Update on first district BOS winner

At today’s’ meeting of the Board of Supervisors, after taking testimony from attorney’s and first District voters, the Board unanimously agreed to heed the request from Superior Court Judge Michael Brenner to delay swearing in any candidate until after the tentative three day trial that is to begin on March 21st. Therefore someone will be sworn in on Tuesday March 27 th.

To paraphrase my testimony I mentioned Supervisor Moorlach’s invocation in which he referenced Orange County troops now headed to the battlefield. I than mentioned our seeing photos of the brave Iraqi citizens who showed us their purple index fingers to verify that they had participated in their country’s election.

Although we hear that the delay has left 600,000 voters with being disenfranchised let me report what I told the Supervisors this morning. Chairman Norby and myself have testified before the CA Senate on the Voting Rights Act. As such we take this obligation seriously. Voting is not a privilege like driving a car. It is a right that we should take seriously. If the 150,000 plus registered voters who stayed home had cast their ballots we might not be here today.

I closed by commending Supervisor Campbell for his suggestion of adding a warning on future ballots against marking of ballots to prevent them from being thrown out.

And for my fellow bloggers from Santa Ana perhaps someone can explain why only five percent of that city’s registered voters took a few minutes of their time to vote on Feb. 6th.

PS: Earlier today I contacted the Santa Ana City Clerks office to ask two questions.
A) How many Registered voters live in their city and B) how many cast ballots in this Special Election.
I was rather surprised to hear that I need to direct that inquiry to the County Registrar’s office. When I called my City Clerk she informed me that she has our data.

PPS: If the turn out in Santa Ana is less than ten percent than they have no one to blame other than their neighbors for the delay in getting their duly elected “representative” to the BOS.

About Larry Gilbert