County supervisors reverse course, approve voting satellite offices for 2020

A divided San Diego County Board of Supervisors reversed course Monday and approved establishing four new satellite locations of the registrar’s office to alleviate expected long voting lines during the March 2020 primary.

The supervisors rejected a nearly identical proposal from the registrar last week by 3-2, when Supervisors Kristin Gaspar and Jim Desmond voted against it. That measure required four votes to pass because it involved a funding source that was not included in the county budget the board approved earlier this year.

However, the revised proposal the board approved Monday required only three votes to pass because it calls for transferring existing funds from the Finance and General Government Group budget.

Supervisors Dianne Jacob, Greg Cox, and Nathan Fletcher voted in favor, while Desmond cast the lone vote in opposition.

Gaspar did not cast a vote Monday. She attended the meeting, criticized the process and her fellow supervisors and said she believed her vote did not matter. Then she abruptly left, prior to the board’s vote.

Jacob, who chairs the board, said she called Monday’s special meeting because the election is only 120 days away and the board needs to take quick action to ensure the registrar’s office has the tools it needs to conduct an effective election.

“I’ve heard a lot of rhetoric since our meeting (last week) which some might call political grandstanding, but, frankly, it isn’t worth a response,” Jacob said at the start of the meeting.

“I’ll stick to the facts this morning .… Our respected registrar of voters, our county counsel, our chief administrative officer, and the majority of the board agreed that four satellite voting facilities are needed to help manage the requirement for conditional voter registration and to ultimately certify the election results in the allowed time.”

Registrars throughout the state are projecting long voting lines and a backlog in tallying votes this March, thanks to a state law passed earlier this year that for the first time allows people to register to vote or change their party identification at any polling location on Election Day.

The proposed creation of four satellite locations, which would have more technology and access to voter registration files, would reduce the number of provisional ballots needed, all while providing several new locations for voters, county staff said.

They emphasized that the satellite locations would not be “vote centers” and the county would not be changing its voting system or replacing polling locations with vote centers for the 2020 election.

Eight speakers from various community organizations also spoke in favor of the new satellite centers during the meeting.

The outcome of Monday’s vote was never in doubt, given the three Yes votes supervisors lodged last week. The greater intrigue came from Gaspar’s interaction with her colleagues.

Gaspar, the lone supervisor facing re-election in 2020, last week objected to the satellite centers on social media and on several news media outlets. She criticized her colleagues for reconsidering the measure, calling it a “re-do vote” and accusing them of scheduling the meeting in secret, which she described as the “type of closed door, back room deal that people hate about government.”

She doubled downed on those accusations Monday, saying she and Desmond were not asked if they could attend the meeting. She said that by reconsidering the measure, the board has rendered their votes meaningless.

“This is an outrage. The board has voted,” Gaspar said.

“My colleagues didn’t like the result, so they located a funding stream and planned a special meeting. Whether Supervisor Desmond or I could attend is irrelevant. The fix is in, folks.”

Gaspar said she didn’t think this was an emergency.

Desmond said he also was frustrated by the board’s process. He mostly criticized the cost of the satellite offices, calling them an unfunded mandate from the state.

“We keep rolling over as the state usurps our local control, provides more and more mandates, and doesn’t provide the funds,” he said. “I’m tired of that ... and cannot support today’s item.”

The satellite offices will initially cost $900,000, but county staff said they are guaranteed at least a $285,000 rebate and they will seek more from the state.

Cox and Fletcher disputed Gaspar’s accusations about a conspiracy to hold the special meeting, saying they each had to cancel other appointments to make the meeting.

“The bottom line is we cannot do democracy on the cheap,” Cox said. “Democracy is something that is ingrained in this country; it is something that we have a responsibility as elected officials to make ... as easy as we possibly can for the electorate to go to the polls, to register, to re-register … and now, with same-day registration, it has created some new problems for the registrar of voters that we have to address.”

Fletcher said this should not be a difficult issue. He likened the fierce objections to what was said in opposition to the Voting Rights Act in the 1960s.

“There is an absurdity to the hysteria and conspiracy notions that we are talking about today,” he said. “It is fine to say, ‘I don’t think we should have more polling locations,’ but I just think, as a county, this is our job and this is what we do.”

The Board of Supervisors’ next regularly scheduled meeting is Nov. 19.