CVF in the News

Los Angeles County’s risky voting experiment

By Kim Zetter, Politico, March 3, 2020

Excerpts:

Los Angeles County spent nine years working on a government-designed and -owned voting system with the goal of setting a new standard for security, reliability and transparency.

Instead, millions of county voters on Super Tuesday will cast ballots on a system in which numerous security flaws were found. This has prompted some election integrity experts to call for barring the system from elections until they’re fully resolved. The issues include multiple digital and physical vulnerabilities, some of them identified in a recent assessment by California’s secretary of state and others identified by outside computer security experts

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Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, a nonprofit that works to improve the voting process, said the county should be commended for building a publicly owned system, but the delay in disclosing the source code is perplexing.

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California Braces For Long Lines At Super Tuesday Primary

By Staff, CBS Sacramento, March 3, 2020

Excerpts:

Officials in California are bracing for long lines and urging patience as voters cast ballots on “Super Tuesday” in what could be record turnout for a presidential primary election.

A fraction of the 20.7 million registered voters in the heavily Democratic state has already returned ballots in early voting, which started last month. Officials expect the bulk of ballots to be cast Tuesday.

Enthusiasm is high among Democrats eager to elect a candidate they hope can oust President Donald Trump in the fall, and California moved up its primary from June to March so voters could weigh in earlier.

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So How Many Votes Have Been Cast In OC and LA So Far?

By Aaron Mendelson, LAist, March 3, 2020

Excerpts:

Voters in Los Angeles and Orange counties are trying out something new: Vote Centers.

Instead of traditional neighborhood polling places, these centers let voters cast a ballot in-person at any location in the county -- as many as 11 days prior. Early returns show that more than 200,000 people in L.A. County have already used the new centers to cast a ballot, Mike Sanchez of the LA County Registrar-Recorder’s told me.

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The new system has its advantages, says Kim Alexander of the California Voter Foundation, a voter outreach and research nonprofit. She said there have been bumps as the new system has been rolled out, but called the vote centers “a good fail safe for a place like Los Angeles where we have millions of voters.”

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Californians Take to the Polls on Super Tuesday

By Michael Krasny, KQED, March 3, 2020

Excerpts:

For the first time since passing a 2017 law moving California's primary election date from June to March, the state's nearly 20 million registered voters are able to cast their ballots on Super Tuesday. California is one of 20 states allowing same-day voter registration where citizens can cast a provisional ballot. We'll take your voter registration and Election Day questions and we'll check in on how smoothly the voting process is going in the Bay Area.

Need to contact your county's election office with any questions, including about your polling place or voter registration status? (Full Audio)

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Big Super Tuesday prizes a study in contrasts over voting

By Geoff Mulvihill, News 12 Brooklyn, March 2, 2020

Excerpts:

The two biggest states participating in Super Tuesday represent another story aside from what happens in the Democratic primary: Voting rights.

California and Texas are the most populous states in the nation and the biggest delegate prizes on Tuesday for the presidential contestants. They also present a stark contrast in voting laws.

Deeply Democratic California has taken several steps in recent years to make it easier to register and vote, including pre-registration for teenagers, community drop-off centers for early voting and the ability to register on Election Day.

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'Zombie votes': what happens to early ballots cast for Democratic dropouts?

An estimated 4 million Californians voted before Steyer, Buttigieg and Klobuchar left the race. They won’t get a do over

By Staff, The Guardian, March 2, 2020

Excerpts:

The sudden retreat of Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg and Tom Steyer ahead of Super Tuesday has left many Californians who voted early grappling with loss – and regret.

“I was heartbroken,” said Andrea McNew, 44, who had been volunteering for the Buttigieg campaign in San Diego, California. “But I know it’s a tough road to the presidency,” she added. “So we’re working through it”.

McNew was one among an estimated 4 million Californians who mailed in their ballots before the South Carolina results were reported. Based on voting data and polling, about 800,000 Californians likely voted for Buttigieg, Klobuchar and Steyer, according to Paul Mitchell, whose campaign research firm, Political Data Inc, tracks ballots as they are returned. Although many Super Tuesday states allow early voting, California, which has the most delegates to award, has most enthusiastically encouraged it.

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Californians who already voted for Buttigieg or Steyer grapple with desire for a do-over

By John Myers, Los Angeles Times, March 1, 2020

Excerpts:

There may be plenty of second chances in life, but there are very few when it comes to voting — a bitter pill to swallow for those Californians who voted for any of the presidential candidates who dropped out before Tuesday’s statewide election.

The sudden exit from the race Sunday by Pete Buttigieg, former mayor of South Bend, Ind., sparked some brief interest on social media about the rules governing a possible revote. No doubt similar questions were raised by those who cast early absentee ballots for Tom Steyer, the billionaire climate change activist who left the race Saturday.

The answer, in a word: no. There’s no provision in California election law for a second chance once a ballot has been mailed or cast in person at a polling place or regional vote center.

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California voting changes raise concerns for 'Super Tuesday'

By Janie Har, Associated Press, February 28, 2020

Excerpts:

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Major changes to the way people vote have election advocates on edge as Californians cast ballots in a high-profile primary that was moved up from June so the country's most populous state could have a bigger say in picking the Democratic presidential nominee. 

More than 2.7 million of 20.6 million registered voters had returned ballots in early voting as of Thursday, Secretary of State Alex Padilla said. California is among several states holding elections on "Super Tuesday," and the state's 416 delegates are a rich prize for the Democrats slugging it out for the nomination.

"We're going into this election with record registration and a whole lot of energy," Padilla said in a phone briefing with reporters Thursday. 

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Goodbye Polling Place, Hello Vote Center

More California Counties Moving To Voter's Choice Model

By Chris Nichols, Capital Public Radio, February 26, 2020

Excerpts:

More counties in California are moving away from neighborhood polling precincts during the March 3 primary in favor of vote centers, an expanding election model designed to boost voter participation. 

Though fewer in number than traditional polling locations, vote centers are open up to 10 days before the election and allow anyone registered in their county to vote in-person or drop off a mail-in ballot. 

The new model was established by the Voter’s Choice Act, which was signed into law in 2016. It allows counties to opt-in to the new system and requires them to send vote-by-mail ballots to all registered voters in their county. 

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A new voting system in L.A. raises the stakes for California’s primary

By John Myers and Matt Stiles, Los Angeles Times, February 24, 2020

Excerpts:

When Los Angeles County set out to build a new voting system from scratch more than a decade ago, election officials knew the challenges in serving an electorate larger than those found in any of 39 states.

But what they didn’t know was that their efforts were on a collision course with a series of statewide election changes and the most consequential presidential primary in modern California history. Should Angelenos not understand what to do or where to go, the effects could be felt both statewide and — in terms of the Democratic presidential race — across the country. 

“There’s a lot riding on this,” said Rick Hasen, an election law professor at UC Irvine. “Any time you’re making so many changes at once, people can lose confidence in the system.”

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