Holden Announces Election-Count Probe

Los Angeles City Councilman Nate Holden has held many titles in his long political career, including state senator and aide to former county Supervisor Kenneth Hahn.

On Monday, Holden gave himself a new title: election investigator.

In a City Hall news conference, Holden announced he will personally investigate a decision by City Clerk J. Michael Carey to certify that Mayor Richard Riordan has succeeded in a petition drive to qualify a measure for the ballot.

The measure would ask voters to create a reform panel to come up with fundamental changes in Los Angeles city government.

Holden said he is suspicious of Carey’s decision because Carey indicated a week ago that the petition did not have enough valid signatures to qualify, based on a random check of 3% of the signatures.

Holden, who opposes Riordan’s petition drive, accuses Carey of certifying the petition under pressure from Riordan.

Carey denies the accusation.

Holden says he wants to double-check some of the disputed signatures himself.

“It’s nothing more than a whitewash of the whole process,” Holden said. “I was shocked that Mr. Carey would come up Friday, the last day . . . and say he decided to certify their signatures after he told the City Council he would not . . . . It’s totally unacceptable.”

But Carey says there is no whitewash.

The petition did not appear to qualify initially, Carey said, because he was prepared to throw out 430 signatures that were collected by petition circulators who did not appear to be registered to vote in the city.

After double-checking registration records, Carey and county election officials found that some of the petition circulators were in fact registered voters.

Consequently, they then included some of those disputed signatures in the count.

Riordan supporters shrug off Holden’s allegations and say he has no authority to second-guess Carey.

“I wasn’t aware that among all the powers that Nate has, he now has the power to certify elections,” said David Fleming, a Studio City attorney who teamed with Riordan on the initiative drive.