July 11, 2006

"District illegally saw recall records"

"Orange County voting officials inappropriately granted Capistrano Unified School District administrators access to confidential recall petitions, many of them signed by teachers fearful of reprisal, county officials acknowledged Monday.

District officials in January requested to see the documents kept at the Registrar of Voters Office in Santa Ana. One former Capistrano official recorded some of the names and gave them to Superintendent James Fleming.

"They shouldn't have done that. They were instructed not to," county Registrar Neal Kelley said.

Kelley acknowledged Monday that Capistrano officials should not have been allowed to see the petitions in the first place.

He said his office was unaware at the time that state law allowed only the 10 original recall proponents to view the signatures. Kelley said that besides district officials, other community members were wrongly given access to the petitions.

"We did some research after the fact and found out," Kelley said."

The story is here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at July 11, 2006 02:58 PM