The Votes Are In!
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Politics Nov 08, 2023
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An Orange County Superior Court judge Tuesday rejected a temporary restraining order request to halt the recall election of Santa Ana Mayor Pro Tem Jessie Lopez.
Judge Craig Griffin said he needed more time to research the issues in the disputed election and invited the attorneys opposing the recall to file an amended complaint after the election to attempt to have it tossed out, Lopez said.
“I understand the judge reflecting, and needing more time,” Lopez told City News Service. “We were in a similar situation when we found out the wrong map line was used to qualify the recall for the ballot. We are disappointed that this illegitimate recall is moving forward, particularly the more than 1,000 voters who are majority Latino and live in a mobile home park.”
Orange County Registrar of Voters Bob Page said in court papers, “I welcome any clarification from this court regarding the qualification of the recall petition and/or conduct of the recall election.”
Lopez added, “We’re full of hope and confident that voters will decisively reject this unscrupulous recall and blatant power-seeking maneuver by the police association. Voters have to remind themselves why I’m facing a recall to begin with — because I asked for oversight of taxpayer money and the association did not want that to happen.”
The litigation seeking a TRO and preliminary injunction was filed Friday by Guadalupe Ocampo, who resides in the ward that put Lopez in office in 2020, but no longer lives in her ward since redistricting in 2022. At issue in the planned Nov. 14 election is whether enough signatures were filed to put the recall on the ballot because signature gatherers used the current ward boundaries and not the prior one.
The lawsuit alleges that 1,186 eligible voters will not receive ballots for the recall election and 362 ineligible voters will be allowed to cast ballots. Page said it would take a day to send out recall ballots within the 2019 Ward 3 boundaries who have not received a ballot, but he could not guarantee that they would all arrive in the mailbox in time.
The registrar’s office can track those votes from the prior ward boundaries to put them aside if contested, Page said. Voters who have not received a recall ballot may cast a provisional ballot, which could be counted based on whatever the city clerk or court decides.
The issue came to light when Page alerted city officials that the backers of the recall used the wrong Ward 3 map when gathering signatures. Since then, Page’s office has issued a “superseding certification to that effect, but (City Clerk Jennifer Hall) and City Council have refused to accept the registrar’s superseding certification and cancel the improper election,” according to the lawsuit.
Ocampo’s lawsuit alleges the recall supporters fell short of properly putting the question to voters by 230 signatures.
When the City Council met to discuss the issue on Oct. 30, it split 3-3 with Lopez recusing herself. One proposal was to cancel the recall election and the other was to take no action. Page told CNS that the deadlock meant he had no choice but to go through with the election since he received no direction from the city as he requested.
Page has said it is up to Hall and the City Council to decide what to do, as the registrar serves as a “contractor” who carries out the mechanics of the election as directed by city officials.
If a judge rejects the TRO, the lawsuit requests that the city issue ballots to registered voters within the prior Ward 3 boundaries and to not count any ballots from voters who do not live in those boundaries.
The city “had a duty under the elections code not to place the recall election on the ballot initially, and to rescind its illegal resolutions placing the recall election on the ballot once the superseding certificate was received from the Registrar but has failed to do so,” according to the lawsuit.
Attorneys for the recall’s backers labeled the lawsuit a “mean-spirited and cynical attempt by the target of a recall, Jessie Lopez, to deprive the voters of Ward 3 their constitutional right to recall an elected official who has betrayed them and acted improperly during her term in office.”
The respond to the lawsuit added, “Afraid to face the voters, she has pulled this last-minute stunt, with a strawman petitioner, as a (Hail Mary) attempt to stop the vote.”
The recall backers said they “did everything they were told to do to qualify the recall for the ballot … It is unheard of to cancel an election one week in advance. Case law is adamant that a court should not take the drastic step of cancelling an election this close to election day. Both sides have spent money on campaigns. Ballot pamphlets were printed and mailed, and ballots went out. People have begun voting. Polling places have been set up.”
The attorneys for the recall argued that the city charter “uses the new lines, not the old lines.”
But the lawsuit argues that the city’s charter defers to state law on elections, and state law requires that the voters who put the candidate in office have to vote her out.
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