Opinion ID: 1378366
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: challenges to the referendum petitions

Text: (1) Petitioners contend that the referendum petitions fail to comply with several requirements of the Elections Code and are, therefore, fatally defective. The most serious of these asserted flaws is the failure of the petitions to require a signer to affix his or her residence address, as mandated by section 3516, subdivision (c). [5] The referendum petitions were circulated by two methods: direct mail and public distribution by hand. Neither version contained a residence address instruction. Instead, both versions provided a space for each signer to affix an address, with the words YOUR ADDRESS AS REGISTERED TO VOTE printed beneath. In addition, the cover of the direct mail version, which was sent to all Republican voters at their addresses as registered, bore the following directions: ATTENTION! ... WHEN SIGNING YOUR PETITION, PLEASE USE THE NAME AND ADDRESS INFORMATION EXACTLY AS IT IS LISTED HERE ( EVEN IF INCORRECT ) TO INSURE YOUR PETITIONS QUALIFY.... (Italics added.) [6] Nowhere do the referendum petitions specifically call upon signers to provide the residence address information required by section 3516, subdivision (c). The reason for this requirement is quite simple. With minor exceptions, an individual must continue to reside at the address stated in his or her affidavit of registration in order to be qualified to vote. (See generally, Elec. Code, div. 1, ch. 2, §§ 300-320.) It is the duty of the county clerk or registrar of voters to compare a signer's current residence address on the petition with that individual's address as registered to vote in the records of registration maintained by the county clerk. If the addresses match, the requirement of section 3516 that the signer be a qualified registered voter at the time of signing the petition has been satisfied. However, without the petition signer's current residence address on the petition, it is impossible for the clerk to determine whether the signer was a qualified registered voter. [7] In the case of the petitions circulated by real parties, if the signer dutifully followed the instructions on those petitions and provided his or her address as registered to vote or address ... as it is listed here (even if incorrect), the address on the petition and the address in the records of registration would automatically be the same. Thus the clerk, whose examination is limited to a comparison of the petition and the records of registration, [8] can come to no other conclusion than that the signer was properly registered at the time he or she signed the petition. Accordingly, 100 percent of the signatures determined by the clerk to be genuine would also be determined to be those of qualified registered voters. All would be counted as valid signatures for purposes of qualifying the referendum petition for the ballot. (See §§ 3520, 3521.) Of course, that determination may not be correct. The signer may have moved to a new residence subsequent to registering without having reregistered or executed an address change with the county clerk. (See §§ 305, 315.) In such a situation, the signer would not be a qualified registered voter at the time of signing the petition. Nevertheless, had he or she complied with the petition instructions regarding address, the clerk would be unable to discern that fact. Far from being a mere technical shortcoming, real parties' failure to comply with the requirements of section 3516, subdivision (c), goes to the very heart of that section's purpose  to enable the clerk to ensure that petitions have been signed by those entitled to do so  and prevents that purpose from being effectuated. The language of section 3516 is mandatory: petition sections shall be designed so that each signer shall personally affix his or her ... [r]esidence address.... (Italics added.) In the past, when a petition's deficiencies have threatened the proper operation of the election procedures involved, this court has regularly upheld a refusal to file the petition. [9] (See Muehleisen v. Forward (1935) 4 Cal.2d 17, 20 [46 P.2d 969]; Gerth v. Dominguez (1934) 1 Cal.2d 239 [34 P.2d 135]; Mayock v. Kerr (1932) 216 Cal. 171 [13 P.2d 717].) In Muehleisen, the court stated that [t]he question is not [one] of strict or liberal construction, nor is the case one of immaterial or unsubstantial departure from formal requirements. The ... provision is clear and requires no interpretation; and the requirements which were not followed are among the most important elements of the ... system established by the statute. ( Muehleisen, supra, 4 Cal.2d at p. 20.) Real parties assert that they have substantially complied with the applicable Elections Code provisions regarding address. However, [s]ubstantial compliance ... means actual compliance in respect to the substance essential to every reasonable objective of the statute. ( Stasher v. Harger-Haldeman (1962) 58 Cal.2d 23, 29 [22 Cal. Rptr. 657, 372 P.2d 649].) The reasonable objective of section 3516, subdivision (c), is to enable the clerks to perform their duty to determine whether signers are qualified registered voter[s] at the time of signing the petition and thus entitled to sign it. That objective is totally thwarted when signers are instructed to provide residences that may or may not reflect their current addresses. Under such circumstances, real parties' claim of substantial compliance cannot be sustained. Real parties further contend that should their petitions be deemed deficient, the deficiency nevertheless should be excused as a form of harmless error, based on the fact that the total number of signatures collected was substantially in excess of the number of valid signatures needed to qualify the referenda for the ballot. Such a contention, however, begs the question  how many of the total signatures collected are actually valid? That is a question that cannot be answered because of the failure to request the signers' current residence addresses. Real parties urge that the standard set forth in section 20024, defining the circumstances under which illegal votes may undo an election, should apply to the cases before this court. That section provides that [a]n election shall not be set aside on account of illegal votes unless the number of illegal votes would be sufficient to alter the election results, were they deducted from the total votes of the person whose right to office is being contested. Real parties' attempt to utilize that same test here is unsound. No comparable statutory provision exists for referendum petitions. Moreover, the postelection context is significantly different from a preballot-qualification setting. An election is a completed act, a fait accompli. In contrast, the circulation and qualification of referendum petitions are part of an ongoing process that portends, at most, the potential of an election. Most importantly, even were a standard analogous to that of section 20024 applicable here, it would not be of assistance to real parties because of the very nature of the defect in their petitions. Without residence address information, the county clerk is unable to identify accurately how many signers are not properly registered. Without an accurate count of such invalid signatures, no determination can be made as to whether or not the requisite number of valid signatures has been obtained. Finally, real parties seek to excuse their noncompliance with section 3516, subdivision (c) by asserting that they were given incorrect advice by the Secretary of State and the Attorney General. However, the record suggests that real parties may well have been aware of the residence address requirements. Petitioners have directed this court's attention to a document dated July 22, 1981, entitled BACKSTOP  Operational Plan to Qualify The Referendum On Reapportionment. In addition to the title and date, the cover page also lists the name of Real Party del Junco, in his capacity as chairman of the California Republican Party. In Addendum C to this document, under the heading LEGAL REQUIREMENTS, section 3516 is quoted in its entirety. On September 17, 1981, three days before Real Party del Junco obtained from the Secretary of State's office the list of registered voters used in the mailings, the Secretary of State sent him a copy of referendum instructions provided to all the county clerks and registrars. Those instructions included a separate paragraph entitled NOTE TO PROPONENT, specifically directing his attention to sections 3516 and 41, inter alia. Further, in October 1981, while the petitions were circulating, the Secretary of State's office telephoned counsel for del Junco to inform him that the direct mail petition's cover instruction to please use the ... address information exactly as it is listed here (even if incorrect) was questionable and could cause some problems. (Declaration of Richard B. Maness, staff counsel to the Secretary of State.) Real parties' asserted reliance on the advice of a deputy attorney general in an informal letter to State Senator Kenneth Maddy is misplaced. The Attorney General is not the official charged with ensuring proper application of the state's elections laws. That is the role of the Secretary of State, California's chief elections officer. (Gov. Code, § 12172.5.) Such vicarious advice does not constitute official misinformation. Real parties also purport to rely on a 1980 handbook from the Secretary of State's office to excuse their failure to comply with section 3516, subdivision (c). However, that handbook correctly indicates that the signer of an initiative petition should enter his or her residence address. These circumstances would not, by themselves, justify sustaining real parties' claim of excuse. However, real parties do raise more troubling justifications for their failure to substantially comply with the provisions of section 3516. Real parties note that several past, pending, and currently circulating initiative and referendum measures have contained similar instructions regarding address as registered to vote or address as registered. [10] Many of these petitions were subjected to vigorous legal challenge in the courts by competent counsel, and not once was the issue of the residence address defect raised by the challengers or addressed by the courts. (See, e.g., Amador Valley Joint Union High Sch. Dist. v. State Bd. of Equalization (1978) 22 Cal.3d 208 [149 Cal. Rptr. 239, 583 P.2d 1281].) Further, real parties emphasize that from 1977 until 1980 the Secretary of State's California Ballot Initiative Handbook incorrectly used the phrase address as registered to vote in a recommended sample format for initiative petitions. When the error was corrected in a 1980 edition of the handbook, the Secretary of State's office neither publicly announced the correction nor explained its significance. Apparently, neither the Secretary of State nor the county clerks have ever refused to accept a tendered referendum petition on the basis of this defect. Thus, real parties relied on a practice that not only had been accepted by the government entities charged with enforcing the referendum procedures but also had never been subjected to a challenge from any source. Finally, `it has long been our judicial policy to apply a liberal construction to [the] power [of initiative and referendum] wherever it is challenged in order that the right be not improperly annulled. If doubts can reasonably be resolved in favor of the use of this reserve power, courts will preserve it. [Citations.]' ( Associated Home Builders etc., Inc. v. City of Livermore (1976) 18 Cal.3d 582, 591 [135 Cal. Rptr. 41, 557 P.2d 473, 92 A.L.R.3d 1038], quoting Mervynne v. Acker (1961) 189 Cal. App.2d 558, 563-564 [11 Cal. Rptr. 340].) Under the unusual and unique circumstances of this case, real parties' failure to comply with the requirements of section 3516, subdivision (c) will not be deemed to render the referendum petitions invalid. The Secretary of State should proceed to perform her duties, including those set forth in section 3520. All other petitions which either have qualified for the ballot or are in the circulation process as of the date this decision becomes final shall be treated similarly. However, all petitions which have not yet been provided by the Attorney General to the Secretary of State following the preparation of title and summary (§ 3503) will be subject to the express requirements of section 3516, subdivision (c) and their failure to so comply will render them invalid per se. Petitioners raise three additional challenges to the technical sufficiency of the referendum petitions. First, they claim that the use of preprinted dates on the declarations signed by the petition circulators violated the Elections Code requirement that the declarations contain [t]he dates between which all signatures were obtained. (See § 3519, subd. (d).) Second, petitioners assert that the text of the reapportionment statutes reprinted in the petitions contained errors, in violation of the requirement that a full and correct copy of the title and text of the proposed measure[s] be printed in each section of the petition. (See § 3515.) Finally, they allege that the use of small type size and of interleaved pages in the petitions made them virtually unreadable. (2) This court has stressed that technical deficiencies in referendum and initiative petitions will not invalidate the petitions if they are in substantial compliance with statutory and constitutional requirements. ( California Teachers Assn. v. Collins (1934) 1 Cal.2d 202, 204 [34 P.2d 134].) A paramount concern in determining whether a petition is valid despite an alleged defect is whether the purpose of the technical requirement is frustrated by the defective form of the petition. The requirements of both the Constitution and the statute are intended to and do give information to the electors who are asked to sign the ... petitions. If that be accomplished in any given case, little more can be asked than that a substantial compliance with the law and the Constitution be had, and that such compliance does no violence to a reasonable construction of the technical requirement of the law. ( Ibid. ) None of the three errors asserted here has interfered with the statutory purpose behind the technical regulations. (3) First, the petitions contained the phrase, All signatures to this document were obtained between ____ and ____. The blanks were filled in with printed dates, 9/22/81 and 12/13/81 on the street petitions, and 9/17/81 and 12/15/81 on the direct mail petitions. Petitioners point out that the signatures were apparently obtained in a much shorter time range, between mid-October and mid-November. Petitioners claim that the preprinted, longer time period impeded the ability of the clerks to determine whether those who signed the petitions were actually registered to vote at the time that they signed. However, the declarations literally complied with the Elections Code requirement that they contain [t]he dates between which all signatures were obtained. (§ 3519, subd. (d).) The range of dates was sufficient to enable the clerks to make the important determination that all of the signatures were obtained within the proper time limits. Further, although the precise dates might have been useful to the clerks in determining the number of qualified voters who had signed the petitions, no showing has been made that the more general information provided prevented the clerks from carrying out that function. Nevertheless, the objectives of section 3519 will be better served in the future by requiring circulators personally to enter on their declarations the actual dates between which all the signatures on the petition were obtained. Preprinted dates are not a desirable substitute for such personal entries. (4) Second, the alleged errors in the text of the petitions concern only typographical errors in the listing of census tract numbers. The errors were so minor as to pose no danger of misleading the signers of the petitions. They, therefore, do not affect the validity of the petitions. Finally, the petitions were fully readable, despite the size of the type. The color-coded referenda packets were sufficiently labeled and differentiated to meet the requirements of the substantial compliance test. Neither of these defects frustrated the signer's ability to understand what he or she was being asked to sign. Accordingly, neither of them renders the petitions invalid.