Cost of Speeding Vote Count at Least $5 Million, Board Told

Upgrading Los Angeles County’s outdated vote-counting equipment to avoid the kind of failures that slowed election results last week could cost $5 million to $6 million.

But it could cost approximately $50 million to completely replace the county’s centralized vote tabulation equipment with a state-of-the-art system that counts ballots at the precincts, Registrar-Recorder Conny McCormack told the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.

McCormack said the county’s 1970s-vintage system is deteriorating and she cannot solve the election night problems without more money.

The final outcome of the district attorney’s race, a legislative contest and the fate of several ballot measures await a count of remaining absentee and provisional ballots, which still must be verified. That process could take another week, McCormack said.

McCormack suggested that legislation may be needed to curb the growing tendency of voters to cast absentee ballots that are dropped off at precincts on election day. The signature on each one of those ballots must be checked against the original voter registration. The equipment used to verify the signatures is inadequate, she said. “It’s just about ready to completely die on us.”