this step been done, it would have revealed that Petitioner was not a registered voter in Ventura County and, therefore, was not entitled to file the Declaration of Candidacy in that county The court ruled, however, that a Declaration of Candidacy is not an “election paper.”
The court’s rigid enforcement of the filing location requirement elevated form over substance, disenfranchised the voters in AD 42, and denied a candidate ballot access based purely on a technical defect that would have had no impact whatsoever on the conduct of the election.”
https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/2026pdates.pdf
26 MAR 2026 update
The nAZi-666 spambot really needs to just stick to answering Ifo’s questions and nothing else!
FWIW, the ostensible reason for doing the declaration of candidacy in the home county is so that the registrar can determine if the candidate is a registered voter. Ventura County doesn’t know if the candidate is registered. The nominating petitions with 40 signatures were apparently delivered to both counties.
They don’t have access to a statewide voter database at the county office?
Jim Riley they could have mailed the papers to LA County or called or emailed her to pick them back up and take them there or told her when she came back by several times.
It even says they were supposed to check if the address, was in their county so they didn’t do everything correctly either. Obvious that they did it on purpose because they didn’t like her political views or personality or were friends with someone else running or got paid off or something.
@Q,
Would that comply with the statute (Elections Code 8064).
It wouldn’t? What about the other options suggested by Richard Winger and NBI?
@Q, The statute says that the declaration shall be obtained from the county of residence. It is an obligation on the candidate.
Elections Code $8064 The declaration of candidacy shall be obtained from, and delivered to, the elections official of the county in which the candidate resides and is a voter in accordance with Section 8028.
Could the legislature simplify the process for multi-county districts? Sure. Could the SOS improve the directions, emphasizing the distinction between multi-county and single county districts? In Texas, they are handled differently. It would be simpler if the SOS handled all filing. In 2026 it is not that hard to deal with remote Sacramento?
Is there anything in the statute that would have prohibited the county office from taking any of the actions suggested by Richard Winger or NBI above?
@Q,
Candidates for statewide office apply in their county of residence. Are you suggesting that if a candidate who lived in Imperial County went to the registrar in Humboldt County several hundred miles away, that they should have corrected the mistake? What is to prevent a candidate filing for governor in San Diego, lieutenant governor in Orange, attorney general in Los Angeles, comptroller in Ventura, etc.
Why do you think I’m suggesting anything? I’m asking questions which are not making any implications beyond the exact wording of those questions, and with that in mind, how would you (or whoever else might care to answer, if anyone), answer, for example;
Is there anything in the statute that would have prohibited the county office from taking any of the actions suggested by Richard Winger or NBI above?
Or any of the other exact questions I asked above, if the previous answers assumes that I asked or implied anything except the exact questions I asked, exactly as I asked them?
@Q,
Here is the entire statute:
“Elections Code $8064 The declaration of candidacy shall be obtained from, and delivered to, the elections official of the county in which the candidate resides and is a voter in accordance with Section 8028.”
Kelly Honig is a resident of Los Angeles County. Therefore she is not a resident of Ventura County. She can not obtain the declaration of candidacy from Ventura County, even if she is a nice lady, or lives near to Ventura County.
I don’t know what question you thought you were answering, but did you seriously think it was one that I asked?
Have you not yet understood that all my questions are hyperliteral, noncontextualized, and that the orthogonal tangents you keep going off on have nothing at all to do with what I asked or what I care about?
Would you rather try again, let someone else answer, let it go, or answer some other question I didn’t ask yet and don’t care about the answer to yet again?
The question was nothing more or less than
“Is there anything in the statute that would have prohibited the county office from taking any of the actions suggested by Richard Winger or NBI above?”
Would it help you to review what Mr. Winger and Mr./Mrs./Miss It suggested in order to address my actual question?
“Would you rather try again, let someone else answer, let it go, or answer some other question I didn’t ask yet and don’t care about the answer to yet again?”
Missing words sure change meaning, don’t they?
That should have read
…yet AGAIN…
Since it wasn’t a question I was ever conceivably going to ask ….
Oh wait …
It should actually read
“Would you rather try again, let someone else answer, let it go, or answer some other question I didn’t ask and don’t care about the answer to yet again?”
Or
“Would you rather try again, let someone else answer, let it go, or answer some other question I didn’t ask yet again and don’t care about the answer to?”
Would it help that I don’t care about the particulars of this case, or the text of any statute?
The question is general in principle and specific to what I’m asking.
Is there anyone here who has claimed that the statute says anything other than what it says and that Kelly Whoever had the primary responsibility to submit the paperwork in her county of residence? Did you somehow misread between the lines that I was making some such claim?
Is there anyone here, yourself included, that does not understand that people make mistakes?
Is there anything in the statute you quoted that says the election office workers weren’t allowed to communicate to her that she filed the paperwork at the wrong office and giving it back to her to submit correctly in time the numerous other times she was at their office to file other paperwork that she could file there, or by mailing it back to her with an explanation, or by calling or emailing her to alert her to the error?
Do you dispute that “The Secretary of State waited until March 19 to inform Ms. Honig that the SOS was not going to place her on the ballot, even though its letter stated, “Ventura County should not have accepted your filing fee or issued you a declaration of candidacy and nomination papers.”?
Do you dispute that “Ventura and Los Angeles County Registrars, and the Secretary of State had weeks of interaction by all three with her on multiple occasions.”?
Why is Ventura County allowed to make mistakes such as accepting filing fees and issuing nomination papers but the person is not allowed to make a mistake and have them let her know about it even though they made a mistake too? If it was indeed a mistake and not malicious on their part?
Why have the kangaroo courts applied “substantial compliance” to ballot measures but “strict compliance” to individual candidates?
Do you dispute any parts of this, if so which ones;
“when verifying a signature on any “election petition or paper,” every elections official is required by Elections Code Section 105 to check the residence address of the signer. The signature on a Declaration of Candidacy is that of the candidate. Had this step been done, it would have revealed that Petitioner was not a registered voter in Ventura County and, therefore, was not entitled to file the Declaration of Candidacy in that county The court ruled, however, that a Declaration of Candidacy is not an “election paper.””
How on God’s green earth is a declaration of candidacy not an election paper?
Do you deny that they elevate form over substance, while at least circumstantially providing evidence of corruptly carrying water for the D P (double penetrating) donkey party that controls those three government offices and which filed an amicus brief in favor of ballot exclusion —- even if no non-circumstantial evidence of such a corrupt conspiracy has come to light?
“Ventura County doesn’t know if the candidate is registered.”
They know she’s not registered in their county, don’t they? Are they allowed to call or email or snail mail the neighboring county or SOS and send papers to the correct location, or give them back to her so she can, or find out through the myriad communication methods of the modern era if she is an LA County voter from the LA or SOS sibling bureau rats?
Do you dispute that filing multiple papers to run, while yes it’s her legal responsibility, is not her primary job, and that she made multiple trips to multiple locations to file multiple papers , obtain or witness voter signatures herself or through friends or family or supporters or hired help etc etc while managing multiple other responsibilities – paying job, family, etc, probably, among others ?
Do you dispute that accepting and reviewing such papers IS the primary job of election bureaucrats, so when she made one error and they made multiple, which would seem more understandable to you?
Which makes more sense: putting all the burden on one person who wants to offer the voters a different choice to jump through hundreds of hoops with perfect form while ignoring the (at best) sloppy hoop holding of the professional hoop holders (or at worst a corrupt covertly communist cabal that control California and particularly its coastal areas and capital?)
…or acknowledge that when they make multiple errors (or worse) they should compensate for her error that they incompetently or purposely ignored against their own rules, causing her to miss the deadline and waste a great deal of effort jumping through additional hoops?
Doesn’t all this complexity yet again demonstrate, redundantly, that laws, elections, and especially election laws and administration are way too complex, resulting in a great deal of wasted time, effort, money , etc , and helping ensure lifetime job security, pensions and benefits to an ever growing cadre of lazy / incompetent / corrupt bureaucrats, political cronies and contractors, and other people directly or indirectly making their living off the backs of taxpayers …
While at the same time binding said taxpayers in ever more layers of red tape while adding ever more weight on their backs …
AND making it prohibitively difficult to even try to put a dent in all that through peaceful legal electoral means?
Fyi: petition companies routinely obtain the statewide database of registered voters from the California SOS. If the SOS let’s private companies have it for the purpose of checking multilevel subcontractors work to pay them fast enough to keep them working; while keeping fraud from the bottom up in check , they wouldn’t let their own county offices have it in addition to all the other options discussed above? – yeah right!
“8064” is an archaic law. When was it last revised? Back when long distance phone calls cost an arm and a leg (if they existed at all) and computers ran on punch cards (or didn’t exist)?
If it was more recently than that, it exists solely for this malicious purpose and is badly overdue for revision.
In the 21st century it’s trivial for the state voter database to run on a regular personal laptop or, probably, phone. I was using a flip phone when I got out of that business and it was already doable on a regular personal laptop.
With a regular office or flip phone, even without a State’s database, it’s trivial for county election officials to call other county or state elections officials to verify a voter.
Or call or email the candidate. Or tell her she went to the wrong office when she comes in rather than accept her declaration of candidacy and negligently issue nomination papers. Or mail them back to her in time. Or tell her they screwed up and she needs to go to LA County and start the next part over the other times she was already in their office for other reasons.
All those options are not in any way outlawed under 8064. They are not mandated, but the only reason they would not be exercised – any of them – is if they are purposely trying to screw her (or anyone else).
This is further evidence by the fact that they admittedly repeatedly did not follow their own regulations.
Oh and I call BS.
THE DEMOCRATS FILED AN AMICUS TO HELP KEEP HER OFF THE BALLOT.
They endorsed one of her opponent’s. THEY control the state offices, LA County offices, and I will just guess Ventura offices too. The judges sided with them because they are either run by the same mob or scared of them .. So yeah all those folks conspired to screw her.
For this purpose it doesn’t matter if she’s a Democrat who doesn’t always toe the party line or not a Damnedocrat at all. Either way the fix is in through malicious strict compliance enforcement.
If her Party endorsed opposition made a similar error, or many such paperwork errors you would never hear about it because it would get quietly fixed behind the scenes… And if you really needed that explained to you, you would be too dumb to read this, much less find and quote 8064, and you are obviously way smarter than that, so why play dumb?
I’m surprised the statute doesn’t require her to ride a horse to her county election official (singular).
Given that close to ten million people still live in LA county, you can correctly surmise that most of the way across the county and back may take the whole business day or longer depending on unpredictable traffic along multiple freeways or other roads. Some folks may need a motel before they can safely drop back. Some might hire a professional driver or helicopter or ride government transit, etc.
Knowing nothing about her, I don’t know what else she may need to do during the day that might make such a trip overwhelming.
Even if WLV has its own police force using a LEOmusine might be an ethical or legal violation on personal political business vs city business. Especially if emergency lights go on to clear the path.
I don’t know or care if mayor there is a full time, part time, or volunteer job. I don’t know if she’s a retiree, business owner, working professional at some other full time job, mom of young kids or adult caretaker, etc .
This matter of illogical strict compliance is pure sadism. California demon rats claim to care about the environment. Almost everyone hates spending the day in LA traffic. Why add to these issues unnecessarily?
Jim Riley
“Are you suggesting that if a candidate who lived in Imperial County went to the registrar in Humboldt County several hundred miles away, that they should have corrected the mistake”
Yeah. As far as I know postal mail, phones and computers all work in both Humboldt and Imperial counties in addition to SOS in Sacramento. All of these offices can communicate. While 8064 apparently didn’t foresee it,it now takes seconds for any election official or private business or subcontractor anywhere to look up anyone’s Kalipornia voter record. And while 8064 doesn’t mandate doing so, I don’t see where it prohibits it either.
But if something else does, there’s that going postal snail thingy. Shockingly, it no longer requires riding a horse from hitching post to hitching post down dusty trails, so the snail thing is all relative.
Going to the county election official doesn’t mean dismounting your steed, kicking the dust off your boots, getting escorted by the town marshal to the back of the courthouse and gifting the county election official a bottle of your back 40’s finest whiskey for the trouble of looking through the book of handwritten voter records to find you after showing him your family bibles record of births any more these days.
You might be shocked – shocked! – that a quick email, call, text message etc can quickly resolve the question…..
“What is to prevent a candidate filing for governor in San Diego, lieutenant governor in Orange, attorney general in Los Angeles, comptroller in Ventura, etc.”
If wanting to actually make the ballot is insufficient disincentive to any such tomfoolery, the possibility of arrest, public embarrassment and infamy, being the butt of jokes for the rest of the candidates life, the discomfort of jail, the possibility of prosecution and imprisonment , fines, probation , parole, loss of professional licenses and voting and gun rights, reputational and career / business damage, travel restrictions, beatings, sexual extortion and slavery, forced labor, extortion by violent criminals, divorce, loss of child custody, loss of friends, end of future political aspirations, huge legal bills, bankruptcy, etc, are among the potential consequences of various likelihood that would dissuade most folks.
@Q,
There is no evidence that the SOS deliberately waited until March 19 to inform Honig that her application had been rejected, when it was well past the filing deadline. A characterization by the lawyer for Honig should not be trusted. The communication between the SOS and Honig was about her designation on the ballot as “City Councilwoman”.
Should Ventura County have caught the mistake? Yes. Is the SOS responsible for correcting that mistake? The court ruled not. It may be a problem that the case was heard on an emergency basis. There was no time for Honig’s lawyer to research and craft a sur reply. Instead it went to a hearing where the judge announced his decision at the end of the hearing. Could it be appealed. Sure, but the higher court is going to claim that it the case is moot, and there will be a few years of litigation before a court decides the mistake might repeat. A lower court is going to be quite reluctant to rule on a doctrine of substantial compliance. That is left up to a higher court.
@FP,
Elections in California are administered at the county level. That is why petitions have to be filed in each county. Each county has its own voter’s guide. That is why Honig went to each county with her statement and paid for it, along with the petition sections. It is only recently that there is a statewide voter data base, and that is because it was a federal requirement, and California had missed the deadlines for years, maybe decades.
It is certainly odd that statewide candidates file in their county of residence, but they apparently understood. Gubernatorial candidates filed in around 20 counties. The requirement that candidates file in their county of residence applies to all offices, including those for an assembly district that straddles a county boundary. If I were (re)-designing the system, I’d probably have all statewide candidates file in Sacramento. Multi-county districts might have a lead county or file in Sacramento. In Texas at one time, a candidate in a multi-county race might have to file in each county.
@Stanley,
This apparently has never been a problem in 100’s or 1000’s of instances in the past. 62 gubernatorial candidates succeeded in filing in their county of residence. Three failed, but it was not for that reason. An assembly district in California has around 500,000 persons so there would be some travel just to represent the district.
Didn’t a judge in Alabama ride his horse to vote?
@FP,
$8064 was cited in the decision of the court. Of course, I’d look it up. That is when I realized it applied to all offices, and that gubernatorial candidates filed in 20 or so counties this year. You of course will be familiar with filing petitions in each county in California, and Kelly Honig understood this since she took her petition sections to both counties. She also went to the LA office to make her candidate statement for the LA voters guide.
You may be right about the Democratic Party. Check the endorsements on the campaign webpages for the two candidates. AD-42 is not overwhelmingly Democratic. The current Assemblyman is term limited, and has endorsed the other Democratic candidate. The amicus brief was totally fatuous. The claim of interest was that they were largest party in California. That would only be of value to a court if they were to admit that they were the one to stick the shiv into the Green or Libertarian parties. The other Democratic candidate called up the party and asked them to file an amicus brief – it would be too obvious if she had filed an amicus brief.