San Diego County’s top election official to retire after redistricting special election

A special election on whether to let Democrats redraw California’s congressional maps will be the last election for San Diego County’s top election official.

County Registrar of Voters Cynthia Paes will retire in February after 23 years with the county, most of those in the elections office of the state’s second-biggest county.

In her position, Paes led the county’s implementation of a statewide overhaul of how elections are held, including its move to having in-person voters cast their ballots at their choice of a number of large vote centers.

Paes arrived at the county in 2002 and worked as an administrator in the county’s Health and Human Services Agency. In 2011, she moved to its election office and became chief deputy of the registrar’s election services division.

Paes rose to the top job in the county elections office in 2021, succeeding Michael Vu when he became assistant chief administrative officer.

Paes will continue to lead the county through the ongoing special election that ends Nov. 4.

In that election, a ballot measure, Proposition 50, asks voters to let the Legislature temporarily override the state’s redistricting commission to redraw congressional maps to favor Democrats — an effort to counter similar efforts by Republicans in other states.

Paes’s last day at the county is Feb. 5.