Election security goes ‘beyond minimum requirements,’ grand jury finds
With the election a month away, it is fitting that the latest Yolo County Grand Jury report praised local election security efforts.
The report, released last week, stresses the importance of ensuring the integrity and security of the election process. This is essential to a functioning democracy, the report indicates.
The Elections Office, which is facing unprecedented challenges in a coronavirus-era election, was able to withstand the grand jury’s scrutiny.
“The grand jury found that the quality, security, and transparency of work performed by the Yolo Elections Office met the requirements of California Elections codes,” the report states. “Furthermore, the Yolo Elections Office ensured that the public had many opportunities to observe the election process in action by advertising those opportunities by way of multiple platforms.”
In their investigation, the grand jury examined four general categories of election security:
• the physical security of the ballot, which includes the chain of custody from the polling place or post office to the central count location, through tabulation, and then to archive;
• the software security of the vendor programs used in election machines for voting, scanning ballots, and tabulation;
• cybersecurity actions to prevent infiltration into the county system and cybersecurity training for employees;
• emergency and contingency planning that prepares election staff with specific emergency responses to ensure voting is not disrupted.
“The office went beyond minimum requirements to increase voting opportunities for Vote by Mail drop-offs and same day voter registration,” the report continues. “The grand jury also found that the Yolo Elections staff interfaced and trained with a variety of local, state, and federal election and security entities and organizations to improve County election security and cybersecurity.”
Prior to each election, a county must submit an Elections Emergency Response plan to the Secretary of State’s Office. The grand jury found that the plan submitted by the Yolo Elections Office for the March 2020 Presidential Primary election was a mix of specific actions and generic statements.
Also, the plan did not include important emergency procedures that the Yolo Elections Office had already put in place. The grand jury could find no disaster contingency planning in either a Yolo County manual or
an election emergency plan that accounted for a potential county-wide disruption of the election process.
Based on these findings, the grand jury developed three recommendations:
• the Yolo Elections Response plan should describe what contingency planning the office has in place and what employees will do, as opposed to the generic instructions in the current plan;
• the Yolo Elections Response plan should include county-wide natural disaster contingencies to combat election disruption leading up to, and through to Election Day; Election Security in Yolo County 2019-2020 Yolo County Grand Jury 75 and
• Yolo County should include disaster contingency planning for a county-wide disruption of the election process in an existing county emergency document that is accessible to the public online.
On March 19, 2020 Governor Gavin Newsom issued Executive Order N-33-20, a statewide “stay home” order, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This investigation, the data gathered, and recommendations generated from it occurred prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing orders.