Preview of big changes for Los Angeles County in ‘mock election’

Hermosa resident Bob Atkins tries out a new voting machine at the Clark Building on Saturday, one of the sites of the “mock election” held throughout Los Angeles County over the weekend. Photo

Lynn Bommer remembers the Vietnam War-era debate that led to the passage of the 26th Amendment, which gave 18-year-olds the right to vote. As the Redondo Beach resident stepped into Hermosa Beach’s Clark Building on Saturday, she took in a quieter polling place revolution.

Hermosa was one of 50 sites throughout Los Angeles County to participate in a “mock election,” a kind of trial run for the county’s new Voting Solutions for All People system set to debut the March 2020 elections. The voting system, known as VSAP for short, is part of a suite of changes that will greet the county’s voters next year.

Along with new machines built around a computerized interface, with selections made on an electronic tablet instead of paper marked with ink, the March elections — in which voters will cast ballots in California’s moved-up presidential primary — will see “vote centers” replacing traditional neighborhood polling places. An estimated 1,000 vote centers will be open in to-be-determined locations, allowing people to vote anywhere throughout the county, and for up to 10 days before election day.

Inside the Clark Building, Bommer was cautiously optimistic. 

“I just hope everyone can figure it out. It’s a little complicated. But tech is not something I grew up with, and I was able to do it,” Bommer said.

Bommer said that it was a good time for the county to update the voting process, citing a surge of voter interest in the 2018 midterm elections. She described herself as politically active and said she volunteers registering voters. Based on her experience, voter interest will be even higher in 2020.

Although numbers in the November 2018 election did indicate a substantial increase in turnout, changes in California’s elections have been spurred by concern over low voter participation.

In the fall of 2016, then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 450, which eventually became known as the Voter Choice Act. In comments leading up to its passage, Sen. Ben Allen, who represents the South Bay in the Legislature and was the bill’s author, pointed to “historically low voter turnout” in 2014 elections. California ranked 43rd among states nationally in voter participation. Los Angeles County, which is the largest in the country, had the lowest voter turnout of any county in the state.

Inspired by changes made in Colorado that boosted voter turnout there, the Voter Choice Act mandated that every voter in the state receive a vote-by-mail ballot, and that a voter could do one of three things: fill it out and return it by mail; fill it out and return it at a neighborhood vote center, or vote in person at a neighborhood vote center. The bill set different targets for different counties throughout the state to adopt voting systems reflecting the changes in state law. Several counties in Northern California and the Central Valley began implementing the changes in 2018.

Meanwhile, in 2015, the California Secretary of State’s office issued a new set of regulations, the California Voting System Standards. As in other states, each county in California is responsible for running its own elections. But many counties throughout the state are relying on polling place technology that no longer met security criteria laid out in the 2015 standards, and now face deadlines to develop and implement new systems.

Los Angeles County’s existing voting system, InkAVote, does not meet the state standards, a spokesperson with the registrar’s office said. The VSAP, which will replace it, is currently undergoing the state’s certification process.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved the VSAP initiative in January of this year, but planning for it began about a decade ago. According to a presentation from the registrar-recorder’s office, it will address “an aging voting system and the complex needs of an electorate with 5.3 million voters.” The spokesperson said that the new system is intended to better serve the disabled and people for whom English is not a primary language.

County regulations will require that every city in the county with at least 1,000 registered voters will get at least one vote center, but the locations of the centers in the March primary are still unknown. The registrar’s office said the list will be released in early 2020. A list of more than 2,000 possible sites has been cobbled together through a series of community meetings held throughout the county earlier this year, and includes more than three dozen throughout the Beach Cities.

On Saturday in Hermosa, a trickle of curious voters braved a mid-day rain shower and confronted a phalanx of brightly hued yellow booths, each equipped with an electronic tablet and a combination printer-scanner. The group was probably not representative of the electorate at large: several said they were involved in politics, and some regularly volunteered at neighborhood polling places. 

The weekend’s mock election polled voters on a series of light-hearted questions, such as favorite county beach. (Manhattan Beach triumphed, earning 26.59 percent of the votes.) Before voters made their selection, volunteers verified a voter’s registration — also using tablets — before directing a voter to one of the yellow “ballot marking devices,” or BMDs for short. When up and running, county residents will be able to visit one of the vote centers, register and cast their vote the same day.

The machines themselves are part of what the registrar describes as a “human-centered design process,” in which all parts of the machine are county property. To discourage fears of possible hacking, the voting machines, unlike the tablets used to verify registration, are not connected to the internet.

But almost everyone who tried the machines had some concern. Hermosa resident Bob Atkins bent the ear of a volunteer about the way choices for a given race were presented. Only four possibilities appeared on the screen, with a voter needing to click a down-arrow to see the other possibilities. 

“Having to scroll is a disadvantage for those below the first screen. It needs some more refinement: maybe two columns, or a smaller font,” he said.

Atkins pointed out other issues, and said he thought that, if the mock election had been a real one, there would have been widespread confusion. But he said other aspects of the design were improvements over the current voting experience, including the ease with which people could vote for write-in selections. He pointed to the question asking voters for their choice of favorite area music venue.

“It is easy to do a write-in. And I like the Greek Theatre,” Atkins said.

The Los Feliz favorite had been left off the list. According to results released by the registrar on Monday, the Hollywood Bowl won in a landslide.

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