Panel OKs Bill Banning Guards at Voting Sites

An Assembly committee Wednesday unanimously approved a Senate-passed bill to make it a crime to post uniformed security guards at voting locations without the permission of election officials, as the Republican Party did in a hotly contested 1988 Orange County race.

A 9-0 vote sent the bill by Sen. Milton Marks (D-San Francisco), the Democratic Caucus chairman, from the Elections and Reapportionment Committee to the Public Safety Committee for more screening. It previously passed the Senate on a 22-2 vote.

The Northern California lawmaker released a copy of a confidential Republican National Committee memo that said the GOP violated official party guidelines by posting the guards to monitor Latinos as they went to the polls in the 72nd Assembly District election won by Assemblyman Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove).

In the memo, the RNC warned party poll watchers against “wearing public or private law enforcement or security guard uniforms, using armbands, or carrying or displaying guns or badges, except as required by law or regulation.”

Source of Memo

Marks, who used to be a GOP senator before he switched political parties, said the memo was given to him “by a prominent Orange County Republican.”

Orange County GOP leaders previously said they retained the guards after hearing persistent rumors that the Democrats were going to bus non-citizens to the polls to vote illegally.

They said the guards had strict instructions not to interfere with voters and were pulled from their posts after voting officials complained that they might intimidate Latinos who were legally registered to vote.

Without his bill, Marks said, “it (posting guards) will no doubt happen again” in some future election.

His legislation would make it a felony or a misdemeanor, subject to the discretion of a judge, to hire or serve as a uniformed security guard within 100 feet of a polling place without the written permission of appropriate election officials.