Silicon Valley’s election office last in state to report complete results
Santa Clara County, where Silicon Valley churns out electronic marvels, was the last of California’s 58 counties to report complete Election Day results from this week’s primary.
By midmorning Wednesday, Santa Clara County was the only one listed by the Secretary of State with incomplete results from polling precincts — they were 87.9 percent complete, and not fully reported until midday.
The Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters office blamed outdated equipment.
“We have an old voting system that dates back to 2003,” Eric Kurhi, spokesman for the registrar’s office, said in a statement. “This system has resulted in late returns in the past and we expected late returns. The system is now two years older than it was in the last big election and was more sluggish.”
Kurhi added that the county uses a “central tabulation location that requires all ballots to be brought to the Registrar of Voters Office” while “other counties have systems where tallying can be done remotely.”
The registrar needed breaks to service the mechanical systems, and the computer server needed to be rebooted occasionally during the course of counting, Kurhi said. And the registrar also instituted a new process this year that added time to the initial ballot processing but is expected to make any recounts go faster.
“However, this was not the most significant factor in the delay,” Kurhi said. “The brunt of blame lies with the outdated system.”
Sharon Sweeney, who served for more than six years on the county’s elections commission and also as a polling place volunteer, wasn’t buying it.
“That’s their excuse all the time,” Sweeney said. “Using that same old excuse is getting old. It just can’t always be the equipment.”
The county registrar’s office has had a history of gaffes over the years under various leadership, and has been repeatedly criti- cized for tardy results. This year saw a handful of voters dropped from the active voter rolls by staff errors as part of an effort to remove duplicate registration.
Other elections offices have had their issues during this election as well. In Los Angeles County, the names of 118,522 voters, including “Happy Days” star Henry Winkler, were left off the roster of registered voters because of a printing error.
Sweeney said that Santa Clara County did other things well this election, including better poll worker training and said “they’re doing the best they can under the circumstances.”
The good news, Kurhi said, is that the registrar expects to have a new statecertified voting system up and running for the 2020 elections.