Modern Elections can be conceived as a socio-technical system, as the electoral process in many ways relies on technological solutions: voter information, identification and registration, collecting, verifying and counting the votes – in some countries these steps are conducted by using innovative technologies. But how do those devices and processes actually become part of the official legislation and can finally deployed during this sensitive and important democratic procedure? Over time, the State of California has developed a robust regulatory ecosystem for integrating innovative technology into the electoral process and is also able to change and modernize its rules and regulations. Although technologies currently used are more static, hardware-based and usually do not include algorithmic systems, the overall structure of the process may also function as a blueprint for regulating more dynamic algorithm-based or even AI-based technologies.
