With Election Looming, LA County's Elections Chief Wants to 'Get It Right'

The midterm elections are just under a month away, and Los Angeles County's Registrar-Recorder/Clerk Dean Logan is already looking ahead to the next election: He wants to develop a top-to-bottom open source system that can scale to other jurisdictions.
 
California's fiscal year 2018-19 budget included $134 million to spend on voting system modernization. The funds could reimburse counties for purchases made as far back as 2015, including publicly owned systems such as the central tabulation system Los Angeles County had certified by the Secretary of State in August.
 
Los Angeles County, which had up to $43.1 million to spend on systems, has created a tabulation system built on open source software. Los Angeles County wants to make its system publicly owned, and software interfaces developed on an open source platform. At that point, the county could look into licensing agreements and methodology for sharing.
 
LA County does not want to become a vendor, but Logan says he wants "to get it right in LA County."
"The core principle there [in the Voting Solutions for All People Initiative] is its an initiative to modernize the voting experience in Los Angeles County," Logan told Techwire in an interview. 
 
LA County worked with Digital Foundry to build out the certified system. Next, it is developing ballot marking devices with open source user interfaces withSmartmatic USA, which will be released in 2020.
 
"The system is owned and operated by Los Angeles County; it is being developed by Smartmatic," Logan said.
 
It is the first part of what the county hopes will be a fully open source system.
 
"It's been a grass-roots initiative intended to spur innovation in the voting systems market — offer a new model of voting systems development that's based on things like agile development, public ownership, adaptability to ... changes in technology, changes in regulation and changes in voter behavior," Logan said.
 
"Historically, commercial proprietary voting systems have been end-to-end systems, so they are locked down. If there is a change in law or a change of technology, you have to go back to the drawing board," Logan said.
 
LA County still needs to develop its ballot layout, Version 2 of its tabulation system, an interactive sample ballot, electronic poll books and various accessibility features.
 
"The projected cost to implement VSAP is approximately $290 million," Mike Sanchez, spokesman for LA County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, told Techwire in an email. "This includes research, design, engineering, manufacturing, testing, certification and other costs associated with implementation. The costs will be funded through a combination of county, state and federal funds." 
 
Since the 2002 general election, the California Secretary of State’s Office has kept an inventory of the voting systems used by counties. California Elections Code Section 19201 requires the Secretary of State to review and approve all voting systems before they can be bought or used by a county in an election.
 
The Secretary of State’s Office reported on Aug. 29 the funding available for counties on voting system replacement, while the Center for Digital Government has tracked the different systems utilized by California’s 58 counties for voting technology, which can be broken down into parts, such as these reimbursable components:

• New voting systems that have been certified under California Voting System Standards. Electronic poll books certified by the Secretary of State.
• Ballot-on-demand systems certified by the Secretary of State.
• Vote-by-mail ballot drop boxes that comply with any applicable regulations adopted by the Secretary of State.
• Remote accessible vote-by-mail systems certified or conditionally approved by the Secretary of State.
• Telecoms tech to facilitate electronic connection, for the purpose of voter registration, between polling places, vote centers, and the office of the county elections official or the Secretary of State’s Office.
• Vote-by-mail ballot sorting and processing equipment.
• Research and development of a new voting system using only nonproprietary software and firmware with disclosed source code that has not been certified or conditionally approved by the Secretary of State, but that would result in a voting system compliant with the California Voting System Standards.
• Manufacture of voting system units reasonably necessary for either of the purposes described in Elections Code Sections 19209 to 19214.

In 2002, the Secretary of State’s Office tracked two types of systems: polling place and absentee voting. As voting technology has improved in the ensuing 16 years, the state has tracked additional solutions used by the counties. As of Sept. 24, the state is tracking the following technologies used by counties: vote center/polling place systems and polling place accessibility support systems.
 
New voting systems must undergo these tests:

• Examination and testing of system software;
• Software source code review and evaluation;
• Hardware and software security penetration testing;
• Hardware testing under conditions simulating the intended storage, operation, transportation, and maintenance environments;
• Inspection and evaluation of system documentation; and
• Operational testing to validate system performance and functioning under normal and abnormal conditions. 

Counties may seek reimbursement for payments made through a purchase agreement, lease agreement or other contract made after April 29, 2015. They may also seek reimbursement if the county has spent matching county funds on voting system replacement activities on a dollar-for-dollar basis, up to the maximum amount of funds allocated for the contract.
The state of California has approved the following vendors for vote by mail and central tabulation systems:

• Dominion Voting Systems;
• Election Systems and Software (ES&S);
• Hart InterCivic;and
• Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold) Dominion Voting System acquired Premier Election Solutions from ES&S; the approval documents remain unchanged.
• Microcomputer Tally System (MTS), a system developed, owned, maintained and supported by Los Angeles County.
• DFM Associates According to the state, DFM's Mark-A-Vote systems were in use in California before 2005. Therefore, they are classified as legacy systems, not subject to new laws and regulations related to voting systems. 
• Sequoia Voting Systems acquired by Dominion Voting System. The California approval documents remain unchanged. 

The Center for Digital Government tracked and cataloged all the VBM systems used by the 58 counties through 2012. From 2012 to 2018, the state has used 15 different software solutions from seven different vendors.
 
Dominion Voting Systems is the vendor for 74 percent of the state’s voting systems, or 43 counties. The next-closest vendor represented is ES&S with 12 percent of the state’s voting systems, or seven counties.
 
For next month's election, the two counties using DFM Mark-A-Vote are Sonoma County and Lake County. Of the $134 million in funds for voting system replacement, Sonoma County has been allocated $1.68 million; Lake County has been allocated $246,000.
 
The top 10 counties by allocated funding for voting system replacement and their systems for the 2018 general election are:

County	Vote by Mail/Central Tabulation System	Funds for Voting System Replacement
1.      Los Angeles	MTS v. 1.3.1	$43,128,000.00
2.      San Diego	Premier AccuVote-OS v. 2.0.12	$10,685,000.00
3.      Orange	Hart BallotNow v. 3.3.11	$9,823,000.00
4.      Riverside	Sequoia Optech 400-C/WinETP v. 1.12.4	$6,156,500.00
5.      San Bernardino	Sequoia Optech 400-C/WinETP v. 1.12.4	$5,903,000.00
6.      Alameda	Sequoia Optech 400-C/WinEDS 4.0.116B	$5,621,500.00
7.      Santa Clara	Sequoia Optech 400-C/WinETP v. 1.12.4	$5,572,000.00
8.      Sacramento	Dominion ImageCast Central v. 5.2.0.707	$4,714,500.00
9.      Contra Costa	Dominion ImageCast Central v. 5.2.0.707	$3,647,000.00
10.   San Francisco	Sequoia Optech 400-C/WinEDS 4.0.116B	$3,011,500.00

*The Center for Digital Government is a part of e.Republic, Techwire's parent company.

Update: This story has been edited to correct Dean Logan's title. 

 

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Mathew Olson began working for e.Republic in April 2017. He completed a master's in philosophy with honors at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, and is now completing a master's of public administration at McGeorge School of Law. Mathew’s diverse work experience includes working in local government, managing an international language company based in Madrid, research for a K-12 governmental relations team, and working as a political consultant on foreign elections as well as local/state/federal campaigns.