Olivia Hale appointed to oversee local elections as new San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters

Olivia Hale has been appointed on a unanimous vote by the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors Aug. 9 to oversee local elections in the permanent position of San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters.

“It’s an honor and blessing to be considered for this position,” Hale addressed the County Board of Supervisors. “I promise to deliver fair, impartial, accurate, secure, transparent and accessible elections for every voter in San Joaquin County.”

Hale, born and raised in San Joaquin County, led the Registrar of Voters’ office with just under five years of experience through the primary elections after former ROV Heather Ditty died after short notice surgery less than a week before Election Day. Ditty had over two decades of elections experience before becoming Registrar of Voters in San Joaquin County.

Initially the assistant registrar of voters, Hale found herself leading the efforts to certify the 2022 primary election plagued locally by roughly 30% of the county’s 101,922 vote-by-mail ballots that required duplication from blurry barcodes. Former county Registrar of Voters Austin Erdman also came out of retirement to assist the county with the June 7 election after doing the same in 2021 following the resignation of Melinda Dubroff.

The position of assistant registrar of voters was created in early 2022, County Administrator Jay Wilverding said, for which Ditty handpicked who she described as the “talented and very capable” Hale for the job.

“Heather called me the night before her surgery and she was very concerned with the election being less than a week away,” Wilverding said. “She assured me that we were in good hands with Olivia (Hale) … after we found out Heather did not survive her surgery and the ballot printing issue started to mushroom … (Hale) handled the operations very well despite all the challenges.”

Through late nights, countless facility tours for media, election candidates and the public, Wilverding said, the primary elections were certified by the Registrar of Voters a week before the July 7 deadline.

“I certainly think that with all that’s gone on, Olivia has definitely earned her stripes,” Wilverding said before recommending Hale to the position of registrar of voters.

Record reporter Ben Irwin covers Stockton and San Joaquin County government. He can be reached at birwin@recordnet.com or on Twitter @B1rwin. Support local news, subscribe to The Stockton Record at https://www.recordnet.com/subscribenow.

This article originally appeared on The Record: Olivia Hale appointed San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters