Fortunately, a majority of the current California Supreme Court were appointed by Republicans. And, that Court is aware of the voters' choice to remove from that bench former Chief Justice Rose Byrd and two of her colleagues, for consistently voting the lib-Dem line on death penalty cases. (That's two more relevant pieces of information not contained in this article.)
Bottom line: I expect the Democrats and bureaucrats to do the right thing and put the would-be replacement candidates on the ballot. I expect them to do that not because they want to, but because they correctly expect the California Supreme Court to slap them down fast and hard if they do not do that. Which would result in embarrassing those Democrats and damaging if not destroying their own political careers.
Shelly, the Secretary of State, appears to have gotten the message already. He's the guy who's charged with preparing the ballot. And he intends to put the replacements who timely file, on that ballot. The Gubernatorial Commission would be a collection of fools to attempt to mess with that. And the Cal SC will let that stand.
Game, set and match to the good guys.
Congressman Billybob