Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines:
California Supreme Court declines to intervene in recall election
DAVID KRAVETS, AP Legal Affairs Writer
Thursday, August 7, 2003
©2003 Associated Press
sfgate.com
(08-07) 16:53 PDT SAN FRANCISCO (AP) --
The California Supreme Court on Thursday declined to intervene in the recall election, clearing the way for an Oct. 7 vote on whether or not to remove Gov. Gray Davis from office and replace him with someone from a list of qualified candidates.
The announcement came after the justices held hours of closed-door discussions that began Wednesday, and after more than 400 would-be governors from all political persuasions and backgrounds took out nomination papers in advance of the 5 p.m. Saturday deadline to file their candidacy.
The justices, six Republicans and one Democrat, chose not to enter the politically charged recall arena, two weeks after the election was certified. Never before has California's sitting governor been targeted by a voter-driven recall election that qualified for the ballot.
The court was reponding to five petitions. Two asked to block challengers' names from appearing on the ballot. One asked to move two unrelated ballot initiatives to the March primary election.
Another, filed by Gov. Gray Davis, sought to delay the entire vote until March amid accusations that some of the state's counties would otherwise use outdated punch-card machines. Another asked the court to review the requirement that candidates need $3,500 and 65 signatures of registered voters to get on the ballot.
Still, several federal lawsuits remain. A leading case was filed early Thursday in Los Angeles by the American Civil Liberties Union, alleging that some of the state's 58 counties are ill-prepared to administer a vote by Oct. 7, and that others would be forced to use voting machines they had promised a federal judge they would discard before using them again in March.
The error rate of the machines, which gained national notoriety during Florida's bungled 2000 presidential election, is between 2 and 3 percent, the ACLU said. In addition to Los Angeles County, the ACLU suit says the punch-card machines would be used in Alameda, Mendocino, San Diego, Shasta and Solano.
©2003 Associated Press |
