NORTH COUNTY - A former sales representative for the company that made the county's electronic voting machines has been hired as the county's registrar of voters, county officials announced Friday.

In 2003, the county bought 10,000 electronic voting machines from Diebold Election Systems. The county's new registrar, Deborah Seiler, said Friday that she worked as sales representative for the company and was directly involved in the successful effort to sell the company's equipment to the county in 2003.

In addition to her stint at Diebold, the 57-year-old woman's resume reflects a broad background in elections, dating to the late 1970s, when she served as assistant chief of elections with the California secretary of state's office. In 1982, she became assistant to the secretary of state for elections and political reform and held that position until 1989. Between 1991 and 1999, Seiler worked as director of customer relations for the electronic voting machine company, Sequoia Pacific Systems. She also served as a commissioner with the California Fair Political Practices Commission between 1993 and 1997.

In San Diego County, many of the questions surrounding recent elections - and the hiring of Seiler - involve electronic voting machines made by Diebold.

Diebold sold more than 10,000 of the machines to the county at a total cost of $31 million.

"Our job was simply to point out the merits of the hardware and the software," Seiler said.

At least one election watchdog says he is not happy with the hire.

"There is always going to be that question, 'Is there a conflict of interest?' " said Carlsbad attorney Ken Simpkins, who unsuccessfully sued San Diego County last year to force it to put enough paper ballots at the polls to cover the county's 1.3 million voters.

"When Diebold's contract comes up for renewal or there are disagreements, is she going to represent her former company or the citizens of San Diego County?" Simpkins asked when contacted by the North County Times on Friday.

Seiler has served for the last three years as the assistant registrar of voters in Solano County. She will start as the new local elections chief next month and earn an annual salary of $150,000, she said.

Seiler said that running the county's elections will not be easy, especially because three major elections are scheduled in 2008 - the presidential primaries in February, primary elections for state and local offices in June and the general presidential election in November.

With the first of those elections about nine months out, Secretary of State Debra Bowen recently called for a "top-to-bottom" review of the state's electronic voting systems to assure voters that their elections systems were "secure, accurate and reliable." The call for a review added to the growing controversy over the voting machines, which opponents say are rife with vulnerability to vote manipulation.

Seiler said Friday that her biggest challenge is "the uncertainty about the voting system because of the secretary of state's review."

"Uncertainty is always a challenge when you are walking into a major election cycle," she said.

Bowen has said that the review of the voting machines could produce three possible findings: that the machines have no problems, that they do have problems that could be fixed, or that the machines can't be fixed and should be decertified.

It's the potential for decertification that has Seiler concerned, especially in light of the fact that the February presidential primaries are only about nine months away, she said.

"There would be a wholesale change to the system that would require re-education of poll workers and voters and would require a restructuring of our procedures," Seiler said.

Recent years have seen a number of people serve as registrar for the county. Mikel Haas held the job between 1995 and 2001, before stepping down. Sally McPherson took over the job, but retired in 2005 and Haas became registrar again.

In April, Haas was promoted to the job of director of the county's Community Services Group, a job in which he oversees six county departments, including the registrar of voters office. Retired Riverside County Registrar of Voters Mischelle Townsend took over as interim chief elections officer while the county searched for a replacement for Haas.

Seiler's hiring was the second decision by the county in the last month or so to raise questions from election watchdogs. In April, county officials announced that they were giving the job of assistant registrar of voters to former Cuyahoga County Ohio elections chief Michael Vu, who served in that position for three and a half years.

During his tenure, the county gained national notoriety when a federal judge in Cleveland ordered 16 Cuyahoga County polling stations to stay open 90 minutes after the 7:30 closing time in November's elections because of voting machine problems and long waiting lines for voters.

In January, a court convicted two elections workers in that county of illegally rigging the 2004 presidential election recount so they could avoid a more complete review of votes. Vu defended the workers, saying they had followed long-standing procedures and done nothing wrong.

Haas said Friday that he was instrumental in hiring Seiler and he believes that the county has found a "gem."

"Her depth and breadth of knowledge of elections in California for over 27 years was the absolute driving point in hiring her," Haas said.

Asked if Seiler's association with Diebold played a role in the decision to hire her, Haas said: "We use that system, so it's kind of a plus."

- Contact staff writer William Finn Bennett at (760) 740-5426, or wbennett@nctimes.com.