Opinion
Docket No. S.F. 15828.
March 24, 1937.
PROCEEDING in Mandamus to compel the City Clerk of the City of Oakland to omit from the ballot the name of a candidate for office. Writ granted.
Petitioner, a candidate for re-election as auditor of the City of Oakland, filed a petition for a writ of mandate to prevent respondent city clerk from placing the name of David Adams on the ballot for said office, on the grounds that the true name of said David Adams was David Axelrod, that he was seeking to use the name of David Adams to conceal his identity from the electors and to mislead them, and that the use of said name on the ballot would constitute a fraud upon said electors. At the hearing it was shown or stipulated that he was listed as David Axelrod in the 1937 Oakland City Directory, which did not list any person by the name of Adams as residing at his address; that no proceedings had been instituted in the county of Alameda, in which he resided, for any change of his name; that prior to March 5, 1937, his name of David Axelrod appeared on the Great Register; and that on that date he caused his registration to be changed so that he thereupon appeared to be registered as an elector under the name of David Adams.
Fitzgerald, Abbott Beardsley for Petitioner.
F.B. Fernhoff, City Attorney, Hilton J. Melby, Assistant City Attorney, A. Grossman, and Gladstein Grossman for Respondent.
THE COURT.
At the close of the argument the Chief Justice announced the opinion and judgment of the court:
[1] We have carefully considered the argument relating to the application of section 10 of the charter of the city of Oakland, which covers the election of officers and is pertinent to the office of auditor, and which requires that candidates must be citizens and qualified electors, and section 1097 of the Political Code, relating to the registration of electors, and the application of subdivisions 4 and 5 of that section, one relating to a change of surname between the time of last registration and the time for the closing of registration, and what shall be done, and the next subdivision providing that no one who has changed his or her name shall register except as provided in subdivision 4, unless upon the production of a certified copy of a judgment of the superior court directing such entry.
Basing our decision on those provisions, we are of the view that the petition for order requiring the city clerk to omit from the ballot the name of David Adams or David Axelrod, whichever name he is to be known by, will have to be and is granted.