The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/Clerk’s Office unveiled a massive new ballot processing center on Tuesday that will allow it to count ballots from the county’s 5.69 million registered voters in a single secure location.
The 144,000-square-foot warehouse, located in the City of Industry, aims to enhance election integrity by eliminating the need to transport ballots to multiple sites and allowing the public to observe all steps of the counting process.
While public officials gathered for a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Tuesday morning, the facility was already quietly humming with activity as election workers transported, tallied and verified the signatures of vote-by-mail ballots returned for the March 5 primary election.
“This ceremony signifies more than just the unveiling of a facility, it marks the commitment of Los Angeles County to uphold democracy through precision and transparency in vote processing,” said Dean Logan L.A. County Registrar-Recorder/Clerk.
When the county initially launched a dramatic expansion of its vote-by-mail program during the pandemic, ballots were processed at the Pomona County fairgrounds, counted at the County Clerk’s Downey office and then stored at the clerk’s election operations center in Santa Fe Springs, said Logan.
“Those activities are now all consolidated here, so you can actually see, from beginning to end, the processing of the ballots,” said Logan. “I think that is a bold and important thing.”
Members of the public can observe the count in person or on five different livestreamed cameras located throughout the center during regular operating hours, which are 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. These hours will be extended in the runup to the March 5 Primary Election and more information on schedules can be found at lavote.gov.
“It is so important to the integrity of our voting process that we have the ability, the leadership, the institutional commitment and the funding to make…
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