Cradlepoint’s connectivity solutions enables LA County to scale secure and efficient pop-up networks, setting standard for widely accessible voting capabilities
Cradlepoint, the global leader in cloud-delivered LTE and 5G wireless network edge solutions, announced that Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk (RR/CC) has leveraged Cradlepoint to modernize the network infrastructure of one of the largest and most diverse counties in the United States, creating a new paradigm to enhance accessible voting capabilities to eligible voters.
Before 2020, the voting infrastructure and registration processes across Los Angeles County remained widely unchanged from the 1960s. The county recognized the need for a complete voting overhaul — technological and procedural — to address the significant demographic changes impacting equitable voting access. On the technological front, the RR/CC sought innovative, pop-up networking solutions capable of reliably and securely connecting voting technology across widespread and remote locations, while enabling centralized, real-time monitoring and management capabilities.
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In November 2020, RR/CC approached their existing connectivity vendor Cradlepoint to test and deploy Cradlepoint’s 5G-optimized Wireless Wide Area Network (WWAN) solutions, in the form of NetCloud Manager and E3000 routers, which enabled highly scalable, reliable, and secure pop-up networks across approximately one thousand voting centers during the presidential election. Key solution capabilities and outcomes include:
- Centralized network management: With NetCloud Manager, RR/CC’s in-house IT team successfully managed the deployment, configuration, and troubleshooting of each network device from centralized locations, reducing unnecessary complexity and on-site visits to quickly scale networks ad hoc for future election-related initiatives.
- Consistent enforcement of security policies: NetCloud Manager and E3000 routers enabled the team to take a multi-layered approach to security with policy-based VPN tunneling and certificate-based authentication, keeping sensitive voting data secure to remain compliant with state and federal laws and maintaining the integrity of the democratic electoral process.
- Continuous, flexible network connectivity: E3000 routers utilize ethernet, Wi-Fi, and 5G/LTE connectivity to enable multiple transport layers, which keeps voting technology operational across locations, despite any primary network disruptions or failures.
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“Los Angeles County recognized the pressing need to modernize our network infrastructure to enhance the accessibility, transparency, and security in the electoral process, but limited IT resources impacted our ability to deploy and manage distributed networks at scale,” said Aman Bhullar, CIO at LA County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk. “Our partnership with Cradlepoint enabled this transformation, helping us to not only accomplish our mission with innovative solutions, but also to set a new standard for widely accessible voting capabilities.”
“In today’s digital world, pop-up connectivity services have become vital to operate in new places and ways, and the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk is a great example of how LTE/5G connectivity and Cradlepoint’s 5G-optimized solutions seamlessly work together to help the office adapt to the modern needs of its constituents,” said Bryan Wood, Sr vice president of sales, North America for Cradlepoint. “We are honored to partner with the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk office to ensure eligible voters have access to polling locations, no matter their whereabouts in the county during an election period.”
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