San Mateo County’s assistant chief elections officer, Jim Irizarry, is under the microscope after voter records showed he spent years registered with the American Independent Party, a far-right minor party. Irizarry, who is running to replace Mark Church as assessor-clerk-recorder and chief elections officer in the June 2 special election, says the registration was a clerical error that he eventually fixed. His opponent, Supervisor David Canepa, has seized on the records, calling that explanation weak, and the issue has quickly become a central attack line in an already tense Peninsula race.
Records And Irizarry's Response
According to county election files cited by the San Francisco Chronicle, Irizarry was listed as a member of the American Independent Party from at least 1996 through 2015. His registration then briefly showed “declined to state” before later switching to Democrat. In a written response to the Chronicle, Irizarry said he “mistakenly registered” with the AIP and emphasized that he has strongly repudiated and categorically rejected any political party or ideologies that oppose immigrant rights, same-sex marriage and women’s rights.
Local Reporting Shows The Timeline
The Palo Alto Daily Post first spotlighted the affiliation and reported narrower windows of AIP registration, including stretches in the 2000s and again in 2014–15, and noted that Irizarry re-registered as a Democrat in July 2023. The Post also quoted Irizarry saying he believed he had checked independently on older registration forms, then later corrected his preference to no party preference before finally re-registering as a Democrat.
Opponent Says It Matters
Canepa told the San Francisco Chronicle he was “alarmed” that the county’s second-in-command did not understand the difference between the American Independent Party and being an independent voter. “Make no mistake about it, you can’t be the chief elections officer if you can’t tell the difference,” Canepa said, arguing that the office demands a firm grasp of voter-registration rules.
Why Party Registration Affects Ballots
The details of party registration are not just political trivia. California’s primary system has long tied the contents of partisan ballots to a voter’s party status. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the state’s 1990s “blanket” primary in 2000, as summarized by the Legal Information Institute, and state law changes in 2001 left party preference as a key factor in determining which partisan ballot a voter receives. Election officials say that kind of nuance, where registering with a minor party can change which primary ballot a voter sees unless they request otherwise, is exactly the sort of rule someone running an elections office is expected to know cold.
Campaign Stakes
Irizarry appears on San Mateo County’s official candidate roster as a qualified candidate for assessor-county clerk-recorder, according to county filings (San Mateo County candidate roster). The county’s Assessor-County Clerk-Recorder site explains the office’s role in administering and certifying elections (San Mateo County ACRE), and critics argue that Irizarry’s registration history undercuts his claim to political neutrality heading into the June 2 vote.
The clash over those decades of AIP registration is likely to remain campaign fuel through the spring, as voters decide who they trust with the mechanics of local democracy. Irizarry’s camp insists the affiliation was an honest paperwork mistake that he corrected, while Canepa’s team says it is a red flag about judgment. Voters will render the final verdict on June 2.
