Schwarzenegger signs bills moving primary, requiring paper trail

STEVE LAWRENCE

Associated Press  27 September 2004

SACRAMENTO - California is conceding defeat in its quest for more clout in picking presidential nominees and going back to its traditional June primary election.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation Monday that will move the primary from the first Tuesday in March to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in June, a date the state used for 50 years.

The Republican governor also signed several other election-related measures, including a bill that will bar the use of electronic voting machines that don't produce paper trails to verify votes.

California used the June date for its primary from 1946 until 1996, when it moved the election to the last Tuesday in March in hopes of giving its voters a bigger say in determining who wins the White House.

The nominations were usually locked up by the time the June election was held, supporters of the move said.

After Bill Clinton and Bob Dole locked up the Democratic and Republican nominations in 1996 before Californians voted, the state moved its primary even earlier - to the first Tuesday in March.

But other states had the same idea and by the time California held its primary this year 20 other states had already awarded delegates, and nine states had scheduled primaries or caucuses on the same day as California. John Kerry had a virtual lock on the Democratic nomination going into the election and George Bush had no significant opposition.

The bill's author, Sen. Ross Johnson, R-Irvine, said the attempt to win more presidential election clout was a failure that had reduced voter turnout, made the campaign season unreasonably long and boosted campaign costs for other candidates.

His efforts to create a separate primary later in the year for state and congressional candidates failed, mainly because of lawmakers' concerns about the cost of three elections in one year, so he proposed having one primary and moving it back to June.

Schwarzenegger also signed a bill by Johnson and Sen. Don Perata, D-Oakland, that will require electronic voting machines to have a paper trail, starting in 2006.

The bill is a response to concerns that the machines could be tampered with or produce incorrect results.

Secretary of State Kevin Shelley banned the use of 14,000 electronic voting machines in San Diego, Solano, San Joaquin and Kern counties for the November election because the machines weren't federally approved.

He also laid down conditions for the use of the machines in 11 other counties.

Schwarzenegger also signed bills that will:

_Allow the secretary of state, local election officials or the attorney general to file lawsuits against persons or companies suspected of tampering with voting equipment.

_Bar candidates from borrowing more than $100,000 from a bank to loan to their campaigns.