Spitzer to Seek More Money for Elections

Registrar Rosalyn Lever, sharply criticized after November’s election, got a boost Wednesday when Supervisor Todd Spitzer announced plans to seek a $1.1-million budget increase to hire more elections employees and improve training for poll workers.

Speaking at a town hall meeting on election problems, Spitzer said he also will ask that county employees be available to work the polls on election days.

Spitzer, who heads the Board of Supervisors’ elections committee reviewing Lever’s department, cited budget cuts during Orange County’s 1994 bankruptcy as the reason Lever’s Registration and Elections Department has been struggling. The session in Santa Ana drew more than 130 people.

Lever, who was at the meeting, said she plans to go before the board Sept. 11 to seek approval of the budget increase and other changes she said are critical to improve the performance of her department.

“I feel very positive about this budget request,” Lever said.

Lever also said she plans to create an elections committee of community representatives and top-ranking county officials to develop a management and financial plan, which is part of a new strategy her department will adopt.

Lever said the $1.1 million would enable her to hire 13 employees, increasing her staff to 47 from 34.

The registrar’s office came under fire for problems last November that included 40,000 sample ballots shipped late to Spanish- and Vietnamese-speaking voters, a Libertarian candidate mislabeled a Republican on the ballot, a precinct without any ballots on election day and allegations by Spanish-speaking voters of problems in Santa Ana.

Latino community leaders complained recently about the county’s slow response to an inch-thick report they released in December based on a telephone survey of 1,275 Latinos, most of them Spanish speakers.

Of that number, 260 had reported some type of voting “incident.” Among the problems listed were polling places running out of ballots and voters intimidated or turned away by precinct workers.

A letter accompanying the report stated: “Some of the Santa Ana polling-place situations were not unlike those in Florida condemned by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.”

Increased staffing was among recommendations by the Orange County Grand Jury, whose members visited precincts, interviewed poll workers on election day and observed the ballot-counting process.

At Wednesday’s meeting, many questions from the audience concerned training for the county’s nearly 7,000 poll workers and a request that training be mandatory for all poll workers. While Spitzer agreed in principle, he said the county does not have the money for such training.

For November’s election, 1,100 of the 6,700 poll workers did not receive any training, Lever said.

Under the proposal, county employees, especially those who speak two languages, would get a paid day off in return for volunteering to work at the polls.

“We haven’t worked everything out yet,” Spitzer said. “Of course, we’ll have to talk to the [county’s] union and work out the number of hours that could be worked by individual employees.”

John Sawyer, Orange County Employees Assn. general manager, welcomed the idea but expressed concern about how the program would work.

“We haven’t heard any formal proposals from the county yet,” Sawyer said. “I’m concerned how it might affect other employees who do not volunteer and how it might affect their workload.”

Lever said her department is understaffed to handle an election system for 2.1 million voters. By comparison, San Diego County, with a comparable population, has 56 employees in its registrar’s office, she said.