County upgrades voting technology

Some of the equipment Dominion Voting Systems sells. This image is from Dominion's website.

San Mateo County will have new voting technology for the fall elections.

The county Board of Supervisors approved a $5.8 million contract Tuesday (July 9) with Dominion Voting Systems for the system.

Each voting center will have multiple voting stations that include a touch-screen tablet and a printer. Instead of the tablet storing voters’ selections electronically, voters will individually print their ballot inside of their booth that they will turn in to a ballot box.

The new voting system is not connected to the Internet at any time. Voting stations will also be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

According to the county, this is the first update to its voting technology since 2006.

“This system will provide voters with a faster, more intuitive, more accessible voting experience,” said Mark Church, chief elections officer and assessor-county clerk-recorder.

San Mateo County currently has more than 400,000 registered voters. That number is expected to increase over the next year in anticipation of the March presidential primary and the

4 Comments

  1. The tragedy of these proprietary voting systems is well documented as they are easily ” hacked ” and fodder for the nation states. Libraries of information direct us away from further entanglement , yet Church and the SMC Supes ignore the science against the direction of the experts. It is very sad to see this contract move forward to the detriment of the national security. Supervisor Slocum has a direct conflict of interest as he is on the board of a Microsoft funded group- Verified Voting. Someone should investigate this errant business deal .

  2. Why isn’t the county going with a vendor who uses open source technology. We have the right to know whether a yes vote is recorded as a yes vote, and the only way you can know that is if the code is open source.

    • The voting systems must be certified by the Secretary of State, and the only open source voting system certified for use in CA is the VSAP system developed by Los Angeles County, and they don’t sell voting systems to other counties.

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