The Office of Los Angeles County Registrar Recorder/County Clerk, has been giving the public updates on Los Angeles County’s new voting system. Paramount residents will experience the changes.
The new “voting center” system isn’t unique to LA, of course. And it has critics. But these are the basics.
There will be 250 voting centers throughout Los Angeles County for 10 days before the next election and up to 1,000 during the last four days.
Coting centers come in three sizes: large, medium and small. Every city in LA County will have at least one voting center. (Population will have a lot to do with it.) Even the city of Avalon, located about 22 miles off the coast, will have a voting center.
Basically, the system is going to be mostly electronic. The paper roster at traditional polling places, for example, will be replaced with a paper roster on a device similar to an iPad. Officials say this will allow conditional registration on Election Day.
This system will allow voters to cast ballots everywhere they wish, eliminating the need (and rendering inneffective) the paper system.
The system will print out paper records.
The system won’t be connected to the internet, which county officials maintain will eliminate the risk of hacking.
The Registrar’s Office has its own wireless connection. All they need, he said, is the infrastructure for a wireless connection.
Paper mail ballots are not going to go away. They, too, have changed: voters can mark them directly, and a postage stamp will no longer be required.
Voters can get an electronic sample ballot that could be put on their mobile phone.
Under the new voting center system, registered voters would be able to vote for 10 days prior to an election, as well as on Election Day.
For more information, visit www.lavote.net/home/voting-elections.
