September 16, 2003

Panel's reaction to recall delay

By NORA K. WALLACE
NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER

The News-Press asked members of its panel of readers studying the recall for their reaction to the federal court's decision to delay the Oct. 7 election because punch-card voting systems in six counties are unreliable. These panelists are among the original 12 selected to share their opinions on the state gubernatorial recall.

VALERIE GIRARD, Democrat: Do we really trust any system? Are those people going to use the same system in November? On one hand I'm thrilled, I don't want the recall to happen. But if they're staying the election, and they're still having (other) elections in November, that's illogical.

NADIA KELADA, Democrat: I always thought if we don't have the right equipment, with everybody voting on the same playing field, it should not go on. We don't want a repeat performance of Florida in California. I hope it gets postponed. I think the reasons are valid.

PETE FYFE, Libertarian: A couple of hanging chads in Florida, and all of the sudden it's antiquated? That stinks. Californians aren't going to care in March. They'll say, 'Recall? Oh yeah, I remember that.' I don't see why we couldn't provide safeguards in place at the polls. There's gotta be some way we can use the punch card without worrying about chads. We need to have online voting.

DONNIE NAIR, Democrat: If there's this much trouble, why don't we call the whole thing off? The Republicans have made their point. I'm just kind of flabbergasted. To delay this more and more strikes me as very undemocratic. Why do we even have machines that don't work? What I heard about the new machines (is) it's very easy to skew the results.

AL NODARSE, nonpartisan: I respect the need to have new machines, but if they can't count chads, they should be fired. I think they should still go on with it. It's a tactic to lessen the impact of the recall. They didn't delay any (past) elections, did they?

KARI NODARSE, nonpartisan: I have a feeling we may end up with the same quagmire as Florida. Everything's politically motivated. Everyone fighting to get this postponed probably has more to do with it than punch cards.

BILL OWENS, Democrat: I kind of agree with that ruling, after the Florida thing. This is not just something happening, it's a very important thing. It is justifiable. (But) it's politics, no matter how you look at it.

CARL HOPKINS, Republican: It has so little merit. It's such an obvious attempt to just throw politics into this process. We've used punch cards for about 100-some-odd years. So I guess everybody ever elected, all laws passed, have to be invalidated. Give me a break. It's pure politics. The machines that elected Davis are no good? So he should be kicked out. Bustamante was elected by those machines. He should be kicked out... This is two significant elections where judges played too big of a role. We have to figure out a way to have an election without judges.

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