The upcoming June 7th primary in California has increased attention to how Angelenos will vote in an election where over a third of registered voters are not registered with any political party. Following widespread voter disenfranchisement in other states during this primary, how can voters in Los Angeles County know that they will be able to vote for their preferred candidates? I sat down with Dean Logan, the Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk for L.A. County, and discussed the ways we vote, what he is anticipating in this primary, and what concerned voters can do.
Working For Voter ConfidenceWe have 4.9 million registered voters in Los Angeles County, largest local elections jurisdiction in the country. And, you know, elections by their nature are public process and rely on grassroots support through through poll workers, community locations to host the polling places on Election Day, all of those things. So I think we've been on a good path towards voter education and outreach and also preparing to migrate to hopefully more modernized voting system. But that's also been during a period of regulatory instability, both at the state and federal level, and a period of economic issues that meant there weren't the resources available necessarily to fund the elections process.
So, sadly, we work in an environment where, when there's a crisis is when the resources are made available to address the issue. I mean that's the history with elections if you go back to 2000 and the Bush v. Gore election, that the reaction was for Congress to appropriate a lot of money to replace punch card voting systems. That happened relatively fast around the country for legitimate and well-intentioned reasons. That money was spent relatively quickly on new equipment that now we can look back on and say, it wasn't necessarily ready for prime time wasn't designed with the voter in mind, it was designed with a market interest and kind of a quick shift in time to try and address what happened in the 2000 election.
And I think, in retrospect, what we know is that the current system was a symptom to what happened in 2000, but it wasn't the entire issue. So I think the last eight to ten years have really been about really looking at the elections process to identify who does it serve, what are the resources available to address those concerns going forward, and how do we can achieve a level of stability as elections administrators in a time where the process, the nuts and bolts of how elections are run, have become part and parcel to the partisan campaigning process? People have learned how to use questioning the election administration process as a way to question the outcome of an election. It's just a new world.
How We Vote in LA and Why
Here in L.A., to start with, we still vote on a voting system that essentially was first rolled out in 1968 in the presidential election that year when punch card voting was first introduced here in L.A. county. Now that system's been modified over the years, after the Bush v. Gore was modified to an optical scan system but as far as the voter experience, when the voter walks into a polling place, they still use a vote recorder device that was designed for for the punch card, but instead of punching holes through the ballot, they're using an inking device that fills in that bubble with ink. Those ballots all come back here to our headquarters centrally, and are tabulated here.
There have also been the addition of a precinct ballot reader that allows for the voter to have their ballot scanned at the polling place to alert them if it's blank, if it didn't come through, or if they over-voted on a particular contest, to give them the opportunity to correct that before they leave the polling place. And, the addition of an audio ballot booth to provide for accessible voting options for voters with disabilities to vote independently and without the assistance of another person.
But as you point out, I think we're one of two jurisdictions in the country that use a system of this nature, and part of the reason for that is because of our size and complexity, that there really has been since 2000 and 2004 the market of voting systems has shrunk in the country -- it hasn't got larger it's actually shrunk -- there's been public concern about the integrity of the equipment that's used for voting, especially voting systems that were introduced the did not have a paper audit-able ballot, and our system does have that. And, we also are required in L.A. County to provide our voting materials in nine different languages other than English, under the Voting Rights Act, very few jurisdictions have that issue.
The advantage of our current system, which is a pretty solid system and it's served us well in terms of accuracy and productivity. The advantage of it is, it's a small-form ballot, you can get three million ballots back here to our headquarters and count them on election night and have election results to report, which of course is important to the electorate, to the media, and to the candidates. The disadvantages or concerns are, that: it's dated technology, the hardware that's used isn't made anymore; it's been retrofitted. It's not particularly intuitive, from an interactive standpoint. If you're a vote-by-mail voter, you're having to look at a guide and then fill in the corresponding number. There are new, more modern ways to do that, that are much more intuitive.
So, those are the issues we've been working towards, this is what we want, to be sure. And fortunately, we're one of the few jurisdictions in the country where we still have some of that federal money available, and we want to be sure though that when we invest that money that we invest in a system that does offer a better voting experience. And that has the ability, as other systems do today, to adapt and change with regulatory changes as well as voter behavior changes.
So instead of locking us into a system that, if there's a law changed two years from now that we have to scrap it and start all over we want to be sure that we have the ability to adapt, so that's what we've been working toward.
How Many Will Be Voting In The Primary
This primary is unique in a lot of respects. I mean, I've been working in election administration for 25-plus years, and this is a whole new primary cycle. And it's bringing in a lot of new people into the process, so that's a good thing. Hopefully, they'll actually show up and vote. Typically, in primaries, in LA county, we have remarkably low turnout. So, in non-competitive presidential years, it can be as low as twenty-some per cent, in higher active years, still only around 51 percent, I think.
This may be an exception to that. I think predicting turnout is sort of like looking into a crystal ball, so I'm hesitant to give a specific number, because then people ask, well, how did you come up with that? And if you didn't meet it, where did those ballots go? And so, I don't make specific turnout predictions, I'll leave that to the people who are doing polling and all of that. I will say that all indications of the activity leading up to this election indicate that we're gonna see higher than usual turnout, and quite possibly record turnout for a primary. Now again, as we get closer to the election, the dynamics of the presidential contest with the nominees has changed, so that may have a dampening effect on what we saw a surge in turnout.
But, that said, even since the Indiana primary we continue to see voter registration activity going up, and continue to see a lot of vote by mail activity, so I still feel pretty confident that we're going to have higher than usual turn out.
Vote-By-Mail Voters (VBM)
I think the most important thing for people to know about Vote-By-Mail is that that the voter has the most capacity to ensure the security of their ballot. And a lot of that comes to how the voter deals with their ballot. So we have about a third of the voters in L.A. county who are permanent Vote-By-Mail voters. Typically, about a third of the turnout in any given election is by mail. So what I mean by that is, that the voter decides how they're going to return that ballot. Whether they're going to send it in the mail, or drop it off at a polling place, or they're going to give it to a family member to drop off. And we always hear stories about, you know, the speculation that there are people out there canvassing, picking up the ballots and all that.
I always like to remind people that, there are only two places to put a voted ballot in, a mailbox or a ballot box. And voters should know their rights and responsibilities in that process. Now, the validation of the Vote-By-Mail ballot--just like at the polling place where you sign a roster attesting to your qualifications to be a voter--on a vote-by-mail ballot, you sign an affidavit on the outside of that envelope. The signature on that envelope is checked, is compared to the signature on your voter registration record before that ballot is processed. And that's all done in a transparent manner, people can come here and observe that process. So it really is a convenient and secure way to vote that works for a lot of others. It's not the solution for every voter. But it certainly helps a good percentage of our voters.
No Party Preference Voters (NPP)
Interestingly the fastest growing party selection on registration is voters who are choosing not to make a party selection.
This is actually one of the reasons why presidential primaries are the most complex elections that we administer in California, because they have a whole different set of rules since we've moved to the top-two primary system for our state primaries. For new voters, they've never experienced this before, in this primary, for the presidential contest, your ballot is going to be determined by how you register to vote and which party you selected.
So, voters who did not select a party, the No Party Preference voters, won't see the presidential contest on their ballot. At the next level, though, the parties have different rules, so the Republican Party, for instance, as well as the Green Party and the Peace and Freedom Parties have what's called a closed primary, which means they do not allow anyone to vote for their presidential candidates other than voters registered with their party.
Contrast that to the Democratic, American Independent, and Libertarian Party, who have a modified open primary that allows for No Party Preference voters to cross over and participate in their primary. But the voter has to affirmatively request that and indicate that they are requesting to vote in that primary.
So, what that looks like for voters, to Vote-By-Mail voters, we sent you a postcard back in March giving you those parameters and said if you wont to crossover, let us know. We understand that's in a pile of mail and in March you're probably not thinking about voting in June. So if you've received a No Party Preference ballot in the mail and you want to cross over for one of those parties, you can still do that, you can contact us, make any requests to declare which party you want. Or, you can go to your polling place on Election Day, surrender that vote-by-mail ballot, and cross over.
If you're a poll voter on Election Day, when you go into sign that roster, the poll workers are instructed, when they see that you're a No Party Preference voter, to go over the choices with you and allow you the choice of which ballot you want.
California's Primary System
The best way to explain that is that the June 7 election is really two elections in one--it's a presidential primary and for the presidential contest, you're voting a ballot that is party-specific. The rest of the ballot, though, because California adopted what's referred to as the Top-Two Primary System, means that voters get all of the candidates on the ballot and the results of the primary will narrow that down to two candidates per contest that will appear on the November ballot. So again, at the top of your ballot, you're gonna see a single party contest for president, but then when you go to the next page for U.S. Senate you're gonna see candidates of all of the parties and you can jump around at your discretion to the rest of the ballot, and then the top two vote-getters, regardless of party--so you could have aa contest where there are two Democrats who proceeded to the general election or two Republicans that proceeded to the general election, depending on the demographics or the political culture of a particular district. It does make this particular primary every four years rather complex.
If Voters Have Concerns
I think our philosophy here in L.A. County is sort of, to steal the line of TSA and say, if you see something, say something. So if you have a question, first and foremost, if you have a question, it is confusing and people don't vote everyday. So don't be shy about asking questions. We have a number of resources on our website (LAvote.net) we have a 1-800 number for voters (1-800- 815-2666). That's what we're here for, is to ensure that voters have a good experience.
On Election Day, same thing, if you're seeing something that seems out of place, has question, let us know that. Oftentimes, the earlier we know about something, the better we can address it, and the better we can explain it. I think we live in an age of social media and because of the politicizing of the elections process I think there is a tendency to, you know, quickly post something on Twitter or Facebook--which is fine, I mean that's certainly appropriate, there's value in that. But take that extra step to let us know, too, because we can, in most cases, address that. And if there is something, we can at least, squelch it early in the process, before it becomes a bigger issue.
See how others are fighting for fair elections at SaveOurElections.org.