interpret the phrase electoral process as used in the voting rights act specifically in session two or three the bilingual voting material section the second question is whether the heavily regulated area involved in triggering a recall election in california is sufficiently infused with government involvement to constitute state action such that section two or three should apply to petitions involved in that process the cases you know involving like comes to the failed to comply with state law regarding the teaching of limiting christian students that recall campaign was then consumed by allegations that in particular non english speaking voters were trick into signing the petition and a number of them stepped forward and tried to withdraw and successfully in some cases withdrew their signatures on the recall petition you think that if we were to hold in your favor would create a circuit split i believe it was your honor to be honest and frank that i got on montero we believe are wrongly decided they resolve the two questions i mentioned earlier how broadly to define electoral process and the state action question wrongly however there is a way to distinguish them i'm not certain that it satisfies me but those cases came up in the context or satisfied those cases came up in the context of initiative petitions distinction try to distinguish the initial question from what we've got here it is right and in all candor it is hard to distinguish those two cases but the distinction that i was trying to explain is that in a recall petition there is a requirement that the position circulators have to include in the petition a statement by the targeted official so you actually have to include a statement by your opponent obviously that's not involved in initiative petition or you only presenting your argument for why an initiative to be in should be enacted and you're not at all required to let the other side at all in this context you are required to present some element of the other side's views and work hard to include in the petition form there's a great statement regulated by statute in length and how it is presented by the proponents and then one also regulate it so it's fairly short by the targeted social club so with each new petition you'd only have i mean the voting rights act is kind of fast because we want these things put in many languages so all the people nobody will be excluded from signing in you're saying we really when translated so we can exclude involves lots of things including campaigning against a potential recall even before to qualify for the fall so that if you become aware by someone approaching you like to have a sign this petition and you get a chance to read and understand it they targeting official who you deeply support then you have the opportunity to began to counter organize whether that's by starting your own recall petition against another official because not in this case but in other contexts that we can all recall there then elected officials who are actually targeting other elected officials for recall so part of the counter can think could involve a recall petition of your own it could involve going to the newspapers and using the media to begin to frame the issue from your perspective not from the perspective of the recall proponents the electoral process in other words begins with the petition signing petitions circulating not just for those in favor of the recall but for those who might pose it as well but it is important to know community and specifically among spanish speaking citizens and sought then to circulate a recall petition but in a language that would be understood by their targeted population they couldn't do so under the law but they could do was provide their own translation together with the official registrar provided english petition but that's translate a petition with their own now require they if you choose to be in english i'm sorry there's a line out require under california law there is an established form for the petition the form is in english and only in english so the registrar would receive a form that is in english and would review as state law requires him to do and provided that to the search the recall proponents an english language petition now under existing law pro con it's who wanted to target the spanish speaking community but then translated of their own accord but of course it wouldn't be an official translation spanish language petition was in fact in violation of state law just makes the point there are that well this case was brought by opponents of this particular recall they are spanish speaking voters in orange county who may in other circumstances be proponents of  relief maybe their comment on that place it's very good question your honor it is true that mr richardson the official who was elected at the recall election he was reelected in a regularly scheduled election last by voters who believe that their ability to participate in the electoral process in china for any process that more and more is involved in the circulation of petitions to recall officials or to enact laws through initiatives or to engage  referenda that their ability to participate in the electoral process is hampered by the registrars interpretation that she need not just a her eyes hypothetic pronouncement as to the law care to guide people in the future what is going to be more direct effect on the school district or the officials there at this point there are all there would be is a declaration that a recall was conducted it was not consistent with the voting right certainly wasn't done in the last think why a recall election here that's correct your honor and in a statewide recall it would be required within those counties that are cover and there are many of them in the state of california let me address your moves question first and then i'd like to address the the remedy issue that i think you have not all of us have to have the petition  will and obviously she would not have access to the kern county rolls that's true even for a statewide recall where each of the county registrar's there's an independent determination of the petitions and counts up the number of to be valid and then sends that to the secretary of state who compiles the fifty two or however many there are together and makes a final determination whether the state has been reached or not and with respect to the burden they are i think having thought about this all that's involved here and orange county for example is placing on a recall petition four lines one in each of the languages that says this petition is available in spanish for example a requiring that every circulator carry within then a version of the petition in each of those languages when you're talking about foreign languages these petitions are not long because they ordinarily come up the top of a page that has at least half of the flanks for signatures so language and it says it's available in their language they can ask for it in the petition circulator would then have to provide it to them it's really not such an extraordinary burden when you consider that possibility i'd like to go back to your heart of the question that you raised about i am sorry that we're here three months from when the next election occurred but it does suggest also that even if there was not a live controversy because these are still voters in orange county who rely on bilingual materials and will be affected by the registrar continue policy of not complying with section two of the yes petitions even putting that aside this is the kind of a case that is capable of repetition yet evading review this is a case that was determined by the district court in early two thousand and three with  february and so our preliminary injunction request was then we had to dismiss the if you'll before this court at that time we were then left with the only recourse to get to this court of waiting for a final judgment which came in june of two thousand and three recalls can occur at any point after they've been in office for a year and that's just kind of all behind us is her case or controversy that continues or yes again what i believe there is because these are still going to affect impacted by any petition whether circulated for recall or initiative or referendum there is not circulating a language on which they rely to participate in the electoral process  do one not to issue the stay of course that's not a published decision at that point there were only a few weeks before the election in february so  extraordinary circumstances of course and i don't think they would necessarily have applied to this issue involved in this case again we expected yes candy's right it was plugged in we expected that we would be here minutes to where the end of the argument for emma has to be heard first of all i'd like to address some of the issues that were made by the panel and joining in helen's arguments first of all it seems a theme of what is the result if i'm sorry what's wrong with it it's a question as you were addressing of slowing down the process and making it more difficult and cumbersome to accomplish what is a right reserved to the people not right reserves of the state and not a state function the recall requirements because it's near baseline of a five percent of the voting population speaking in particular language for the minority languages to attach so what about the situation we're we're competition would have had to have been translated into every language it's not in the record i believe los angeles has eight minority languages i don't know the other minority languages statewide but it would be such a compass and process now appellant say that it wouldn't it would hands have been translated into every language required statewide how long that had taken probably until governor davis is term had expired and the proponents and the electorate who wish to recall him would not have been elected office or that you want to withdraw you're going to target the community that has the type of citizens in it the type of electors in that are going to support your initiative and that isn't that is that exercising their freedom of speech other proponents of quote provides any registration or voting notices forms instructions assistance or other materials or information relating to the electoral process the adoption of the voting rights act and minority language requirement is not of the same level as that as as section five and the physically the supreme court has most recently in their decision some sort of violation of the voting rights and our position is that the recall petition is not representative of the right does county you focus on the fact that basically a talents are saying i want to translate it so i can read it and not sign and how does that interfere with the voting right after this court determines that it isn't part of voting rights to be able to sign a petition the now but it will be from some joe citizen who never got approached the the petition you i mean and election of course the state just election has a duty to provide polling places all the place and everything so you have the right people and is there anything to particular session to the recall petition process then because you find that it is the electoral process or because it is a pretty well prerequisite to voting somehow and by not being allowed to sign or by not being presented with minority language requirement that they're somehow deprived of the right to vote and i think that's what we have to do is we have to go back to the purpose of the policy that growth the voting rights act and that purpose in policy is to prevent discrimination in voting all of the appellants and that encourages courts to apply are definitely broad interpretation but if you go to the meat of the issue presented by the cases the meat of the issue is the ultimate denial of the right to vote branches in some way shape or form the voter or the proposed candidate involved for instance allen versus state board of education part of elections is highly relied upon by  and that a supreme court considered various themes that were implemented in i believe the state of mississippi that were changes to their law and the question was whether or not this action by preclearance pertains to them and each one of those instances here in the we call acacia and the registrar of voters has to approve the form and content to verify the signatures and so even though the that language or change preserved to avoid the cost of another election i think with respect to the issue of mootness arguably it was moot after the recall election on february fourth two thousand and three if there was a voting rights act issue at that time the remedy was to participate fully in the recall election which the alan did as did some other people that oppose the recall election however the results of the recall election showed that sixty nine point seven percent of people recalled mr lopez so i think that dramatically effects whether this really is a case or controversy you know whatever  district that occurred during the previews term of the the man who was elected to replace mr lopez i don't believe so i think only if the court declared that their results of the recall election were invalid and which case they would have to i guess the court would have to overlook the results of the intervening election on november second two thousand and four i think and if the court were not things happened after that very quickly a different motivation well i think and i think the appellant's pointed out that may be a local election doesn't have quite the dramatic impact consequences and i believe it really will and unduly burden the proponents because the recall election starts with recall starts by publishing in the notice of intent to recall that's the start you know you publish it in a paper general circulation that's now going to have to be done in multiple languages you know the individual's going to find out what those languages are lined up with circulate what newspapers address those particular you know languages and then cause the publication to occur that then has to be translated onto your your statement of intent that has to be a key and that is to appear on the petition now there was a suggestion that on the english version of the petition you could have a legend on the bottom that states if presumably if you don't speak english you know there's a change in it you can sign into one of these other languages well that is ultimately more likely the consequences it would be you would have by which a chanson orange county and five different tables all of which are you know interpreted i think that's really what the practical effect with me which really causes an is to be able to petition you know your government for redress of grievances and recalls are a major aspect of a person i'm a writer and i think it's it's incumbent what we would request the court to recognize that recalls don't happen that often you know petitions are circulated and they don't all result in an actual election you know so if this is directed to is just the preliminary steps before a national election occurs well during that election you get your full voting rights you know you get you know multiple language you know interpretations and that really was provided to these opponents of the recall and so i think what the registrar does is provides a form that actually has a chance to fill in among the blanks or a statement about why you want this official recalled but the introduction to that statement the introduction to the rebuttal by the target official are all within the her false statement of the situation here i don't believe that they do what they do is make sure that the statements are within the parameters of words provided by statute and that they follow the include they cannot editorialize other than in the restricted statement of why they are targeting the official they cannot editorialize in introducing the opposition statement by the target official they have to follow a form that is provided by the state and incidentally of course form is in the language especially zero three the district court concluded that this was a format rather than a form of distinction that i confess to you even today two years later i still do not understand th section two or three specifically says forms must be provided in the covered language they also say that any materials related to the electoral process must be provided i did your honor i want to touch on a few other items we are talking only about section two or three and that's what we're talking about all of the discussion of burden is more of a statement of opposition to section two or three and the defendants have the opportunity presented to congress as it considers whether to reauthorize section two or three in the year two thousand and seven but that's really an indictment of what the statute requires it is expensive that's what congress has imposed and finally iran has if you conclude that moon is a serious concern we would ask for the opportunity to brief that issue it was not by any of the parties with respect to