Wednesday's Kern County Board of Supervisors meeting resulted in the approval of roughly $2.7 million to go toward installing security cameras and other equipment for use during election season.
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00:00 Brandon, thanks so much. Yesterday, the Board of Supervisors finalized the
00:04 county budget for the next fiscal year. It includes millions of dollars in
00:07 funding for upgraded election security. Here's 23 abc's Corio Leary with an
00:12 in depth look at the changes on the way. Camera shy. Well, if so, maybe
00:17 consider mailing in your ballot instead of dropping it off at a ballot box
00:21 because as part of the county's new budget security cameras are going to be
00:25 installed at ballot boxes just like this all around the county. Yeah,
00:30 there's cameras all over this room. There's always has to be two people, at
00:37 least two people back here whenever there's ballots back here. That's Amy
00:40 Espinosa, registrar of voters showing me the vote by mail room where ballots
00:45 are processed. She tells me elections in Kern County have always been secure,
00:49 but she advocated for new security measures after residents came forward
00:53 with concerns. So the 2.7 is really to increase transparency, improve
00:58 processes and then improve security. She's talking about the $2.7 million
01:03 in the newly approved budget that will go towards election security. We're
01:07 also doing the um cameras at drop boxes. We have 17 locations throughout
01:12 Kern County and we're looking to add a few more locations. We're that's still
01:16 in the works as far as where those will be located. The money isn't just going
01:20 to security cameras. So we have a new sorter which helps us with the actual
01:26 processing about by mail ballots. The election office is also using money to
01:29 hire public information officer, an accountant and an administrative
01:33 coordinator. Christian Romo, chair of the Kern County Democratic Party,
01:36 telling me there hasn't been evidence of widespread fraud in the past, but he
01:39 still supports the changes. I've never seen an election where we had these
01:43 issues where a ballot box was attacked or tampered with, but the community
01:47 members still had some concerns. They wanted those to be addressed. Amy
01:49 Espinosa, she made sure that this was a budget ask and now it's fulfilled and I
01:53 think that people can feel more secure with their voting process. Personally,
01:57 I deliver my ballot every year or every election. I go down to the elections
02:00 office and drop off my own ballot. Clayton Campbell, member of the
02:03 Republican Central Committee for current supports the county taking
02:06 measures so the public has confidence in the integrity of elections, but
02:09 points out that the cameras might prove that no one tampers with the boxes
02:12 themselves, but they don't address other worries about election security.
02:16 But it doesn't tell us anything about the integrity of the ballot was put in
02:19 the box or whether somebody stole somebody else's ballot or afford
02:24 somebody's signature. Campbell said he would prefer there be a larger focus on
02:27 in person voting, which he views is more secure. However, Espinosa says that
02:31 there are many protections in place to make sure they're only counting
02:34 legitimate votes. And I always encourage people to come straight to the office
02:38 to learn straight from the horse's mouth as to what security measures we do have
02:43 in place to secure the election. People knew how secure it really was and all
02:47 the steps we went through their confidence in my office would
02:51 definitely increase. The next major election will be the presidential
02:54 primary in March of 2024 in downtown Bakersfield. Corio Larry 23 ABC News
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