Inside Elections

Just yesterday, the Sacramento Bee ran and article quoting Jill LaVine, the Sacramento County registrar of voters, whose department is proposing to lay off 10 of its 38 employees.

Imagine - thousands and thousands of vote by mail voters swinging by to pick up their ballots!

While the cuts, as proposed, would not affect the May 19 Statewide Special Election—she noted that they will affect the Gubernatorial Primary in 2010. In summary, there will be no money to publish the Sample Ballots & Official Voter Information Pamphlets, no money to mail out the Vote by Mail ballots – you’d have to pick up your own from the Elections Office (so much for the convenience factor), no money to provide Spanish translations of election materials (this would be illegal in San Mateo County), and no money to conduct voter outreach programs.

She predicts there would be fewer polling places, longer lines, delayed returns and other related problems.  She’s probably right.

I don’t know about Sacramento County’s obligations under the federal Voting Rights Act with regard to language accessibility. What I do know is that compliance with this law is monitored by the Department of Justice. San Mateo County was advised in 2001 after the 2000 Census was completed that our election materials needed to be provided in English, Spanish and Chinese.  The language accessibility question is determined for each county after the census is completed.

In La Vine’s own words, “I can see lawsuits. I can see disenfranchisement of voters. With the numbers (budget cuts) they’ve given us, it has to be that bad.”

Sacramento County is not in a unique position as counties in California go. It will be interesting to watch and see how different counties conduct elections in this difficult budget environment.

San Mateo County has a permanent staff of 11; one position will be cut during the next fiscal year. Our office will have to hire temporary, extra help staff and make other cuts as necessary to make ends meet.

Steve Weir, registrar for Contra Costa County, said that in his 20 years as registrar, he’s seen the average cost per voter rise from $1.50 to $7.50. Some of that is cost of living, but much of that comes from complying with state and federal laws and administrative requirements issued by the secretary of state’s office.

Now that budgets are readying for the adoption process in June, we’ll begin to see the magnitude of the cuts as they affect voters and the administration of democracy.