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Recall postponed with 9th U.S. Circuit orderFor some, it’s a travesty of the electoral process. For others, it’s poetic justice. For everyone else, it means the sideshow that is California’s recall election may go on a bit longer than expected. Monday’s ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit court of appeals ordered that the Oct. 7 recall election be postponed. The court ruled that six counties, including Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento, would be forced to use error-prone punch cards if the election is held in October.” “ Compounding the problem,” the three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled, is that “approximately a quarter of the state’s polling places will not be operational because election officials have insufficient time to get them ready for the special election, and that the sheer number of gubernatorial candidates will make the antiquated voting system far more difficult to use.” The court stayed its order for seven days to allow time for appeals. Thomas Hiltachk, attorney for recall initiator Ted Costa, promised to turn to either the full 9th Circuit Court of Appeals or to the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the ruling. The court’s decision to stay its order suggests the ruling isn’t rock solid, Hiltachk said. “I think if you’re a judge and you’re confident in your decision, why wouldn’t you just order it?” Hiltachk said. “We’re confident that this decision will be overruled.” Secretary of State Kevin Shelley has requested that an 11-judge “en banc,” or full court, of the 9th circuit court to reconsider Monday’s decision. The 9th circuit asked for legal briefs by 2 p.m. Wednesday while it decides whether to reconsider the case en banc. In a statement Shelley said “I believe it is in everyone’s best interest that this case be heard swiftly and considered thoroughly, so the court can resolve these legal issues with the finality that the voters expect and deserve.” Fresno State political science professor and Dr. David Schecter said the court showed good judgment in calling for the 11-judge group to weigh in on the ruling. “They feel they need to protect themselves if [the case] goes higher by affirming what they said yesterday,” Schecter said. “ I think the 9th circuit threw down the gauntlet, so to speak, asking them if they’d use the same logic they used in 2000 and apply it here,” Schecter said. “If so, they’d agree with postponement.” “ It’s interesting when a circuit court basically confronts the US Supreme Court with its own logic,” he said. Candidates, including Davis, pushed ahead with their campaigns. “Right now,” the governor said, “I’m assuming the election will be on Oct. 7, and I’m going to continue assuming that until we have a final determination by the courts.” Davis distanced himself from the case, which was filed by the Southwestern Voter Registration Education Project, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the American Civil Liberties Union. “A lot of people signed petitions to have this election, and they have a right to have this election,” Davis said. “But the people I’m appealing to in this state have a right to say no to the recall in that election. And I will make my case up and down the state until they tell me we’re going to have the election.” Republicans branded the ruling by three Democratic judges of the 9th Circuit, considered by many the most liberal federal appeals court in the country, as politically motivated. “ Less than a year ago we voted for and re-elected Gray Davis based on this system of voting,” Darrell Issa, the Republican congressman who bankrolled the recall signature-gathering drive, said in an interview on CNN. “And now what was good enough to re-elect him is not good enough to consider throwing him out of office. … To disenfranchise the people of California in advance is outrageous.” Punch-card ballots were used in Florida in the 2000 presidential election, playing one of the starring roles in the highly contested election. The U.S. Supreme Court stopped the recount, ruling that not all of the Florida votes were being treated equally. Former Secretary of State Bill Jones declared Punch-card ballots obsolete last year in response to an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit. The decision required counties to no longer use punch-card machines by March 2004. A study commissioned for the original suit said that punch-card machines make over twice as many errors as other voting machines, with an estimated 40,000 votes within the six counties being disqualified. This ruling also affects the two propositions on the ballot, Prop. 53, which requires a set percentage of the general budget dedicated to infrastructure costs, and Prop. 54, which would prohibit state and local governments from using or gathering information based on race, ethnicity or nationality. |