300 Million Dollar Debacle: The Los Angeles Electronic Voting Debut

By: Doug Ecks, Esq and Katherine McNenny

LA county switched from paper ballots to an electronic voting machines, the much vaunted $300,000,000 program.[1] Three hundred million dollars that could have put every homeless person, approximately 50,000 people in LA county in a $100 dollar hotel room for fifty nights. So what did the county get for this high price tag switch? If you guessed not much you were right. If you guessed a complete and utter debacle at the debut of these machines you would be right on the money. And pursuant to a public records request, here are some experiences from the poll workers, the boots on the ground directly dealing with trying to help masses of people vote with uncooperative machines, insufficient training for the problems they faced, hugely understaffed tech support and hordes of frustrated unhappy voters.[2]

On Mar 23 2020 I requested any reports that compiled how many epollbooks malfunctioned or how many electronic voting machines were out of service. I didn’t receive that information. I did receive a response to the other half of my request asking for “any internal emails or reports from volunteer or paid pollworkers who were on sites that experienced problems.” My request for info regarding contingency plans that were in place or after action reports also produced no additional documents.