California plans to make changes to its elections code to address hateful content in the official voters guide, the office of Shirley Weber, the California secretary of state, told JNS.
JNS sought comment from Weber’s office about antisemitic text in a statement from gubernatorial candidate Don Grundmann, who accused Israel of “countless war crimes,” including being responsible for the September 11 attacks.
A spokesman for Weber told JNS that “we are working with the legislature to propose changes addressing concerns raised related to candidate statements.”
“California elections code provisions must be updated to clearly address content that is not permitted, while preserving the ability of candidates to present their qualifications to voters,” the spokesman said.
The voter guide appended a disclaimer to Grundmann’s statement, and had a disclaimer at the bottom of each page. JNS asked the California secretary of state why there was no specific disclaimer attached to a statement from Glenn Turner, of the Green Party, wrote that “we must divest from Israel, weapons manufacturers and fossil fuels.”
Weber’s spokesman told JNS that the disclaimer “should not have been put in bold” above Grundmann’s statement “and has since been corrected on the online version of the guide.”
A downloadable PDF version of the guide appeared unchanged at press time.
