Grand Jury Urges Better Training of Poll Workers

Amid allegations of polling irregularities in a June 3 Democratic congressional primary, the Orange County Grand Jury has recommended that training for volunteer poll workers be improved.

In a sweeping report issued Thursday, the outgoing 1985-86 grand jury praised the county’s new vote-counting system but found fault with “excessive” overtime among top management and unsafe storage of voter registration documents.

The grand jury study of the county registrar of voters office ended before the election, when poll workers at precincts in the 40th Congressional District apparently misinformed some voters about how to cast a write-in vote.

In the election, write-in candidate Bruce Sumner, the county Democratic Party chief, lost a race against Art Hoffmann, a follower of political extremist Lyndon R. La-Rouche. Sumner requested a recount, which began Thursday, charging that election workers failed to count write-in ballots cast for him.

Grand jury foreman Gerald Charleton said that learning from mistakes that may have occurred in the unusual election is the sort of improvement that is needed. Jurors suggested that election workers use videotapes or visual training aides in addition to reducing the “verbosity” and improving the “clarity” of training manuals.

“We found the training process was very good overall,” said J. Donald Rudolph, chairman of the 1985-86 grand jury’s general services subcommittee.

“But we’re saying (to) critique yourself, utilize what happened in the previous elections as a teaching tool, then you won’t have that problem in the future,” said Rudolph, a retired RB Furniture official.

A study of the November, 1985, municipal and school district elections showed that 28% of 1,198 polling precincts had errors in ballot statements or voter roster indexes, according to the report. Rudolph conceded that many of the errors were not the fault of poll workers.

Registrar of Voters Al Olson, who was overseeing a recount in the Hoffmann-Sumner contest Thursday, said he could not respond until he had read the final report.

But he emphasized that the problems alleged by Sumner occurred in only a few precincts. “I would repeat that, by and large, a very high percentage of the precinct volunteers did their job very well,” Olson said.

The report also faulted the registrar’s office for “continuous and excessive overtime.”

While applauding the dedication of Olson, Chief Deputy Registrar Shirley Deaton and an election operations supervisor, the grand jury said the more than 700 hours of overtime each worked last year “is inconsistent with sound management practices” and recommended hiring extra personnel.

“We feel it’s a better management practice to delegate responsibilities,” Rudolph said. “They need to restructure the upper management. . . . It’s too much to require of employees in this age of streamlined management operations.”

As management employees, neither Olson nor his top deputy, Deaton, were compensated for the extra hours.

Olson said he is under legal time constraints to finish many of his tasks requiring overtime. And while the volume of work has grown, he said many needed positions that were cut when the registrar’s operation was absorbed by the county General Services Agency have not been restored.