O.C.’s First Automatic Elections Equipment

Two Coleman vote talley systems in 1964.

Concerns about the accuracy and security of automatic vote tallying isn’t something new, or even something that arrived with the infamous “hanging chads” of 2000. In Orange County, specifically, those headaches began in 1964 -- when the very first time such machinery was introduced: The Coleman Electronic Vote Talley System (sometimes called the Coleman-Gyrex System). 

Coleman Engineering Co., Inc, was founded in 1950 by Northrop Aircraft vice president Theodore C. "Ted" Coleman as a small R&D firm working for military missile test centers. Over time, it transitioned to manufacturing and selling products for industrial photography, electronic controls, data handling, security and metal finishing. Originally based in Los Angeles County, the company headquarters later moved to 3209 W. Central in Santa Ana. In 1962, Coleman Engineering bought the Norden division of United Aircraft. Originally a separate company known as the Norden-Ketay Corp., it had developed an electronic vote tallying device. 

By noon on election day 1964 – Orange County’s first election with the Coleman Electronic Vote Talley System -- it was already clear that there were big voter fraud problems. The system's special ballot-marking pens had been sabotaged in more than 100 of the county's 1,021 precincts -- mainly in the Anaheim, Huntington Beach, Westminster, and San Clemente areas. It was the Orange County Republican Party that raised the alarm and soon Ted Coleman was able to confirm that "about one in every eight pens reported as faulty were definitely tampered with."

But the County continued to use the Coleman system. Upgraded equipment used in the June 1968 primaries had some glitches and was slow, but ultimately proved to be extremely accurate. 

The County last used Coleman equipment in the special election of Nov. 6, 1979, then migrated to a new system sold by Valtec Corp. and built in Costa Mesa by Major Data Concepts. This new system worked well mechanically, but suffered from programming errors that threw the election results into doubt.

So, what happened to Coleman Engineering? In September 1968, they bought five other companies: Salsbury Corp, Keystone Abrasive Supply, Knodsen Engineering, Industrial Hydraulics, and Kasco Abrasives. The latter two of these were had been owned by Frank E. Vachon. The mergers resulted in the company being renamed Coleman Systems and moving to 18842 Teller Ave. in Irvine in 1970 or 1971. Later in 1971, Ted Coleman retired as head of Coleman Systems and left Vachon in charge. The business was still operating in Irvine as of 1977.

Today, the County of Orange uses dramatically more sophisticated and accurate equipment from entirely different vendors to scan and tally votes. Every step of the process has safeguards to prevent errors or fraud and voters can even go onto the Registrar of Voters' website to track their ballot and confirm that their vote was counted.