Rena Russell, El Dorado County's assistant registrar of voters, will lead the county's elections office starting Oct. 31 after the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to appoint her.

The five-member board made the appointment at its Tuesday, Sept. 22, meeting at 330 Fair Lane in Placerville, as first reported by Village Life. Supervisors George Turnboo, Lori Parlin, Brian Veerkamp, Greg Ferrero and Brooke Laine all voted in favor.

Russell will start at Step 1 of the position's salary range at $11,464.27 per month, which works out to about $137,571 a year.

The county has not publicly identified the outgoing registrar or explained the circumstances of the vacancy. Board meeting records show supervisors discussed the registrar position in a closed session on Tuesday, Aug. 25, under a "public employment" agenda item. No action was reported from that session.

Russell will oversee an elections operation that had 144,737 registered voters as of an August 2024 snapshot, according to a 2024–25 El Dorado County Grand Jury report. The county receives roughly 80% to 85% of its ballots through mail-in voting or ballot drop boxes, a separate 2023–24 Grand Jury review found.

The department operates with about seven full-time staff members out of a headquarters on Ponderosa Road in Shingle Springs. That facility opened in 2023 and was designed to process a large volume of ballots under California's vote-center model. A June 2024 Grand Jury report praised the Elections Department as highly qualified and transparent and commended it for the design and operations of the new building.

Russell's Oct. 31 start date falls just days before the next statewide election cycle. No public statement from Russell or from any individual supervisor about the appointment has appeared in county records as of Monday, Sept. 28.

The Board of Supervisors' next scheduled meeting is Tuesday, Sept. 29. Agendas and meeting materials are available on the county's Legistar page.