BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET)– Kern County’s elections department presented its plan for the 2024 election cycle. One controversy, livestreaming voters using remote ballot boxes.
The elections office claims it violates voter privacy, but some argue it would increase voters’ trust in the system.
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Charles Shinn of the group called ‘Concerned Citizens’ shows up to the supervisor’s meeting just about every week to comment on our election process. And he’s not the only one, four to 6 people show up each week to talk about this topic.
Auditor-controller-county clerk Aimee Espinoza gave her presentation on our election cycle so far, and ended with the drop box argument.
Mail-in ballot voters can drop their ballots at any of 20 drop boxes in kern county, 7 in Bakersfield alone, and the rest in other Kern cities. Shinn says that live cameras at these boxes will increase the integrity of the election because observers can be sure there is no unauthorized access, Espinoza says this will impact voter privacy.
“As registrar of voters, I am concerned with voter privacy that is huge in my decision, looking at the cost of it, is not something I’m willing to support with tax payer money,” said Espinoza.
Shinn disagreed with Espinoza’s decision, “Who knows how much money it really costs, I think if they get the live feed in the elections department I think it could be easily captured and recorded.”
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He also responded in terms of voter privacy, “I think everybody that’s going to vote in a public space has no privacy expectations.”
The existing setup, where cameras live stream the drop boxes in the elections office will still be in place.
Espinoza’s presentation also included expecting a 70-80% voter turnout in November and officially canceled over 34,000 inactive voters from the voter roll.