Malibu City Attorney Says Ollikainen Could Have Fixed Ballot Problems, If She Had Acted Earlier
Written by 991KBU on August 19, 2020
The Malibu City Attorney says she is sorry … but there is nothing Malibu can do to put a Malibu woman onto the November city council ballot.
Christi Hogin wrote a 23-hundred word letter to the want-to-be candidate … Alia Ollikainen … explaining exactly why.
Ollikainen says she is considering her options.
Eight city council candidates remain on the fall ballot … clamoring for three seats.
The bottom line from the city attorney is that Ollikainen could have fixed her petition’s problems …. if she had not waited until the last possible day to file.
The city attorney says Malibu officials turn all elections functions over to the county … like all cities in California do under state law.
And she says Ollikainen’s petitions clearly have only 19 names … not the 20 required.
Two voters had already signed three nomination papers … that’s the limit.
Three addresses were not the same as the address where the voters are registered … that’s against the law.
One voter did not write his own address as the law requires.
And perhaps the biggest contention … Hogin says the final possible place to find that one needed signature is to count hers as a nominator as well as a circulator.
Hogin says she spent considerable time researching this possibility …
But the attorney says she could find no legal authority to void the county elections’ conclusion.
Hogin agrees with the county … there appear to be 19 legally valid signatures, not 20.
Two options come to mind for the candidate … according to the city attorney.
Ollikainen can go to court.
Or she can run as a write in candidate.
Ollikainen is not accepting that lengthy analysis. .
In a statement … she tells the public that Hogin “ignored the legality of the signatures (that she) I contested as being valid according to election code.”
Ollikainen says Hogin “came up with the false narrative” of the candidate turning in her nomination papers on the last possible day.
Ollikainen … a substitute school teacher … says she consulted election code carefully before making her complaint.
But she has not hired a lawyer.
Still .. she maintains that her nomination had the necessary 20 minimum necessary endorsements
“ I am effectively being blocked for running for Malibu City Council by the City of Malibu,” she says.
But … the decision was made by the county Registrar-Recorder … and if there is some law that allows the city to overrule the county elections decision … Ollikainen has not produced it.
CORRECTION: This story has been corrected to spell Ollikainen correctly throughout..
