Slocum to Speak at National Conference

We’ve written before about how the Elections Office is reaching out to current and potential voters through the use of 2.0 technology.  Chief Elections Officer Warren Slocum is passionate about communication and transparency, and welcomes ideas on how to improve procedures.

As a self-acknowledged “techie,” he believes that technology should be used to reach all voters, provide excellent customer service, and reduce the expense of elections. He is equally concerned that all systems that are secure, that the vote count has integrity and that the voters, poll workers and election staff are provided the simplest, most elegant and useful tools possible to do this important work in our democracy.

Recently, Slocum began including his own blog on Shapethefuture.org as a more personalized supplement to the Inside Elections blog.  If you haven’t read it yet, check out http://www.warrenslocum.blogspot.com/.

He’s also recently started a wiki, Election Administration 2.0, to invite election administrators to share the best of their election administration ideas online.

Next week, our Chief Elections Officer will be speaking as part of a panel at the National Conference “Voting in America – The Road Ahead,” sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trust/JHET Foundation.  The panel he will be speaking on, entitled “Imagine We Could Start Over – How Would You Design an Election System,” consists of four state election officials and only one other County level election official. The discussion leaders include:

• The Honorable Robin Carnahan, Secretary of State, Missouri
• The Honorable Trey Grayson, Secretary of State, Kentucky
• John Lindback, State Election Director, Oregon
• Chris Thomas, State Election Director, Michigan
• Brian Newby, Election Director, Johnson County, Kansas
• Warren Slocum, Chief Elections Officer & Assessor-Clerk-Recorder, San Mateo County, California

As he shares his thoughts on the ideal American election system, he’ll be able to draw upon his decades of experience as well as his passions for progress. In addition to his 30 years of election administration experience, he is also recognized for a number of firsts in the world of elections including:

• First advocate among chief elections officers in California to call for a paper trail on all electronic voting equipment
• Created and introduced the Track & Confirm online confirmation application giving voters who vote by mail peace of mind to know when and if their voted Vote by Mail ballot was received at the elections office (this is now California state law and carried by a southern California Congresswoman for national consideration)
• Provided a live broadcast from the elections office of the November Presidential Election on a local cable channel and streamed the broadcast on the elections website. It gave the public a never-before-seen view of an election in progress. This broadcast is now available, in chapter segments, to online viewers interested in learning more about the elections process. A DVD of the process was given to poll workers, local officials and others interested in this process
• Started the Inside Elections blog to give the public an inside look at the world of elections on a daily basis as preparations were underway—it was written in an accessible style, with photos, quotes, explanations, links and described by UC Berkeley professor Dr. Joseph Hall as the best elections office in the country
• Established a Poll Worker Academy to elevate the quality of instruction for poll workers who would be introducing electronic voting in San Mateo County—and created a special distinct class of poll workers to manage the set-up and take-down of the voting equipment
• Authored his own blog for several years
• Advocated for statewide legislation to allow Vote by Mail elections to be conducted in non-federal elections (with local legislative support)
• Advocated that Vote by Mail ballots be included in the Canvass, a practice that was not done in California prior to last year