Josh Kleinbaum
Doris Twedt was stretched so thin during the September referendum
election over the Americana at Brand, that she had to enlist her
husband.
Twedt, Glendale's city clerk and chief election official, heard
reports of a problem at a voting precinct.
Short on staff members, Twedt asked her husband to go make sure
everything was on the up-and-up.
"When you have to call on your husband, you know things are
getting pretty bad," Twedt said.
Today, Glendale's voters will elect four City Council members,
three school board members, three college board members, a treasurer
and a city clerk. And this time, Twedt will have backup.
For the first time, the city put together an election team -- a
group of city employees who will patrol the voting sites and oversee
the operations. Each member of the team will be assigned a handful of
polling places, Twedt said, and work with the volunteer poll workers.
Each member of the team will have a radio to keep in touch with
Twedt.
"They become Doris' army, so to speak," said City Manager Jim
Starbird, who suggested the idea to Twedt. "We want this election to
go smoothly; we want it to be very credible in the community; we want
people to have confidence in the process; and we want to make sure
the city clerk has all the support that she needs."
The team, made up of about 25 city employees who either
volunteered or were asked to participate, attended a six-hour
training session last week, when they learned election law and how to
handle situations that could arise, such as electioneering and
dealing with provisional ballots and people who want to turn in
ballots for other voters.
"With any election, especially one as historic as this one with so
many candidates, it's inevitable that we're going to run into a few
minor issues," said John Takhtalian, who works in the city manager's
office and will serve as one of three election-team supervisors
today. "Our job is to deal with those issues as quickly as possible
and to ensure that the election is conducted equitably."
Takhtalian got a good look at possible issues last year. During
the September referendum election, when a shouting match broke out at
a precinct in southern Glendale, Twedt asked Takhtalian to oversee
the precinct. He had never worked in a voting precinct before, so the
number of issues and complaints that came up surprised him.
"At the end of the day, I walked into the office, and it was like,
whoa, that was one heck of a day," Takhtalian said.
The city is preparing for just about any problems. The election
team includes many multi-lingual speakers to better address the usual
language-related problems that pop up. And an assistant city attorney
is on the team to handle any legal questions that arise.
"We made a point of recruiting people from administrative analyst
ranks," Starbird said. "These aren't managers, and these aren't
executives. These are people who are smart; they perform responsible
jobs; and they'll be quick on the uptake, but they're not
decision-makers on a policy level.
"It's really just to make sure that [Twedt] has the resources and
the staff that she needs."
* JOSH KLEINBAUM covers City Hall. He may be reached at (818)
637-3235 or by e-mail at josh.kleinbaum@latimes.com.
