Registrar Apologizes for Election Day Problems

Complicated voting rules, an unusually early primary and a rash of last-minute cancellations by poll workers combined to make last week’s election one of the worst-run in Los Angeles County history, the registrar-recorder told the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.

Hundreds of poll workers failed to show up, causing about 150 of the county’s 4,845 polling locations not to open on time for the primary at 7 a.m. Half of them had not yet been set up by 8 a.m., Conny McCormack said.

“I would like to begin today by offering all of you and the voters of Los Angeles ... an apology,� she said during her preliminary report on the problems. “The registrar-recorder let you down. I take full responsibility for this.�

But she also said the county has refused for years to increase her department’s budget to hire more permanent staff and allow increases in poll worker pay--criteria recommended by a 16-month-old audit of the department.

Complaints about last Tuesday’s election flooded county officials even before the voting was over, and have been the source of particular concern given the close outcomes in two city of Los Angeles races: the 2nd City Council District election and the city’s police bond issue.

In the council race, an updated vote tally released Tuesday showed Wendy Greuel leading Tony Cardenas by 299 votes, with at least 705 provisional ballots left to be counted.

Proposition Q, the police bond measure, was about 430 votes over the two-thirds majority needed for passage, with potentially thousands of provisional ballots outstanding. Steven Afriat, campaign manager for the measure, predicted that it would pass based on his estimate of about 5,000 ballots left to be counted.

Last week’s election problems, McCormack said, began with the short period--just two months--available to readjust polling places to account for changes caused by redistricting after the census. The county also had to find polling sites to take the place of about 200 schools, which had housed polls for June elections but declined to do so this month because school was in session or construction was occurring on the campuses, she said.

McCormack said her staff, scurrying to find polling places, spent less time on poll-worker recruitment and neglected to place customary confirmation calls to workers to ensure that they were going to show up.

Typically, she said, 50 to 75 supervising poll workers--those who set up the polls and supplies, collect the completed ballots and deliver them at the end of the day--change their minds in the days before the election. Her department routinely hires 200 backup workers to fill in those gaps.

Last week, 236 supervising workers called to cancel, she said, sending the department scrambling to fill the slots. Already straining, the department was not prepared to deal with the absence of dozens more poll workers who simply didn’t show up last Tuesday.

“It ended up being a cycle of one thing behind another. This is a management problem for which I am taking full responsibility,� she said. “There’s no excuse for that. We should have recognized it earlier ... [but] we got behind to the point where we could not catch up.�

McCormack said many of the prospective workers changed their minds after receiving training on the rules governing which voters got which ballots. In this year’s election, for the first time in California, members of the established political parties could vote only in their own party primaries, but voters who did not affiliate with a party could cast ballots in any primary they chose.

“When they finished training classes, poll workers were very scared about getting out the wrong ballot,� she said.

Others contacted said they just forgot or got better job offers, she said.

The result was a deluge of calls to the registrar-recorder’s office on election day--from voters whose polling places were moved and from workers complaining that supervising workers did not show up with the ballots and polls. The department did not have a proper way to deal with the calls either, McCormack said.

Since the election, complaints have come in from across the county about voting problems, and supervisors heard directly about more Tuesday.

During the meeting, Montebello resident Anna Arriola complained that voters in her area were particularly hampered, with many polling places opening late and with not enough staff or supplies. Some did not even have a register of voters to consult, she said.

“Some people signed on a piece of paper and were given ballots,� she said. “If you just give a ballot to anyone who comes in, are these ballots going to be counted?�

County supervisors did not chastise McCormack, but rather confined their comments to clarifying questions and suggestions about how the department could find more poll workers, including tapping into AARP and the ranks of county workers--even the supervisors’ own staff.

McCormack will report back to the board in three weeks with recommendations on how to avoid the irregularities in the future.

She said the county has denied her requests for additional workers since 2000.

Her budget is slated to be cut by $3.8 million next year.

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Times staff writer Patrick McGreevy contributed to this report.