New Chapter Begins in Race for Accused Judge’s O.C. Seat

Flogged by talk radio DJs, caught in the glare of the national media and abandoned at the ballot box by even his next-door neighbors, an Orange County judge facing child-molestation charges reaped a meager one-third of the vote.

Superior Court Judge Ronald C. Kline now faces an uphill battle to keep his judgeship in a November runoff against a write-in candidate whose identity won’t be known for weeks.

Wednesday began a new chapter in the campaign, which pitted Kline, who remains under house arrest, against 11 write-ins. Election officials are preparing to hand-count 233,843 write-in ballots to determine who will face the judge.

Collectively, the write-in candidates nabbed 66% of the vote, although none of the little-known challengers emerged as a front-runner during the frenzied campaign. The field of judicial hopefuls include a local councilman, a former judge and an attorney now facing disbarment after being accused of withholding settlement money won by a client.

Election officials may be called upon to make tough “hanging chad”-type decisions that created so much turmoil in Florida during the 2000 presidential race. Orange County Registrar of Voters Rosalyn Lever already has said that voters who wrote in a candidate’s name but forgot to punch the “write in” selection for candidates won’t have their votes count.

However, ballots with write-in names that are close to but not an exact match with one of the qualified candidates will still count if the “intent is clear,” said election office spokeswoman Terri Niccum. Questionable votes will be decided on a case-by-case basis by election officials, she said.

“If we can tell who it is cast for, we count it. A misspelling is not going to kick out their vote,” Niccum said. “We’ll have observers present, and I’m sure the candidates know they can come in and observe the process.”

The county plans to call in at least 100 poll workers who will work in teams of four to count the write-in ballots, a task that could take until early April, Niccum said.

That gives the 11 write-in candidates plenty of time to second-guess their campaign strategies, and possibly stir up controversy.

“I never looked at my opponents as opponents. They were on the same team as me,” said write-in candidate Terese Oliver, a longtime prosecutor from Anaheim. “Now, I’m looking at it, saying I should have done this, I should have done that.... We’re all doing that.”

Until Tuesday, Kline’s challengers were bonded by a common goal to oust the judge, but now they face the prospect of a fierce political firefight if questions arise about how the ballots are counted, especially if it’s a close race.

“All 11 people stepped up to the plate without taking potshots at one another,” said Mark Petracca, chairman of the political science department at UC Irvine. “They had a common target. Now, we’ll see how eager they are to become a Superior Court judge.”

Local judicial races usually get scant attention, but this one has become a national story, with outlets from a CNN talk show to “Good Morning America” weighing in with coverage. Many focused on the likelihood that Kline would be reelected because he was the only name on the ballot. Even NBC’s “Today” show host Katie Couric took a shot at Kline on election day, calling him the “judge who now knows what it’s like to be on the other side of the law.”

Couric’s quip was tame compared with abuse Kline has taken has from the KFI radio talk show duo John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou, who at one point railed against the judge from a makeshift studio outside Kline’s home.

Leading up to election day, the “John and Ken Show” broadcast explicit excerpts from a diary allegedly taken from the Kline’s computer--including yearning passages about boys playing Little League baseball.

On Wednesday, Kobylt and Chiampou praised voters for “proving the pundits wrong” and forcing Kline into a runoff.

“I was stunned at the turnout against him, nearly a quarter of a million votes against him. This is what he deserved,” Kobylt said in an interview Wednesday after his radio show.

Kline’s challengers credited the crush of media attention for their success in forcing Kline into a runoff election.

“Whether there was 11 candidates or 300 candidates, we could not have gotten the message out to 1.3 million voters without the help of the media,” said Gay Sandoval, a trial lawyer from Costa Mesa who spent $23,000 on the race.

On Friday, a Superior Court judge also gave the write-ins a major boost when he ordered election officials to post signs at polling places telling voters they could receive a list of the write-in candidates.

“The judge’s decision was very important,” Petracca said. “It reduced the probability of voters having to rely on memory, or having to bring a list.”

Still, Frank Barbaro, chairman of the county’s Democratic Party and a friend of Kline’s, marveled at the judge’s ability to pull in a third of the vote.

Though many voters may have been unaware of the allegations, Barbaro surmised, “there is good chunk saying that he’s innocent until proven guilty, and let this whole thing unfold.”

Some voters in Kline’s well-groomed Turtle Rock neighborhood in Irvine weren’t as charitable, however.

“There are just too many people with kids who live here. It’s not worth the risk,” said neighbor Cathy Eusey, who voted for a write-in candidate.