<font color=green>This is amazing......can you imagine how long the ballot will be................<font color=black>
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Nearly 250 File in California
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Aug. 12) - A total of 247 people have filed candidacy papers for the Oct. 7 recall election, the secretary of state said Tuesday, as county officials warned of major problems in staging the vote.
Of those candidates, 115 have been completed for certification and the rest were being reviewed, according to the secretary of state's Web site.
Ninety-five Democrats filed papers, with 45 cleared so far. The most prominent among them was Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, who is being promoted by party leaders as the most desirable Democrat if Gov. Gray Davis is recalled.
Seventy-seven Republicans filed papers, with 33 cleared so far.
Applications also came from 58 independents, six Green Party members, four Libertarians, three American Independents, two Natural Law Party members and two Peace and Freedom candidates.
Former presidential candidate Ralph Nader said he would endorse fellow Green Party member Peter Camejo for governor on Tuesday afternoon. Camejo captured 5.3 percent of the vote for a third-place finish in last fall's race for governor.
Staging the election is posing major challenges for county elections officials, who fear problems with processing such a large ballot, including doing more work by hand.
Secretary of State Kevin Shelley urged precision over speed when polls close on Oct. 7 and conceded it could take several days to finalize results.
''I urge them to do it accurately,'' he said.
The expanded ballot also means higher costs for the special election, now estimated at up to $66 million. Contra Costa County elections officials said the long candidate list could raise ballot costs by $750,000 over the county's earlier estimate of $1.6 million.
Shelley said the state's costs have ballooned from $7 million to $11 million.The rest of the money will come from counties that likely will have to dip into funds set aside for the presidential primary in March.
''It's like we're spending next month's rent or grocery bill,'' Michael Petrucello, assistant registrar-recorder clerk for Los Angeles County, told the Los Angeles Times. Election costs in the state's most populous county are expected to reach $13.2 million.
Shelley promised Monday to ask the Legislature for financial help.
Among the added costs will be first-class postage needed to make sure hefty ballot pamphlets arrive in 11 million homes on time. Normally, the pamphlets are mailed at a lower postage rate that takes more time.
With each candidate allowed to make a 250-word statement, the size of the pamphlet could reach 50 pages.
The California State Association of Counties, noting the state has typically paid for special elections, also intends to seek legislative relief.
On Monday, state election officials randomly drew letters to determine the order of the Oct. 7 recall ballot.
Jeff Rainforth, chairman of the Reform Party of California, thought he'd won top billing after R was the first letter pulled out of the Keno-style tumbler.
''We were pretty ecstatic,'' said the 35-year-old Rainforth, whose name ranks first - alphabetically, at least - among 15 would-be governors whose surnames begin with the lucky letter.
But under the lottery-style system, the reordered 26-letter alphabet - beginning R, W, Q, O, J, M, V, A and eventually ending with L - is applied throughout candidates' names.
That means that David Laughing Horse Robinson, chairman of the Kawaiisu Indian tribe, goes first, not Rainforth, because O comes before A in the state's newfangled alphabet.
To avoid giving any one candidate a lasting edge, their names will be rotated one position for each Assembly district, of which there are 80. Robinson's name will be first on the ballot only in California 1st district, which stretches from the northernmost border to Sonoma County.
The precise order and its potential ramifications won't be known until late Wednesday, however, when Shelley certifies how many candidates actually qualified for the ballot.
The state has used this system since 1975 to help erase the estimated 5 percent advantage a candidate gets from being at the top of the ballot.
AP-NY-08-12-03 1701EDT
Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. |
