Jan Harnik files lawsuit against Supervisor Perez

Palm Desert City Councilmember and county supervisor candidate Jan Harnik has filed a lawsuit against Supervisor V. Manuel Perez for “misleading voters.”

Harnik alleges that Perez is violating state election codes by failing to include appointed on his ballot designation. She further alleges that Perez is doing this to “trick voters into believing he is the elected incumbent County Supervisor.”

Perez was appointed to the Riverside County Board of Supervisors on May 9, 2017, by Governor Jerry Brown following the death of John Benoit in December 2016. Perez originally ran against Benoit in 2014.

The Perez campaign sent a statement to KESQ & CBS Local 2 in response to the lawsuit:

“Supervisor Manuel Perez’s ballot designation is completely accurate. Jan Harnik’s decision to file a lawsuit against the County of Riverside, for a ballot designation that the registrar’s office has already approved and has approved in the past shows just how desperate her campaign has gotten. It also reflects the type of hypocrisy that people hate about politics. Here is a local politician who professes to care about our tax dollars who files a lawsuit against the Riverside County Registrar for something as simple as a ballot designation.”

Rebecca Spencer of the Riverside County Registrar of Voters said that they reviewed the ballot designation and deemed it acceptable.

Question marks on the candidate list means that the ballot designation is under review. We reviewed the ballot designation with county counsel and determined that it is acceptable. The approved ballot designation is “Riverside County Supervisor”