If It Were Easy Everyone Would Do It: Fairfax County Registrar Steps Down

[Image courtesy of fairfaxcounty]

This morning’s Washington Post is reporting that Fairfax County, VA’s general registrar is stepping down after requesting that the county Electoral Board not reappoint her when her four-year term expires:

Cameron Quinn, whose four-year term expires Wednesday, submitted a letter to the county’s Electoral Board on Monday evening asking that she not be reappointed.

Quinn, who took over Virginia’s busiest elections office in 2011, cited health problems and the stress of overseeing an office that coordinates elections in 241 precincts — pressure that is bound to increase during the 2016 presidential elections.

“I have recognized that, given the health challenges that have manifested since I began this job, it is not prudent to intentionally go through such stress as is engendered by a presidential election year in this position under the current circumstances,” Quinn said in her letter. [UPDATE – A copy of the letter is here.]

Quinn’s tenure at the county was certainly eventful, with lawsuits alleging partisanship and complaints about employee morale; indeed, she agreed to get additional management training and hire a chief operating officer after a 2013 report identified some problems affecting performance in the elections office. The allegations of partisanship, however, were not borne out:

Quinn, a Republican who had been secretary of the state Board of Elections, faced some accusations of political favoritism inside the office, but the Electoral Board determined that the allegations were unfounded.

But it’s not like the office was paralyzed or unable to do its job:

In an interview Tuesday, Quinn said that her job has been frustrating at times but that she was able to make important strides.

Among them: upgrading the county’s voting machines and successfully executing closely monitored ballot recounts after last year’s contests between Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) and Republican Ed Gillespie and the 2013 race between Virginia Attorney General Mark R. Herring (D) and State Sen. Mark D. Obenshain (R).

“It is a very frustrating office with lots of challenges,” Quinn said. “It’s also got some very good people that generally do very good work.”

On the surface, this looks like a simple parting of the ways between an embattled administrator and a local government – but look a little deeper and you realize that Fairfax County already has a troubled history of wearing out and discarding registrars. From another Post article in October 2014:

There have been five general registrars in the county Elections Office during the past decade. Some were forced out, and others left in frustration, documents and interviews show.

“In a nutshell, it’s chaos,” said Randy Creller, who, as the county’s chief liaison between the unionized staff and Fairfax officials, has fielded complaints from workers in the Elections Office.

Full disclosure: I have known and worked with Cameron for many years and consider her a friend. She is trained as a lawyer and a straight talker by nature, and it doesn’t surprise me at all that she may have rubbed people the wrong way.

But it’s important to acknowledge another key point: it didn’t help that Quinn, a Republican, was overseeing elections in one of the state’s (and the nation’s) most reliably Democratic jurisdictions. And in that environment, any shortcoming (real or perceived) was bound to generate complaints – and it’s not surprising that Cameron decided she wasn’t up for staying on through the meat-grinder of a presidential election where Virginia could once again be a battleground state.

For its part, Fairfax County is moving on and preparing to find a replacement:

Katherine K. Hanley, the former chair of the County Board of Supervisors who is secretary of the Electoral Board, said she knew that Quinn’s resignation was forthcoming.

“It’s a tough job in a tough office, and we face tough challenges,” said Hanley, who is among the three-member board’s two Democrats.

Hanley said the Electoral Board has launched a nationwide search for a new general registrar with experience overseeing a complex elections office.

Here’s hoping that prospective applicants are fully aware of the challenges they face – and that Fairfax County makes sure that the entire elections office is committed to working together in good faith and in a nonpartisan manner going forward. Whatever management problems may have existed under Quinn, it’s clear from the record that the office itself is a problem to manage. If the County can’t get it right (hiring or overhaul or both), it will be saying goodbye to registrar number six and on to lucky(?) seven sooner than it may like.

I had lunch with Cameron recently and she mentioned that she was interested in writing a novel about the life of an election administrator. If anyone has the material, she does; I wish her the best in whatever is next for her – she’s certainly earned it after her very eventful stint in Fairfax County.