Kern supervisors approve three more years with Dominion voting machines

Rage against the (voting) machines

Dominion has come under fire since the 2020 presidential election, when then-President Donald Trump claimed the election had been rigged. Criticisms were volleyed again last fall, with the midterm elections in November, despite claims made against their machines being unfounded. Kern has used Dominion machines since 2016.

“A large majority of the public no longer trusts the election process,” said Taft resident Karen Boyd. “Continued use of these systems is discouraging our citizens from voting and is discouraging trust in their elected officials.”

In an emailed statement sent Sunday, Vince Maiocco, president of the Taft Republican Assembly, told recipients to “pack the supervisor chamber” in a protest of the contract extension.

“We must show up in overwhelming numbers to OPPOSE renewing this contract with Dominion Voting Systems and to return to hand-counting the ballots,” Maiocco wrote in the email.

Residents against the contract made a litany of complaints, asking the board to “slow down” on the vote and insisted the election results, and the Dominion voting machines, were a part of a broad conspiracy to control elections, based on what they said were assurances from government employees, software technicians and industry experts who swore to them, either in a prior meeting or on a specific website.

“My credible inside sources are telling me that Dominion is very close to filing for bankruptcy,” Maiocco said.

Others urged the board to “acknowledge facts” that election denialism undermines the entire process and asked for people to focus on productive fixes, such as addressing staffing shortages, presented by Auditor-Contoller-Registrar of Voters Aimee Espinoza.

“I’ve been watching (meetings) these last few weeks and I’ve been dismayed by the accusations and misconduct, yelling out about mismanagement towards our elections department,” said Kathy Romley, a local resident. “There seems to be no proof or, at least I have not seen any offered, of voting being mishandled or processed.”

The county’s presentation

Supervisors approved the machines after hearing a presentation by Espinoza, who flatly said she found no evidence of fraud within Kern elections or with Dominion Voting Systems.

The decision about the machines was originally set for Dec. 14, but was postponed twice due to the ongoing recount of the midterm election’s Senate District 16 race between David Shepherd and Melissa Hurtado, and later at the request of District 1 Supervisor Phillip Peters. The recount, posted Jan. 17 resulted in a change of one vote.

Originally asking for a one-year contract, Espinoza extended it to three years so it would give her staff time to prepare for upcoming 2024 elections, which begin for her staff in August. She also plans to hold a mock election, stating it will be a good practice run for some of her newer staff members, and to see how they can improve their efficiency.

“It allows my staff to go through an election cycle to learn more, review processes, and have a little bit more experience under their belt,” Espinoza said.

She noted some facts, all based on Kern Election data: 72 percent of Kern registered voters used vote-by-mail, a process that has been used in California since 1980. And the number of registered voters in Kern County has grown in recent years, from 399,036 voters in March 2020 to 435,969 in 2022.

Pierson Jiu, the county’s deputy chief information technology officer, sought to dispel misinformation around the system and explained that it is run on a closed-circuit network.

“That’s to say, it is not connected to the internet and it does not contain modems or hardware that can be remotely activated,” Jiu said. “No electronic data is possible from an external device, whether by a wired connection or a wireless connection.”

Tabulators like the ones provided by Dominion optically scan and count votes on paper ballots and are widely accepted as being more accurate and less labor-intensive than hand-counting ballots. The machines currently are used in 90 percent of all U.S. voting jurisdictions, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Election and Science Lab.

Espinoza then made some suggestions. She recommended that her department re-do the county’s election website, add surveillance cameras to drop boxes, start live-streaming the ballot canvassing process, and hold more meetings with voters and students, to educate people on how elections work. She also suggested she be allowed to hire more people, citing the office’s eight vacancies and a need for an assistant Registrar of Voters.

“I really do believe in transparency and providing people with as much information as we can,” Espinoza said. “For a county of our size, and also to position us as we continue to grow, we really need to be modeling ourselves after larger counties.”

Both presentations were met with skepticism from the audience.

“This is a bad investment,” said resident Gary Simmons. “We have time to put it under referral and review the expense ... this system could be compromised with my telephone right now.”

Claims were punctuated by laughter and groans, eye rolls and snickers. Supervisors repeatedly stopped presentations to quiet the audience members.

“I’d personally like to thank Ms. Espinoza for that hi-tech snooze session,” said resident Ralph Robles.

Chairman and District 3 Supervisor Jeff Flores pointed out that the county should take initiative in cleaning its voter rolls, expunging the names of people who have died or moved from their voter rolls. Normally this is a state task, but recent laws have empowered counties to clean up their voter rolls.

“There’s too many excess ballots,” Flores said. “And I don’t have a lot of confidence in the state in cleaning them up for us.”

Residents in attendance at this county meeting and past ones have repeatedly claimed the machines are compromised and the integrity of Kern elections is in danger, indicative of a breach in trust between local government and its people. They brought up articles they believed demonstrated evidence, including a report by University of Michigan computer scientist J. Alex Halderman who said that the computers are “inherently” vulnerable to hacking.

“I wish we could have some modicum of trust with one another,” said resident Nayree Davis. “Because the knot is broken.”

In several reports, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency has said there is no evidence the flaws in the Dominion Voting Systems’ equipment have been exploited to alter election results. Jiu explained there are “many existing safeguards” to protect the machines and there were “no signs” of breaches or altered results in audits of the past five elections.

What about a hand count?

Residents also told supervisors that the machines can easily be hacked to rig results in favor of a certain candidate and should be replaced with a hand count.

Espinoza made it clear at the meeting that the election process is not perfect, but it is far more accurate than a hand count. It is also required by state law, and no California county solely uses a hand count of ballots. California election code and federal regulations don’t allow for using only paper ballots or eliminating vote-by-mail and drop boxes.

Espinoza estimated that a hand count alone in the 2022 midterm would have taken 103,857 hours and 920 temporary staff members working six days a week with a price tag of nearly $1.9 million to complete it within the required 20 days.

“And that doesn’t include the time for signature verification, it does not include the time for sorting, for extracting, any reconciliations or the reporting that we would have to do,” Espinoza said. “How do I, as the registrar of voters, certify results that I would not have confidence in?”

District 2 Supervisor Zack Scrivner agreed that counting by hand was “extremely problematic.”

“I have been receiving information on this subject for what seems like about a year,” Scrivner said. “I think Ms. Espinoza has presented a very thorough presentation outlining her plans to improve things at the elections office.”

And though Peters and District 4 Supervisor David Couch voted against the resolution, each board member thanked staff for the presentations and acknowledged that the elections office has done a “good job” and deserves attention to its needs in future elections.

“(Espinoza) came back to us with not only the legal context but with the state versus the county, but what I really appreciate is your organizational improvements and you talked about a lot, and we need a lot,” Flores said. “From a critical standpoint, we need work, we need improvement, we can do better, without sacrificing accuracy.”