Assessor-County Clerk-Recorder-Elections
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 14, 2006
Contact:
Warren Slocum
Chief Elections Officer & Assessor-County Clerk-Recorder
Phone: (650) 363-4988 Fax: (650) 363-1903 E-mail: wslocum@smcare.org
Web: www.shapethefuture.org www.smcare.org
Alternate: David Tom, Phone: 650.312.5222 E-mail: dtom@smcare.org
Slocum to Testify at Senate Hearing in Menlo Park
"Are California’s Voting Systems Accurate, Reliable & Secure?"
REDWOOD CITY, CA— Senator Debra Bowen, Chair of the Senate Elections Committee, is holding a public hearing entitled, “Are California’s Voting Systems Accurate, Reliable & Secure?” on Thursday, February 16th at 1:30 pm in the Council Chamber of the City of Menlo Park and has asked San Mateo County Chief Elections Officer Warren Slocum to publicly testify about the certification of voting equipment for the upcoming June 2006 Gubernatorial Primary. The public is welcome to attend.
The June 2006 Gubernatorial Primary is the first election where election officials in America must meet a new federal standard under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) that requires counties to acquire voting equipment that assures the rights of a person with disabilities to vote independently and in secret.
The June 2006 Gubernatorial Primary is also the first election in the State of California that requires counties to acquire HAVA compliant voting devices that have a voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) or retrofit their existing stock electronic voting devices (DREs) with a VVPAT.
The intersection of the new federal and state laws has created a bottleneck in the federal and state certification processes. Only one HAVA-compliant voting device is certified at this time. The delays are compromising the pre-election strategic planning in nearly every county in the state. As of today, elections officials in 46 of 58 counties in California do not have certified equipment to conduct the June Primary. “It’s very late in the election calendar not to own, not to have staff fully trained and not to be able to give the public the chance to become familiar with the new voting equipment,” explained Slocum. “One of the keys to holding an accurate, reliable and secure election is having sufficient time to prepare for an election.”
“Certified systems, by themselves, don’t provide accurate, reliable and secure elections,” said Slocum, “The entire process needs more safeguards—from the manufacturing of the equipment all the way through the conduct of the canvass in the 29 days following the election. Part of what I will advocate for at this hearing is a comprehensive approach to the certification process as an important step in assuring accurate, reliable and secure elections.”
“We should ‘crash test’ our voting equipment—not just rely on the laboratory environment for the testing of voting equipment,” said Slocum. “What happens when the guy who delivers the voting equipment to polling place for setup accidentally drops the equipment off the back of the truck? That wouldn’t be part of anyone’s plan, but you know that it’s happened, even if no one reported that it happened. ”
Equally important is the training of poll workers. With the introduction of electronic voting equipment, the job description of a poll worker just got more complicated. The average age of a poll worker in America is 72 years old. No one that age was raised learning how to use a computer. While many are tech-savvy, all of them will need intensive training on the new equipment. “All California counties need improved poll worker training,” explained Slocum.
“On Election Day, registrars in California represent the interests of 15.8 million California voters who care deeply that their vote was counted and counted correctly,” said Slocum.
“Given the extremely tight timeline that election officials in California have to effectively plan and conduct the upcoming June primary with all of its complexities, the best way to assure a safe, accurate and secure election is to allow counties in this certification bind a one-time option to hold the June primary as an all mail election. Legislative relief is necessary,” said Slocum.
Map of California showing the certification status by county
Warren Slocum’s testimony
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