SAN MATEO ELECTION BOSS HOPEFUL (D) RIPPED OVER YEARS IN FRINGE PARTY

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.

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.

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.

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.




https://hoodline.com/2026/04/san-mateo-election-boss-hopeful-ripped-over-years-in-fringe-party/