Ex-Residents May Vote in Old Precincts, Court Rules

In a decision affecting college students and other members of California’s mobile voting population, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday that voters may continue to cast ballots at their former domicile until they establish a new permanent home.

The justices, by a vote of 4 to 3, overturned a state appellate court ruling that had invalidated results from a 1983 Santa Cruz City Council election because scores of votes were cast by university students in campus precincts they had left to live elsewhere.

The appeals court held that the students--some of whom were living in parked cars, tents or other temporary locations at the time of the election--had forfeited their right to vote when they abandoned their legal domicile, the place one lives with no intention of moving.

But the justices held that barring balloting at a former domicile would allow “precinct shopping” by encouraging voters to cast ballots where they currently resided only temporarily. Or worse, the court said, such barriers could prevent voters from casting any ballot at all.

“Under the Court of Appeal’s holding, many students would be subject to disenfranchisement,” Justice Edward A. Panelli wrote for the majority. “Such a result is, in itself, intolerable.”

But in a vigorous dissent, Justice David N. Eagleson warned that the court had created “a greater incentive for fraud” by allowing voters to cast ballots in communities they have abandoned by simply declaring they have not yet settled permanently.

“The (ruling) by the majority is both completely unrealistic and contrary to legislative intent,” Eagleson said in the minority opinion, which was joined by Chief Justice Malcolm M. Lucas and Justice Marcus M. Kaufman.

Deputy Atty. Gen. Manuel M. Medeiros who, while taking no position on the Santa Cruz election itself, had urged the justices to overturn the appellate court decision. He welcomed Thursday’s action, saying it would help clarify voting law and prevent disenfranchisement.

“The danger was that under the Court of Appeal ruling, such people would basically have had no place to vote,” Medeiros said. “There was a risk that the decision might have applied not only to local elections but to national elections as well.”

Jonathan M. Coupal, the attorney for a group that challenged the election results, denounced the decision, saying it would “really blow the doors off” barriers to voter fraud.

“We are amazed at the decision,” said Coupal of the Pacific Legal Foundation. “The court is saying that someone who unequivocally abandons his domicile can continue to use that domicile for voting purposes indefinitely, whether he moves within the city or the state or even to New Jersey.

“One of the last bastions against voter fraud had been the requirement that you had to vote where you lived,” Coupal continued. “Now you are going to have outsiders--people who have left the community--still directing the politics of that community.”

The ruling was the latest in a series of major decisions intended to resolve disputes arising from the growth of a younger, and more mobile, voter community in recent years in California.

In 1971, the justices held that newly enfranchised 18-year-olds who had left their parents’ home could legally vote in a college community to which they moved and established domicile.

A state appeals court panel further extended voting rights in 1985 by holding that homeless inhabitants of a park in Santa Barbara were entitled to register to vote as “residents” of the park.

In Thursday’s case, the justices were attempting to resolve inconsistencies in two state election laws--one defining domicile as a “fixed residence,” where the voter intends to remain or, when absent, to return; the other saying that one can retain a previous domicile until he finds a new one.

The case involved an election in which Jane Weed, a local activist, and three other candidates were selected by Santa Cruz voters to take seats on the City Council.

A group of residents, citing a report by a county grand jury of voting irregularities, challenged the election of Weed, who had received the fewest votes among the four elected candidates.

The suit claimed that as many as 472 voters in precincts on the campus of UC Santa Cruz were not living there at the time of the election and thus cast illegal ballots. The challengers asked that Bill Fieberling, who lost to Weed by 145 votes, be declared the winner.

After hearing the testimony of 292 voters, a Santa Cruz Superior Court judge upheld Weed’s election. But a state Court of Appeal--concluding that, under state election law, people who had moved from their campus domiciles had lost the right to vote there-- reversed that ruling and made Fieberling the winner.

But the state Supreme Court disagreed, saying that voters residing where they do not intend to remain can still cast ballots where they permanently resided before.

“In light of the principle that everyone must have a domicile somewhere, we conclude that such individuals retain their right to vote in precincts of their former domiciles,” Panelli wrote in the majority opinion, which was joined by Justices Stanley Mosk, Allen E. Broussard and John A. Arguelles.

Panelli said that effectively forcing people who have left permanent homes to vote where they are only residing temporarily “would create a system in which people could vote anywhere they chose, regardless of their ties to the community.”

By permitting voting at a former domicile, a voter is properly allowed to vote where he last permanently resided until he establishes a new permanent residence, the court said.

If the appellate court ruling were upheld, the justices said, anyone who had left one domicile but not yet established another--such as a student who relocates during the summer and misses registration deadlines--could be prevented, improperly, from voting at all.

Eagleson, in his dissent, said the majority had ignored the intent of state election laws to bar people from voting at a residence they have left for good. (An exception allows voting at such residences within 28 days after moving with no intent to return).

The dissenters contended that the Legislature had adopted changes in election laws to try to prevent voters from casting ballots where they no longer lived after revelations that city employees in San Francisco had continued to vote in the city long after they had moved to the suburbs.