Kern County will keep voting equipment — for now

Some Kern County residents are probably disappointed with the latest action by the Kern County Board of Supervisors. On Tuesday, they unanimously approved a contract amendment to continue using the Dominion Voting Systems election equipment for 2022.

Republicans have repeatedly mentioned the equipment in claims regarding the validity of the 2020 election. Those claims have been cited — and repeatedly refuted.

It’s been nearly two years since the election and we are still hearing about how it was “stolen” or “fraudulent.”

Unfortunately, we’ll probably still be hearing about it until the results of the next presidential election.

However, when it comes to the equipment in Kern County, it seems there should be no question about the safety of counting votes.

The equipment has been used in elections since 2016, when it was first purchased. Further, Dominion is one of three election equipment companies certified by the state to conduct elections in California. While it’s not out of the realm of possibility to switch to one of the other companies in the future, for now, it’s too late to do so, since the primary election is in June.

One Kern County resident went as far as to suggest that the ballots be hand-counted. Considering there are 435,427 registered voters in the county, that would be a foolish undertaking, to say the least. There’s absolutely no way that hand-counting could be done in time to certify an election.

One woman said, during the Board meeting, that the election system is corrupt and the machines could not be trusted.

We wonder if her candidate had won the election, if she’d feel the same.

Since the equipment has been used since 2016, why weren’t voters crying foul back then, too?