California Elections : Once Used Wrong Address : Gallegly’s Voting History Is Flawed

Congressional candidate Elton Gallegly, who has tried to make a major issue of the voting record of his main opponent in the 21st District Republican primary, has had his own problems with voter registration, records show.

Simi Valley Mayor Gallegly was improperly registered to vote for four years in the 1970s, according to records in the Ventura County registrar of voters’ office.

During most of that time, Gallegly was registered to v00ote in Simi Valley, even though he was not a resident of the city. The Simi Valley mayor acknowledged in an interview this week that he had lived in a home he built just outside the city limits for three or four years.

Gallegly continued to vote in Simi Valley by listing his city business address on his voter registration card from April, 1975, to June, 1979, when he entered the City Council race. Listing a business address when a home address is required on a registration affidavit is illegal, a spokesman with the secretary of state’s office said. The form is signed under penalty of perjury and carries a warning that a violation is punishable with one to 14 years in prison.

After receiving a complaint in July, 1979, Ventura County Dist. Atty. Mike Bradbury checked Gallegly’s registration, along with that of 28 other people in Simi Valley who were registered at their business addresses. Bradbury soon dropped the matter, announcing at a press conference that “most if not all of the 29 filed their declarations in ignorance of the law and without any intent to gain any personal benefit.”

Gallegly said he began using the address of his real estate company in 1975 as a convenience because he and his wife were moving a lot during that time. He said he did not realize that listing his business address was illegal.

Just Outside City

After registering at his business address, Gallegly said, he lived at two or three different homes in Simi Valley before moving into a house he built on Irvine Road, which is just outside the city’s western boundary.

When asked why he remained a registered voter in Simi Valley when he was no longer a resident, Gallegly replied: “I never gave it any consideration. This is my life. Simi Valley is my home.”

Gallegly re-registered using his latest residential address, inside city limits, the day he entered the Simi Valley City Council race--June 4, 1979.

Gallegly blamed the registrar for his mistake. He said the registrar’s change-of-address form did not stipulate that the voter’s address had to be his residence.

Forms Called Precise

But Myron Kampfer, an assistant registrar in Ventura County, said the instructions on registration forms were precise and indicated in more than one place that a residential address was required. “I think our instructions are too detailed as they are,” Kampfer said.

Gallegly insisted that his past voting problem should not be an issue in the campaign.

“It was raised seven years ago, and it was reviewed, and it was cleared by the respective authorities,” he said.

The mayor, however, has continuously called attention to the voting record of his main June 3 primary opponent, Tony Hope. Hope, a former District of Columbia resident who recently returned to the San Fernando Valley, has not voted since 1976. Hope has said that he tried to register before two presidential elections but that he was turned away at the polls because of administrative foul-ups.