California's long-awaited statewide, centralized voter registration database is a step closer to reality after the Secretary of State's Office announced this week that all 58 counties are now connected to the system, called VoteCal.
Monterey and Stanislaus counties were the final two counties added, completing a phased rollout that had been ongoing since last summer. VoteCal is expected to be certified as the system of record for voter registration shortly after the state's June presidential primary election. It will be fully functional by Election Day in November, the Secretary of State's Office said in a Feb. 29 announcement.
"This is a big moment. VoteCal will modernize California elections. Through VoteCal, California citizens will have access to an easy-to-use online portal to check the status of their voter registration and ballot. VoteCal will also allow for innovations such as Election Day voter registration,” Secretary of State Alex Padilla said in a statement.
“My staff is working with county elections officials up and down the state to ensure that the security and performance of VoteCal is working as designed. Robust testing will take place as we prepare to certify the system in June. By the Nov. 8, 2016 General Election, VoteCal will provide California voters useful tools and help elections officials accurately and efficiently maintain voter rolls,” Padilla added.
The $98 million project has been more than a decade in the making and suffered stops and starts. CGI Technologies and Solutions Inc. was selected in 2013 as the system integrator for VoteCal; it was the second attempt at the procurement after the state canceled in 2010 an initial $51 million agreement with Catalyst Consulting Group because of project schedule delays, staffing issues and other factors.
"The challenges this project has faced are like those many other major California IT projects have also faced. In both the first and second VoteCal procurement processes, only one bidder ended up qualifying as a final bidder, resulting in a decision by default rather than competition," concludes The California Voter Foundation in a 2015 white paper about the system's history. Like other projects of similar size, it initially "struggled due to its size, turnover in administrations, confusion regarding agencies’ oversight responsibilities."
According to the Secretary of State's Office, VoteCal will enable the state to provide a a public website allowing voters to register online, check the status of their ballot, find their polling place, and give voters the ability to see if their vote-by-mail or provisional ballot was counted by their county elections official.
VoteCal also likely will be a key piece in California's Motor Voter law, codified in 2016. Although it hasn't been implemented yet, the law will automatically register eligible Californians to vote when they get a driver’s license or ID card. It requires DMV to establish a schedule and method to electronically provide the Secretary of State the records for each person who submits an application for a driver's license, ID card or change of address. The data exchange protocols will be finalized after VoteCal is fully certified later this year, according to reporting from Techwire last year.
VoteCal will bring California into compliance with requirements in the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002. The development of a single registration database is a sweeping change because today the 58 counties maintain their own voter files individually under the current “CalVoter” system. HAVA requires the system to interface electronically with the DMV, California Department of Public Health, Employment Development Department and California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for voter identification and list maintenance purposes.
As of January 2016, the state has spent $48 million of its project budget on VoteCal, including $19.2 million for software customization, $6.5 million for project management $5.2 million for staff, and $2.6 million for IV&V, according to state records.
With implementation of VoteCal, California is the last state to launch a comprehensive voter registration system, according to the L.A. Times.
