Saturday, November 06, 2004

California voters hoodwinked! Bamboozled! Flimflammed!

Forget provisional ballots in Ohio and hanging chads in Florida. The Orange Unified School District has its own election woe: It can't find the winner of Tuesday's board election.

Public records point to the fact that Steve Rocco really does exist.

He's a registered voter. He owns a home in Santa Ana. And he filed paperwork in July to run for the school board.

After that, the details start getting sketchy.

He is registered to vote, though he declined to state a party. Neighbors who have lived next door to him for years say they've seen the 53-year-old man only occasionally, when he takes out the trash from the home he shares with his parents. On the ballot, he listed his occupation as teacher and writer, though proof of either is elusive.

Neither the district nor the registrar has a phone number on file for him, and nobody answered the door at his home.

Somehow, though, without mounting a real campaign, filing a candidate's statement or showing up at a community forum, he managed to upset his formidable opponent, Phil Martinez.
Not that formidable, I guess.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

NPR reports he is credentialed. To come to any opinion with out his side is to make a judgement error. Having run for office, I can understand his wanting to avoid this kind of press.

Mike said...

I agree, of course, that one doesn't want to jump to any conclusions. But couldn't he solve a lot of these problems by, I don't know... calling a press conference?