ANOTHER COMPLAINT FILED WITH STATE ON REGISTRAR

June 3, 2008

Honorable Debra Bowen
California Secretary of State
1500 11th Street
Sacramento, California 95814

FAX: (916) 653-4795


Dear Ms Bowen,

The attached pamphlet details partisan actions by the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters, Ms Kari Virgil, which have the potential to adversely effect the June 3, 2008 First District Supervisor election.

First, without cause, she denied my request for a waiver of the pay in advance requirement set by the board of supervisors for the $5,497 charge, also set by the board, for printing my candidacy statement in the voters pamphlet. My income, from Social Security, is several hundred dollars below the federal poverty level set in 2006 and this charge represents 60 percent of my annual income.

Second, she told three news reporters that the reason she denied the waiver was that I owned property worth over $1 million dollars and so did not qualify as an indigent “unable to pay in advance the requisite fee” as provided for in Election Code section 13309 (a).

Being a millionaire land investor is scarcely the image likely to attract votes for county supervisor. And in fact, as the registrar knew, I own no property. What I own is 8 shares of stock given to me years ago by my mother, of 385 shares outstanding, in a family-held close corporation which has never paid a dividend since forming in the 1950s, and whose sole asset is a 100 acre ranch that has been our family home since the 1920s. This is not a land investment but an investment in a family heritage.

And since my campaign has focused on the unhealthy influence wealthy land investors, developers and builders have had on our county’s land use policies since the 1950s, the registrar’s lie makes me a hypocrite... a cheap hypocrite millionaire land investor who tried to get out of paying a fee in advance by claiming he couldn’t afford to pay for it.

Exacerbating the harm done by the registrar’s lie, none of the three newspapers which printed her lie about me owning property worth over $1 million dollars chose to print my letter of rebuttal.

With four candidates running for this office, votes lost due to the registrar’s unwarranted refusal to print my candidacy statement in the voters pamphlet, plus more votes lost due to her telling the media I was a millionaire land investor, which under the circumstances inferred I was a cheap hypocritical land millionaire land investor, could make a substantive difference in this election outcome by allowing the winner the majority vote thus avoiding a runoff election.

Voiding the election is an extreme measure. However a registrar of voter taking sides in an election by telling the media a serious and disparaging untruth about a candidate knowing it was untrue is an extreme abuse of the registrar’s office. And the unjustifiable denial of his 200 word candidacy statement in the voters pamphlet makes any claim that this is a “fair and open” election ring hollow.

I believe nothing less than a rescheduling of this election will restore the voter’s confidence in this election process. Whatever action you take, however, must be sufficiently strong to dissuade registrars of voters in future elections from such gross abuse of power by the gatekeepers of democracy.

Attached is my Ephemeral Press pamphlet of June 3, 2008 detailing the gross misconduct of our registrar of voters in today’s election, including quotes from the three newspaper articles.

Bob Nelson, Candidate for First District Supervisor
Hesperia, CA 92345