RivCo’s Top Election Official Placed On Paid Administrative Leave
AENN
Riverside Citizens Committee Served 400 Declarations of Truth on County Supervisors
Toni McAllister, Patch Staff
Posted Wed, Sep 13, 2023 at 1:01 pm PT|Updated Wed, Sep 13, 2023 at 1:03 pm
An attorney representing Rebecca Spencer called the move “retaliatory and political in nature.”
RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CA — Riverside County’s elections chief was put on paid administrative leave Wednesday, and her attorney said the county provided no reasoning behind the “retaliatory” sideline.
Rebecca Spencer has worked for the county for more than two decades, starting as an intern with the elections office in 1999. After Riverside County Registrar of Voters Kari Verjil retired in March 2014, Spencer served as interim registrar until getting the top elections job later that year. The registrar is responsible for maintaining the county’s voter rolls and overseeing its elections.
Spencer has always stood for integrity and has maintained a non-partisan approach to the work, her attorney Sanford Kassel told Patch.
Wednesday’s move was “retaliatory and political in nature,” the San Bernardino-based lawyer said. “The job is supposed to be non-partisan.”
Spencer has raised concerns about some of Riverside County’s top officials.
In 2021, she accused District Attorney Mike Hestrin of bullying and interference with county elections. Spencer also accused 2nd District county Supervisor Karen Spiegel of demanding that a ballot drop box be removed. Both leaders are Republicans while Spencer has identified as a no-party preference voter.
“I should be able to do my job free of political intimidation, interference, and retaliation,” according to a January 2021 email that Spencer wrote to the Board of Supervisors and The Press-Enterprise obtained. “ … For over 4 years I hoped that this situation would improve but it has become abundantly clear that the inappropriate behavior and unlawful interference with my job duties and responsibilities will not stop … .”
Hestrin dismissed the allegations. Neither his office nor a civil grand jury found widespread fraud in county elections.
There have been no public announcements from state officials about investigations into Spencer’s claims.
Spencer has faced local scrutiny. During the November 2020 election, approximately 42,000 Riverside County voters got more than one mail-in ballot. Spencer said that can happen if a voter changes registration information, though she countered that her office had guardrails in place to prevent anyone from voting twice. The Board of Supervisors certified the election.
In 2021, about 11,000 Eastvale and Cathedral City voters received their ballots too late for special elections. Spencer said a vendor failed to send the ballots out in a timely manner. Again, the Board of Supervisors certified the election results.
Kassel said Spencer had no information from the county Wednesday morning as to what will happen next. She remains in limbo, he said.
In an emailed statement Wednesday, county spokesperson Yaoska Machado confirmed Spencer was placed on paid administrative leave from her position as the Registrar of Voters and added, “Chief Operating Officer Juan Perez, from the County’s Executive Office, will work closely with the department’s leadership team and dedicated staff to continue to prepare for upcoming elections and to ensure the delivery of services for the communities we serve. This is a personnel matter and no additional information will be available until after the next Board of Supervisors’ meeting.”
A county-administered election takes place Nov. 7.
Transparent California reports Spencer’s 2022 total pay at $224,505.01, not including benefits.
Riverside Citizens Committee Served 400 Declarations of Truth on County Supervisors
A Riverside County Citizens Committee served 400 “Declarations of Truth” on four of the five the Riverside County Supervisors demanding they take action against Rebecca Spencer for her failures to perform her duties.
The Supervisors each received 100 Declarations of Truth from 100 Citizens of Riverside County.
Karen Spiegal
Kevin Jeffries
Chuck Washington
V. Manuel Perez
From the Declarations Signed by 400 Riverside County Citizens
2004 WikiLeaks Report to Congress
Debra Bowen, 2007 California Secretary of State Investigation of Riverside County et al
In May 2007, Bowen commissioned a “Top to Bottom Review” of California’s electronic voting systems, to determine their security. On August 3, 2007, Bowen withdrew approval and certification and conditionally re-approved three electronic voting systems (Diebold Election Systems, Hart InterCivic, Sequoia Voting Systems), and rescinded approval of a fourth system, (Election Systems & Software), after the top-to-bottom review of the voting machines found the machines to be highly insecure.[18][19] For these efforts she was awarded the Profile in Courage Award by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.
2007 Article from the San Diego Tribune
County pushes on with broken system
BY PAUL JACOBS – FOR THE THE CALIFORNIAN
MAY 13, 2007 12 AM PT
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Debra Bowen revealed details ofher office’s top-to-bottom review of California voting systems. The multifaceted review will begin this week and is targeted for completion in late July.
Riverside County supervisors have already expressed contempt forBowen and discounted the statewide review with empty accusations of a political motivation. The displays of hostility and defensiveness exhibited by our supervisors suggest an unnatural attraction to a singular voting machine vendor that has already pocketed in excess of $30 million from the county and stands to gain another $1.2million as supervisors divert more Riverside County tax payer dollars to the company supplying the machines.
Rather than prudently waiting to see how the county’s existing election equipment fares with the statewide review, supervisors are gambling taxpayer dollars that this investment will pressure Bowen not to decertify the county’s “direct recording electronic” — DRE– voting system. The supervisors have openly discussed buying 500more printers from the vendor, Sequoia Voting Systems, at a thousand bucks each and an additional $700,000 for new ballot scanners compatible with the existing system.
If Bowen’s review finds in favor of voting systems that produce and count actual paper ballots and decertifies DRE election equipment as some states have done, it would not be out of form for the county to sue the state to defend its precious voting system.
The county previously sued over the requirement for a paper trail with electronic voting. That lawsuit went nowhere, but I think our supervisors are so desperate to defend their beloved machines they are not above another defiant act of pathetic, pointless litigation.
Bowen doesn’t place her loyalties with the machines that tabulated her victory, but with the residents who elected her to up hold the duties of office, which includes election integrity. You can go to the Secretary of State’s Web site atwww.sos.ca.gov/elections/elections_vs.htm and see from the documents released on May 9 that her office is conducting a thorough review to determine if California’s voting systems are”secure, accurate, reliable and accessible.” How is that a partisan act as our supervisors vacuously suggest?
On May 2, I attended a three-hour sales presentation from three vice presidents from Sequoia that Registrar of Voters BarbaraDunmore had arranged for the Election Review Committee.
While Dunmore has made herself conspicuously available at virtually every election committee and county supervisor public hearing, not one of the dozen or so members of the public was provided an opportunity to participate or ask a question at this meeting.
This is the kind of exclusion that concerns members of the local election-integrity community. Why does Dunmore deny the right of citizens to observe the election process as much as possible? Why does she purposely obstruct citizens from the process of government? Why are more citizens not outraged at the want ondisregard for public input in the conduct of the people’s business in Riverside County?
The supervisors have no ears for the voice of the people. In a broken democracy there are no citizens ñ– only peasants. Still, we have that voice.
– Paul Jacobs of Temecula is a regular columnist for TheCalifornian. E-mail:TemeculaPaul@aol.com.
2007 L.A. Times Article
39 counties’ vote systems in question
BY HECTOR BECERRA AND JORDAN RAU
AUG. 5, 2007 12 AM PT
TIMES STAFF WRITERS
County election officials scrambled on Saturday to develop contingency plans for the February presidential primary election after California’s secretary of state imposed broad restrictions on electronic voting machines that she said are susceptible to hacking.
Secretary of State Debra Bowen decertified the voting machines used in 39 counties, including Los Angeles County’s InkaVote system.
She said some of the systems could be recertified in time for the primary if new security upgrades are made.
L.A. County’s system, with which voters use ink devices to mark ballots that are tabulated with a scanner, could be recertified by February. The county did not submit the system for an audit by Bowen’s office, and that appears to be why it was decertified.
But Bowen’s rules so strictly curtail the use of some machines that some counties on Saturday mulled a return to paper ballots for the February vote.
The decision places California at the center of the national debate on electronic voting machines. And with Bowen’s action, the state now has some of the nation’s strictest regulations governing their use.
Bowen’s decision won praise from some activists who for years have argued that computer voting is vulnerable to hackers who could change the results of elections.
Last week, Bowen’s office released its audit of the electronic voting machines used in California that found some could be manipulated either by breaking into the hardware or by hacking into the software.
“When NASA discovers a [flaw] or a potential safety concern in the space shuttle, it doesn’t continue launching the missions,” Bowen said at a news conference Saturday. “It scrubs the missions until the problem is fixed.”
But county registrars around the state blasted Bowen, accusing her of political grandstanding that has thrown the election process into turmoil when there is no evidence electronic voting is any more problematic than paper balloting.
In Riverside County, officials said Bowen’s decision is setting them back years. The county was on the cutting edge seven years ago when it became the first in the country to use touch-screen voting in a major election. Since then, electronic machines have been used in 39 elections with hardly any problems, said Barbara Dunmore, the county’s registrar.
But Bowen ruled that the county’s machines can be used only for early voting and on election day by disabled people, because the machines are easy to reach. All other voters will need to use a different system.
The county could have to buy as many as 650 booths and the kind of optical scanners and other equipment used for paper balloting, at a cost of at least $5 million, Dunmore said.
“We were the pioneers,” lamented county Supervisor Bob Buster. “After all our investment, we’re jammed now, whatever we do. Making changes at this point is problematic.”
Dunmore said the county’s 32-foot “vote-mobile,” which took voting machines to rural and poor residents, will probably be rendered useless except for voter registration drives.
Contra Costa County Registrar Stephen Weir predicted a chaotic few months, perhaps with some counties going to court in an attempt to keep electronic voting.
“Tens of millions of additional ballots: You don’t just go to Kinkos,” Weir said. “The timing is way too tight.”
He also said he thought the changes could delay the counting of votes on primary night; California has a key early primary next spring.
“If people don’t see results, they start going, ‘Something’s wrong,’ ” Weir said.
On Feb. 5, California voters will decide party candidates in the presidential primary election and will consider at least two state ballot measures.
In the June 3 statewide primary, they will select party candidates for legislative and congressional races. Winners of the party races, including presidential candidates, will compete in the Nov. 4, 2008, general election.
The hardest-hit counties were the 39 using machines manufactured by Diebold Election Systems or Sequoia Voting Systems. Bowen ruled that those machines could be used only in special circumstances.
Among the counties affected are Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Ventura.
San Diego County Registrar Deborah Seiler said an all-paper requirement would be “pretty onerous,” with 1.38 million registered voters in the county.
San Bernardino County Registrar Kari Verjil said she was going to huddle with the county counsel to discuss options. She said that if her county goes to paper balloting, it would have to buy voting booths and optical scanners and retrain poll workers.
Dunmore, Riverside County’s registrar, said she is less worried about producing a paper ballot for the February primary than for the November general election.
“With all the nation going to election, I’m concerned about the capacity of certified printers for all the ballots for all of California,” Dunmore said.
In Orange County, officials said they were relieved at the relatively modest regulations Bowen imposed on them. The equipment Orange County uses, made by Hart InterCivic, was decertified but immediately recertified on the condition that it meet certain conditions within 45 days.
“I’ve read through all the documents and talked to Hart all morning. It’s doable,” said Registrar Neal Kelley. “I was concerned. It’s funny, but yesterday felt like election day for me. I was on pins and needles.”
In Los Angeles County, officials were still trying to sort out what the decertification of their system meant.
Registrar-Recorder Conny McCormack said she was baffled by Bowen’s decision.
“This decision must have been based on telepathy,” McCormack said. “I can’t make any predictions about what’s going to happen. I’m assuming the Board of Supervisors will look at this right away. They’re the decision-makers. But I can’t predict. All I know is what she’s done, based on no test, not even looking at the equipment.”
L.A. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said Saturday that Bowen had reassured him that the county’s system would probably be recertified after a review. “I don’t see any reason to panic today,” he said.
California has been grappling with the issue of electronic voting for several years.
During the March 2004 primary in California, touch-screen voting terminals by Diebold malfunctioned, and state election officials discovered that the machines contained uncertified software. The state barred four counties from using Diebold but later approved their use in 11 counties after those jurisdictions agreed to new security requirements, including making paper ballots available as an alternative.
Bowen’s audit has garnered national attention. In the wake of the findings, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) said she intended to hold a hearing in September to review the security of electronic voting machines. Congress has been discussing for several years setting stronger regulations for the machines.
Some on Saturday praised Bowen, saying she’s displayed courage standing up to both voting-machine firms and county registrars.
“She was obviously, like many of us, concerned about the idea that people could rig an election,” said former state Senate President Pro Tem John Burton. “She doesn’t want California to be another Florida.”
Bowen, a former Democratic state senator, last year defeated Bruce MacPherson, the incumbent secretary of state appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in a race in which electronic voting became the main issue.
Bowen said Saturday that many county systems should not have been certified in the first place. But she added that she thought the needed changes could be done in time for the primary.
“Everything that we’re talking about is perfectly feasible,” she said.
But critics say Bowen is using bad data to build a case against electronic voting. As part of her audit, researchers infiltrated some machines. But they were provided with encrypted source codes by the companies that government employees would not have.
Thad Hall, a professor of political science at the University of Utah, said that if the paper ballot systems were subjected to the testing, they would fail just as easily.
He said the test commission by Bowen was not based on realistic situations.
“Where was the physical test for the paper-ballot box?” Hall asked. “Open the box, shove some ballots into the box and the election’s stolen. Ballot boxes are not secured unless the workers are there too. I could light a cigarette and drop it into a ballot box.”
Buster, the Riverside County supervisor, said he thought it sent a bad message to allow decertified machines to be used by the disabled and not other voters.
“If they’re not good enough for the general population,” Buster said, “why are they good enough for the disabled?”
jordan.rau@latimes.com
2008 Article
20 Calif. Counties Scrap Electronic Vote Machines
February 4, 20084:00 PM ET
Riverside County Registrar Barbara Dunmore stands in a warehouse stacked high with expensive — but now defunct — electronic voting machines.
Mandalit del Barco, NPR
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Some counties in California are back to using old-fashioned paper ballots (left) instead of electronic voting machines (right).
Mandalit del Barco, NPR
California has the most votes at stake on Super Tuesday, but counting those returns could take a lot longer than usual. Electronic voting machines in more than 20 counties have been scrapped because of security concerns.
In the 2000 presidential election, Riverside became the first county in the nation to move entirely to electronic voting.
“We were very, very nervous knowing no one had done it before. On other hand, it was very exciting knowing we were on the cutting edge of technology, deploying this equipment we knew we were going to be able to count votes quicker,” says Riverside County Registrar Barbara Dunmore.
Most of Riverside’s 3,700 electronic voting units will not be used as planned this year, however.
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A study led by UC Berkeley computer scientist David Wagner revealed that e-voting is not as secure and reliable as it should be. As a result, electronic voting machines were decertified across California.
“We found the voting systems — all three of them we looked at — were susceptible to computer viruses,” Wagner says.
“An attacker could craft a specially tailored computer virus that could spread throughout a county, and once it infected all the voting machines in a county, could miscount or misrecord the votes.”
Wagner says any high-tech attacks would have required sophisticated hackers, but the bottom line is that it was possible to throw a close election.
Now 20 counties are scrambling to prepare for Tuesday’s primary. Like Riverside County, most are using election workers to input paper ballots into old-style optical scanners.
Paul Shook is one of the elections workers at county headquarters who now has to hand-feed stacks of paper ballots. They sometimes have to be double-checked and rewritten if a voter makes a mistake or writes in some unofficial candidate.
“Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck … a lot of times you get Superman also,” he says.
On election night, county workers here will have to wait for truckloads of paper ballots to be delivered from remote desert and mountain areas.
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Dunmore says it’s going to mean the election results won’t be tallied for hours or even days.
“E-voting went a long way to make sure all votes recorded accurately. To go back to paper that is so labor intensive, it’s gonna be a long night election day,” Dunmore says.
Some of Riverside’s electronic voting machines will still be available for blind or disabled voters. And Dunmore is hopeful that all of the devices will be recertified one day.
“Using all of this paper to me is like charging forward to the past,” she says.
Key States’ Plans to Overhaul Voting Systems
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