The person holding the keys to Los Angeles County’s vote rely has spent a lot of his profession navigating election controversy.
Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan, whose compensation totals practically $450,000 a yr, is as soon as once more going through scrutiny as a whole lot of hundreds of ballots stay uncounted and a number of other main races cling within the steadiness
All through his profession in election administration, Logan has confronted scrutiny and criticism stemming from a number of high-profile election disputes in a number of states.
Earlier than arriving in California, Logan served as elections director for King County, Washington, overseeing elections for roughly one-third of the state’s voters.
His tenure turned carefully related to Washington state’s fiercely contested 2004 governor’s race.
Republican candidate Dino Rossi initially appeared headed for victory.
However after a sequence of recounts, Democrat Christine Gregoire was licensed as governor-elect, regardless of trailing in two machine tabulations. Gregoire finally prevailed in an unprecedented hand recount of practically 2.9 million ballots, profitable the race by simply 129 votes.
The race triggered statewide litigation, a number of investigations and months of political debate.
Though courts finally upheld the election outcomes, the recount battle prompted years of criticism from some Republicans and repeated requires Logan’s resignation.
In a 2008 profile, the Los Angeles Instances reported that many Washington Republicans remained sharply essential of Logan’s dealing with of the election, whereas Democratic leaders defended his efficiency and praised his management.
Logan left Washington in 2006 and joined the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s Workplace as deputy to then-Registrar Conny McCormack.
He later succeeded McCormack because the county’s high elections official, taking cost of the nation’s largest native election jurisdiction.
Logan later confronted criticism in Los Angeles over a number of election-administration disputes.
Probably the most outstanding occurred in 2008 when practically 50,000 decline-to-state voters solid ballots that originally weren’t counted as a result of they did not mark a further party-preference bubble required to take part in sure presidential primaries.
In line with Los Angeles Instances reporting on the time, the dispute prompted criticism from election activists and led some critics to name for Logan’s resignation.
County supervisors finally backed Logan after election officers developed a course of that validated and counted most of the disputed ballots.
Logan additionally oversaw one of many largest election modernization initiatives in county historical past.
In 2018, Los Angeles County awarded election expertise firm Smartmatic a contract value roughly $282 million to assist design and construct the county’s Voting Options for All Individuals, or VSAP, voting system.
The challenge drew scrutiny from some election-security specialists earlier than its countywide debut.
In line with a 2020 Politico report, California’s certification evaluate and outdoors safety researchers recognized a number of digital and bodily vulnerabilities within the VSAP system.
Politico reported that some specialists warned unresolved flaws may doubtlessly permit somebody with bodily entry to election gear or backend techniques to change software program or disrupt election operations.
Los Angeles County officers informed Politico that they had mounted or mitigated most of the points recognized throughout testing, whereas some exterior election-security advocates argued further vulnerabilities needs to be resolved earlier than the system was deployed.
The county-owned system debuted countywide in 2020, changing getting old voting gear with touchscreen ballot-marking gadgets and a community of voting facilities all through Los Angeles County.
The partnership later acquired nationwide consideration after Smartmatic turned the topic of election-fraud allegations following the 2020 presidential election.
Smartmatic has repeatedly denied these allegations and later secured main authorized settlements from media organizations that aired false claims concerning the firm.
Questions concerning the tempo of poll counting additionally emerged throughout California’s 2022 main election.
Los Angeles County took weeks to finalize outcomes as election employees processed giant numbers of vote-by-mail, provisional and conditional ballots.
A number of races remained unresolved lengthy after voting ended, drawing criticism from some candidates, political observers and voters.
Related complaints resurfaced throughout the 2024 election cycle.
Prolonged counting course of prompted renewed scrutiny from some candidates, political observers and voters.
The California Put up visited Los Angeles County’s 144,000-square-foot poll processing facility on Thursday and noticed quite a few empty workstations and enormous sections of the operation sitting unused whereas greater than 700,000 ballots remained excellent.
Logan oversees a division with an annual funds of roughly $337 million and roughly 1,150 licensed positions, in response to Los Angeles County funds paperwork.
The Put up reached out to Logan for touch upon this story.
