Tommy Gong: SLO County Elections Office is nonpartisan — and we follow the ‘law of the land’

On May 4, the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors opted for the county to return to the traditional polling place election model: approximately 75 locations for one day of voting only on Election Day.

I was neither in favor nor against either election model (polling places versus voter service centers).

After implementing the voter service center model last November — a change required by the state in response to COVID-19 — my department and I gained the confidence that we could implement either model.

We also recognized the advantages and challenges related to both models, but both models have been proven to effectively serve voters.

In the same way, my office conducts elections in a nonpartisan, apolitical way, since our responsibility is to perform our duties as prescribed by the laws of the land.

What happens next

It should be noted that if the gubernatorial recall election takes place before the end of the year, counties still will be required to send every registered voter a ballot in the mail due to passage of Senate Bill 29, which extends the requirement to send vote-by-mail (VBM) ballots to every registered voter, with the ability to track their ballots, through 2021.

Further, Assembly Bill 37 is advancing through the Legislature to require this for all future elections. If it passes, every registered voter will be sent a ballot in the mail for both the 2022 primary and general elections.

Should AB-37 fail to pass, permanent VBM voters and those residing in All Mail Ballot precincts still will continue to be sent ballots in the mail each election.

Any voter who would like the convenience of voting by mail can check the appropriate box on their voter registration form, request to become a permanent VBM voter by completing and returning the form found under vote-by-mail on the Clerk-Recorder website (www.slovote.com), register online with the Secretary of State’s office at registertovote.ca.gov, or call my office at 805-781-5228.

The Rule of Law

After listening to hours of public comment during our presentation on voting systems and election models at the Board of Supervisors meeting, it became evident that the majority of those commenting knew little of what is required to certify a voting system in California and that laws governing election administration are largely regulated by the state Legislature, not by the Board of Supervisors or the County Election Official. Each state is governed by federal regulations and has its own set of laws related to conducting elections that can vary widely from state to state.

The public should be aware that laws related to Voter ID, permanent VBM versus absentee voting, ballot harvesting, signature verification, provisional voting, conditional voter registration (AKA same day registration) and close of registration deadlines are all regulated by the state, and concerns regarding these matters should be raised with your state representatives who can propose changes to these laws. My job as the county elections official is to conduct voter registration and election activities in accordance with established laws.

Regarding voting systems, the public should be aware that the California secretary of state performs extensive certification testing on the counties’ elections technology prior to its use. The state has developed one of the most strenuous voting systems testing and certification programs in the country. New voting systems applying for certification must undergo months of extensive testing that includes:

• Examination and testing of system software;
• Software source code review and evaluation;
• Hardware and software security penetration testing;
• Hardware testing under conditions simulating the intended storage, operation, transportation, and maintenance environments;
• Inspection and evaluation of system documentation; and
• Operational testing to validate system performance and functioning under normal and abnormal conditions.

The software used to conduct an election is delivered directly from the secretary of state into the hands of the elections official; the creator of the voting system does not have access to it between certification and county implementation.

California law requires each county to adhere to established use procedures and strict protocol established for the preparation and testing of its voting systems, including performing its own election audits prior to certifying the election results.

The voting system used in San Luis Obispo is a paper-based, optical scan ballot system.

While the voter service center in-person voting model was new for our county in November 2020, the voting system was not; it has been in use in San Luis Obispo since 2018. All five supervisorial contests have been counted by this system as well as the local Republican Party’s Central Committee contests.

The county’s previous voting system was decertified by California Secretary of State and can no longer be utilized.

The voting system is NEVER connected to the internet or county network; therefore, the use of a sanitized USB flash drive is required to save election results to be transferred and displayed on the county website or provided to the media.

Strict chain of custody procedures and ballot inventory controls are required.

The voting system is physically restricted under lock and key; only authorized personnel are allowed in the area.

There is 24/7 video surveillance of the voting system.

Access to the voting system is password-protected by each user, and all activity is logged by the voting system. Administrative passwords are only known by high-level elections officials.

Prior to counting, counties are required to perform a logic and accuracy test of the ballots and voting system to ensure votes are tabulated accurately.

After Election Day, counties are required to perform a 1% manual hand tally (audit) of the votes as part of our official canvass process, which confirms that the voting system accurately tabulated votes.

It should be reiterated that the forensic audit requested by the local Republican Party is not authorized under California law and would violate the chain of custody of the voting system. According to Election Code sections 17301 and 17302, the ballots and identification materials shall be kept by the elections official, unopened and unaltered for 22 months (federal elections) or 6 months (state and local elections) from the date of the election. A recount could have been requested up to five days after the election was certified, but that time has long since passed.

Public confidence in elections

Academicians and those who study elections unanimously agree that voters whose candidates were not elected have a mistrust in the election during each cycle.

This happens no matter what party voters are affiliated with. In a more polarized environment with fiercely contested races and a healthy dose of misinformation and disinformation, mistrust is magnified.

This was reflected in the voter survey we made available to voters from the county website. When asked how confident voters were that their votes were accurately counted and in the overall integrity of the County Elections office, 5,500 responses yielded an 8.7 score. More revealing was that Democratic Party voters rated 9.7, No Party Preference voters rated 8.5, and Republican Party voters rated 5.1, aligning to the mistrust that occurs after each major election cycle. The full results of our voter survey will be made public after the May 25 closing date.

Nevertheless, when asked what more could be done to increase voter trust, more transparent processes, increased education and outreach and behind-the-scenes videos were highly rated to provide the means to increase public confidence in elections.

Democracy and elections provide the means for the peaceful transfer of power. The integrity of a fair vote is essential and sacred to the public trust in the election process. The county must continue its robust voter education and outreach program that was established during this past election and maintain a social media presence to combat misinformation and establish the County Elections Department as the legitimate source of election information.

Currently, the elections budget does not include any funding for such programs since they are not statutorily required. If you feel that more should be done in this manner, please contact your county supervisors to encourage them to provide the additional support to the Elections Department for these purposes.

Election for the ages

On May 4, many commenters failed to acknowledge the tremendous effort my staff made to successfully conduct the November General Election during a pandemic crisis in the most politically divisive landscape. It was a herculean task to accommodate all the changes required by the governor’s executive orders which the state Legislature approved and made legal by codifying them.

Those included sending every registered voter a ballot in the mail; converting to a four-day voter service center operation; revamping election worker hiring and training; distributing PPE supplies and equipment; and implementing an extensive voter education and outreach program to inform the public about the changes.

Changes of this magnitude would normally be planned over a couple of years, but staff had five months to pivot with procuring, programming, delivering, installing and supporting equipment over the four days of voting. Many thanks go to our Information Technology Department for supporting my small team with the planning, preparation and deployment of the voter service center technology.

We were also challenged with unofficial VBM drop boxes (i.e. ballot harvesting), electioneering at some of the county’s official VBM drop boxes, and a MAGA vehicle rally that circled the elections office (which serves as a voting location) and blocked the entrance to the Octagon Barn voter service center during one of the four days of voting. To this end, I express my deepest gratitude to the Sheriff’s Office and seven city Police Departments for their assistance during this tense election period.

County election staff and election workers performed admirably in serving voters. What resulted was the largest election this county has ever seen.

Yes, all of the counties in the state saw unprecedented levels of voter registration and turnout due to a fiercely contested presidential race and an increasingly polarized electorate, but for San Luis Obispo County to leapfrog from 12th to 4th place in voter turnout is evidence the county was doing something more! What drove this increased voter participation? I attribute this to the extensive voter education and outreach efforts my office implemented to inform voters of the changes to the election and to simply remind voters to register and vote.

I do recognize there were also numerous public comments made on May 4 in support of the department. The next morning after the marathon board meeting, my office was inundated with phone calls, email messages, and personal notes from many members of the pubic expressing their appreciation for my office and recognizing the hard work performed last November. My staff and I are truly moved by these gestures.

We may never see another election like this in our lifetime, but it was one for the history books and we are proud to have been a part of it.

Tommy Gong has served as San Luis Obispo County’s elected Clerk-Recorder since 2015.