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Justice Dept. OKs Calif. Recall Election The election, just 50 days away, is forcing some counties to make a number of moneysaving changes that until Monday lacked federal approval. The legal dispute focused on Monterey County, which plans to cut costs by reducing its usual 190 polling places to 86 and hiring fewer Spanish-speaking poll workers. Any changes in the voting process must be cleared by the Justice Department in places like Monterey and three other California counties, which have a history of low voter participation, particularly among minorities. The other California counties subject to the requirement are Merced, Kings and Yuba. "This is not a problem," Jorge Martinez, a Justice Department spokesman, said late Monday. Last week, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose ordered Monterey County not to send absentee ballots overseas as he considers postponing the election. It was not immediately clear how the Justice Department decision on Monday would affect Fogel's order. The 1965 voting rights law was intended to prevent the various means that had been used in the South to disenfranchise black voters, such as changes in polling stations or other requirements imposed on voters just before election day. Also Monday, a federal judge in Los Angeles said he would rule by midweek on a separate effort to postpone the recall election because some counties will use old punch-card voting machines. The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California says voters in six counties would still be using the error-prone ballots if the recall is staged Oct. 7. The suit claims the machines have error rates as high as 3 percent and seeks a delay until the next regular election in March, when touch-screen or written ballots will be in place as part of separate litigation arising from the Bush-Gore voting debacle in Florida in 2000. U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson said he hoped to rule on the case Wednesday, while acknowledging that there was no earlier case in which a federal court had intervened to stop or delay a state election. Doug Woods of the state attorney general's office, representing the secretary of state, argued that the ACLU was speculating what may happen on Oct. 7 as far as error rates or other problems with the punch-card machines. Woods said that the speculation does not outweigh the public interest in having the election go forward. The election date has been challenged repeatedly in court with little success, and candidates have continued to campaign. On Monday, Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign said the actor would discuss his economic policies Wednesday and release the first television advertisements of the recall campaign. Schwarzenegger also spoke by telephone with a panel of board members of the California Teachers Association, which invited six major candidates for interviews in Sacramento. The teacher's union opposes the recall but has not decided whether to endorse a replacement candidate. Schwarzenegger has largely kept out of public view since announcing his candidacy almost two weeks ago and has been criticized for not offering specific policy positions. He will meet Wednesday with his Economic Recovery Council co-chaired by billionaire investor Warren Buffett and former Secretary of State George Shultz, said Rob Stutzman, Schwarzenegger's spokesman. On the same day, the Republican actor is set to begin airing ads for the Oct. 7 election, television station officials said. No candidate has aired TV ads so far in the campaign to recall Davis, a Democrat.
Two television stations in the San Francisco Bay area confirmed that the actor, who is running as a
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