Right after the recall there were some posts about some weird minor candidate results in some counties, Tulare county in particular had some real odd results.
Here's an article I came across with a possible explaination:
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/cctimes/news/state/7139166.htm
Excerpts:
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In these counties, the ballots required voters to fill in an oval to select the candidate of their choice -- and some of the more obscure entries among the 135 candidates running for governor apparently benefited from having their ovals positioned confusingly close to the names of the front-running candidates.
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But in the counties that used optical scan equipment by Diebold Inc., three obscure candidates -- Ronald Jason Palmieri, Jerry Kunzman and Randall D. Sprague -- got far more votes than they got elsewhere.
Palmieri -- a gay Hollywood attorney -- received 1.44 percent of votes in rural Tulare County -- 36 times greater than the .04 percent of votes he won overall throughout California, despite urging voters on his Web site not to elect him.
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