DUPLICATIONS HAVE SNAGGED OTHER PETITIONS.

Byline: Michael Coit Daily News Staff Writer

Duplicate signatures such as the two dozen found on petitions for a study of San Fernando Valley cityhood also have tripped up other groups across California, petition consultants said Thursday.

State law imposes a stiff penalty for duplicates discovered by local officials when they verify names on petitions.

Petition consultants say the penalty - which likely will force a full count of more than 202,000 names on Valley cityhood petitions - is unfair but no one has developed a better formula.

``Everybody in the business has this debate with the Secretary of State's Office. No one's been able to figure out a better formula,'' said Michael Arno, who has operated a Sacramento political consulting firm for the past 20 years.

The state election code, which sets out the rules that county election officials must follow, penalizes duplicates more heavily than signatures found invalid for other reasons, said Shirley Washington, a Secretary of State's Office spokeswoman.

``It's as a deterrent,'' she said. ``It is weighted heavier to discourage the possibility that people may sign more than one time at different locations or overzealous bounty hunters.''

By the results of the random count the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder's Office submitted to the Local Agency Formation Commission, more than 76 percent of the signatures should prove to be from registered voters living in the Valley.

Based on that percentage, the state formula shows 154,476 of the 202,514 signatures turned in should be valid.

But because of the 24 duplicate signatures, the formula figures that there would be 25,877 duplicates overall, dropping the total below the 131,771 valid signatures needed.

Leaders of Valley Voters Organized Toward Empowerment contend that the penalty is absurd, noting that with only slightly fewer duplicates their petition effort would have satisfied the random count.

Arno predicted that Valley VOTE would succeed given that three of every four signatures were valid in the random count. ``That's a very high number. This initiative is going to qualify.''

LAFCO is set to review the random count report at its meeting Wednesday. Valley VOTE leaders said they will ask LAFCO to approve the petition.

County election officials are ready to begin the full count Monday and expect to finish by the end of February or early March, said Marcia Ventura, the Registrar-Recorder's Office spokeswoman.

Verifying signatures is done by computer. For each signature, a worker enters the name and address. If a match is found, the computer displays the signature on file and the worker compares it to the petition signature.

If they appear dissimilar, a supervisor makes the final decision.

If the worker enters the name and address but no match is found by the computer, verification is attempted using other county election records.

The petitions will remain secured in a room that is locked by a supervisor at the end of each day. There is a 24-hour guard at the building in Norwalk who allows workers in each day, Ventura said.

Valley VOTE officials said they have no concerns about security and will not ask to monitor the process.