Los Angeles County is joining several other California counties in upgrading its voting technology with its Voting Solutions for All People project. The last voter technology upgrade across California was 2002.
The program, now in its second phase, “seeks to implement a new voter experience in 2020,” said a press release this week that announced the release of an RFP.
This is one of several projects the office is using to streamline government services.
Dean Logan, the county’s registrar-recorder/county clerk, released the RFP in an effort to find a pre-qualified vendor for the development and implementation of a new voting system.
“This is a significant milestone in our initiative to offer a voting experience that is responsive to the needs and behaviors of our electorate,” Logan told Techwire in an email from the office’s spokeswoman Brenda Duran. “It is incumbent upon on us to implement systems that have the flexibility and agility to respond to changes in the regulatory environment as well as technology advances and behavioral changes that may impact the elections process in the future.”
Vendors were pre-qualified in November during the first phase of the project. Vendors who were qualified in Phase 1 are the only respondents who will be considered in Phase 2.
The project is an attempt to create a user-centered design for voting, creating a system that “focuses on the needs and preferences of the voters themselves — and, that is publicly owned and operated,” the press release reads.
“The RR/CC will begin a phased-implementation this year with a new Vote by Mail experience as it continues to develop the technologies for the new Vote Center experience which will be implemented in 2020,” Duran wrote to Techwire.
The RFP closes at 2 p.m. March 2.
