


Marin County’s registrar of voters said she will retire at the end of the fiscal year.
Lynda Roberts has overseen Marin’s elections during a decade of increasing political strife. Her retirement is effective June 30.
“I just don’t want to have a to-do list,” she said. “That will be the most exciting thing about my retirement — just getting up and going with the flow of the day.”
Roberts became Marin’s registrar of voters in 2014. Prior to that she served seven years as the register of voters in rural Mono County.
“It was a place that had fewer than 6,000 voters, so it facilitated my learning,” Roberts said. “I wore a lot of hats in Mono County, not just registrar. I was also clerk recorder and clerk of the Board of Supervisors.”
Roberts grew up in Salt Lake City and earned her master’s in public administration from the University of Utah. She was introduced to election work in Salt Lake City. She was teaching at a private school in Hawaii, however, when she applied for the job in Mono County.
“I didn’t grow up thinking, man, one day I want to be a registrar,” she said.
But Roberts found herself drawn to public service. “As a public employee, you feel like you are making a direct difference for people.”The job has presented challenges. In October, an organization calling itself the Marin Election Integrity Committee sued Roberts and California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, alleging that the election officials failed to maintain current and accurate voter rolls.
Francis Drouillard, chair of the Marin Election Integrity Committee, is a former member of the Marin County Republican Central Committee and has run unsuccessfully for supervisor and other public offices.
Ruling in favor of the elections officials, Judge Charles Breyer of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California wrote, “Plaintiffs failed to persuade the court that their desired injunction would serve the public interest — particularly as plaintiffs have failed to show that the election process is fundamentally unfair.”
Roberts has also been dragged into the middle of some local political contests. Lori Frugoli, who won her bid to become Marin district attorney in 2018 by defeating Anna Pletcher, went to court in an attempt to force Pletcher to amend her candidate’s statement.
The matter was ultimately decided by Marin Superior Court Judge Roy Chernus, who ruled that the statement, while improper, would be allowed to stand because of a procedural error by the registrar’s office.
And when a group of Marin residents who opposed the closure of the San Geronimo Golf Course were gathering signatures to qualify a referendum for the March 2020 ballot, they insisted on looking over the shoulders of election workers to ensure that they didn’t make any mistakes.
“That is what swirls around us in the elections world — all of that,” Roberts said. “But at the end of the day, our job is to just make sure we implement the laws that are in place to the best of our ability and make sure people can exercise their right to vote.”
Roberts said navigating the increasingly turbulent political environment wasn’t even her biggest obstacle. That came during the 2020 presidential election during the peak of the COVID pandemic.
“It was a huge challenge getting through that election during COVID,” Roberts said. “We had to pivot so quickly to make sure all of the polling places had protective equipment. Masks, gloves, sanitizer and all of that stuff and that people were distancing.”
At the election office in the Civic Center, the election department’s 12 full-time employees were using large sheets of plastic that looked like shower curtains to cordon off their cubicles.
The pandemic coincided with a flurry of other major projects.
The year before COVID-19 arrived the elections department introduced new voting machines. In 2021, Roberts had to administer the collection of Marin votes for the unsuccessful recall election of Gov. Gavin Newsom, and in 2022 the county implemented a new vote center model. It reduced the number of neighborhood polling places available on Election Day but increased the number days Marin voters could vote at polling places throughout the county.
“We had a period of five years where it was nonstop stuff,” Roberts said.
Marin County Supervisor Mary Sackett said Roberts “stewards the Elections Department with integrity, transparency, and a steadfast dedication to community outreach.”
“In a highly polarized political climate, she has a nonpartisan approach and upholds the highest standards of operations,” she said.
Dan Miller, a longtime official in the elections department, wrote in an email, “It has been great working with Lynda. She’s even keeled, thoughtful, a genuinely nice person, and she handles every question and concern with professional courtesy and resolve.”
“We’re extremely fortunate she decided to stay for 10+ years,” Miller said. “We’ll truly miss her.”