CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS / SECRETARY OF STATE : Candidates Differ Sharply on Extent of Voter Fraud : Republican Bill Jones says up to 15% of those on California rolls do not belong there. Democrat Miller says those charges are exaggerated. Both men struggle to attract attention to their campaigns.

At first glance, the two leading candidates for secretary of state in the Nov. 8 election have much in common: Both are political unknowns in their mid-40s from the Central Valley who are scrambling for scarce campaign dollars and name recognition. Both even attend Baptist churches.

Look closer and the similarities vanish.

Democrat Tony Miller, 46, the acting secretary of state, is a sophisticated Berkeley-trained lawyer, a career administrator and the first openly gay candidate to run for a statewide office anywhere in the country. After 18 years as legal counsel and top deputy in the secretary of state’s office, he is in his first run for elected office. Claiming a lack of political experience, he describes himself as a non-politician and the best- qualified candidate for the job.

Republican Bill Jones, 44, is a 12-year assemblyman and onetime GOP leader who speaks with a slight drawl and spends weekends helping run his family’s farming business in Fresno County. As a legislator, he has been one of agriculture’s best friends and a staunch opponent of environmentalists.

More important to his campaign, he is also the author of the “three strikes” criminal sentencing measure that was signed into law this year, increasing penalties for a third felony to 25 years to life.

The two candidates clash most over the issue of election fraud. If you listen to Jones, the voting rolls have been tainted by the inclusion of untold numbers of illegal immigrants and deceased voters. Nothing short of an overhaul in registration and voting procedures--even requiring voters to present photo identification at the polls--can prevent elections theft in California. But Miller scoffs at Jones’ charges as exaggerated and his solutions as excessive. If there is fraud, Miller says, it should be rooted out, but he finds no evidence that it is widespread.

However, it is mainly an argument going on in a vacuum. With little money for advertising, both candidates face the daunting task of attracting voters’ attention.

To raise his visibility, Jones relies heavily on his claim to “three strikes” fame. On the campaign trail, he brings it up at every opportunity. Miller has tried to neutralize the issue by reminding voters that he is a recent crime victim--he was robbed at gunpoint at a fast-food restaurant in Los Angeles in January--and by endorsing the “three strikes” initiative on the November ballot, which is identical to the Jones’ bill.

However, the job that the two are fighting for has little to do with prison terms meted out to repeat criminals. California’s secretary of state coordinates elections, maintains campaign and lobbyist filings, publishes the statewide ballot pamphlet, files a variety of corporate records and is a member of the state’s World Trade Commission.

Jones says the “three strikes” measure is relevant because it shows that he can get things done if elected.

Despite his genial, down-home demeanor, Jones is proving to be an aggressive campaigner, aiming his voter fraud charges squarely at Miller and Miller’s former boss, longtime Secretary of State March Fong Eu. He contends that as many as 15% of all voters on the rolls in the state do not belong there--that they are duplicate filings, non-citizens or dead.

Miller responds: “There just hasn’t been wholesale fraud (in California). You can find abuses and use them to try to prove the whole system has been corrupted. That’s simply not the case.”

Jones likes to point out that Mario Aburto Martinez, a Mexican citizen and the accused killer of Mexican presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio, was registered to vote in San Pedro. What Jones does not volunteer is that Martinez never voted and was dropped from the Los Angeles County voter rolls as part of a routine address check, before the assassination. However, local election officials do confirm several examples of non-citizens registering and casting ballots.

Miller asserts that many of these instances are the result of misinformation on the part of non-citizens who are encouraged to sign up by bounty hunters who are paid according to the number of people they register. Miller also notes that Jones voted for a 1992 measure that allows welfare applicants to use voter registration records as proof of residence to qualify for grants--an incentive for non-citizens to register.

“The most effective thing is an effective anti-voter fraud unit,” Miller said, referring to a small team of investigators he formed this year. Jones counters that the unit was long overdue and put in place as a result of his raising the issue.

Both candidates advocate limits on campaign contributions. Jones supports reimposing contribution limits imposed by voters in 1988 when they approved Proposition 73, which was struck down in court.

Miller goes further. He also wants to put caps on what candidates and their committees are allowed to spend. And he has called for an end to the common practice of soliciting lobbyists for political contributions. Miller has voluntarily signed a California Common Cause pledge not to ask lobbyists for campaign money. Jones has refused to do so--and several Capitol lobbyists showed up at a recent Jones fund-raiser.

Like most Democrats, Miller is an enthusiastic supporter of the federal “motor voter” statute, which requires states to begin registering voters when they apply for driver’s licenses or other state services. Jones pledges to implement the new law, but his fellow Republican, Gov. Pete Wilson, has ordered state officials not to start up the new registration system Jan. 1 unless the federal government provides the money to run it.

Miller leaves no doubt what he will do if Wilson is reelected and refuses to comply: “If Pete Wilson is governor, on Jan. 2 of 1995 . . . if I am secretary of state, he will find himself in court on that afternoon.”

Jones has attacked his rival for reducing or forgiving millions of dollars in fines for those late in filing campaign and lobbyist disclosure statements. Miller says he has been evenhanded, forgiving and reducing fines regardless of party affiliation except where violations are shown to be willful.

Miller was raised in the Northern California lumber town of Chester, where his father worked at the sawmill. The candidate lives on a small farm in the Central Valley, where he and his partner raise nuts and other crops.

Miller went off to UC Davis and then Boalt Hall, the law school at UC Berkeley. He was one of the original members of the state Fair Political Practices Commission. In 1976, he went to work for Eu as chief counsel in the secretary of state’s office, later becoming her top deputy. Eu’s campaign treasury is Miller’s biggest contributor.

Jones was born on his father’s ranch near Coalinga, Calif. He graduated from Cal State Fresno, where he was student body president. He lost in his first run for the Assembly in 1976. But he says he learned a lesson: When he ran again six years later, he hired the winner’s campaign consultant.

In 1991, he became the Assembly’s Republican leader in a revolt against the “cavemen,” conservative legislators who had run the GOP caucus for seven years. He stepped down the next year after Republicans lost two Assembly seats under his leadership.

Also in the race are third-party candidates Peggy Christensen, Libertarian; Israel Feuer, Peace and Freedom; Margaret Garcia, Green, and Dorothy Kreiss Robbins, American Independent.