Q szas0.0810 SUNBECK ) 877-230-2737 RUNBECK © maser suee, occ Proenn Az GB Aendecknet September 21, 2023 Chairman Kevin Jeffries Riverside County Board of Supervisors 4080 Lemon Street, Sth Floor Riverside, CA 92501 Dear Chairman Jeffries, We are writing this letter to inform you and your colleagues of potential misconduct in the County's procurement process by the Registrar of Voters. Our request is that you postpone your scheduled decision on September 26 to ratify a contract with a new election services vendor until the audit the County recently conducted is released to the public and all information can be reviewed. REGISTRAR ON LEAVE DUE TO AUDIT IN WHICH RUNBECK PARTICIPATED As you know, the Registrar is currently on paid administrative leave, which we understand is related to the findings of an audit conducted by the County. Further, you should know that we have been notified that the County has begun the process of terminating our contract before the audit is released to the public, and before the contract has been formally awarded to the new vendor. We believe the contents of this audit reveal that the Registrar mismanaged many election processes, routinely causing increased costs to the County and delays to statutory deadlines. Runbeck was routinely blamed by the Registrar for these challenges. The evidence Runbeck provided to the auditor with authorization from the COO’s office vindicates Runbeck, By deciding the award prior to all the facts being released and publicly evaluated, the Registrar will have been allowed to influence this process and leave Runbeck to be collateral damage, We believe that upon finding out that Runbeck participated in the audit, the Registrar rushed to initiate an RFP to select a different vendor. A six-person panel was assembled to award the contract, Incredibly, this panel included the Registrar and two of her direct subordinates. This panel selected a new vendor, and the County COO has now informed us that an agenda item has been scheduled for your Tuesday, September 26, 2023 board meeting to approve a contract with this vendor. The entire REP process (from the opening of the RFP to the publication of the notice of intent to award) took a mere 69 days. This timeline alone raises significant suspicions.Page|2 REGISTRAR FALSELY BLAMED RUNBECK FOR WASTE OF TAXPAYER RESOURCES Runbeck Election Services has been a valued partner of the Registrar of Voters since 2018. Further, we have been in business for 51 years and currently provide election support services to 160 jurisdictions in the United States. Given the events of the past few months, and issues of propriety that have been raised about elections in our country in the past few years, we believe we are obligated to shed light on what transpired in Riverside County. For Riverside, we produce nearly all of the County’s ballots, including Vote-By-Mail packets. As a major partner in the Registrar's election process, we were asked to participate in the audit, We were reluctant to participate, as we had experienced firsthand Ms. Spencer's willingness to go to any length to defend herself, no matter what she had to do to accomplish her gocl. We were also worried about contract retaliation by Ms. Spencer, and that appears to have happened now. In multiple instances in 2022, the Registrar attempted to use Runbeck as a shield to cover up certain mistakes that she had caused. In operational discussions between Riverside County and Runbeck regarding these situations, the Registrar misrepresented the facts of these situations to the County COO (her Supervisor) and blamed Runbeck for these errors in the presence of Runbeck employees. However, Runbeck possessed emails proving the opposite of her narrative. We provided this information to the COO’s office at the time of the incidents, and later provided this information to the outside auditor during the audit process. There are other incidents prior to 2022 that also speak to this pattern of behavior from the Registrar that we are willing to discuss furiher if the Board would find it helpful. Prior to participating in the audit, Runbeck asked for and received a letter signed by the Riverside County COO Juan Perez that requested our cooperation, as well as giving us full authorization to transfer documentation to the auditor. After receiving this request and permission from Mr. Perez, we provided copies of the relevant communication. We have attuched Mr. Perez’s signed authorization to this letter. We requested this letter to protect our ‘company and prevent potential retaliation from the Registrar. It is now apparent to us that our concerns were founded. The evidence is clear that the Registrar expedited an RFP, participated directly in RFP evaluation committee, and gave Runbeck the lowest scores that she gave to any of the respondents. This RFP is now being rushed to you and your colleagues for approval this Tuesday.RUSHED RFP LEADS TO RUNBECK TERMINATION REP #RVRC-1705: Official Ballot Printing & Mailing Services was released exactly one ‘month to the day after Runbeck provided the above documentation to the auditor. Runbeck met with the auditor on May 16". The RFP opened on June 16, 2023 and closed on July 11, 2023 ~ an extraordinarily rapid timeline for a government selection process. The RFP was an exact match of Runbeck’s existing contract with the Registrar of Voters and was released four days before Runbeck signed an extension of our existing contract (at the request of the Purchasing and Fleet department) to run through June 30%, 2024, We understood Riverside County would be pursuing an REP for official ballot printing and mailing services at some point in the future as a normal course of business. However, the ‘tivning of this RFP was beyond questionable, especially considering that a special election is scheduled for November 2023. The RFP had a strong sense of impropriety, given our participation in the audit, Even so, we participated in the RFP in good faith, based on our longstanding relationship with the County. Despite our long history of providing excellent service to the Registrar, we were notified on August 24, 2023 that the RFP had been awarded to another vendor. Runbeck believes the Registrar potentially committed a violation of the procurement process by utilizing the Purchasing and Fleet Department’s RFP process to seek retribution upon. Runbeck for participating in the audit of the Registrar's office, giving Runbeck the lowest score out of every respondent, and ensuring the award of the solicitation to a different vendor. The Registrar has established a pattem of using Runbeck as a cover; eliminating Runbeck as a vendor ‘wos a chance at possibly concealing her mistakes and preventing them from becoming public, assuming the audit might not be released for a while longer (or perhaps not at all). We are also certain that the Registrar had an outsized role in the evaluation of the RFP responses, both due to her position on the RFP evaluation committee, and due to her position as the Registrar with a direct influence on at least two other members of the evaluation committee, We are not alleging that the Board, the CEO, the COO, or the auditor has committed any impropriety. We have submitted an official protest of the award through the Purchasing and Fleet Department's process and as of noon on September 21, 2023, we have not received an official response other than acknowledgement of receipt of the protest. We are also in the process of submitting multiple Public Records Requests which we believe will show that our claims have merit. RUNBECK REQUEST OF THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS ‘To ensure that the facts are public, we have begun the process of submitting Public Records requests secking the Registrar's correspondence and intemal records related to RFP #RVARC-1705. Further, we believe the audit must be released to the public immediately because we believe it will shed light on what truly occurred. We do not make these claims lightly, and we are more than willing to provide further details about these facts and allegations. Finally, as noted above, Runbeck formally requests that the Board of Supervisors postpone the selection of a new election support services vendor until the audit is made public and a fair RFP selection process can be undertaken. We were in discussions to provide the County with services through the November election until we were notified on September 20,2023 that the County is initiating the 30-day termination process of our contract. We remain reedy and willing to support Riverside’s elections until this information is made public and a new vendor impartially chosen. Thank you, Th Cd iN Jesf Ellington Chief Executive Officer 28 i Runbeck Election Services, L.L.C. | 2800 8. 36 St, Phoenix, AZ 85034 Li REED MESS beet CC: James Suver =