RECALL DAVIS
RULING CHALLENGED
Howard Kaloogian
Bill Simon
Recall Gray Davis Committee
Calif. Grassroots Leadership Committee

File Amicus Brief
With 9th Circuit Court of Appeals

(SACRAMENTO) – The Honorable Howard Kaloogian, Chairman of the Recall Gray Davis Committee (website: www.RecallGrayDavis.com), the Recall Gray Davis Committee, Bill Simon, 2002 Republican Gubernatorial Nominee and 2003 candidate for Governor in the Recall Election, and the California Grassroots Leadership Committee have filed an Amicus Brief calling for the vacating of the three judge panel ruling that would delay the recall election. The brief supports an en banc review of the case.

The Amicus Brief in support of the en banc suggestion challenges the ruling made by three politically motivated and far left judges of the 9th District Court of Appeals which would delay the recall election until March, 2004.

Kaloogian and the Recall Gray Davis Committee joined Bill Simon and his political action committee, the California Grassroots Leadership Committee, in filing the brief. The Recall Gray Davis initiated and won the original lawsuit that ordered an expedited count and verification of recall signatures.

Kaloogian said, “It was purposeful that the signatures were collected expeditiously so that we could have this special election. To deny a special election is to deny Californians their basic constitutional rights.”

The California Constitution calls for an expedited recall election within 80 days of the certification of the recall question for the ballot – which occurred on July 23rd.

In their ruling, the three liberal judges argued that because punchcard voting systems are used in Los Angeles County that it was “ironic that the sitting governor could well cast a vote on his own recall that would not be tallied.” However, Governor Gray Davis was elected in 1998 and then re-elected in 2002 by voters who used the very same punchcard voting systems that he and his allies now claim would disenfranchise as many as 40,000 voters.

Recall Gray Davis petitions have been signed by more than 2,100,000 Californians (1.6 million signatures were turned in to the Secretary of State in time for the July 23rd certification of the recall for the election ballot).

“To deny the two million Californians who signed recall petitions a timely and fair election is irresponsible and unacceptable. The three judges who chose to put their political scheming ahead of the democratic freedoms of the people of California should be ashamed of themselves,” declared Howard Kaloogian, Chairman, Recall Gray Davis Committee.

Kaloogian noted that not only would millions of Californians be disenfranchised by a politically-motivated delay in the recall election, but that the logic of undervote counts cited by the ACLU and the three judge panel was directly contradicted by fact.

Furthermore, KFI Radio (AM 640 - Los Angeles) has reported that one of the experts cited in the court’s ruling, Dr. Henry Brady, has ties to Sequoia Voting Systems which is pushing for a changeover to electronic voting systems. Sequoia has the contract with the state to provide such electronic voting machines.

As the Washington Post reported on March 28, 2003, computer scientists including Rebecca Mercuri of Bryn Mawr College, have concluded that problems with electronic voting systems, “are so likely that they are virtually guaranteed to occur -- and already have.”

The Post story then went on to cite several cases around the nation where votes cast by electronic voting machines were not only not counted – but that because of the nature of electronic voting systems, there is no way of knowing exactly how many votes are undercounted in some elections.

The Associated Press further revealed the potential for imperfection in the recall vote count when they reported on August 14, 2003, that “software experts also warn that, if any candidate contests the election, a meaningful recount would prove impossible because four counties -- including two of the largest -- don't provide paper backups. The others still use punch-card machines, optical scanners or other systems that provide physical evidence of votes.”

So, if the 9th District Court of Appeals was concerned about the true equal protection of voters, they would have concluded that the potential for error in voters voting on new machines they had never before seen, and then having that vote tabulated by machines which already have a history of errors and inaccuracy would cancel out any concerns over the disenfranchisement of voters casting ballots using punchcard systems.

“Can you imagine if a court had granted George Bush or Al Gore a six month delay in the last presidential election because they were behind in the polls? Because that is exactly what these three judges have done with the recall election. Gray Davis was behind in the polls and these judges are attempting to hand him six months to catch up,” concluded Kaloogian.