DATE=9/17/03

TYPE=U-S OPINION ROUNDUP

NAME=CALIFORNIA RECALL

NUMBER=6-13093

BYLINE=ANDREW GUTHRIE

DATELINE=Washington

EDITOR=Assignments

TELEPHONE=619-3335

CONTENT=

INTRO: California is the home of the entertainment and cinema industries. Now, the nation is watching that state's election for governor that has all the plot twists of a Hollywood motion picture. V-O-A's __________ joins us now with a sampling of comment on this most unusual of elections.

TEXT: A federal appeals court Monday unanimously delayed the Governor Gray Davis recall election from October 7th until next March. It said the use of antiquated punch card ballots in some urban counties would disenfranchise too many voters. The decision halted official preparations for the vote, but not campaigning by the 135 certified candidates that include the Lieutenant Governor, Cruz Bustamante, motion picture star and body-builder Arnold Schwarzenegger, a 100-year-old woman, and Larry Flint, the publisher of a pornographic magazine.

Governor Davis, who has became increasingly unpopular as the state's budget deficit soared, is campaigning n o t to be recalled.

It is hard for some papers to take these antics seriously. However in Utah, the Mormon Church's Deseret News from Salt Lake City suggests:

VOICE: From afar, it is easy to smirk at the mounting absurdities in California. It's as if the state that revolves around Hollywood is orchestrating a series of recall cliffhangers [Editors: a "cliffhanger" is an exciting motion picture"] just to keep viewer ratings high. But in truth, there is little to laugh about here. We're not big fans of voter-initiated recalls, particularly as allowed for under California law, but this federal appeals court ruling is most disturbing. Utah continues to use punch cards in many counties. [So] Are all punch-card [ballot] elections conducted in [the court's jurisdiction] now voided? Every type of balloting has it weaknesses. There is no perfect way to conduct an election. But neither are punch-card ballots unreliably inaccurate.

TEXT: South Carolina's Charleston Post and Courier looks at the court's decision, and proclaims it has "again stretched legal logic past the breaking point…"

While in Georgia, The Augusta Chronicle sees this latest move as proof of "California zaniness [Editors: "craziness."] It asks rhetorically:

VOICE: Why were the punch-card ballots not too outmoded to re-elect Governor Davis [just] last year, but are too outmoded to recall him this year?

TEXT: To Eastern Connecticut now, where the twists and turns causes The [New London] Day to exclaim:

VOICE: In a move cheered by comedians coast to coast, a court decision this week may postpone the bizarre California election five months. Yet the 9th U-S Circuit Court of Appeals, which has stayed the election, is considered the most liberal appeals court in the country and its decisions last year were reversed 75 percent of the time. [Plus] Its reasons for delaying the election are thin at best….

TEXT: As far as Boston's Herald is concerns, the latest news should not come as a total surprise.

VOICE: Just when everyone thought the California governor's race couldn't get any wackier [Editors: "crazier"], along comes the ever-wacky U-S 9[Th] Circuit Court of Appeals to bollix [mix] things up to a fare-thee-well. The last best hope for the long-suffering people of California [is] - a reversal by the U-S Supreme Court on appeal. Delay really is the enemy of democracy.

TEXT: Florida's Saint Petersburg Times is concerned that the U-S Supreme Court verdict giving the 2000 presidential election to George Bush due to punch card ballot confusion, is being used as precedent in this case. However the paper says there is some validity to the ruling.

VOICE: As the appeals court noted, if the petitions had been certified just six weeks later, then the state Constitution would have required the recall be held at the next regularly scheduled election, which is the March 2 [nd] presidential primary. Given that context, the delay serves mainly to give election supervisors time to make the switch to new [voting] technology…

TEXT: That editorial excerpt from Florida's Saint Petersburg Times concludes this sampling of comment on the latest twist in the unusual California state recall election.

NEB/ANG/RH