One day after organizers filed a Notice of Intention to recall Fullerton Mayor Fred Jung, a man saying he works for Jung began visiting recall proponents at their homes and asking them to reconsider their support. The visits occurred before the Notice of Intention, which contains the proponents’ names, signatures and residential addresses, had been published.

Doorbell-camera footage from one encounter shows the visitor, who identifies himself as “Ted,” holding what appears to be a copy of the Notice while speaking with a proponent at their front door. Jung has not responded to inquiries.

In total, recall organizers have confirmed visits to five proponents’ households. All five proponents have Korean surnames. Six proponents with non-Korean surnames who live in the same neighborhood told organizers they were not approached.

Residents who were approached say the visits made them uncomfortable and that the visitor continued attempting to persuade them after they had made clear they did not intend to withdraw their support. One of the conversations took place in Korean. The resident involved provided the following English translation of their account:

“I had a visit to my front door with consistent knocking and ringing the bell by a person representing himself as working for Mayor Fred Jung. It was regarding the intent-to-recall sheet that I previously signed. It was really uncomfortable knowing that they were visiting the people on that sheet. A random person going door-to-door targeting, persuading and intimidating our freedom of choice for the recall. He wanted to know why I should change my mind on the recall, and he insisted, ‘Koreans should help another Korean.’ I totally disagreed, but I continued to listen. Even though he approached me very kindly and professionally, I felt intimidated. I am speaking up for other citizens of Fullerton; we should have our freedom to choose and speak freely. I do not wish to be intimidated by a political figure, and no one should ever experience such an act.”

A second resident who was visited described a similar persistence after declining to engage.

“The random person that came to my house should not have had my address or tried to recall my vote. After repeating myself many times that I didn’t want to talk, he continued and was persistent.”

Neither resident reversed their support for the recall.

Recall organizers have confirmed visits to five proponents’ households. All five proponents who were visited have Korean surnames. Organizers also contacted six proponents with non-Korean surnames who live in the same neighborhood as those who were approached. All six said they had not received a similar visit. That comparison does not establish why particular households were selected. It does, however, raise questions about how the proponents were chosen, particularly in light of the Korean-language conversation described by one resident, who said the visitor appealed to their shared ethnicity by saying that “Korean should help another Korean.”

The recall’s Notice of Intention contains considerably more information about proponents than the petition voters will ultimately be asked to sign. California recall procedures require the Notice to contain each proponent’s name, signature and complete residence address. A copy must be personally served or sent by certified mail to the elected official facing recall, while the original is filed with the elections official.

In a municipal recall, the City Clerk serves as the elections official. Before the visits occurred, recall organizers had gone to the Fullerton City Clerk’s office seeking access to the filed Notice of Intention. According to organizers who were present, City Clerk Lucinda Williams made clear that the document could be inspected but that the Clerk’s office would not provide a copy or permit photographs to be taken. Yet doorbell-camera footage subsequently recorded the man identifying himself as Ted at a proponent’s home with what appears to be a copy of that Notice, before the Notice had been published publicly. Jung unquestionably received a copy: California Elections Code requires proponents to serve the elected official with the Notice before filing it.

The footage does not establish who supplied the document to Ted, and it does not establish whether Jung directed or knew about the visits. It does raise a straightforward question about how a person describing himself as working for Jung obtained a document containing the proponents’ home addresses and began visiting them.

One resident summarized why the encounter concerned them: “We should have our freedom to choose and speak freely.”

The outstanding questions are therefore not whether the visits happened, but who organized them, how the proponents were selected, how the visitor obtained their addresses, and whether Mayor Jung knew about or authorized the effort.