Put Registrar on Paid Leave, County Urged
 Conflict-of-interest allegations swirl around official. Riverside County supervisor says the complaint is politically motivated.

By Seema Mehta, Times Staff Writer

Riverside County officials were urged Thursday to place Registrar of Voters Mischelle Townsend on paid administrative leave until conflict-of-interest allegations filed with the state's Fair Political Practices Commission are resolved.

The request, by former Banning Councilman Joe Lucsko, were based on concerns about travel expenses Townsend received from Sequoia Voting Systems, the supplier of the county's electronic voting machines. 
"It is now impossible for citizens to discern whether she is speaking on behalf of the county or on behalf of Sequoia in regards to electronic touch screen voting…. The integrity of our voting system requires nothing less than your immediate attention to this vital matter," Lucsko wrote to the Riverside County Board of Supervisors.

Meanwhile, an activist who watched votes being tallied for the March 2 election said Thursday she had observed possibly illegal actions when Sequoia employees allegedly tampered with vote-counting machines.

Several attempts to reach Townsend on Thursday were unsuccessful. The FPPC has confirmed receiving the complaint but declined to further comment.

Supervisor John Tavaglione said Thursday he supports Townsend and believes the allegations against her are politically motivated.

"Mischelle has a long and distinguished career with the county," he said. "She's an individual of very high integrity, and I'm disappointed certain people are taking advantage of the issues related to electronic voting … and are trying to discredit her and her qualifications to deal with that."

A complaint filed by a community activist with the FPPC this week alleged that Townsend illegally accepted travel and lodging expenses from Sequoia, exceeding the county's $340 gift limit. The complaint also alleges that on several occasions she failed to disclose required personal financial information and file annual conflict-of-interest documents.

Townsend has said she accepted $1,080 for travel expenses and lodging from Sequoia to appear on "American Business Review," a television program taped in Florida for the Public Broadcasting System. She said she gained nothing personally and believes it benefited the public.

State guidelines allow officials to be reimbursed for travel to speak on panels and at educational seminars. Questions have arisen about the nature of the show and whether companies have paid the producers to participate in the broadcast.

Kim Alexander, president and founder of the California Voter Foundation, said Thursday that her nonprofit organization, which monitors the use of electronic voting devices, has been asked to pay to be on the program.

"Usually the cost when we've been solicited is thousands of dollars — it's not cheap," Alexander said. She said she is concerned that Townsend appeared on a program that was more of an advertisement for Sequoia than legitimate news about the use of touch screen voting machines.

A Sequoia spokesman said the company might have paid to produce the program but said he could not find out Thursday how much. He said the company had no editorial control over the program.

Community activists also have raised concerns that O'Reilly Public Relations, a firm hired by Sequoia to provide information to the public when Riverside County's electronic voting machines were first used in 2000, wrote letters on behalf of Townsend that were mailed to political reporters throughout the nation.

Seattle-area activist Bev Harris, who observed the tabulations on election night in Riverside County, has questioned who had access to the tabulation equipment.

Harris said Thursday she had witnessed two Sequoia employees who appeared to have access to the equipment.

"You really don't want to have anybody tinkering around with the machine while it's counting," Harris said.

Alfie Charles, a Sequoia spokesman, said Harris misunderstood what was going on.

"Sequoia employees do not have user IDs or passwords for Riverside County's election system and did not conduct any sort of programming of the central tally system during the recent election. Sequoia staff were available on election night for technical support and to help the county utilize a separate program, which is not part of the central tabulation system, but which is used to generate separate reports of data for transfer to the state website on election night. It appears some observers of the vote-counting in Riverside have confused the program used to generate separate reports with the central tally system," Charles wrote in an e-mail response.

Linda Soubirous, who lost the chance for a runoff with Supervisor Bob Buster by less than a tenth of a percentage point, has said she intends to ask for a recount.

Tavaglione said he believes the allegations against Townsend are aimed at helping Soubirous.

"It's very unfortunate," he said. "But that's politics."