Kari Verjil Registrar of Voters Rebecca Spencer Assistant Registrar of Voters Committee Members: Mayor Lupe Ramos-Watson Guests: No guests present REGISTRAR OF VOTERS COUNTY OF RIVERSIDE Summary of the Spanish Language Community Outreach Group (COG) Meeting -- 10:15 am 11:30am Indio Senior Center 45700 Aladdin St. Indio, CA 92201 Registrar of Voters Staff: Caroline Saucedo Election Coordinator s Assistant Dolores Chagolla Accounting Technician II Purpose of Meeting: Update current members and guests on electoral changes that will take place in 2012. Provide updates of the Community Outreach Group (COG) and Outreach posters and other informational materials. Discuss how to assist the limited English proficient Spanish speaking community. Discuss the goals of the Spanish Language Community Outreach Program. Meeting brought to order at 10:15 am: As no other COG members arrived, the meeting commenced. Caroline Saucedo, COG Chairwoman, welcomed Committee Member, Mayor Ramos-Watson. Ms. Saucedo asked Mayor Lupe Ramos-Watson if she would like to proceed with a full meeting or a quick update. Ms. Saucedo suggested they follow the agenda, since there was more updates and information to offer this morning. Mayor Ramos-Watson agreed and stated she also had some questions. Ms. Saucedo discussed future preparations for the November 6, 2012 Consolidated General Election. Ms. Saucedo informs Mayor Ramos-Watson that preparations are well on their way. Recruitment staff is scheduled to begin recruiting today. Ms. Saucedo explained it usually takes about four to five months to recruit for a large election. Although, recruitment staff will begin recruiting for the November election today, preparations begun some time ago. Consolidations are well on their way and it is anticipated consolidated will be complete around August 30, 2012. We are expecting right around 650 polling places for the November election, which means more officers and even more bilingual officers. Mayor Ramos-Watson asked,
how many more polling places will there be in comparison to the June election? Ms. Saucedo stated there were 522 polling places for the June 6, 2012 Consolidated Primary Election. Therefore, there will be just over 100 more polling places. Ms. Saucedo explained, one reason for more polling places is consolidation. During a general election, the number of voters consolidated to a polling place is reduced from, 1200 to 1000 to reduce the impact of a higher turnout. Ms. Saucedo explained this is an indication there will be more multiple board precincts where ever possible. Ms. Saucedo explained in more detail the use of multiple boards Whenever a facility is large enough to accommodate two or more precincts, multiple boards are used. Since voters don t like change, this would keep voters at their perspective polling places and additional officers would be placed to serve the two precincts. Mayor Ramos- Watson agreed. Ms. Saucedo explained although the new polling places are indicated on the sample ballots, voters will customarily revert and show up at the old polling places. Mayor Ramos-Watson asked how this type of situation is handled. Ms. Saucedo explained, the voter would be given choice of voting at the correct polling place or vote provisionally. All precincts are provided maps with surrounding polling places and a Precinct Look-Up CD for directing voters to their correct polling places. If the voters opt to voter at that polling place they would have to vote provisionally, but voters are never turned away. Ms. Saucedo moved onto the updates for the June 5, 2012 Consolidated Primary Election. The new Top Two Primary was implemented for the June 5, 2012 Presidential Primary Election. Ms. Saucedo stated that there was some concern there would be confusion associated with the new Top Two Primary. Ms. Saucedo announced there was actually little to no confusion. There were no notable problems to report regarding the new Top Two Primary Election. Mayor Ramos-Watson feels this was more than likely due to a low turnout. She added that there were very few races on the ballot that were contentious which she feels may have reflected on the low turnout. Ms, Saucedo reiterated there was a low turnout for the June 5, 2012 Consolidated Primary Election and stated the turnout was just over 28%. It is anticipated the turnout for the November 6, 2012 will be much higher at 70~80%. The next topic discussed by Ms. Saucedo was the newest process implemented by the Registrar of Voters. The process was implemented to expedite the voted ballots to the Registrar of Voters Office. The Registrar of Voters implemented the use of the Riverside County Sherriff s Department to transport ballots from the collection centers to our office. Collection centers are set up throughout Riverside County to collect voted ballots. There were various numbers of polling places assigned to each collection center. The number varies from about 20 to 40 depending on the number of surrounding polling places. There were 19 collection centers county wide. The purpose of using the Sheriff Department was to expedite the voted ballots returned to our office. About 30 patrol cars were assigned to the collection centers as a reasonable number of boxes of ballots were collected. The Sheriff patrol cars would relay them to the Registrar of Voters office to be counted. Additionally, the Sheriff Department s helicopter was also used for a second time for transporting the voted ballots from the City of Blythe. It is anticipated that this process will be repeated again for the November 6, 2012 Presidential Election. The Registrar of Voters continues the use of Twitter, YouTube and Facebook for reporting day to day updates as well as reporting election results to candidates 2
and voters. Ms. Saucedo mentioned she recalls postings by Mayor Ramos-Watson during a past election, but didn t notice her on Facebook for this past election. Mayor Ramos-Watson stated that there was nothing she was watching for. Ms. Saucedo provided an update for the Cardenas Markets Project. She stated in case Mayor Ramos-Watson was unaware, all Cardenas Markets in Riverside County continue to display voter registration cards in their markets. Ms. Saucedo informed Mayor Ramos-Watson if she ever runs out of voter registration cards or knows of anybody that needs to register to vote, she can refer them to their local Cardenas Markets. Ms. Saucedo provided the voter registration statistics for the various markets. This Project will most likely continue on through the November 6, 2012 Consolidated General Election. Ms. Saucedo mentioned this was not quite the turnout Mr. Robles was looking for. She spoke briefly with Mr. Robles and he may consider bumping up public relations and also mentioned Cardenas Markets are also working closely with another non-partisan in Riverside County. Mi Familia is a very active non-partisan group in Riverside County. They conduct voter outreaches and attend as many events as they can throughout Riverside County. Mi Familia Vota is not ethnicity focused; their primary goal is to get as many voters as they can actively voting and participating in elections. Mi Familia Vota has two staff members that have chosen to join the COG Program by becoming Committee Members and are working closely with the COG Program. Ms. Saucedo discussed two posters; the Outreach Poster and the COG Poster and provided samples of both posters. Ms. Saucedo stated there has been little feedback other than the COG Members are very pleased with the final outcome of the posters. Ms. Saucedo discussed high school outreach and stated she would like to see more high school outreach. During outreach the subject matter should include voter registration as well as the student pollworker program in Riverside County. Previously Riverside County focused on the US Government, History and like classes. Though now due to the increased need for bilingual pollworkers, we have widened the target to include the Spanish classes since the bilingual need is so great. Ms. Saucedo explained DOJ requirement is so high; this requirement is very near 50%. Ms. Saucedo reiterated the Registrar of Voters is anticipating 650 polling places and approximately 2600 pollworkers which nearly half will need to be bilingual in English and Spanish. Unfortunately, even with all the hard work, long hours (including weekends) Riverside County still fell short of meeting the minimum required bilingual pollworkers by about 120. Although, countywide 120 is not a huge number, but it is short. Therefore, we utilized the Spanish Language Rover Program. There were 19 Spanish Language Rovers deployed to various areas of the county where the requirement was not met. The Spanish Language Rovers are area support workers that are assigned a small number of polling places, usually 8 to 10 polling places. The individuals travel from polling place to polling place to insure there is added support. They can also be dispatched to a polling place by the Inspectors at our office. Mayor Ramos-Watson asked if the Election Officer application is the same for individuals that are interested in providing this service. She also asked if there was an entire course involved. Ms. Saucedo explained there is not a course - only a short 1 to 2 hour training. They can also be dispatched to a polling place by the Inspectors at our office. 3
Ms. Saucedo added that individuals are provided a binder with all the materials needed to fulfill their responsibilities as a Spanish Language Rover. Included in the materials is a Glossary of Key Terms which is provided to Spanish Language Rovers as well as the other Election Officers at the polls. The Glossary is a tool provided to assist with the use of election terminology. Ms. Saucedo stated, although an individual is fluent in Spanish they may not be familiar with the proper election terminology and Mayor Ramos-Watson agreed. Ms. Saucedo added the June elections are one of the most difficult elections to recruit since there are many other special events taking place. This is true especially at the high school levels such as, graduations, proms and other senior activities. Pollworkers are also busy on vacations and weddings during the month of June. This is what makes the Spanish Language Program such a vital program. Pollworkers are hard enough to find, making bilingual pollworkers even more difficult. Back on the agenda is citizenship classes. Ms. Saucedo announced that she has received two new invitations to speak and do outreach with a couple of groups. The first invitation came from Mr. Enrique Martinez from State Farm. Mr. Martinez has been sponsoring a program called Ya Es Hora Ciudadanía. This program prepares individuals for their citizenship exams. Mr. Martinez has been providing this public service to the Riverside community for about 2 years and would like to have the Registrar of Voters Office visit and speak to these individuals about the importance of registering to vote and voting after they have accomplished this very important goal. The second invitation comes from the Diocese of San Bernardino which has also offered the COG Program assistance with dissemination of COG announcements, newspaper articles and press releases via their newsletters, websites and church bulletins. Therefore, I will be working closely with Angelica Alba from the Diocese of San Bernardino. The Registrar of Voters continues to focus on the Vote by Mail Campaign with the Vote First, Count First slogan to encourage voters to vote by mail. Riverside County has been successful in increasing vote by mail from 50% to nearly 70% in Riverside County. The Registrar of Voters will continue this effort for the November 6, 2012 Consolidated General Election. Riverside County will continue the Vote by Mail drop off locations throughout Riverside County. The Vote by Mail drop off locations will be located at County libraries and City Clerks offices. Media relations went very well. The Registrar of Voters reached out to the media on several occasions to assist in informing the public of the great need for bilingual pollworkers. The Press Enterprise as well as La Prensa (the Spanish version newspaper of the Press Enterprise) ran articles and press releases announcing the great need for Spanish speaking pollworkers. Early Voting was available at three mall locations; Westfield, Palm Desert, Temecula Promenade and Riverside Galleria in addition to UCR s Riverside Campus. This upcoming November election Early Voting is tentatively planned at the same three mall locations and University California, (UCR) Riverside Campus. The dates are tentatively planned for October 26, 27 and 28, 2012 at the malls and October 10 and 17, 2012 at UCR s Riverside Campus. UCR is not closed to students; UCR will be open to the general public to vote as well. Ms. 4
Saucedo explained one nice thing about Early Voting locations is the voters can cast their ballots at any one of the locations regardless of where in Riverside County the live in. Mayor Ramos-Watson stated that was good information to know. Ms. Saucedo asked if Mayor Ramos-Watson has any questions. Mayor Ramos-Watson asked how the Annexation process worked. She asked how a city goes about to inform the voters about the annexation? For example there are voters that have been affected by annexation in her city and these voters have always voted at the same location; some even for decades. How are they made aware of the changes? A short discussion took place regarding this issue but, Ms. Saucedo suggested Mayor Ramos-Watson speak to Tori Richardson from our GIS Department for the best answers. The Community outreach meeting was concluded at 11:15 a.m. The next Community Outreach Group meeting will be held on Thursday, August 23, 2012 at 10:15 a.m. at the Registrar of Voters Office, 2724 Gateway Drive, Riverside, CA 92507 5