Judge Delays Sample Ballots in Allen Recall : Politics: On Thursday, the court will hear allegations that Democratic candidate Laurie Campbell is a GOP plant.

SACRAMENTO — A Superior Court judge Tuesday temporarily blocked the Orange County Registrar of Voters from issuing sample ballots for the Nov. 28 recall election that will decide the fate of Assemblywoman Doris Allen.

Judge James T. Ford prohibited the ballot distribution until 1:30 p.m. Thursday so he can hear allegations from the Orange County Democratic Party that Republicans orchestrated Democrat Laurie Campbell’s candidacy. She is one of six people running to succeed Allen if the Cypress legislator is recalled.

The Democrats contend the GOP hopes Campbell will dilute Democratic support for Linda Moulton-Patterson, the former mayor of Huntington Beach, who is also on the ballot with four Republicans.

Campbell, who has described herself as a conservative, was in Oregon at the funeral of her mother-in-law Tuesday. She asked Ford by telephone during a 15-minute hearing in the judge’s chambers to delay any decision until she can find an attorney to represent her.

Ford gave her until noon Thursday, when a hearing will be held to determine if Campbell violated the state elections code by incorrectly gathering signatures on her nomination papers. Campbell said she is not scheduled to return to the state until Saturday.

“It’s not a very complicated issue, frankly . . . but you have to have a lawyer,” the judge told Campbell over a speaker phone.

Campbell said she couldn’t give Ford any assurances she would be able to obtain an attorney by Thursday, but promised to make every effort to fight the Democratic Party attempt to remove her name from the ballot.

“I’m in the middle of a family crisis,” Campbell said, adding she didn’t even learn about the matter until she called her home telephone answering machine Tuesday morning and learned of the lawsuit.

Attorneys for the Democratic Party and Secretary of State Bill Jones told the judge that any decision on Campbell’s ballot status must be made in the next few days, or it will delay the distribution of 205,000 sample ballots and more than 20,000 absentee ballots due for release by the end of the month.

The sample ballots were scheduled to be sent out Tuesday, but a glitch in a labeling machine delayed the distribution until the judge issued his order, according to Oliver Cox, Jones’ attorney.

Although judges are typically reluctant to tamper with most election issues, an attorney for the Democrats expressed hope that Ford might make an exception in Campbell’s case.

“I think there’s a shot,” said George Waters, the Democrats’ lawyer. “This certainly suggests he’s at least willing to hear our arguments.”

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Republican Party officials flatly deny they played any role in Campbell’s decision to run. Assemblyman Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove) expressed amazement at the challenge to a Democratic candidate by leaders of the Orange County Democratic Party.

“It is interesting to see that the Democrat Party wants to limit the options for Democrats of this district,” he said. “People should be allowed the opportunity to vote for whom they want.”

The legal tussle comes less than a week before the Oct. 30 deadline for the Orange County Registrar of Voters to mail out absentee ballots. About 37,000 absentee ballots and more than 200,000 polling place ballots already are printed. In addition, the registrar has an equal number of sample ballots, which are ready to go in the mail.

“We are waiting on the court case to find out if we have to reprint,” said Bev Warner, a registrar’s official.

Campbell is one of six candidates running in the election to choose a successor to Allen, a Cypress Republican who angered party colleagues by hatching a deal with the Democrats to become Speaker last June. Allen resigned from the post last month amid mounting pressure.

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The recall and the simultaneous winner-take-all election also will help decide the balance of power in the Assembly when legislators reconvene in January.

The Republican candidates are: attorney Scott Baugh; nurse and school trustee Shirley Carey; former Huntington Beach Mayor Don MacAllister, and businesswoman Haydee V. Tillotson.

The Democratic lawsuit seeks to knock Campbell from the ballot by challenging the authenticity of her nominating petitions, which were signed by 43 Democrats who live in the northwest Orange County district. In addition, the suit seeks to disqualify her as a candidate, alleging she committed perjury. The suit claims she signed an affidavit on the petitions, swearing that she circulated them to voters when she actually did not.

Democratic Party Chairman Jim Toledano has charged that “one or more Republican legislators and their operatives engineered” Campbell’s candidacy to “dupe” Democratic voters and “sabotage” Moulton-Patterson’s candidacy.

“I think we are entitled to know who the folks are who caused this,” he said. “Laurie Campbell obviously was put in this position by other people . . . [as part of a] direct attack on the integrity of the electoral process.”

In the lawsuit, Democrats point out that state law requires the circulator of nominating petitions--whether it is the candidate or someone else--to sign the document and declare under penalty of perjury that he or she is a registered voter in the political district. Campbell declared she was the circulator of her petitions.

In documents filed for the lawsuit, eight registered Democrats who signed the petitions swear they were asked to sign them by a white male between 25 and 35 years of age. Another said she did not sign the petition at all, though her name is on it. A private investigator hired by Democrats this weekend interviewed the voters at their homes.

In addition to filing in Superior Court, the Democratic Party in Orange County has sent letters calling for an investigation to the County Registrar of Voters, California Attorney General Dan Lungren, the United States Attorney General Janet Reno and Orange County Dist. Atty. Michael A. Capizzi.