Candidates Are Waging Battles on Two Fronts

For Republican incumbent Bill Jones and Democratic challenger Michela Alioto, the campaign to win election as California secretary of state is only half the battle.

The other half, both candidates for the state’s chief election post agree, is persuading millions of eligible voters to register and cast ballots.

More than 20 million Californians are eligible to vote, but only 14.6 million are registered. Far fewer actually cast ballots.

As one possible remedy, Alioto suggests trying out multi-day or weekend elections so that voting will be more convenient for busy Californians. She also proposes same-day registration and voting, and even online voting, if proper safeguards can be developed.

Jones says that in his first term, he has conducted unprecedented outreach programs, and that more than 3 million voters were registered or re-registered because they moved or changed parties. He also campaigned to rid the active voter files of ineligible people, eliminating 500,000 names--people who had died, or were underage or criminals.

In a second term, Jones promises, he would devote even more attention to young people and minority populations.

“I won’t be satisfied until we have 100% voter participation,” said the 48-year-old Jones, a Fresno-area cattle rancher and politician.

Although choosing a California secretary of state may not rate as the No. 1 issue on the Nov. 3 ballot, Jones said that he has elevated his office’s profile by aggressively recruiting new voters, vigorously clearing the voter rolls of deadwood and pursuing election fraud.

“We have revolutionized our agency,” said Jones, who served 14 years in the state Assembly, including a stint as GOP floor leader, before being elected to the statewide post in 1994.

His opponent, Alioto, who energetically campaigns from a wheelchair, has never served in elective office. But her last name is synonymous with Democratic politics in San Francisco, where her grandfather served as mayor from 1968 to 1976.

A Los Angeles Times poll last month found Alioto leading Jones 30% to 28% among registered voters statewide, but Jones leading Alioto 34% to 29% among those likely to vote.

Paralyzed from the waist down by a skiing accident when she was 13, Alioto said she has experienced firsthand the lesson that “there are people in our community who have to fight a lot harder to exercise their right to vote than most.”

Alioto graduated from UCLA and worked with disabled constituencies during President Clinton’s 1992 campaign. Later, she served for 2 1/2 years as a domestic policy issues staffer for Vice President Al Gore.

“I’m not an apathetic person, never have been. I was passing out literature for Ronald Reagan when I was in the sixth grade,” she said, adding quickly with a laugh, “I’ve changed my ways.”

In 1995, Alioto returned to California, not to her native San Francisco, but to the Napa Valley, where she invested in a wine business, established residence and ran for Congress. She lost.

It was during the House campaign that Alioto’s own voting record became controversial--an issue which Jones is now hammering her on.

In the earlier campaign, it was disclosed that Alioto, although she was registered in San Francisco, had not voted in the 1994 California primary or general elections.

Newspapers at the time reported that Alioto gave various explanations for her failure to vote, including a mix-up in absentee ballots while she was working in Washington. She also conceded, “I made a mistake.”

“She takes a great deal of interest in [being] secretary of state, but she chose not to vote until she ran for Congress,” Jones said. “You have to lead by example.”

Jones said he believes he has voted in every election since he was old enough to vote. “This [job] is about encouraging people to participate in the process; to do that, you have to do it yourself,” he said.

But Alioto, who denies charges that she started voting only when she ran for election in 1996, insisted she needs no lectures from Jones on voting.

At UCLA, Alioto recalled, she received voting materials from Los Angeles election officials which indicated that her polling place was not accessible to voters in wheelchairs.

She said she called and asked to be redirected to an accessible voting spot, but was told by a clerk that “we don’t redirect people. . . . I’m sorry, that is not my problem. That is your problem.”

Angered, Alioto said she showed up at the precinct poll anyway. “I figured, I’ll get on the floor and crawl up the stairs,” she said.

As it turned out, Alioto said, the voting material was wrong and the poll was accessible to her wheelchair. (The law has since been changed to require voting places to be open to people in wheelchairs.)

“I guarantee that Mr. Jones has never had to fight his way into the voting place,” she said.

Alioto, meanwhile, accuses Jones of fueling what she said is a false perception in Orange County that fraud occurred when immigrants illegally registered and voted in the controversial 1996 House race between Democrat Loretta Sanchez and Republican incumbent Robert Dornan, who lost by a narrow margin.

Dornan later said that fraud occurred when Latino immigrants who had completed a naturalized citizen program were unlawfully registered to vote and that some cast ballots. Numerous federal, state and local investigations ensued, but fraud charges were never filed.

Jones, whose office had a major role in the probe, crossed the line from the role of an impartial investigator to a partisan on behalf of Dornan, Alioto charges.

Jones, she said, asserted that as many as 3,000 people may have registered illegally. “In the end, we find that there had been 249 people who voted wrongly, who should not have. But it was not fraudulent,” Alioto said. (The Orange County registrar of voters has actually removed the names of more than 500 people who had registered when they were noncitizens.)

“I think the way he went about doing it showed how partisan he was and showed a certain racial bias [against Latinos],” Alioto said.

Jones bristles at such suggestions and dismisses them as “totally inaccurate.”

“The effort that we have followed in Orange County has been bipartisan, open and available for everyone to review,” Jones said.

He recalled that when he kicked off a recent voter registration drive for Spanish-speakers, his investigation was praised by Latino community leaders. He also noted that his management of the office was called “serious, creative and equitable” in a primary election endorsement by the Spanish-language daily La Opinion.

“I’ve done it fairly. We’ve treated everybody the same. That is what the law requires,” Jones said.

Minor party candidates in the secretary of state’s race are Jane Ann Bialosky, Natural Law; Israel Feuer, Peace and Freedom; Gail K. Lightfoot, Libertarian; Valli Sharpe-Geisler, Reform; and Carolyn Rae Short, American Independent.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Bill Jones

Jones is seeking election to a second term. In his first term, he concentrated on voter registration, cleansing the rolls of ineligible voters and launching on-line reforms aimed at getting more information to the public faster. He supports California’s blanket primary law against a legal challenge by the Republican and Democratic parties.

* Born: Dec. 20, 1949

* Residence: Fresno

* Education: Bachelor’s degree in agribusiness-plant science from Cal State Fresno, 1971.

* Career highlights: Cattle rancher who served in the Assembly from 1982-94, including a stint as GOP floor leader. Author of the “Three Strikes” law against career criminals and supporter of newly enacted law moving California’s primary to March 7.

* Interests: Horseback riding; water, agriculture and business issues.

* Family: Married, wife Maurine, two grown daughters.

* Quote: “My administration’s priorities have been absolutely clear: Strongly encourage 100% voter participation by all eligible citizens and implement a tough zero-tolerance policy towards voter fraud.”

Michela Alioto

Alioto is campaigning as an activist who would further open up the election process by making it friendlier to voters. Her ideas include multi-day elections, same day registration/voting; and experimenting with voting on-line. Also to immerse eighth graders in a course on the election process “so that by the time they turn 18, they’re excited about voting.”

* Born: April 29, 1968

* Residence: St. Helena

* Education: Bachelors degree in anthropology from UCLA, 1992

* Career highlights: At age 17, was appointed to advisory board to President Ronald Reagan’s National Council on Disabilities; coordinator for disabilities outreach for Clinton-Gore campaign in 1992; domestic policy issues staffer to Vice President Al Gore; financial partner and marketing director of a Napa Valley wine company. In her first try for office, Alioto lost a 1996 race for a North Coast seat in Congress.

* Interests: Issues affecting women and people with disabilities. Special Olympics softball coach.

* Family: Single

* Quote: “I grew up in a family that taught if you don’t vote, your voice won’t be heard.”