Santa Cruz County residents should continue their participation in the October 7, 2003 Statewide Special Election since a final judicial decision to postpone the election has not been made.

"The October 7, 2003 Election is still on," County Clerk Richard Bedal announced.

Voters are urged to continue to request vote-by-mail ballots and those who have ballots are asked to vote those ballots and return them. The final day to request that a ballot be mailed to a voter is September 30.

All sample ballots have been mailed; therefore, those who have not received one are either not registered or the Elections Department has their wrong address. Those residents not registered to vote are encouraged to do so by the Monday, September 22 deadline.

Election officials in each of California’s 58 counties are continuing with preparations for the historical Recall Election despite the Federal Court of Appeals’ ruling to delay the election in response to concerns about punch card ballots that are to be used in six of the counties this October.

The original order issued Monday by three judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals was stayed (not to be put into operation) for seven days at which time if no further court action were taken the election would have been postponed. A modified order issued the next day put an indefinite stay on the postponement order meaning that the election continues until there is further specific judicial action that postpones the election.

The modified order issued on Tuesday ordered interested parties to file "briefs… setting forth their views on whether or not this case should be reheard en banc." Hearing the case en banc means that the case would be argued for a second time before a panel of 11 judges. It is expected that judges will decide later this week whether to reconsider the ruling. In either event, the case could still be filed with the U.S. Supreme Court who could either refuse to hear the case or hear it and make a final ruling.

"It is absolutely critical that we continue our work to ensure that every voter can cast a ballot if the election occurs October 7," Bedal said. "The work of conducting an election must continue by both election officials and voters."

Responding to the central issue addressed in the court ruling, Bedal noted that election officials in the six counties still using punch card ballots have worked successfully ever since the Florida problems in 2000 to ensure the accuracy of the count of punch cards until they can acquire and implement new voting equipment. There have been no significant issues related to the punch card equipment in the six affected counties. Counties still using the Votomatic punch card equipment include Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Clara, Solano, Sacramento and Mendocino. All were working to have the new equipment on line by next March when the Recall Election was suddenly set.

Election officials warn that conducting the Recall Election in March, when the 135 candidates will share the ballot with dozens of other issues including selection of Presidential nominees, raises more issues about the ability to conduct the election.

"The challenge of conducting that election could make the problems we’ve had preparing for October 7 pale by comparison." Bedal said. "In addition, the enormous cost of this Recall Election has, in large part, already been spent on printing of sample ballots and ballots, as well as mailing sample ballots to all registered voters and mailing nearly 30,000 ballots to absentee voters. A March election will force us to start over, spend more taxpayer dollars, and to develop a far more complicated ballot to accommodate all the issues."

For more information, please call the Santa Cruz County Elections Department at 831-454-2060, visit our office at 701 Ocean St., Room 210 in Santa Cruz, or check out our website at www.votescount.com.