Forty of California’s 58 counties were using the same Dominion central vote-counting system by 2020. That number belongs at the center of every conversation about Alex Padilla’s defense of California elections.
Padilla ran the state office that certified voting equipment and administered the money helping counties replace it. His decisions helped shape what counties could buy with public assistance. Now he is urging the Justice Department to drop voter-roll lawsuits and demanding limits on seizures of election materials. He tells California election officials, “We have your back.”
What, exactly, is Alex Padilla protecting? His own record is a good place to start.
I began following that record in November 2020, when I asked Sacramento County’s voter registration office why it had chosen Dominion. The answer sent me looking for contracts: I was told there had been two bids, but Dominion was the only system certified to qualify for reimbursement of up to 75 percent. I recorded that explanation in a December email. Several people helped me collect county contracts in 2021.
Sacramento committed to Dominion in late 2017, with its contract taking effect in January 2018. The county’s own public explanation says Dominion was the only bidder that held the certification Sacramento required. The new state reimbursement program did not become law until June.
Dominion was selling the value of that approval. In a proposal included with San Luis Obispo County’s January 2018 contract, the company advertised its product as the “only system in California” certified to the standard cited in its pitch. Exclusivity was part of the sales presentation.
Dominion cleared the newer state standards in October 2017, 13 months before competing vendor Hart received its qualifying approval. When the new reimbursement program began, that newer certification became a condition for funding new systems. Sacramento’s experience shows how a county could receive competing bids and still have only one that met its requirements.
Counties’ cost concerns were already on the record. Legislative analysts reported doubts about affording the new vote-center model. The Legislature and Governor Jerry Brown created a roughly $134 million replacement program in 2018, initially requiring an equal county match. Padilla’s office administered it, and qualifying earlier purchases could be reimbursed.
Padilla also put his own authority behind the spending. His office said he earmarked $20 million in federal election funds to help counties buy new equipment as they moved to the vote-center model. In February 2019, he directed counties to retire older systems under a transition schedule with an extension process. Hart was already qualified by then.
That June, the Legislature and Governor Gavin Newsom added roughly $87 million. For counties such as Sacramento, the state’s share rose to 75 percent of qualifying costs within their allocations, including under the earlier funding allocation. Sacramento had already chosen Dominion. The revised rules made a larger subsidy available for eligible purchases already made.
Then there is the fine print. Sacramento’s Dominion software license bars the county from reverse engineering, decompiling or analyzing the software without the company’s prior written permission. The records of authorized testing and independent reviews deserve close attention.
