Contact:
Warren Slocum
Chief Elections Officer & Assessor-County Clerk-Recorder
Phone: (650) 363-4988 Fax: (650) 363-1903 E-mail: wslocum@smcare.org

Aternate:
David Tom
Phone: (650) 312.5222 E-mail: dtom@smcare.org

San Mateo County Lends its Ballot Scanning Equipment to the San Francisco Elections Office

Redwood City, CA – According to San Mateo County Chief Elections Officer Warren Slocum, last spring, the San Mateo County Elections Office offered its last two pieces of the Elections Systems & Software voting system, two high speed optical scan readers known as OptTech IV-Cs, to the Elections Office in San Francisco. All other components of San Mateo County’s voting system were recycled when the county’s new system was acquired.

At the time, San Mateo County understood that while the older high speed optical scan readers were of little value to San Mateo County, it encouraged San Francisco officials to take the two scanners as a back-up in the event of an emergency or a breakdown of their equipment, which they did. In doing so, San Francisco doubled their capacity to scan paper ballots for vote tabulation.

Recently, as a result of Secretary Debra Bowen’s decertification of electronic voting machines, Santa Clara County was in the market to acquire similar high speed optical scan readers in order to accommodate the volume of paper ballots that will be used in the coming elections with the restricted use of their electronic voting system. Their estimate for such a purchase was $500,000. The City and County of San Francisco are in a similar situation and can only use paper ballots which must be centrally counted.

“The good news—the ES&S OptTech IV- C ballot scanning equipment is already certified for use in California; and, the high speed scanners were an efficient and reliable system that San Mateo County used for the past 14 years,” said Slocum. In 2006, San Mateo County replaced its voting system with the Hart InterCivic eSlate Voting System citing its superior security safeguards and accessibility features.

“County election offices work collaboratively whenever they can. John Arntz and his staff would provide assistance to San Mateo County if the shoe were on the other foot,” said Slocum. “In the end, our job is to serve the voters of California and conduct their elections. We are happy to help.”