Former Riverside County Registrar of Voters (ROV) Rebecca Spencer resigned Sept. 29 after being placed on paid administrative leave from her position at the Sept. 12 board of supervisors’ meeting.

In the announcement of Spencer’s resignation, the county said, it had “… entered into a settlement agreement whereby the parties mutually agree that this action is done solely for the purposes of compromise, and to eliminate the burden and expense of any litigation. This agreement is not an admission of liability or wrongdoing by either party.”

Sanford Kassel, Spencer’s attorney, confirmed in an email to the Town Crier last week, that “his client, Rebecca Spencer, has agreed to resign from her position as the Registrar of Voters and the parties have agreed to a mutually very satisfactory Settlement Agreement.”

According to Brooke Federico, public information officer for Riverside County, “The settlement agreement is in the amount of $799,591.” This is almost three times her total 2022 salary and benefits of $276,971 (according to Transparent California).

Assistant ROV Art Tinoco will assume the role of interim registrar of voters, Federico added, “The County intends to conduct a recruitment for the permanent position of Registrar of Voters.”

While Spencer’s leave and ultimate resignation happened within a period of less than three weeks, an investigative audit of the ROV Office began nearly six months ago following several years of complaints and concerns, such as duplicate ballots or late ballots.

In June 2021, a county grand jury issued a review of the ROV Office’s performance during the November 2020 election. It independently investigated many questions about the performance and operation of the ROV Office in preparation, during and after that election.

“After conducting an extensive series of interviews, the Riverside County Civil Grand Jury identified several concerns and controversies … Careful examination of those concerns and controversies revealed that they were mostly state issues, not Riverside County specific issues.”

And the overall conclusion was “… the election was conducted as required … minor departures from expected election procedures that were corrected by the Registrar of Voters Department while processing ballots … Votes were accurately counted and verified.”

And the more general conclusion was “… no evidence of election fraud.”

Concerns continued and in March 2023, Juan Perez, the county’s chief operating officer, initiated a private investigative audit of Spencer. He contracted with Neal Kelley, retired ROV from Orange County, to perform the investigation.

Kelley’s tasks in general were “… advisory and technical in nature as related to the conduct, administration, and management of local, state and federal elections.” He submitted his 50-page report Aug. 31 that contained 70 recommendations. Within 12 days, Spencer was placed on paid leave.

Most of the report looked at and suggested recommendations for managing the office and conduct of its business. His overall assessment was stated immediately: “The Riverside County Registrar of Voters office has the potential to improve the services offered to county residents. In order to achieve these goals, I believe there are a number of operational changes that should be considered. The current climate surrounding many aspects of election administration operates in a charged environment and must be approached with a fresh perspective.”

From his interviews with many ROV staff, Kelley observed or heard about how the office functions. Many assignments and responsibilities are “siloed,” meaning only one person could and did perform them. Many staff were frustrated with the lack of feedback and appraisals.

Kelley discovered that there are areas, such as proof reading, where Spencer performs the task or job rather than staff. He noted, “… my observation [was] that she was running file extracts to send to vendors for ballot mailings. This process is tedious and takes time to build the extracts but is also a task that should be delegated to staff members where there is redundancy and quality control systems in place. While this is only one example it appears to be a systemic issue and creates unnecessary risks.”

Devoting time to these types of tasks reduces her time and opportunities to manage the entire office. Examples of areas that required more of the ROV’s attention are long-term strategic planning, reviewing proposed legislation and its potential impact on Riverside County and its voters, and adopting best practices as used by other jurisdictions.

Kelley opined, “Instead of focusing on these executive level tasks the ROV is currently burdened with the minutiae of daily office operations due to a variety of factors. This has morphed into a process of handling multiple tasks and creating unnecessary roadblocks. Ultimately, this compromises the ability to focus on process improvement and long-term strategic planning.”

But nearly a quarter of Kelley’s report was a review of the relationship between the ROV — Spencer in particular because of her personal management style — and Runbeck Election Services of Phoenix. Since 2018, Runbeck Election Services has been the contractor for printing voter information guides and ballots for Riverside County.

Spencer was essentially the sole contact for Runbeck and she prepared many of the files it needed to prepare and mail ballots and voter information guides.

Runbeck was among the entities Kelley interviewed for his audit. Runbeck was concerned about participating since its current contract had expired in 2022 and it was operating on one-year extension. So, Jeff Ellington, Runbeck CEO, asked for direction. On May 24, Perez wrote to Runbeck asking, “Please provide to Mr. Kelley any form of communication or documentation that he requests between Runbeck Election Systems and Riverside County.”

Amid the review of Spencer, the award of the new ballot and voter information guide contract became an issue. Spencer, working with the purchasing department, developed and issued in late June a request for proposal for a new five-year printing contract.

Submissions were submitted and ultimately, the review panel that included Spencer, two ROV staff, two other county employees and one outside, reviewed the responses to the contract and recommended awarding it to Pro Document Solutions of Paso Robles.

Runbeck was not pleased with the result and felt Spencer was retaliating against the firm for its cooperation with Perez’s audit. It submitted a protest of the award on Aug. 31. Three weeks later, the county denied the protest in a Sept. 21 letter.

Subsequently, on Sept. 28, Runbeck appealed the denial of its original protest. One day later, the county responded, again affirming the decision and denying the appeal.

At the Oct. 3 board meeting, the supervisors unanimously voted to award the new contract to Pro Document Solutions. The contract is $3 million annually for five years, through Dec. 31, 2028.

While the board approved the award of the contract to another company, both board Chair Kevin Jeffries (1st District) and Supervisor Karen Spiegel (2nd District) expressed dismay in how Runbeck had been treated, especially the termination of the one-year extension of its original contract.

Before the vote, Jim Suver, Runbeck’s vice president of business development, appealed to the board for reconsideration of the contract award. He argued that Spencer’s involvement with the review team was inappropriate, especially since Runbeck had been asked to be part of Kelley’s audit of Spencer.

“There were multiple instances of the Registrar attempting to use Runbeck as a shield to cover up certain actions,” Suver stated. He specifically mentioned three issues: the USPS fines and assessment, the incorrect mailing of thousands of duplicate ballot packets, and the dramatic rise in postage costs.

Nevertherless, the board supported the staff recommendation that states that Pro Document Solutions received the highest evaluation score from the six-person review team and also was the lowest bidder. However, the latter was not a necessary criterion for award.

Although Jeffries felt “… the current company was wronged at so many levels it deserves a second shot,” he supported the recommendation to give the printing contract to Pro Document.

The county has already begun working with Pro Document for the Nov. 7 special election for the city of Perris as well as initial work for the March general election primary, according to Tinoco.