Justice Dept. signs off on recall election after minority questions

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The Justice Department on Monday signed off on the Oct. 7 election to recall Gov. Gray Davis in response to warnings from a San Jose federal judge, who questioned whether the voting rights of minorities would be upheld.

The decision came after a federal judge in Los Angeles considered separate arguments that could postpone the historic election.

The special election, just 50 days away, is on a compressed schedule and is forcing some counties to make a number of moneysaving changes that until Monday lacked federal approval. The legal dispute focused on Monterey County, which plans to cut costs by reducing its usual 190 polling places to 86 and hiring fewer Spanish-speaking poll workers.

Any changes in the voting process must be cleared by the Justice Department in places like Monterey and three other California counties, which in the past violated the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 and have a history of low voter participation, particularly among minorities. The other California counties subject to the requirement are Merced, Kings and Yuba.

"This is not a problem," Jorge Martinez, a Justice Department spokesman, said late Monday.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose ordered Monterey County not to send absentee ballots overseas as he considered postponing the election.

Fogel's order on Friday gave the state two weeks to get the necessary clearance. Depending on further legal challenges, the election was expected to go forward with Monday's clearance.

However, the Justice Department was still weighing whether voters would decide if Proposition 54 should be on the Oct. 7 ballot, Martinez said.

That measure would ban state, federal and local governments from keeping track of the races of their employees, contractors and students. The Justice Department is still contemplating whether a vote on that now would disenfranchise minority voters, Martinez said.

The 1965 voting rights law was intended to prevent the various means that had been used in the South to disenfranchise black voters, such as changes in polling stations or other requirements imposed on voters just before Election Day.

The civil rights groups that brought two lawsuits challenging the election could not immediately be reached for comment. Last week, lawyers for the groups said they might challenge the Justice Department's approval of the election if that occurred.

Recall supporters immediately claimed victory.

"It's tremendous news for the recall," said Chris Wysocki, spokesman for Rescue California Recall Gray Davis, the group that collected the bulk of the petition signatures to force the election. "This means that any barriers to holding the election on Oct. 7 have gone by the wayside, and that Gov. Davis now will have to face the voters on Oct. 7 instead of facing judges in various courts."

A Davis adviser downplayed the news and said the judge should still examine the impact the quick election will have on voting access.

"We're planning on the election happening Oct. 7, but I don't think anybody is done a service by ignoring some of the equal protection issues that are at stake," said the adviser, Roger Salazar. "So this has less to do with wins and losses than it does with making sure that every voter has a voice."

Also Monday, a federal judge in Los Angeles said he would rule by midweek on a separate effort to postpone the recall election because some counties will use old punch-card voting machines.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California says voters in six counties would still be using the error-prone ballots if the recall is staged Oct. 7.

The suit claims the machines have error rates as high as 3 percent and seeks a delay until the next regular election in March, when touch-screen or written ballots will be in place as part of separate litigation arising from the Bush-Gore voting debacle in Florida in 2000.

U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson said he hoped to rule on the case Wednesday, while acknowledging that there was no earlier case in which a federal court had intervened to stop or delay a state election.

Doug Woods of the state attorney general's office, representing the secretary of state, argued the ACLU was speculating what may happen on Oct. 7 as far as error rates or other problems with the punch-card machines.

Woods said the speculation does not outweigh the public interest in having the election go forward.

The election date has been challenged repeatedly in court with little success, and candidates have continued to campaign.