O.C. Registrar Removed; No Reason Given

With elections quickly approaching and controversy growing over the scheduling of one of the votes on a Jewish holiday, Orange County Registrar of Voters Steve Rodermund was placed on administrative leave this week without explanation.

“It’s a personnel matter,” said County Executive Officer Thomas G. Mauk, who relieved Rodermund of his duties on Thursday.

Rodermund did not return calls seeking comment. Deputy Registrar Neal Kelley will run the Department of Voters during Rodermund’s absence.

Rodermund’s removal comes a little more than a month before a special primary election scheduled Oct. 4 in the race to fill Christopher Cox’s 48th Congressional District seat. The Newport Beach Republican resigned this month to become chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The scheduling of the primary election on Rosh Hashana, the celebration of the Jewish New Year, angered Jewish leaders in Orange County and elsewhere who called the move insensitive.

“If Christmas came on a Tuesday, would you schedule a special election that day? Of course you wouldn’t,” said State Assemblyman Keith Richman (R-Northridge), who plans to introduce a bill Monday in the state Legislature that would give the governor more leeway in election scheduling.

If passed, the bill would give the governor two options. The first would allow the primary to be consolidated with the Nov. 8 statewide election. The second would allow the primary to be moved to a later date by giving the governor the authority to waive a law that prohibits elections from being held a day after state holidays. In that case, the governor could schedule the primary election Oct. 11, the day after Columbus Day is celebrated, instead of the currently scheduled date of Oct. 4.

It wasn’t clear Friday if Richman’s bill could pass in time to change the Oct. 4 vote. A spokesman for the registrar’s office said the covers for the sample ballot have already been printed, with the candidate lists to be received from the secretary of state next week.

Complicating matters, state Sen. John Campbell (R-Irvine) is running for Cox’s seat. If he wins, that would trigger other elections to replace his vacancy in the state Senate. If sitting Orange County politicians vie for the seat, more elections would follow to fill other possible vacancies.

Orange County officials said they do not foresee any problems.

“We have a big challenge in these upcoming elections, but I know that the department will run smoothly,” Supervisor Chris Norby said. “[Deputy Registrar] Neal has been working hand in hand with Steve for the last couple of years.”

Norby would not comment on the reasons for Rodermund’s administrative leave.

Rodermund, 54, a former budget analyst in the county’s executive office, was appointed registrar in December 2003.

His record has been marked by some controversies, most notably the March 2004 election when poll workers struggling with new voting machines gave thousands of voters incorrect access codes, causing the wrong ballots to appear on voting machines.

And in November 2004, the official results of a dozen Orange County elections were delayed more than a week because of slow counting of absentee ballots.

Assemblyman Todd Spitzer (R-Orange), who was a county supervisor when Rodermund was assigned to the office, was concerned about the timing of Rodermund’s leave.

“The registrar’s office has obviously been plagued by systemic problems over the years,” Spitzer said, “and it seems that in every election, some fundamental issue has arisen.”

Spitzer said he worried that the turmoil in the registrar’s office might affect the Nov. 8 election. Among the several ballot measures to be decided is one that would allow county firefighters to share in millions of dollars in public safety funds from Proposition 172.

“The special election is very critical,” Spitzer said. “If the registrar’s office is not completely squared away, it could open up special challenges in the court.”

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Times staff writer David Reyes contributed to this story.