Delay Would Complicate Balloting
Counties grapple with practical issues -- such as opening the field to more candidates -- as they consider a possible March election.
September 16, 2003
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the two-step recall election as well as ballot initiatives from the Oct. 7 ballot, and the result, election officials fear, is a recipe for mass confusion.
"People may think, 'I already voted for that,' and not vote on the recall, or they may not turn up at all," said Mischelle Townsend, the registrar in Riverside County.
Of greater concern to McCormack was whether the county could hold the election at all. Los Angeles County is about to switch from its old punch-card ballot system to a new "InkaVote" system, which uses optical scanning to read ballots that voters mark with a special pen. Each ballot card can accommodate 312 tiny ovals — the equivalent of 12 pages of questions and candidates in the laminated ballot books in its voting booths.
The last presidential primary, in 2000, took up 10 pages. The recall election would consume up to eight pages, McCormack said.
"Can the current system be modified to count two separate cards?" McCormack asked. "We're going to look at whether that's feasible."
Among the options being considered, she said, are having voters cast ballots on two InkaVote machines, one for the recall and one for the primary; using one machine with multiple ballot cards; or trying to lease another voting system for temporary use.
The first two options could create lengthy delays at polling places.
Jill LaVine, the acting recorder-clerk in Sacramento County, said she faced similar hurdles. Her county is similarly switching from a punch-card to an optical scanning system.
"Impossible, no. Difficult, yes," LaVine said. She said that if all 135 candidates remain in the gubernatorial race, she would be hard-pressed to fit all the election races and ballot measures on a single ballot card.
McCormack, whose department serves Los Angeles County's 4 million voters, complained angrily that neither party in the lawsuit — which primarily pitted the American Civil Liberties Union against Shelley — consulted her to see whether consolidating the recall with the March primary was feasible.
Although she maintained that it might not be, McCormack is legally obligated to hold the election, regardless of the difficulties, said Fred Woocher, an election law specialist.
"I just think they're going to have to figure out a way to deal with it," he said.
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