Glendale City Clerk Strives to Increase Voter Involvement

He explained that the main reason was because the city clerk, aside from being a custodian of records, was in charge of running elections. He said, “I remember the difficulties we had before with previous city clerks in trying to acquire materials translated to Armenian that would help the pubic understand the voting process.” Many recently naturalized Armenian citizens did not have sufficient master of English to be active participants in this process. However, Armenians were told that the cost of translating materials into Armenian was too great, while the Armenians were not considered a protected class under the Federal Voting Rights Act like Latinos or Asians.

Instead, various Armenian candidates running for office, like Rafi Manoukian, Paul Krekorian or Kassakhian himself, had to register thousands of voters themselves. Kassakhian said, “In large part, though, the lion’s share of the credit goes to groups like the Armenian National Committee.”

City Clerk

In the broader sphere of his work as city clerk, Kassakhian said that his office was able to raise the number of voters in Glendale to the highest numbers it has been in at least the last 50 years. He has attempted to provide easier access to government by taking advantage of advances in technology. Digitalization has made access to public records easier. Council meetings can be viewed on line. Kassakhian said that he avoids cutting edge technology because he wants to be sure that it will be a lasting format before adopting it in his office. He gave the example of laser discs which quickly were replaced by DVDs as what might happen if changes adopted too rapidly.

His efforts in the broader American sphere, he said, can be characterized as follows: “I have worked to make sure that Americans and Glendale resident stakeholders know how their government works and why it sometimes doesn’t work — because there is a friction that has been designed into our American system of government; and lastly, what they are capable of doing as citizens to make government work the way they want it to. That means voting, coming to council meetings and participating, writing letters, and how to contact and access their elected officials.”

Simultaneously, he said, “I am a servant also to my community, the Armenian community. I have helped it in particular by creating opportunities for Armenian Americans who are interested in learning. I am very generous with my time for Armenian causes, and individuals who are interested in learning about government who happen to be Armenian.”

He said that dozens of Armenian-American interns and others have participated in programs established in city hall. For example, the majority of the high school students who benefit from the student city hall ambassador program, by virtue of Glendale demographics, tend to be Armenian.

Kassakhian gave an example of how having Armenians in city affairs helps bring more Armenians into involvement in the political process. In the last election, he said that there were some votes that they could not tally because the signatures on the envelopes did not match those on the original affidavits. At first glance, this might appear to be voter fraud, but it turns out that sometimes it is voter error.

He said that a trilingual letter was prepared, in Armenian, English and Spanish, for these individuals asking them to come to city hall to resolve this discrepancy. Most people ignored it but afterwards a team of Armenian-speaking youth were hired on a temporary basis to go to people’s homes to check their signatures. At that point they sometimes found out husband and wife signed each other’s envelopes by mistake, or the new immigrant originally signed his name in Farsi or Armenian but now is comfortable using English so there is a difference.

This allowed reregistering a number of people with their new signatures so that in the future their votes will count.

In his “free time,” Kassakhian keeps in contact with Pallone, and the Armenian Caucus has asked him to be master of ceremonies for the Capitol Hill Armenian Genocide service several times. His past connections with both the Assembly and the ANC no doubt were useful for this.

He was also able to take a trip as Glendale city clerk to Armenia as part of a California state delegation in September of this year to encourage investment in technology in Armenia. He and the delegation met with the mayor of Glendale’s sister city of Ghapan there and offered his knowledge and experience to ministers or deputies in charge of local municipalities. He also told various individuals within the Armenian government that Glendale would be happy to facilitate their visiting to observe its municipal elections. He said, “I know the meetings were positive, but unfortunately, a lot of it has to do with timing. We are hoping that we can do something in the near future.”

While Kassakhian has good working relations with the rest of the city government, he notes that he only has five fulltime staff at present, reduced from a number over 10, due to budget cuts and attrition. While sustainable, ideally he would need seven individuals to function well. He hopes, he said, that if the city’s financial footing improves over the next few years, staff can be added.

Kassakhian has some suggestions for the Glendale city government. He said he believes the city council should be expanded from its current five seats to seven because of the growth in the size of the city’s population. It would give an opportunity for greater diversity of representation in the decision-making process. He also thought it would help further the general understanding of the public concerning how government works. Kassakhian used religious terminology, which perhaps indicates how seriously he believes in his work, when he said, “Each council member almost becomes a missionary or an apostle. He goes out there in the community and spreads the knowledge of the mystery that goes on here in the council chambers every Tuesday.”

Though there is a movement in California for election to municipal councils by district (as in Pasadena), he prefers at-large elections for council members because that can allow for greater diversity (for example, by gender). However, he would like to expand it. He said, “My ideal election voting system is a cumulative voting model, rather than district. If there are three seats up you get three votes. You can give all three of your votes to your one candidate of choice, or spread them around among three candidates,” or split it between two candidates.

He also is interested in broader electoral reforms. He worked with State Sen. Anthony Portantino in introducing a California state senate bill, SB25, which recently became law, to reverse the ballot order for elections, at least in Los Angeles County, on a trial basis. The problem is that when local races are at the very end of a long ballot, Kassakhian said, “your eyes have glazed over, your interest has sort of waned, and good luck if you fill out that ballot completely.” In the past, cities had stand-alone elections, but a state law forced their consolidation with county elections to ensure higher voter participation rates. To improve this situation, Kassakhian came up with the idea of having the local races first, and Portantino introduced it as legislation. The 2020 election will show if this approach will help.

Kassakhian noted that though he is a registered Democrat, and has his opinions, his and for that matter all local offices are nonpartisans, and that regardless of a person’s political ideology, he can still do whatever work is assigned to him.

Kassakhian ran unsuccessfully for California State Assembly in 2016. When asked the obligatory question of whether he had any plans for further runs for office outside of the city clerk position, the short version of his answer was simply, “desnank [we shall see].”

Meanwhile, his message for Armenians remains the same: “Being a small diasporan nation with more Armenians living in practically every corner of the world outside of Armenia, it is important for us to know how the world works, how politics works, how government works…and what we as citizens of our respective nations can do to make government work in ways that can benefit us as communities living in those places, as well as to help preserve our heritage and culture.”