Registrar Supports Inquiry

Rosalyn Lever doesn’t particularly care for politics.

Sure, she works closely with politicians, and as the county’s registrar of voters she is at the center of the maelstrom when elections roll around.

But for Lever, politics and elections are about mechanics, deadlines and the building tension of an approaching election.

“I like putting on a production,” said Lever. “And I get to see the culmination of my work.”

Lever sees herself as the conductor, the producer, the person who sets the stage and dims the lights. But not every production gets two thumbs up, of course. And so it is that Lever once again is under scrutiny for election-related snarls.

There were the 40,000 ballots shipped out late in the November election. The Libertarian candidate mislabeled on the ballot as a Republican. The precinct that had no ballots. The complaints from some Santa Ana voters that they were sent away without being allowed to vote, or were directed to other precincts.

County supervisors have asked for an audit of her office, an examination of everything from the size of her 33-person work force to the punch-card machines the county uses for elections. The audit is assessing the registrar’s ability to pull off a problem-free election and likely will determine whether the county is ready for an electronic voting system.

Lever has had a hand in installing two voting systems and may yet oversee a third, though she is not fully sold on touch-screen voting.

“There is no such thing as a perfect election,” she said. “In the last 29 days before an election you’ve got problems with absentee ballots, printing problems and mailing problems. You’re putting out fires all the time.”

Lever’s county career has spanned three decades. She arrived in 1972, taking a temporary job operating a mailing machine in the registrar’s office. She had no plans to stay long-term, let alone make a career of counting ballots and registering voters. But she has.

She became assistant registrar in 1987 and eight years later was the unanimous choice to replace retiring Registrar Don Tanney. Lever earns $91,000 a year.

“At times it can be a thankless job,” Lever conceded. She said a friend asked if there were a home for “burned-out election officials.” It was meant as a joke.

“I do have a passion for this, but I do get frustrated,” she said. “But I like the excitement. I like the mechanics, though I’m not really fond of politics.”

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Still, she has remained stoic in the face of the criticism that abounds after an election.

The audit she views as healthy.

“Actually, I think this will be a good thing for the office. People will get a better idea of what we do here. And, if we get help from this, fine.”

Last March, when election results didn’t make it onto the registrar’s Web site on time, Lever simply wrote an apology to the county executive officer and to the Board of Supervisors for “the frustration you experienced on election night.” The stream of results had created a file too large for county equipment to transmit to the Internet.

The job, at times, takes an emotional toll, she said. The November election was no exception. She spent three months working six days a week, and her staff put in 10- to 12-hour days.

The November death of colleague Larry Tunison, San Joaquin County’s registrar, added to the burden.

“His death made it hard for everyone in the election family,” she said.

Her mentor, former Assistant Registrar Shirley Deaton, said she isn’t surprised Lever became the top administrator.

“As far as Roz goes, I trained her when she was a clerk,” said Deaton, who retired to Northern California four years ago. “She really had the potential, and the year before I retired, I tried giving her every type of hard job imaginable. She told me she . . . couldn’t understand why I made her do everything herself. But I was training her to be ready.”

County Supervisor Todd Spitzer said the board’s focus isn’t to belittle Lever but to assess the potential for election day problems. Spitzer concedes that Lever has been denied resources, including staff, because of belt-tightening after the county’s 1994 bankruptcy.

Although much has been said at the state and federal levels about streamlining elections by switching to ballot-free electronic voting systems, both Spitzer and Lever said the county is barely at the brainstorming stage.

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There are policy issues that need to be discussed before the county can evaluate the advantages of new voting systems, Spitzer said.

What’s good for one county isn’t necessarily good for another, he said. So while Riverside County switched to a paperless voting system in November, that could prove too expensive or cumbersome for Orange County.

“Ultimately, we have to decide what our standards are going to be and then pick the system,” Spitzer said.

A new system would be speedier and conserve paper, but staff training costs would escalate and Lever would have to budget for voter education.

If the answer is just down the road in Riverside, the registrar there said Lever is welcome to visit any time.