Our View: Make election integrity top reform priority
A proposal to transfer oversight of elections to the elected Kern County Board Supervisors may have benefits, but it also is concerning.
Politicians, who are focused on getting reelected would seem to be the last people who should have the power to hire and fire the county registrar of voters.
But that is what Kern County supervisors are proposing in their reform of local elections.
Conflicts and appearances aside, the fact is that the complexity of conducting elections is no longer a part-time job handled as just a department head's added responsibility.
It requires a registrar who is focused on ever-changing election laws and assuring voting is easy and accessible for all citizens. It requires a full-time registrar of voters.
But for public confidence in elections to be maintained requires transparency. The process used by supervisors to recruit and hire a new registrar of voters must be vigorous and transparent.
The new registrar that supervisors hire must not be a politically-connected partisan. Rather, he or she must have proven abilities to conduct elections in a fair, unbiased and efficient manner.
The registrar must be required to report regularly to the public about the election process. The appointment of a bipartisan oversight committee could help build public confidence in the system.
Presently the registrar of voters is just one of many jobs assigned to Kern's elected Auditor-Controller-County Clerk.
Beginning in the 1990s, the Board of Supervisors consolidated county departments. Sold as a way to save money, it also was a way to eliminate some pesky elected department heads.
With a few exceptions, state law requires elected county clerks to oversee elections — for the same reasons noted in this Californian editorial.
Exceptions include some charter counties that are empowered to somewhat set their own rules. And in recent years, the state Legislature has passed laws to exempt a few, mostly small counties from the requirement.
Last year, the Legislature added Sonoma County, which has a population of about half of Kern's, to the list of exempted counties.
Sonoma County officials have started the process of moving the registrar of voters' responsibilities to the Board of Supervisors.
'The task of administering elections has become increasingly challenging in the past decade, to the point it has become a full-time assignment for a department head,' Sonoma's Board Chairwoman Lynda Hopkins said as she promised to conduct a nationwide search for a new registrar of voters.
In addition to conducting elections, registrars participate in Homeland Security Department audits, meet regularly with the FBI about cybersecurity and with the Secretary of State about election issues, and coordinate election security with federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.
Of the proposal to hire a full-time registrar for Kern, District 3 Supervisor Jeff Flores said, 'Our board is committed to ensuring that our local elections are not simply conducted in line with California state law, but truly exceed the baseline requirements for transparency and accountability.'
But first, county supervisors must convince the state Legislature to add Kern to the list of counties that are allowed to have an appointed, rather than elected, registrar of voters.
Kern has until Feb. 21, the last day bills can be introduced by lawmakers, to begin the legislative process.
And because Kern County Auditor-Controller-Clerk Amy Espinoza's term does not end until 2027, the board's hiring of a full-time registrar of voters to oversee local elections may be at least two years away.
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