12:00pm | Attempting to understand the voting experience from myriad perspectives — both macro and micro — is becoming essential in our ever-shrinking world, particularly in the culturally diverse climate of Los Angeles County. For many in democratic states, voting is a given; however, that “given” is tinged with privilege and presumptions. Physical disabilities, difficulty with language or reading, and simple accessibility often prevent citizens from participating in the election process. L.A. County is quickly becoming one of the most progressive and advanced counties with regards to the way in which it approaches elections.
Dean Logan, Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, changed the election game when he recently asked the public to partake in an “open innovation challenge” which proposed a very concise, transparent, and democratic question: How might we design an accessible election experience for everyone?
The project is a partnership between L.A. County, OpenIDEO, and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) Accessible Voting Technology Initiative; the project itself was funded by a grant from the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission. OpenIDEO is an open innovation arm run by design firm IDEO which allows its online community to submit inspirations and concepts around making the voting experience more accessible to everyone.
There has been a broad County effort to modernize the current voting system through collaborative, participatory, and transparent processes that will eventually meet the needs of all L.A. County voters. Last year, the County released a set of principles that act as the guiding base for how this new voting system should be initiated and enacted, calling on our area’s brightest and most innovative designers, academics, and experts in various to help envision what this new system might look like.
Taking one step forward in this direction of inclusivity, Logan submitted a report to the County Board of Supervisors that identified five languages that will now be included in its election services: Hindi, Khmer, and Thai will now be accessible in election information while bilingual poll workers efficient in Bengali and Gujarati will provide language assistance. These inclusions now make L.A. County the most linguistically diverse jurisdiction in the nation.