Registrar of voters defends Florida trip

EXPENSES: A complaint to the FPPC says the travel topped the gift limit. It doesn't apply, she says.

By MICHAEL CORONADO / The Press-Enterprise

Riverside County Registrar of Voters Mischelle Townsend said Wednesday that she did nothing wrong when she accepted travel and lodging last year in Florida from the company that supplied the county's electronic voting system.

In a complaint to the state's Fair Political Practices Commission, Lake Mathews resident Art Cassel alleged that Townsend listed $1,080 in airfare and lodging as a gift on a financial disclosure statement. The county's gift limit is $340.

The complaint also alleges that Townsend failed to file conflict-of-interest forms for 1998, 1999, 2001 and 2002.

Townsend called the allegations of wrongdoing "totally false."

She said sometimes the instructions on the form can be confusing and that she marked the expense as gift because there isn't a place on the form to mark a travel expense.

"I believe anyone who knows me understands I place a high value on integrity," she said by phone Wednesday.

Steve Churchwell, counsel for the FPPC from 1993 to 1999, said Townsend was correct in listing the trip as a gift.

Churchwell said a gift can exceed the $340 limit when it satisfies two rules: The travel must be reasonably related to a legislative or governmental purpose or to a public policy issue, and it must be in connection with an event where the representative gives a speech or participates in a seminar of some kind.

Townsend satisfied the two conditions, Churchwell said by phone.

Townsend traveled to Florida in July 2003 to discuss the county's electronic voting system in an interview for a Public Broadcasting Services series hosted by Morley Safer. Oakland-based Sequoia Voting Systems paid for the trip.

The interview was an effective way to get information about the electronic voting machines to the public, Townsend said. Riverside County was the first in the state to abandon paper ballots in favor of the electronic voting systems, and Townsend is recognized as a pioneer and expert in the field.

Townsend said the disclosure forms had been improperly filed by a staff member and she had the statements refiled on Wednesday morning.

"Mischelle is responding with the fact that she may have misfiled them," Cassel said Wednesday, adding that the forms are simple to use and not complicated.

"If she has trouble filling out a simple form, it concerns me that she is signing elections and being responsible for them."

In the complaint, Cassel also states that Townsend failed to disclose the source of her spouse's income and financial interest in two properties at different times.

Townsend called the allegations political, saying that Cassel is associated with one of the campaigns in the 1st Supervisorial District race, which was won by incumbent Bob Buster in March.

In that race, Buster narrowly avoided a November runoff, but opponent Linda Soubirous stated her intent to seek a recount, in part challenging the accuracy of the electronic voting systems.