SECTIONS 17200 - California Statutes

ELECTIONS CODE

SECTION 17200

17200. (a) Elections officials required by law to receive or file
in their offices any initiative or referendum petition shall preserve
the petition until eight months after the certification of the
results of the election for which the petition qualified or, if the
measure, for any reason, is not submitted to the voters, eight months
after the final examination of the petition by the elections
official.
(b) Thereafter, the petition shall be destroyed as soon as
practicable unless it is in evidence in some action or proceeding
then pending or unless the elections official has received a written
request from the Attorney General, the Secretary of State, the Fair
Political Practices Commission, a district attorney, a grand jury, or
the governing body of a county, city and county, or district,
including a school district, that the petition be preserved for use
in a pending or ongoing investigation into election irregularities,
the subject of which relates to the petition's qualification or
disqualification for placement on the ballot, or in a pending or
ongoing investigation into a violation of the Political Reform Act of
1974 (Title 9 (commencing with Section 81000) of the Government
Code).
(c) Public access to any such petition shall be restricted in
accordance with Section 6253.5 of the Government Code.
(d) This section shall apply to the following petitions:
(1) Statewide initiative and referendum petitions.
(2) County initiative and referendum petitions.
(3) Municipal initiative and referendum petitions.
(4) Municipal city charter amendment petitions.
(5) District initiative and referendum petitions.