Is County Registrar Deborah Seiler trying (again) to discourage voters?

Deborah Seiler - San Diego County Registrar of Voters.

San Diego County Registrar of Voters Deborah Seiler has sent out a letter to potential San Diego County voters that actually could discourage some people from voting.  This is the same Deborah Seiler who used to work for Diebold – the corporation that made faulty voting machines. (Diebold has since changed its name to Premier – presumably to get away from all the adverse PR.)

The San Diego City Beat is running a disturbing story this week about the letter that Seiler’s office has sent out to people who have registered to vote.

This is the same Seiler who was hired for some reason by the County to oversee our elections. Two years ago, we ran a post that described Diebold’s intrusion into our democracy (or what’s left of it):

DIEBOLD Company CEO, Wally O’Dell, and longtime Diebold Director and Chairman “Tim” Timken, are steadfast Republican loyalists and major contributors to Republican candidates, including George W. Bush. Timken’s company and family have contributed over a million dollars to the GOP.

Diebold is publicly traded and listed on the New York Stock Exchange as ‘DBD’. The Diebold Company itself earns more revenue as a Military Defense Contractor than in the manufacture and sales of voting equipment. But you have to scrutinize their website to learn this information. The more one familiarizes oneself with voting equipment vendors…the more defense contractors and intelligence connections seems to surface.

This is the same Registrar of Voters that was accused by the County Democratic Party last April of conspiring with Republicans to mail partisan campaign material at taxpayers’ expense with official sample ballots. (See here.)

Inside the County Registrar of Voters, October 2008.

Here is the start of the City Beat article by our friend Dave Maass:

Thousands of San Diego County residents who downloaded voter forms from the California Secretary of State’s website are receiving letters bearing mixed messages about the status of their registrations.

In the letters, the San Diego County Registrar of Voters’ office tells voters that their registrations have not been fully processed due to “missing birth place” on their paperwork.

“This form is being sent to you because your original affidavit of registration was not properly completed,” the letter says. “Before we can complete the process of your Affidavit of Registration, we must have additional information from you.”

The letter is incorrect.

For the remainder of this article, please go here.