On Thursday, August 21, 2008, the Office of the Election Official, by and through her legal counsel, filed a petition for a Writ of Mandate intended to result in corrections to issues established by specified candidates’ statements.
The California Elections Code regulates the permissible content that may be set forth within candidate statements. The intent of the law and the duty imposed upon those officials responsible for the conduct of elections is to ensure that the voters are presented fair, accurate and relevant information to assist their voting decision-making. If prohibited or inaccurate information is presented in a written statement the elections Official, as the guardian of the voting public, must follow the statutorily defined judicial process to test the validity of the statements and, where proven to be improper, seek the alteration of the statements. Pursuant to statute, the Elections Official and the general public have a ten (10) day period, commencing after the end of the nomination paper filing deadline, to commence and complete the review of the statements. Where warranted, to ensure fairness and conformance with law, the official must seek either a writ of mandate or an injunction to cause the issues to be resolved.
The City Elections Official must commence suit against the County of Orange to seek to prevent the publication of the candidate statement unless and until a judge rules on the original form of the statement. A court may let a challenged candidate statement stand, may order it be altered, or may prohibit its publication in its entirety.
In this instance, the Election Official, in the ordinary course of business, reviewed the several candidate’s statements within the ten (10) day period. Two were believed to require modification to conform to the law. To avoid any appearance of impropriety and to conform to statute, the Elections Official acted to seek the independent decision of a judge of the Orange County Superior Court. The court will be asked to decide if the candidate statements require revision or not. The matter will be expedited so as to not interfere with the publication of the voter’s handbooks by the County of Orange.
The Election Official emphasizes that the actions taken were taken solely to ensure that all applicable statutes and common law are being followed so that the election process may proceed on a fair and uniform manner for all candidates and the voters within the community.
View a copy of this petition here.
