Electoral Sideshows : Some Voters End Up Going to the Mat

Amid karate chops and missing election booths, Orange County went to the polls Tuesday:

When the Unitarian church on Victoria Street in Costa Mesa wouldn’t accommodate voting booths this year, election officials went to Bob White’s Karate Studio down the street.

“We have a lot of extra space, so I thought, ‘Why not?’ ” the 37-year-old instructor said Tuesday, while about 30 young boys clad in karate gi ‘s began sparring.

Although many voters were entertained, at least one cast a “no” vote on the new polling place.

An elderly woman with a leg in a cast cringed from the flailing arms and legs as she hobbled along the edge of the room with a walker.

“Why did you ever move the polling place away from the church?” Helen A. Prothers wailed plaintively. “I’m taking my life in my hands coming here!”

Things weren’t much better at a more refined polling place, UC Irvine. Voters showed up, but the voting booths didn’t.

So early voters at the Verano Place Recreation Center marked their ballots using tables, couches and counters for support while election workers scrambled to find the fold-up cardboard polling booths.

Juanita Stokes of the county Registrar of Voters office said the booths had been delivered Monday but apparently were misplaced. A second set was sent out and voters were marking their ballots in secret by 10:15 a.m.

As he waited for election returns at Bullwinkle’s pizza parlor, Irvine City Council candidate Hal Maloney reflected on some of the nonpolitical benefits of running.

A self-described chubby man, Maloney said he lost 25 pounds in 13 weeks, pounding the pavement. His starting and ending weights were “classified information,” he said.

He also learned things about the city by knocking on 2,500 doors.

“Northwood, for example, has the largest dogs,” Maloney said. “I escaped from many of them.”

Sheriff Brad Gates rode to the end of the campaign trail, a party at the Irvine Marriott, wearing a big cowboy hat and a humble smile Tuesday night.

Surrounded by about 200 supporters, he was asked if he’d be joining the Republican bigwigs later at their party at the Meridien Hotel in Newport Beach.

“Well, over there there will be a cast of thousands. I’ll probably go over there a little later, but I really belong here,” Gates said. “I’m just a little-bitty sheriff.”

Anaheim resident Richard Baney stopped off at City Hall with good intentions--he wanted to wish his mayor well in the race for county supervisor. But Mayor Donald R. Roth wouldn’t let him.

With the City Council in session, Baney began his goodwill message. Gavel in hand, Roth quickly cut him off. No campaigning allowed in council chambers, an embarrassed Roth explained later.

Baney, a 30-year resident of the city, said afterward that he is not a campaign worker for Roth but “when I think a job is well done, I think it should be commemorated.”

Baney apparently couldn’t see the lapel button Roth wore. It said, “Harass your local politician.”

After the polls had closed, but before returns were available, U.S. Senate candidate Bruce Herschensohn thanked his supporters gathered at the Republican bash at the Meridien Hotel. However, many faces in the crowd were turned to the half-dozen television monitors showing the closing minutes of the Boston Celtics-Houston Rockets playoff basketball game.

The Celtics won. Herschensohn, with his own fate uncertain, bid the crowd goodby and left for another gathering in Los Angeles.

Orange County’s new voting machines--used in some cities last November but making their debut countywide Tuesday--caused one first-time user in Costa Mesa to cast a little blood with her vote.

The woman did not have her ballot slipped completely into place, jamming the lever that punches the ballot, said elections clerk Pat Wright at a polling place on Tahiti Drive. Finally, the voter forced the lever “and slashed her wrist,” Wright said. “But her friends said she’s not too mechanically inclined to begin with.”

According to the registrar’s office, “two or three” ballot-punching devices failed at the polls but were replaced immediately--a better record than last November, when nearly 1,500 had to be replaced because of defects.

But the chief problem at the Tahiti Drive polling place had nothing to do with machines. The precinct lines had been redrawn since the last elections, and several voters showed up who were supposed to cast ballots on Bermuda Drive--a nearby but difficult-to-get-to street, thanks to the residential neighborhood’s winding roads and cul-de-sacs. Many admitted they were lost.

One man, Wright said, asked each of the clerks, “How do I get to Bermuda?” But apparently, Wright said, he did not appreciate their sense of humor when, one by one, the clerks answered, “You can fly or take a boat.” The man finally “had it with us” and left, she said.

Est-type messages commanding positive thinking filled signs at the party for Republican congressional candidate Nathan Rosenberg, brother of est founder Werner Erhard.

“When the votes are done being counted from the June 3, 1986, primary election, Nathan will have more votes than Bob Badham,” predicted one sign. “Enthusiasm is the greatest asset in the world. It beats money and power and influence,” proclaimed another.

Rosenberg, meanwhile, was competing with the television for his supporters’ attention. He thanked his workers and announced that he was still awaiting returns, but only after turning down the volume of the TV movie “Mysterious Island of Beautiful Women.”

Contributing to this report were Times staff writers Kristina Lindgren, Jeffrey A. Perlman, Heidi Evans, Ray Perez, Roxana Kopetman, Mark Landsbaum, Maria L. La Ganga, Nancy Wride.