Kelley

I. INTRODUCTION

This case presents an instructive contrast to another election petition case that we publish today, Preserve Shorecliff Homeowners v. City of San Clemente (2008) 158 Cal.App.4th 1427 . In Preserve Shoreclijf, there is substantial evidence of reliance by petition circulators on the acceptance by local elections officials of the practice of having petition signers also sign a circulator’s affidavit when the circulators do not live in the city involved in the petition. And that evidence was accepted by the trial court. Moreover, in Preserve Shoreclijf the practice relied on was developed in precise response to a facially unconstitutional statute. And the Attorney General had already published an opinion stating that an identical statute in another part of the Elections Code was indeed unconstitutional. (All one would have to do is compare the two statutes to realize that the same went for the statute at issue in Preserve Shoreclijf.) Under such circumstances, any arguable noncompliance with a requirement that petition circulators themselves had to sign circulators’ affidavits could be excused. (See Assembly v. Deukmejian (1982) 30 Cal.3d 638, 651-652 [ 180…