State Senate vote is set for summer

Two Republicans have announced they will run in the race to fill John Campbell’s seat in the legislature.The special election to fill the 35th District state Senate seat will be held in conjunction with the June 6 statewide primary, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced last week. The news pleased Orange County election officials, who will save money and work by holding the two elections together.

A primary is scheduled April 11 for the state Senate seat, which was left open after Republican Sen. John Campbell was elected Dec. 6 to an open seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Dana Point City Councilwoman Diane Harkey and Huntington Beach Assemblyman Tom Harman, both Republicans, are the only two declared candidates for the Senate seat so far.

The 35th Senate District covers 13 mainly coastal Orange County cities including Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, Costa Mesa and Huntington Beach.

Candidates will have from Feb. 7 to Feb. 27 to file papers to run for the seat, acting Orange County Registrar of Voters Neal Kelley said. The primary will be open, which means voters can cross party lines to choose a candidate. A candidate can win the election outright by claiming 50% plus one vote of the total in the primary.

Kelley said voters will use paper ballots for the election because the county is still working on state and federal approval of a system that generates a “paper trail” for the existing electronic voting machines.

If the state Senate general election hadn’t been held along with the June statewide election, it would have meant two more special elections to be run by the Orange County Registrar of Voters, which already has conducted four special elections during the last three months.

-- Alicia Robinson