Vernon Has Abused Law, Official Says

The California secretary of state contends that Vernon is abusing the electoral process by refusing to count ballots from its disputed April election and is backing an effort to strip the city's power to administer elections for two years.

Secretary of State Bruce McPherson called on Vernon to count the ballots, describing the stalemate as bizarre and legally questionable.

"This is an egregious abuse of the process," he said in a letter to a lawmaker in support of temporarily wresting electoral control from Vernon.

Although McPherson controls all statewide elections, he has no authority over voting in Vernon or other cities. But he is the highest-ranking state official to publicly question Vernon's tactics.

McPherson said California election codes state that if balloting is disputed, the votes can either be recounted or contested. But not counting the votes at all, he said, is an "extraordinary step."

Vernon, an industrial town of only 91 residents, has refused to count the ballots since the April 11 election, saying three challengers and their roommates were not residents and should not have been allowed to register to vote or run for office.

Attorneys for the city have argued that the ballots need to remain unopened and uncounted to resolve lawsuits filed on behalf of the city and against it.

Vernon fought for months to keep the challengers out of the election, the city's first contested race in 25 years. But a judge said they should be allowed to run.

A bill introduced by Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally (D-Compton), now stalled in the Legislature, would give the county registrar of voters control of Vernon's elections for the next two years. But the bill has garnered only modest interest, with some legislators saying they don't want to delve into the town's politics while court cases are pending.

State Sen. Debra Bowen (D-Marina del Rey) said she wanted to wait until the lawsuits were resolved, though she said the state may eventually need to step in.

"It may be appropriate to change who conducts elections in Vernon. But right now, we don't have the benefit of knowing everything that's going on," Bowen said. "We might cast a vote that we come to regret later on, or that makes things worse."

Bowen said that despite her wait-and-see approach, she has been concerned by developments in Vernon.