Still, on June 27 Superior Court Judge Richard C. Turrone upheld the city of Sunnyvale and the County Registrar of Voters' rejection of the Friends' petitions and ruled that the group failed to submit the required number of signatures.

The mixup began with a letter from the city.

In a letter dated Feb. 10, 2003, Susan Kitchens, the city clerk, wrote Melinda Hamilton, president of the Friends group, about the time frame that needed to be met for the November 2003 election. In that letter Kitchens advised Hamilton that the number of registered voters of the city, as reported by the County Elections Official to the Secretary of State, was 54,379.

Erroneously believing that signatures from 10 percent of the registered voters was the necessary amount, Kitchens advised Hamilton that 5,438 valid signatures were required for each initiative. Kitchens also advised the group to seek an attorney to interpret the election code.

This error came to light when Hamilton filed a suit against the county registrar and the city last month, charging unlawful withholding of petition signatures by the city and improper handling of the results of the verification samples by the registrar.

The city filed its response to the lawsuit, stating that a city charter amendment—which means a change in the city's charter and is what the Friends' ballot petition was asking for—requires a petition to be signed by at least 15 percent of the registered voters, or in this case, 8,157 voters.

A generic amendment requires only 10 percent of the city's registered voters to sign the petition. The misinformation may have come about because no one has petitioned for a charter amendment since 1991.

So the petitions ended up short by thousands of signatures.

But the Friends and even the city clerk weren't aware of the amendment requirements until early June.

The Friends filed the petitions in April, with more than 6,300 signatures for each of the three initiatives. The city removed several hundred signatures and then forwarded the petitions to the registrar.

According to John Pilger, the city's communications officer, Kitchens removed the signatures because the forms were not filled out properly. "The requirements set forth in the election code are very specific. Either it's correct or it isn't. It's not a matter of choice on our part," Pilger said.

Then, following the election code, the registrar of voters took a sample of the submitted signatures and determined that there were not enough verified registered voters in the sample.

But after reading the results, the Friends of Sunnyvale believed the registrar mishandled the results of the verification sample.

According to Lisa Herrick, deputy counsel for the registrar, the registrar assumed that the voting requirement was 10 percent based on information from the city clerk. But the new information made no difference in how the registrar handled the signature verification, she said.

But Judge Turrone ruled that there is no need for the registrar to examine and verify each signature as requested by Hamilton because there were never enough signatures to begin with.

The court also found that Kitchens did not intentionally mislead Hamilton and only became aware of the 15 percent requirement on June 2.

But Hamilton said the outcome was unfair and she feels that the Friends of Sunnyvale didn't have a chance to submit the initiatives from the very beginning. "We didn't have any reason not to believe the city clerk. Even though they gave us false information, accidentally or not, they should be required to stick with what they said," Hamilton said.

But Pilger said the burden lies on the Friends of Sunnyvale and their attorney to follow the election code. "Having made that decision to make it a charter amendment means the petitions had to have 15 percent, regardless of what the city clerk may or may not have said," Pilger said.

"It's not the city clerk's job or the city's job to be the election experts. It is the circulator's responsibility to meet the law and understand the law," Pilger said.

Hamilton doesn't know whether she will appeal the judge's decision because an appeal could take up to a year to be resolved. "However, Hamilton has decided to put herself on the November 2003 ballot. She says she's running for city council."