Readers may have heard, on Friday the OC Department of Education stopped the verification of the 5,000 signatures turned in to force a special election to fill the seat of late AUHSD trustee Denise Reinking-Mansfield.

The petition drive was sparked by the AUHSD Board of Trustees tone-deaf decision to fill the vacancy with former Trustee Harald Martin, who'd been rejected by AUHSD votes in 2002 and 2006.

According the the OC Register article, the OC Department of Education, i.e. Superintendent Bill Habermehl, decided the point is moot because Martin resigned last week.

I don't think that is for Habermehl to decide. The voters of that district want a special election to fill that vacancy. California law designates the county department of education as the agency in charge of verifying the signatures and calling the elections.

I spoke a few minutes ago with Garden Grove Councilman Mark Rosen, who's representing the special election forces. Mark says the statute gives no authority to the county department of education to stop verifying signatures.

It would be one thing if the AUHSD Board of Trustees voted to fill the vacancy with a special election. They would then be complying with the will of those signing the petition, and the verification process would indeed be moot.

But this maneuver by Habermehl is an abuse, plain and simple. He simply cannot decide, on his own, to stop the signature verification (as a practical matter, the OCDE hands over the actual verification to the OC Registrar of Voters). Once turned in, the signature verification process has to run its course. Not even the AUHSD special election petition proponents can ask for the counting to stop.

Habermehl was re-elected last year without an opponent, so maybe he's a little rusty on this whole democracy thing.

Mark Rosen said there'll be an initial court hearing tomorrow morning on this matter. My advice to Habermehl is to stop the madness and keep verifying signatures on your own, rather than wait for the court to force him to do so. That will give Habermehl three more years to help voters forget his rash act of contempt for the voters before he's faces the electorate again in November 2010.