L.A. County Elections Set National Standard

Los Angeles County elections are the envy of officials throughout the country. “Los Angeles is an extremely special case,” said Michael Shamos, an attorney and computer expert who certifies electronic vote-tabulation systems for the state of Pennsylvania. “Nobody else spends that kind of money.”

The county elections budget for the 1988-89 fiscal year is $23.5 million. The staff in the registrar-recorder’s office numbers more than 400 at all times and swells to almost 900 as a major election approaches.

The county writes its own vote-counting computer program, instead of buying or leasing from a commercial vendor, as most election jurisdictions do. The registrar of voters’ staff includes 13 computer programmers and 16 analysts.

The vote-counting system is tested extensively. Before the November, 1988, presidential election, more than 100,000 test cards were run through the machines that translate ballot-card punches into votes.

Security precautions are elaborate. No single official has the passwords to all of the key computer systems. The 10 or 12 employees who are closest to the vote-counting process watch each other like hawks.

Tight Security

Ballots are sealed in red boxes after polling places close. Then the boxes are placed in white fire-retardant, water-repellent bags when they arrive at 80 to 100 “check-in centers” around the county. Sheriff’s deputies, in patrol cars and helicopters, deliver these bags to the registrar-recorder’s office in the City of Commerce.

The bags are checked with metal detectors on arrival, and bomb-sniffing dogs patrol the building.

Some critics regard these measures as overkill, but Ralph C. Heikkila, the dour, capable assistant registrar-recorder who presides over county elections, does not agree.

“If nothing happens and we never use these things, I guess you could call it overkill,” Heikkila said, “but if we have to use them sometime, then I guess you’d call it good planning.”

Nor does Heikkila accept the notion that he is running the Rolls-Royce of American election systems.

He pointed out that Los Angeles County covers 4,083 square miles and has about 3.7 million registered voters. In November, 1988, there were 6,247 polling places, staffed by about 28,000 poll workers. More than 2.7 million voters went to the polls and another 280,000 voted by absentee ballot.

To deal with the geographical distribution of voters into separate congressional districts, state Assembly and Senate districts, special school and water districts and a host of others, 388 different versions of the ballot were used.

“What we have here (are) the basic necessities for running an election in Los Angeles County,” Heikkila said. “It’s not bells and whistles.”