SMC hosts electronic voting center on Super Tuesday
A voter waits in line to be checked in at the Voting Center at Santa Monica College, in Santa Monica, California, on Tuesday, March 3rd 2020. (Marco Pallotti / The Corsair)
On Tuesday, March 3, voters in Santa Monica waited approximately two and a half hours outside Santa Monica College’s (SMC) poll center, hosted in the SMC Foundation building. Patrons stepped outside of line to sneak a look inside the voting center: a meek, half empty room, with only four volunteer workers attending to the masses, and stepped back in line.
“I’ve never seen a line this long,” said Jarred Lawrence, Santa Monica resident. “Trump’s done this to everybody, he kind of has everybody coming out of the woodwork to vote.”
This is the first election cycle in which SMC acts as a voting center. They are using the recently implemented ballot redesign for Los Angeles County. Poll center volunteers walked up and down the line, telling people how they can get their votes in quick: Cast a sample ballot using Interactive Sample Ballot on their smart device, generate a poll pass, which is a QR code that records your vote, and cast the vote at any booth.
A voter studies her ballot at the Voting Center at Santa Monica College, in Santa Monica, California, on Tuesday, March 3rd 2020. (Marco Pallotti / The Corsair )
“I think it's very convenient for a lot of SMC students because a lot of us work or have different classes,” said Tara Aiache, SMC Public Health major. “I feel that because it's so close, everybody can go. It's so accessible.”
David Citrin, a first-year SMC student, had seen a sign on campus that led him to go to the voting center.
When asked how the experience was, Citrin shared, “It definitely wasn’t enjoyable. I probably waited about an hour to get in. It’s very clogged… it seems a little inefficient to me… It was more a problem of being understaffed.”
The new system, called Voting Solutions for All People, is a result of SB 450, which swapped neighborhood polling places for multi-purpose centers, each one equipped with smart devices to look up each individual and large booths to electronically cast votes. In addition to electronic votes, poll center volunteers collected mail-in ballots.
“The bigger concern is whether when you do things electronically… somehow, some way, people can manipulate it,” said Lawrence. “The idea that somebody can get into, or maybe will electronically get into the voting booth concerns me. I think they should go old school... write down your vote… [drop] in the ballot box.”
“I like it in fact better the idea that you can vote in many places rather than before it was just one place” said Santa Monica resident and retired orthodontist Joseph Foroosh. “It was crowded and it had its own difficulties. Now, I think there’s much more convenience [and] people are going to be encouraged.”
The ballot consisted of 21 Democratic candidates, including frontrunners Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders, and candidates who recently dropped out of the race, such as Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar. Due to early voting, many have already casted their votes for recent drop-out candidates. However, once an individual sends in their vote, it becomes final.
“I don’t know what happens [to the votes]. I don’t know if it transfers to that person or they just discount those votes,” said Santa Monica resident Iraj Borbor.
California participates in Super Tuesday for the first time since the 2008 election as the most populous state out of 14, with 415 delegates up for grabs.
Chrissa Loukas and Paris Wise contributed to this report.