Kammi Foote administered elections for 14 years and served as the Clerk Recorder & Registrar of Voters for Inyo County, Calif., for 10 years.
Over the last four months, Kammi has also volunteered with U.S. Digital Response as a member of USDR’s governments team, helping connect governments and NGOs to pro bono assistance to address their communities’ critical needs. Kammi currently serves as Senior Subject Matter Expert with the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission.
Below, hear from Kammi as she reflects on her unexpected career in government and her experience with U.S. Digital Response.
Professional Background
I never aspired to be an election official or an elected official. I started my career in the real estate business as an escrow and title professional, preparing documents that were then recorded in the recorder’s office. Separately, in my early twenties I started volunteering as a poll worker in local elections for about a decade. When the position came up to be the assistant to the Inyo County Clerk Recorder and Registrar of Voters, I applied and I was hired as the assistant.
Unbeknownst to me, my predecessor had only planned to serve for one term, so three years in I found myself running for public office. I was the youngest person in the state of California and the youngest person by far in my county to be a department head, so it was a huge learning curve. I really didn’t want to let my community down, so I hit the ground running, learning everything I could. It’s now been 14 years of election administration, and the last 10 as registrar of voters. challenging, but I completely loved the opportunity to serve my community in this capacity.
Public Service in Inyo County, CA
Inyo County covers over 10,200 square miles (larger than the entire state of New Jersey), holds more than 18,000 residents and houses five tribal governments. There are residents who need to travel four hours just to get to my office. So, we try to make as much of our services available online as possible, and that has been a continuous process of partnership and modernization.
When I first joined the County Clerk Recorder’s office 14 years ago, I had to relearn programs in DOS. That was almost a decade and a half ago. Since then, we’ve actively pursued all kinds of automation to render services online.
- We introduced online credit and debit card payment options.
- We were the first county in California to put all of our environmental documents online .
- We were also the first county to have 100 percent online business filing, which served our community extremely well as they navigated filing for PPP during the pandemic.
We are pretty much constantly looking for opportunities to innovate.
An organization like Inyo County, where you have a centralized IT department, you don’t have a lot of funding, and you don’t have a large staff, requires a little bit of creative thinking around modernization to serve your community. We’ve pursued two main avenues: pilot programs and non-profit organizations. If you’re willing to work with a vendor and experience some growing pains with them, pilot programs are a great way to bring new technologies to your community at a much reduced rate. Another opportunity is to partner with non-profit organizations like U.S. Digital Response.
Working with U.S. Digital Response
My first partnership with USDR revolved around election websites for the 2020 presidential election cycle. A nearby county was far along with its new website created by USDR volunteers, but the project got stuck in the county’s governance structure and it wasn’t able to launch. A colleague from that county contacted me and asked if I’d be interested in the website. My experience partnering with outside organizations allowed me to quickly build a relationship of trust with USDR, which allowed us to quickly launch the website within one week.
From our initial meeting to going live with the website, the entire process only took seven days, which is what USDR fundamentally strives for: to build and deliver an effective product as quickly as possible. And what a product it was. USDR gave me the answer I didn’t know I was looking for. The election community knew that we needed to communicate quickly and decisively with voters about the constantly evolving COVID-19 situation while dispelling a swelling wave of disinformation. Populating the website really focused my energy into articulating the most important information that our residents needed to know and what changes to expect when voting during the COVID-19 pandemic. This process put me on the path to communicate with my voters in the way that I needed to.
After setting up the initial website, we were able to make adjustments at a moment’s notice to respond to changes to the public health situation or new kernels of misinformation popping through the internet. The most important impact of this project was that Inyo County voters were able to access information in a way that they were not able to before.
Community Service and Volunteerism
Parallel to my life as an elected official, I was engaged in a variety of community projects, from being a Boy Scout Civic Badge Counselor to founding a civics course for teenagers and a community leadership program for adults. But, through the pandemic, all of these in-person opportunities to work with my community evaporated. After working on the election website with USDR, I thought “they helped me, maybe I have a skillset that can help them.”
I’m always curious about how things run, and the people who reach out to USDR are the innovators in government. They are the ones willing to take a leap and partner with a non-profit and volunteers. These are the people in government who have an idea of things can improve to better serve their communities. I’m just completely inspired about learning and thinking “how can we do it better?” Especially in a world where people have so many needs that need to be met. Through this experience, I’ve met such wonderful and inspiring volunteers at USDR. The amount of talent and shared energy, and a shared value system of wanting to give back is incredibly inspiring to me.
Whether you’re a government or NGO in need of assistance, or you’re looking to volunteer your time and skills as a civil servant, I highly encourage you to connect with U.S. Digital Response. Fill out this brief intake form to request assistance or learn more about volunteering with USDR.