New committee will oversee Rancho Santa Fe Association voter registration revisions

By Karen Billing

The Rancho Santa Fe Association is looking for members to serve on a new committee that will tackle the voting registration process. The board members voted on April 3 to post a notice for interested members and directed their counsel to come back to their April 17 meeting with more information on alternative registration possibilities. The board aims to establish the committee at its May 1 meeting.

The committee will look at how the Association could possibly automate registration or implement a one-property, one-vote revision of the current one vote per Association member regardless of the number of properties owned.

“All of the options to improve the voter registration process are not without complexity, it all has to be sifted through. A committee has to do a deep dive on this and come with recommendations to the board on how to proceed,” said RSF Association President Philip Wilkinson.

Some options include allowing provisional, same-day voting registration or to simplify the bylaws to each property gets a vote, putting the onus on the member to ask for a second ballot if they feel they deserve another.

Director Larry Spitcaufsky said that moving forward the board should find out what all of these “deep dives” are costing the Association. He said they are already 100 percent over budget on legal fees for the fiscal year. Counsel was directed to come back with cost estimates.

In the meantime, the board also agreed to send the six-page voter registration forms to all members who are eligible but not yet registered to vote. Wilkinson noted that voter registration has peaked in the last month with 150 people registering to vote.

The ballot on the RSF Garden Club purchase was mailed April 4 and is due back May 5 at 5 p.m. The last day to register to vote for the election of the new RSF Association board members is April 25. There are currently four candidates for two seats (alphabetical order): Dominick Addario, Ann Boon, Susan Callahan and Kim Eggleston. Ballots will be mailed on May 8 after the RSF Association’s Annual Meeting and the election will close June 9.