Registrars assail Shelley handling of voting funds
By Herbert A. Sample Sacramento Bee 

 Saturday, October 2, 2004

After Florida's voting system was thrown into chaos nearly four years ago over hanging paper chads, confusing ballot designs and allegations of voter intimidation, Congress responded with the Help America Vote Act.

The measure gave states $3.75 billion over three years to voting machines and create statewide voter databases, make polling places more accessible to disabled people, and educate voters and poll workers.

 But with the 2004 presidential election just around the corner, serious concerns have arisen over California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley's implementation of the act, his funding priorities, and whether the state risks federal penalties by missing one of the statute's major deadlines in early 2006.

While Shelley spent some of the money on consultants who conducted voter outreach at partisan events and attended community functions as his representative, the county registrars who do much of the nitty-gritty work in California elections say the Democratic secretary of state has failed to handle several of the responsibilities handed him by Congress.

They say Shelley has cost counties through long delays in processing payments and plans to spend too little money on the act's requirements to voting machines and establish a statewide voter database.

"His priorities have been misplaced," said Conny McCormack, the registrar of Los Angeles County and a widely acknowledged expert on elections.

Shelley's actions "have diverted the appropriate focus on meeting the key HAVA requirements," she added. "As a result, (Shelley) has jeopardized the ability of counties to meet the legally established deadlines."

Shelley's aides insist he has made valid decisions on the allocation of HAVA money, that relatively few dollars were spent on consultants, and that the 2003 gubernatorial recall and the March primary elections caused delays.

Tony Miller, special counsel to the secretary of state, acknowledged there are some "fundamental disagreements" between Shelley and the registrars. But, he added, Shelley "has been very responsive to the concerns of counties that not enough money was being spent for voting machine modernization."

The Help America Vote Act, popularly known as HAVA, is as complicated as it is financially generous. It sets requirements for replacing punch-card and lever-type voting machines and establishing a statewide database of voters that would ease the handling of registrations.

California expects to receive $264.2 million over three years in voting act funds. Proposition 41, passed in 2002, is to contribute another $200 million for voting machine replacement. But the total cost of updating voting machinery statewide could still eat up millions of dollars more in either HAVA or county funds.

In all, California's newest HAVA plan envisions spending 28.5 percent of the money on updating voting machines and 15.1 percent on the statewide database, but as much as 26.5 percent on voter education and training of elections officials and poll workers. Twenty-five percent is to be set aside as a reserve.

Other large, urban states have different priorities, according to their plans and their election officials. New York intends to spend almost 60 percent, and Pennsylvania 68 percent, on new voting machines. Florida has allocated 30 percent to a new database. Illinois is spending no money on voter registration.

McCormack and other registrars insist that a larger proportion of California's money should go toward new voting machines and the voter database.

Voter education should be a lower priority, they assert, because the state's existing programs, including the ballot pamphlet sent each voter before a statewide election, are so good that HAVA's drafters held them up as models for other states.

McCormack said Shelley also has been "myopically focused" on the issue of adding a paper trail to electronic voting machines - something HAVA does not require.

"It has consumed his professional staff," said McCormack, who heads the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials. "And the consequence is the priorities of HAVA were either shelved or placed in such a low priority because of his personal priority in another area."

McCormack's concerns are long-standing; at her urging, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors wrote Shelley last year to express the same worries.

When McCormack presented the letter to Shelley at a meeting last year, he read it, began yelling and stormed out of his office, McCormack recalled. Miller, who was at the meeting, said he did not recall an outburst.

At another meeting in February, according to Alameda County Registrar Brad Clark, Shelley pointedly told several registrars that the use of $27 million in HAVA funds his office had received at the time was solely within his discretion.

"He said directly to us, 'That's discretionary money. I can do with that whatever I want,' " Clark said. His account was confirmed by McCormack and Contra Costa County Registrar Stephen Weir. Miller, who was at the meeting, said he did not recall Shelley making those comments.

A number of registrars also contended that Shelley's office is so far behind in developing the statewide voter database that it will be virtually impossible to meet the 2006 deadline.

"We're at square one, in my opinion. Maybe square one and a half," said Scott Konopasek, the San Bernardino County registrar who with McCormack assisted the drafting of HAVA two years ago. "I have no confidence that (the database) will happen in January 2006."

Miller acknowledged that the secretary of state's office is behind schedule on the database, but said he expects the deadline to be met.

"We do have to make up the time, and we think we can," he said.

There also have been long delays in getting HAVA money to counties, registrars allege.

Clark recalled that the secretary of state's office told him in October of last year that it would take a month to get a $3.5 million reimbursement for the money his county spent on replacing punch-card machines with new touch-screen technology.

But Shelley's executive office took four months to approve the payment, Clark said, adding that in February, the state controller's office sent a check to Shelley's office. But the check did not arrive at the county until May 4, he said.

The delay forced the county to spend $3,700 in interest on the installment payments it was making on the new voting machines, Clark said.

It has not gone unnoticed by the registrars that while Shelley's office was spending HAVA funds on paying consultants, counties were having trouble getting HAVA dollars from the secretary of state.

"He focused on hiring consultants to ... go to community events," said McCormack, adding that HAVA's voter education provision was envisioned as a means to instruct voters on new balloting systems.

"They were handing out voter registration forms," she added. "They weren't educating voters on how to use the new equipment."