O.C. Registrar Acts to Settle Poll Guard Case

County Registrar of Voters Donald Tanney has agreed to pay a $20,000 settlement and retrain poll workers nearly a year after six Latino voters filed federal suit, contending that they were intimidated during the 1988 general election by uniformed guards posted at polling places by the Orange County Republican Party.

Documents filed in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana showed that Tanney, while admitting no wrongdoing, will train poll workers to be more sensitive to ethnic and racial issues and to bar harassment of voters.

The proposed settlement must be approved by U.S. District Judge J. Spencer Letts. A hearing is set for Nov. 27. And because Tanney was functioning in his official capacity, the money will come from taxpayer funds upon approval by the Board of Supervisors.

The revised training instructions outlined in the settlement are already being given to the approximately 1,900 people who are preparing to work in the county’s 957 polling places Tuesday, Assistant Registrar of Voters Rosalyn Lever said.

According to a text of the new instructions filed in court records, voter officials will now tell trainees, “As precinct officers, you must be sensitive to the racial, ethnic and cultural makeup of your precinct voters and the vulnerability of some voters to intimidation.”

The six individual plaintiffs, joined by several Latino civil rights groups, contend that the county and state GOP organizations conspired with Garden Grove Republican Curt Pringle to scare away voters by placing 20 guards at 20 predominantly Latino polling places in Santa Ana during the Nov. 8, 1988, election. Pringle narrowly defeated Democrat Christian F. (Rick) Thierbach for the 72nd Assembly District seat.

The resulting controversy sparked state legislation forbidding armed or uniformed guards at polling places. The measure was signed into law by Gov. George Deukmejian on Sept. 8.

The guards carried signs in Spanish and English, warning that non-citizens cannot legally vote. Saddleback Security Services Corp., which provided the guards, settled its portion of the lawsuit for $60,000 in July. Among the remaining defendants are Pringle, his campaign, the county Republican Party’s Central Committee and the state Republican Party.

Tanney could not be reached for comment. His lawyer, David J. Brobeck Jr., said that Tanney was not responsible for the actions of the guards, but he agreed to settle the case as “a matter of economics,” to save the time and expense of a trial.

“If we’d done something to intimidate someone or favor the guards or help them intimidate people, we wouldn’t be settling for so little money,” Brobeck said.

Tanney believed, Brobeck continued, that precinct workers were getting adequate training, but he agreed to revise the instructions because he wants the poll workers “well-trained and prepared for whatever happens out there.”

Lowell Finley, one of the attorneys for the six Latino voters and the civil rights organizations, said evidence uncovered in the case showed that the county registrar of voters had information that there might be “trouble” on Election Day and did nothing to alert precinct workers that there might be attempts to challenge or intimidate voters. Some workers also aided the guards by permitting them to enter voting places with their signs, Finley added.

The new training instructions tell precinct workers that if they see someone challenging a voter at the polling place, they should “ask them to leave,” and if they refuse, the workers should call the registrar of voters office immediately. They are also told that no signs except those of the registrar may be posted within 100 feet of the polling place.

“Poll watchers have a right to be in your polling place, however they should not, in any way, be involved with polling-place operations and they may not interfere with your operation of the polling place,” the new training material says. “They also may not remain if they interfere with or intimidate voters. If you believe that the presence or activity of a poll watcher may be intimidating voters, please call our office immediately.”

Finley said he hopes the new instructions will “sensitize the precinct workers to the potential problems” of voters who belong to minority groups.

Of special concern, he said, are recently naturalized citizens who are “sensitive to insults” and who have been “subjected to the fears of encounters with immigration authorities.” Such people are especially vulnerable to a tactic such as the posting of uniformed guards at a polling place, Finley said.

Thomas A. Fuentes, chairman of the county Republican Party and also a defendant in the lawsuit, said the guards were hired because GOP workers had heard a rumor that the Democrats might try to bus immigrants in from Mexico to bolster Thierbach’s position.

Fuentes said the guards were not hired to intimidate or harass anyone, merely to “observe and detect” any illegal voting and report it to the proper authorities.

Finley said the $20,000 will go to the six voters, but they have not yet decided how it will be divided or spent.