Authored by Kimberly Hayek by way of The Epoch Instances (emphasis ours),
Scott Edward Markowitz, a Fullerton Metropolis Council candidate in Orange County, California, has been charged with felony perjury after allegedly falsifying his nomination paperwork.
In keeping with the Orange County District Legal professional’s Workplace, the candidate had stated he personally gathered the entire signatures wanted with a view to qualify him for the Fullerton Metropolis Council election, which takes place on Nov. 5.
Though ballots have been printed with Markowitz as a candidate for Fullerton’s Ward 4, which sits within the metropolis’s southwest, the allegedly falsified nomination paperwork disqualifies Markowitz from serving on the Fullerton Metropolis Council if he’s elected. Within the occasion Markowitz wins the election, the town would shoulder the price of a particular election to elect one of many different three candidates within the race for the seat.
Markowitz, like all metropolis council candidates, needed to flip in a signed attestation below penalty of perjury that whoever signed was additionally the one who collected signatures to qualify as a candidate for elected workplace. Markowitz signed the attestation, however allegedly didn’t acquire the signatures.
Orange County investigators arrested Markowitz on Monday evening. The candidate was booked into the Santa Ana metropolis jail with one felony rely of perjury by declaration and one felony rely of document of cast or false instrument. If convicted on each counts, Markowitz faces a most of three years and eight months in state jail.
Markowitz signed on Aug. 9, 2024, that he collected 30 nomination signatures on his candidate nomination paperwork. Nonetheless, the one who signed the paperwork will need to have additionally witnessed the signatures, and quite a few individuals who signed stated that Markowitz didn’t deal with the paperwork, though he attested to doing so. The signatures due to this fact are thought of invalid.
“American democracy depends on absolutely the integrity of the electoral course of,” stated Orange County District Legal professional Todd Spitzer. “Voters will need to have whole confidence that each election is being carried out in a good and unbiased method. Interference within the electoral course of in any method and at any stage jeopardizes the desire of the folks being carried out whereas eroding the belief of voters that their vote counts.”
Spitzer stated he didn’t take the choice to file prices frivolously, “however given the danger to the electoral course of in addition to the potential of the Metropolis of Fullerton needing to pay for a particular election ought to Markowitz be elected, there was no selection however to file felony prices previous to the election and alert voters of his ineligibility to run for Metropolis Council.”
Linda Whitaker, Jamie Valencia, and Vivian Jaramillo stay the three candidates within the Ward 4 election. They’d face off if Markowitz had been to be elected regardless of his arrest.
Markowitz and the District Legal professional’s Workplace didn’t instantly reply to The Epoch Instances’ requests for remark.
