Orange County - Navel Gazing - OC Tech-Savvy Registrar Swats Insect Threat To Voters [Update from Debra Bowen]

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OC Tech-Savvy Registrar Swats Insect Threat To Voters [Update from Debra Bowen]

By Spencer Kornhaber in Naranja News, Politics

Tuesday, May. 19 2009 @ 3:17PM

Jennie Warren

To anyone who says Twitter is horrible, consider the following. Where else would you find out about the greatest threat facing Orange County voters in today's special election -- bees?

Six hours ago, the Twitter account of OC Registar of Voters Neal Kelley alerted us that his office was "Headed to a call of "massive" bees and a hive at a poll site in Placentia." It's a scary tweet. Without the backyard beekeepers, how could the bureaucrats at the Registrar hope to fend off a nest of pests intent on raising Californians' taxes by stinging them before they could vote "no" on the propositions?

Two hours after that, though, the situation had been resolved, @ocregistrar informed us: "Pest control just showed up in Placentia and removed the entire swarm and hive. The attack of the killer bees at the poll site is over!"

I am really, truly shocked that Navel Gazing is beating the Reg to this. It's not even on Total Buzzzz! Even so, bet on the fact that a Morning Read will be appearing about this incident later this week.

And, on a less stinging note, Kelley's actually doing a great job with the election-day Twittering. He's kept us updated on a poll-site malfunction in Newport Beach, as well as on general turnout and complaint figures. As of 25 minutes ago, things seem to be running smoothly: " Our emergency response radio has been fairly quiet. All issues have been resolved and voters are voting (albeit low turnout at the moment)"

California Secretary of State Debra Bowen really ~~needs to step it up. Though she promised on the radio this morning that the poll results would be on Twitter as soon as they're known, her feed's been blank all day.~~.... is doing a great job as well! Spokesperson Kate Folmar just called me up (3:10 p.m.) to let me know I'd been looking at the wrong Twitter: @casosvote is the one to watch for official Secretary of State election tweets. And the updates have been flowing in all day. The election has been going so smoothly that Bowen's staff got a chance to eat lunch -- rare for a day when the polls are open. Bowen will be Tweeting the election's results after polls close at 8 p.m.