Countywide : SANTA ANA : Registrar to Ask for Probe of Candidacy

Orange County Registrar of Voters Donald F. Tanney said Tuesday that he will ask the district attorney to investigate whether former sheriff’s candidate Bonnie Rae Streeter lied about her qualifications to gain a place on the June 7 ballot.

The action comes after Streeter’s name was removed from the ballot last week by an unprecedented court order in which she was found to be lacking basic law-enforcement experience as required under state law.

Streeter could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Meanwhile, County Supervisor Roger R. Stanton has raised the possibility of Tanney’s office taking responsibility for investigating the qualifications of local candidates to avoid future court actions on similar election issues.

“In the past, we have been very passive on this,” Stanton said. “I would like to see what we can do to help the registrar be more aggressive on candidates’ qualifications.”

Stanton has asked County Counsel Terry Andrus to review the registrar’s duties to see if the law allows Tanney to conduct such investigations. He has also asked registrar of voters staffers to resolve confusion that has hundreds of residents improperly using their business addresses rather than home addresses when registering to vote.

“The registrar does a marvelous job, but the buck has to stop somewhere,” Stanton said. “The point of all this is, maybe that we have to redo the job description.”

Tanney said that until the Streeter case, his office had never encountered a court challenge to a candidate’s qualifications to local elective office, nor had he conducted investigations of candidate qualifications.

“The system seems to have worked very well up until this episode,” Tanney said. “I think to get into an evidentiary hearing kind of thing would involve a lot of work on the front end that doesn’t appear to be a problem in reality.”

In Streeter’s case, Tanney said, the candidate was required to sign a declaration of candidacy in which she stated having the proper qualifications for office. State law requires that sheriff’s candidates be certified by the state Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training and law enforcement experience.

The California State Sheriffs Assn. and three local residents challenged Streeter’s candidacy in court. Last Friday, Superior Court Judge Francisco F. Firmat found that Streeter did not possess the proper qualifications.

Streeter vowed last week to continue her campaign as a write-in candidate.

In the meantime, Tanney said, he will refer Streeter’s case for investigation by the district attorney.

“She swore that she met the qualifications when she signed the declaration of candidacy,” Tanney said.