California

RandySF

(87,639 posts) Mon Jun 15, 2026, 04:00 AM Monday

County Purchasing New Ballot Sorting Equipment That Could Alleviate Processing 'Bottleneck'

The Board of Supervisors approved the purchase of a BlueCrest, Inc. ballot sorting machine for the Elections Office on Tuesday after a brief discussion on the decision not to use a competitive bid process.

The equipment will help handle the huge increase in vote-by-mail ballots the Elections Office processes, staff said.

Before the pandemic, vote-by-mail ballots ranged from 20-40% of ballots cast. Now, vote-by-mail ballots are sent to every registered voter, and that type of ballot accounts for more than 80% of ballots cast each election.

Santa Barbara County had processed more than 111,000 ballots as of Thursday, and about 92% of them were vote-by-mail ballots.

https://www.noozhawk.com/county-purchasing-new-ballot-sorting-equipment-that-could-alleviate-processing-bottleneck/

2 replies

= new reply since forum marked as read

Highlight:

County Purchasing New Ballot Sorting Equipment That Could Alleviate Processing 'Bottleneck' (Original Post) RandySF Monday OP

I wish this would take off nationwide. Mail in voting is one of if not the most secure ways to vote Cheezoholic Monday #1

I always get a little suspicious with non-competitive bids LogDog75 Tuesday #2

Cheezoholic

(4,076 posts)

1. I wish this would take off nationwide. Mail in voting is one of if not the most secure ways to vote

Reply to RandySF (Original post)

Mon Jun 15, 2026, 07:03 AM

Monday

And more importantly, and what makes repukes angry, it normally increases participation by pretty sizeable margins.

Thanx for all your hard work RandySF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LogDog75

(1,443 posts)

2. I always get a little suspicious with non-competitive bids

Reply to RandySF (Original post)

Tue Jun 16, 2026, 01:20 AM

Tuesday

I used to approve purchases for medical equipment in the AF and one of the most important things was to have more than one vendor submit bids on what we requested. Often, the hospital section requesting a product from a specific company and unless they were the only company that makes that equipment I'd refuse and put it out for bid.

Non-competitive (no bid) contracts are ripe for fraud and corruption. It wasn't unusual for a vendor's rep sweet talk a section head into requesting only they're company's product either by offering or imply the section head would get something in return. This purchase of ballot sorting equipment raises red flags in my mind. It seems from the article the county knew the equipment they've been using is outdated and needs replacing so why hadn't they requests for information/pricing from various vendors before the election? This would have given them time to evaluate products, make a recommendation, and be able to explain why they chose that particular vendor/equipment.

Now, everything Santa Barbara County is doing could be legal and above board but when you're spending taxpayer's money you have to avoid any appearance of impropriety.

Reply to this discussion