Confusion Could Be Winner of Election : Politics: Even political experts are bemused by the potential for complications in balloting to fill Lucy Killea’s former Assembly seat.

Setting the stage for a potentially confusing June ballot that could include two races for the same seat, Gov. George Deukmejian on Wednesday scheduled April 10 as the date for a special primary to fill the former Assembly seat of newly elected state Sen. Lucy Killea.

If no candidate achieves the 50%-plus victory needed to win election outright in April, the top Democratic and Republican vote-getters would compete in a special June 5 runoff for the remaining seven months in Killea’s unexpired term in the 78th District.

On the same June ballot, the same candidates also could compete in the normal state legislative primary for their parties’ nomination for the two-year term that will be contested in November.

Consequently, not only could there be two 78th-District elections on the June ballot, but it also is possible--though politically unlikely--that the winner of the special runoff could be defeated in the normal primary.

If that sounds confusing, you’re not the only one scratching your head. As an election supervisor in the registrar of voters office aptly put it: “This thing could be a real zoo.”

While consolidation of the special race’s runoff with the June primary would save the county an estimated $200,000, it also creates the prospect of a rare double election that is as intriguing as it is perplexing. Indeed, county Registrar of Voters Conny McCormack conceded Wednesday that the juxtaposition of a special runoff and a routine primary for the same seat on the same ballot could befuddle many voters in June, adding wryly: “We’re still trying to figure it out ourselves.”

“When people see the same names twice on the ballot, there’s naturally going to be some confusion,” McCormack said. “We’ve got a lot of education to do--including with our own poll workers. Whatever happens, this probably is going to be one for the election books.”

The Assembly vacancy was created by Democrat Killea’s upset victory in last month’s special 39th state Senate District election, a race that drew national attention as a referendum on abortion and how far Catholic Church leaders may go in opposing it. Bishop Leo T. Maher had denied Killea Communion because of her pro-choice stand. The district stretches along the coast from Ocean Beach to Pacific Beach, extending inland to the Miramar Naval Air Station in the north, south to downtown San Diego and east to East San Diego.

A conclusive primary victory in April would preclude much of the potential for confusion in June by eliminating the need for a runoff, meaning that only the normal GOP and Democratic primaries would be on the ballot.

However, with at least four major candidates--Democrats Byron Georgiou, Mike Gotch and Howard Wayne, and Republican Jeff Marston--expected to compete in the primary, the chance of any surpassing the 50% margin needed to avoid a runoff is unlikely. Hence the likelihood of June’s “double election.”

One particularly fascinating potential posed by the unusual electoral schedule involves the possibility of a split decision, with one candidate winning the special election but losing the normal primary.

The fact that the two contests will be waged before markedly different constituencies--all voters would cast ballots in the special runoff, while partisan electorates will decide the primaries--increases the slim chance that the two races will have different victors.

“That’s a bizarre possibility, but a conceivable one,” McCormack said.

Democratic candidate Wayne, however, already has taken steps to try to ensure that that unusual happenstance does not occur. In a letter sent this week to Gotch and Georgiou, Wayne proposed that the Democrats who lose in April unite behind the primary victor in order that he “not be forced to fight a war on two fronts.”

“It is essential that the Democrat who wins in the (special) primary . . . not be required to beat the Republican in the runoff and to refight the Democratic field for the primary nomination,” said Wayne, a deputy state attorney general. “Any other course of action means that the judgment of those who vote in April can be ignored by an intransigent candidate. . . Furthermore, such divisiveness would play directly into the hands of the Republicans.”

Georgiou on Wednesday endorsed Wayne’s proposal, saying that it “makes good political sense.” Gotch, a former two-term San Diego City Council member regarded as the early front-runner because of his superior name recognition, could not be reached for comment Wednesday night.

“It’s technically possible that you might have two different winners, but not very likely,” said Georgiou, the former legal affairs secretary to then-Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. “If we can all agree that the winner in April will get the others’ support in June, it’s even less likely. Besides, if you can’t win in April, why would you be the party’s best choice for the next two years?”

Times staff writer Ralph Frammolino in Sacramento contributed to this report.