Cradlepoint to Modernize LA’s Election Network Infrastructure with 5G WAN

Cradlepoint, a cloud-delivered LTE and 5G wireless network edge solutions provider, announced yesterday that Los Angeles County has contracted it to modernize the network infrastructure of its voting system and 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 Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk (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. 

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 are designed to enable highly scalable, reliable, and secure pop-up networks across approximately one thousand voting centers during the presidential election. 

E3000 routers utilize ethernet, WiFi, and 5G/LTE connectivity and will be used to enable multiple transport layers, which keeps voting technology operational across locations, despite any primary network disruptions or failures.

“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.”