LOCAL

UPDATE: No party preference Assembly candidate wants to know why he's listed as a Democrat

Calling it shocking, California 1st Assembly District candidate PK “Paul” Dhanuka wants to know why he’s listed as a Democrat on the Lassen County ballot and is talking to an attorney.

Dhanuka, a Redding doctor, is running as a no party preference candidate in a three-way contest that pits him against Republican incumbent Megan Dahle and Democrat Elizabeth Betancourt.

Somebody called Dhanuka on Tuesday night with the news of the error and his campaign reached out to Lassen County election officials.

Redding doctor Paul Dhanuka is running for state Assembly in 2020 without a party affiliation.

“So, it’s a public trust issue and an election integrity issue,” Dhanuka said. “To maintain the election integrity and the public trust, it has to be redone. They have to invalidate all the ... ballots sent out and reprint them and send out new ballots.”

Lassen County Clerk Julie Bustamante confirmed the mistake and noted that the “proofreaders didn’t catch it.”

Bustamante has three people who work in her office and “one of them is brand new” and “not familiar with elections.”

There will be notices posted at polling places March 3 with the correct information. Those who vote by mail in Lassen County will receive the corrected ballot by mail, Bustamante said.

On Thursday, Bustamante, in a news release, said her office is making efforts to contact the voters of the 68 ballots cast at the time the error was discovered, and those voters will be given the opportunity to cast a different ballot.

What's more, her office will be mailing a postcard notice of the error to all Lassen County voters, Bustamante said.

Bustamante also said she consulted with the California Secretary of State's Office, and it was determined that the election will go on.

"I apologize for the error and any inconvenience it may have caused," she said Thursday.

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The error in Lassen County marks the second time in the leadup to the March 3 primary election that a county election’s office in the North State has made a mistake.

In Shasta County, Measure A, the countywide 1-cent specific sales tax for public safety, was misidentified in the voter’s guide that went out in late January.

The headline in the original guide read: "City of Redding General Business Tax on Cannabis Businesses."

Some 102,000 replacement pages were mailed out with the corrected version: “Shasta County Public Safety Transactions and Use Tax Ordinance.”

Also, last year, the official candidate statement for a Republican running for California’s 1st Assembly seat was left out of all but one county's voter information guide, and the candidate blamed Bustamante for omission.

But Lassen County Clerk Bustamante said the omission was due to a misunderstanding.

Dhanuka is challenging Dahle, who won the special election to the Assembly in November and is now looking to win her first full term in the Legislature. Dahle is the wife of District 1 state Sen. Brian Dahle, and both are from Lassen County.

State Senate candidate Pamela Swartz of Nevada County answers a question during a candidates forum Sunday, January 26, 2020 at the Redding Library. Paul Dhanuka, left and Elizabeth Betancourt are running for District 1 state Assembly, while Linda Kelleher, second from right is also running for State Senate in District 1.

Also, Democrat and watershed scientist Elizabeth Betancourt will challenge Megan Dahle for the second time in four months. In November, Betancourt lost to Dahle by a margin of about 57% to 43%.

Betancourt, in a message to the Record Searchlight, said her campaign is looking into the issue. She said Bustamante reached out to her, but Betancourt had not spoken to her as of Wednesday evening.

Dhanuka later on Wednesday told the newspaper Lassen County election officials rejected his request to recall the sample ballot. 

"We're consulting an attorney because this is unacceptable. We are concerned that there is more to the story than a simple error here, especially the refusal to recall the ballot," Dhanuka said.

Joseph Turner, the Lassen County Republican Central Committee Chairman, is calling for Bustamante to resign “over gross negligence,” he said in an email to the Record Searchlight. Turner said he is not endorsing Dhanuka.

Turner, who ran against Megan Dahle, said his official candidate statement was left out of all but one county’s voter information guide last year.

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"I made the mistake of trusting the Lassen County Clerk Julie Bustamante, who lied to my face and told me that my submission was good for all of the counties, and then lied to me a second time when I called to confront her about it," read a Facebook post on the campaign page of Joseph Turner.  

But Bustamante said the issue stemmed from a misunderstanding.

She told the Record Searchlight that when Turner decided to run, he asked her if he had to sign up to run in each of the district's individual counties. She told him no. Bustamante suspected Turner might have misunderstood that to mean he wouldn't have to send his official candidate statement to each county.

Bustamante said that if a candidate wants their paid official statement in a county's voter guide, the candidate must send it to each county.

Dhanuka said polling his campaign has done makes him confident, despite the mistake.

"So, overall, we are the leading candidate, and we are very confident of our victory," he said. "I am concerned about the public's faith in the system."

Watch this video from the special Assembly election of 2019:

David Benda covers business, development and anything else that comes up for the USA TODAY Network in Redding. He also writes the weekly "Buzz on the Street" column. He’s part of a team of dedicated reporters that investigate wrongdoing, cover breaking news and tell other stories about your community. Reach him on Twitter @DavidBenda_RS or by phone at 1-530-225-8219. To support and sustain this work, please subscribe today.