New Registrar of Voters Tom Toller Speaks to the Shasta County Elections Commission

The county’s new elections official, Tom Toller, told the Elections Commission yesterday, July 22, that while he hears Commissioners’ larger concerns, right now he’s completely focused on running the fall general election, which will occur in only 106 days.

“I’ll wait until after that to undertake the big plans,” Toller said.

He did not elaborate on what those big plans might be, telling Shasta Scout after the meeting that he wants to wait to hear more from the Commission.

“But I mean, I guess the overarching message,” Toller expanded, “is my fundamental goal is to have a smooth, fair election on November 5. And there’s just so much that has to happen over the next 106 days that I’m finding it hard to put together two hours in any given day, even to have a sit down and think.”

“We’re on pace to have one of the largest elections we’ve had in recent history,” Toller continued, “with over forty-five different ballots for the sixty precincts . . . The phase leading up to the election is, quite frankly, dominating the life of my entire team right now.”

From his words, it appears that Toller has begun to internalize the enormity of the task before him. The former county prosecutor was appointed to the County’s Registrar of Voters (ROV) role less than a month ago. He has no experience in running elections and has never worked a polling site.

Pulling off a successful fall election requires Toller to be tremendously dependent on current elections staff, including his right hand woman, veteran Assistant ROV Joanna Francescut. She was turned down by the Board for the role of ROV but ran the Elections Office on her own for about six months over the last year after previous ROV Cathy Darling Allen stepped away unexpectedly for medical reasons last November.

According to Toller, he’s been “integrating very well” with staff.

Yesterday, July 22, Toller arrived to present to the Elections Commission almost an hour after his scheduled start time, but the Commission and the approximately dozen community members who showed up to the meeting didn’t seem to mind.

Once Toller arrived, Commission members shared their concerns about electronic poll pads, ballot drop boxes, and poll worker training. Commission members also proposed larger, more ideologically focused changes, including eliminating most paths to voter registration, moving to one-day voting, and hand counting ballots, all of which are illegal under state law.

Referencing some of the latter issues after the meeting, Toller told Shasta Scout that for now he’s more focused on practical matters.

“Setting aside the realm of legal possibility; setting aside the realm of whether it’s a good idea policy wise; matters of practicality are basically the oxygen in the room (at the moment),” Toller explained.

Both former ROV Darling Allen and current Assistant ROV Francescut have repeatedly said that the practicalities of running elections, and state law itself, are ongoing impediments to implementing the kind of ideological changes to elections that a few Shasta County community members, including the three sitting election commissioners, have been asking for.

During the Commission meeting, Toller only committed to one change, implementing increased poll worker training. Some of that training will be specifically focused on ensuring voters understand that if they want their votes counted on election day they have to cast their votes in person, not just drop off their ballots in person.

Toller also plans to implement more poll worker training around the use of electronic poll books, which are used to check in individuals who are voting in person. During the March primary, some polling places experienced intermittent connectivity issues with those poll books during early voting hours. When needed, poll workers fell back on the use of paper-and-pencil check-in processes when needed, as witnessed by Shasta Scout at polling places on March 5.

“There’s no question some of the polling pads didn’t work at some of the precincts,” Toller said. “My initial commitment is, well, let’s deal with that in training. Let’s have the representative (for the polling pad company) here. Let’s nip that in the bud.”

“Wholly apart from that,” Toller continued, “is the question of whether ultimately, the (electronic poll pads) should be replaced by any kind of paper poll books.”

Toller told the Commission he’s interested in hearing information about electronic poll book concerns, but changing that contract is “not something that I, particularly as a newer ROV, am going to necessarily make a unilateral move on.”

Election Commission Chair Ronnean Lund, who wants the electronic poll pads replaced, told Toller she’s looked at the contract for electronic polling pads and they could be eliminated within sixty days by a decision of the county board.

Her statements prompted a cautionary statement by County Counsel Joseph Larmour, who provides the Election Commission with legal advice during meetings. He asked Lund not to make statements that attempt to interpret contract language and not to continue discussing the possibility of terminating county contracts.

While Lund briefly argued with Larmour over the issue, Toller backed up the county’s attorney.

“Larmour’s exactly right,” Toller said, emphasizing to the Board, that he wants to follow the law, “today and always.”

The specifics of how Toller will uphold election law remain to be seen. He’s said previously in public comments and documents that he’s willing to challenge the California Secretary of State on matters of legal interpretation.

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