S5E2 - Turning Election Administration Experience into Technology Solutions with KNOWiNK and Liberty Vote’s Scott Leiendecker
In this episode, hosts Brianna Lennon and Eric Fey speak with Scott Leiendecker. He’s the founder and CEO of KNOWiNK, an electronic poll pad system, and Liberty Vote, as well as a former Republican Elections Director for St. Louis City.
They spoke about how Leiendecker’s election administration experience influenced his decision to enter the election vendor space, how he’s working to combat mis- and disinformation about election technology and about what he hopes is next for the industry.
This episode is part of a three-part series focused on election technology.
High Turnout, Wide Margins Credits:
Managing Editor: Rebecca Smith
Managing Producer: Aaron Hay
Associate Producer: Katie Quinn
Digital Producer: Mark Johnson
Transcription of the episode is as follows:
Scott Leiendecker: If you have an idea, you do it, you know? You get out there and take the risk, and asking people to take a risk is difficult these days. You see a lot of people in the election field going to consulting, you know, that's a safer space. But really, going out there and building the next best mouse trap, building the next best voting system, you know, building a U.S. based voting system, trying to figure that out — solving some of the problems that are out there that, you know, some people have with the voting technology, I think is something that we should look at doing.
[High Turnout Wide Margins Season 5 Introduction]
Eric Fey: All right, everybody. Welcome to another exciting episode of High Turnout Wide Margins. My name is Eric Fey, Director of Elections in St. Louis County, Missouri. I'm here with my co-host —
Brianna Lennon: Brianna Lennon. I'm the County Clerk in Boone County, Missouri.
Eric Fey: And today our guest is Scott — go ahead and introduce yourself.
Scott Leiendecker: I am Scott Leindecker, founder of KNOWiNK, and also owner of Liberty Vote.
Eric Fey: Scott's origin story — and as anybody who listens knows, we always start off with the origin story — Scott's origin story is in local election administration. So, why don't you kick us off with that, Scott? Tell us how you got involved in the election space.
Scott Leiendecker: Sure. You know, I've been involved for the past 20 years. I started out, you know, just like Eric or Brianna. Well, more like Eric than Brianna because Brianna is a county clerk and elected. But I was pretty much hired or appointed to the position in St. Louis City and was the election director there for, I think, about eight years — I know it was at least two presidential elections, and started out there. You know, really just falling in love with elections, being at an administrative level and helping lead that effort.
Brianna Lennon: So, I would love to hear more about what it is that motivated you to move from the elections space into the election vendor space.
Scott Leiendecker: Whenever I started at the Board of Elections, my first day at the Board of Elections I was an Election Day itself, and I spent it, you know, instead of being in the office — they said, "Well, what do you want to do? You're the election director, so you're kind of the boss, right?” And I'm like, "Well, I don't quite know what I'm doing yet, so I'm not really the boss. So I need to learn a little bit more, and since it's Election Day, why don't you make me a poll worker?”
And so, I went out and and I saw a lot of the problems that were out there in the field that, you know, a lot of the issues that I think I was hired to help solve. And so, the line was something that really was, you know, something that stuck with me. Like, how do we solve this problem? Because I'm a big believer that, you know, one of the number — probably not the number one — but one of the top five deterrents of anybody leaving the polls is a line. And whenever I was looking at a product to help solve line management — because I felt very strongly that the paper rosters and the A through K lines and all that were a big distraction, you know, you can't predict who's you know going to show up — and so, you needed some type of technology like a laptop or, you know, at the time, going way back, Palm Pilots things like that, were in use to try to solve these problems, but weren't solving, you know, the user experience,
And, again, technology today — most seniors have an iPhone. Before nobody had a cellular phone, so putting something other than paper in front of them was, you know, impossible to do, and if you don't think you're going to have problems with a laptop, you're going to have problems.
And so, we started there, and I'm like, “It just doesn't seem to fit,” and so, in 2010 — I think that's when the first iPad came out — and I thought, “This is an interesting tool. We could force the poll worker to do everything exactly how we want them to do it or how they're taught to do it.”
Eric Fey: Scott, I'd like to back up a little bit from that point — your transition from the Election Board to KNOWiNK and starting that up, and we'll get back to that, but, you know, a lot of folks remember the 2000 presidential election, and they remember what happened in Florida. What most people don't remember is that Missouri was a swing state in those days. Missouri was very close, and the St. Louis City Election Board was at the center of a lot of controversy in that election for administrative problems, and if it hadn't been for Florida, the St. Louis City Election Board would have probably been more in the national consciousness in 2000. So, that agency had been through a lot of turmoil, state audits, all kinds of things like that, and that's what you walked into there. So, what was your mindset going into that organization about what you were going to confront and what you had to accomplish?
Scott Leiendecker: It's funny that when you talk about 2000, you talk about current situations today. You know this feeling is still around, and it's always just, it's one of those things, you know, with elections, I don't know if we'll ever you know solve that feeling of, “Are things you know working in the right direction and whatnot.”
But stepping into that role — yeah, it was difficult, obviously, because one of the things that I immediately recognized, and, you know, I'll be honest with you, whenever it was approached to me to possibly go in and do the role, I wasn't receptive to it. I didn't want to do it. I think I was like, you know, I think you know we have a friend in common, Paul DeGregorio, who approached me about it and said, “I think you'd be great at it. I think you should really consider this job,” and I immediately kind of said, “No.” And I just said, “I don't think that it would be a good fit,” but it ended up and Paul convinced me and said, "I think you'd be great because of X, Y, and Z, and I think you should really consider it.” And I did, and I really fell in love with the job, as I think Eric, you have, and Brianna, I think you have, as well, and most, I think, election officials do.
I mean, it takes a certain person, you know, and mentality to do what we do, and, you know, I fell in love with the job. It was tough, you know, walking into a situation that you could clearly see, you know, this is not — like you said, there is turmoil — but I think it was something that had been going on for some time, you know? There was always a perception of St. Louis City not really getting the job done right, and that was something that I felt whenever I stepped into the role. And really winning people over was one of the things that was the first step that I needed to take, was trying to get people to buy into, you know, “Hey, we're a team” because that was really lacking there. It was a very split organization where it was, you know, management versus staff, and, at that time whenever I walked in, I was pretty much considered part of management, right? So, with the staff, I'm obviously an enemy, so I needed to win over, you know, everybody. And we did that by, really, reorganizing the team, you know, looking at new people, bringing new people in, fresh people for a fresh start — I think was important. Getting a team first mentality, getting buy-in from everyone around, having an open door policy that “if you have a problem, come talk to me.”
I remember one of the issues that I had right out of the gate, you know, St. Louis — there was an issue, I can't remember exactly what it was, but the press was already swarming. This was, again. probably the first month or two of my time being there, and there was a mistake that happened within the organization, and I knew the individual that did it, and I went to her and I said, "Look.” I go, “the problem here is that we need to communicate, we need to talk. I can help you, if you help me, but I can't help you when all of a sudden the press are knocking on my door saying what happened, and I don't know. That's a real problem, and so, I can help the situation and explain it if I know, but if you don't do that, that's problematic.” And I go, “We have to learn to trust one another, and we have to figure this out because it's not going to work any other way, and all that's going to happen is, you know, I am your boss, and you will ultimately be fired if we don't get on the same page. But I can promise you this: if you tell me, I will help you,” and I walked out that door and immediately went into a press conference and got, you know, I think the press kind of, you know, hammering me on things that I didn't quite understand as much still, and I took full responsibility for it, and I remember seeing her kind of upstairs on the walkway, watching, you know, as I got kind of sideways with the press a little bit, and I think that made an impact on her to understand that I'm not going to throw you under the bus. We're a team, and I might be the quarterback or the coach or whatever, but I'm going to take the blows, you know, in this. So, I think that that helped, you know, kind of grow that respect across the board, you know, that team first mentality — that we are only as strong as each other. So, I think that helped, you know, tremendously with helping kind of get the team on board, making sure that they knew that there was somebody that was in their corner.
But one of the things that I challenged the team to do — and I tried to make it fun, and it was you know geared towards, you know, almost like, “Look at St. Louis County, they think they're the big guy on the block that can always get things done great. Well, we're just as good as them.” And I would challenge our staff to say, "Well, they get their results in at this time, we need to beat them,” you know, “that's our job. We need to beat them and get those results in quickly, and if we can do that, I think that that can solve a lot of perception issues.” Because when you look at the entire state, you look at Boone, you know, Boone gets their stuff in at 9 o'clock, you know, St. Louis County gets their stuff in at 9 o'clock, and then St. Louis City gets their stuff at 3:00 in the morning, you know, the rest of the state and the political figures are all waiting for St. Louis to get their votes in, and that's where a lot of the perception comes in – “Is there something going on there? Should we be concerned?” That's when things start, you know, building, especially within the political parties, to start kind of organizing that effort of, you know, “Something happened. I don't know what it was, but something happened.”
So, to me, it was really making sure that we could get those results in, you know, challenging the team to get them in before the news, so that they could get reported clearly, and it was something as simple as that, where, you know, when we did it the first time and we got our results in, I remember Jo Mannies from the Post Dispatch actually calling me and saying, "Hey, congratulations on getting those results in,” because I think everybody wants to go to bed early — the candidates, the campaigns, the election workers, the news reporters. They want their story and they want to put it to bed at 10 o'clock, so, if we could do that — that's really what the message that I was pressing to our team is to be, you know, quick, expedient, get the job done. And I think it worked, and I think it helped lead to a perception of we're doing our job and we're doing it well.
[High Turnout Wide Margins Midbreak]
Brianna Lennon: For most folks, the elephant in the room about leaving the field has been the added pressure of outside scrutiny. There's been a lot of questions and, I guess, concerned citizens that have wanted to know more about election technology, and you operate kind of in the middle of all of that. What's your experience been like trying to navigate this new pushback? Because, I think, you've been in it long enough to to have seen the pushback in 2016 and 2020 and all those things. What does it feel like now?
Scott Leiendecker: And it's something that's always kind of — I explain this, too — it's something that's always been around. Not at this extreme, I would say, and I think that, you know, obviously the tools that people have at their fingertips, whether it be the internet or just a lot of the social media, has really amplified that, right?
But even whenever I was director in St. Louis, I always felt on election night, you know, somebody was coming into my office at 10 o'clock, and we were going to have a sit down talk about what had happened. And some people with tears, some people angry, but there was always, you know, “How could I have lost?” Nobody runs for office thinking they're going to lose, and then they lose, right? It's an extreme shock to their system. Whether you're running for Alderman or Congress or whatever, you know, you don't step into this business saying, “I'm going to do this and commit all my time to losing,” right? So, you know, that's an emotional moment for them when that happens, and it's usually not because of me, I mean, that’s the human nature. “I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't lose because of me. I did everything right. I'm a perfect person. People love me,” right? Well, maybe not so much — maybe 48% didn't love you, or 51% didn't love you, right? And that's kind of part of the process, and that's the hard thing that we have to deal with.
Now we're dealing with it in in an amplified way, and, I think, that the only thing — and I've been, you know, since I've started with Liberty, one of the things that I've been doing a lot is talking with folks, and I think that I do have a unique kind of qualification because I do come from the background, I do come from an area that went through its own kind of situations, and I've talked with a lot of people, whether they're on our side or against us or whatever, but I think it's something that has to be done. And what I've seen, and, you know, to be honest, I had a group in yesterday from Georgia talking with them about, “What are your concerns? What are your big concerns with the election process?” And they had a list of stuff that they put in front of me, and I talked with them — we spent, I think, probably about four hours together, you know, communicating — and at the end of it, it was it, you know, I don't think, we really — I don't want to say we didn't solve anything, but we did have an open line of communication, and I think that they were like, "This was nice to have,” right? “I understand a little bit more about the process.” They may not feel great about things, but I think it's important for us — whether it's vendors or election officials — and I’m kind of happy to help because I've kind of thrown myself into it, but I think it's important to have that dialogue and those communication[s]. There's people that are out there, that are confused, that don't understand what really happens with regards to elections — from “where does the ballot go once it goes in the box,” right? “What happens to it?” It's almost like the whole, you know, the bill situation — “what happens to a bill?” You have to educate folks on that, and as soon as they know that, they're like, “Okay.” But there are people out there that are using this for monetary purposes, and it's very clear that you know they're out there to sell themselves and say that they're going to “save the country from X, Y, and Z,” and you know, great, fantastic, but I don't think that they're dealing in factual evidence or anything, and it's not helpful to the situation.
I don't know how to solve that, I mean, we can shut down the internet — maybe that might solve some of it, but they're going to continue to be proactive out there because they've figured out, you know, I can make money on this, and that's unfortunate. But that's in any industry that we're in — an influence, in a way, right? And, in an influencer age, this is really what we're dealing with. Is, you know, they've figured out a niche that they can get in and promote stuff that's not necessarily true or skewed in certain ways. I've had it done against me personally. I've had it done against KNOWiNK, you know, even this year there's a handful of things that are out there that people are saying that are the furthest from the truth, right? Not even to do with us, and we're being, you know, “Oh look at what's happened,” and we just have to continue to move on, make sure that we're getting the story out there that that is correct, and hoping that we have good election folks like yourself administering, but also communicating because I think that that's a new skill set that is needed in this field unfortunately,
Eric Fey: Scott, I think this touches on a very interesting part of the election technology space, which is a space you're heavily involved in, obviously.
When you were in St. Louis City, you know, after HAVA [Help America Vote Act], there was all this money that came down to purchase voting machines, you guys purchased the Diebold machines — and that's a cautionary tale, I think, for a lot of entrepreneurs and companies that want to get involved in the election space. You know, it's not talked about a lot nowadays, but IBM was involved in the punch card game decades ago, and they exited that because it was infringing on their brand a little bit. Diebold had troubles more recently. We know there's been controversy around, you know, some election technology companies, and I think that's one thing a lot of folks don't understand. They want more innovation in the election space, but it's a risky business to be in, and it's heavily regulated. And so, I'm hoping you can maybe speak to that from your experience, what the challenges are for folks on the private sector side in the election technology space, and if you have any ideas for how that might be improved in the future?
Scott Leiendecker: Yeah, I do hear that quite a bit because, again, I think that we work with a number of different organizations across the U.S. From a technology side, whether it be the devices that we use or infrastructure that's built — and I use a lot of it because, I mean, they've they've mastered a lot of the security protocols and things like that, and I think that that's important to, you know, to benefit from what they invest in billions of dollars into security and things like that. We work with these tech partners, and we're always asking like, “You should be more involved,” and they're like, “We're as involved as we want to be,” right? They think what we do is great. They think what you do, what everybody does in elections is, you know, this is an honor for us to do what we do, and they know that, they believe that, but they also understand the scrutiny that does come with that, and it is difficult to try to convince them otherwise.
I've been successful in bringing, you know, some outside vendors to the table, but yeah, they definitely feel the problem of, “Hey, we love what you guys do, but we're not interested,” right? That’s a very telling tale, you know, that's out there from a vendor perspective. I don't know how to [get] more involved, and I don't necessarily know if that's the right thing to do either, you know? I think that what we've been able to do is leverage their technology for the benefit of elections, and I think that's a good thing to look at. Again, you know, using their backbone on security and things like that they're investing billions of dollars into that in today's world, you know, obviously, like your cell phone — you can bank on your phone, things like that.
We're doing and utilizing the same type of technology, which I think is important. But it's also, I think, important for folks like myself to get more involved the way that I have. You know, if you have an idea, you do it. Get out there and take the risk. And asking people to take a risk is difficult these days. You see a lot of people in the election field going to consulting, you know, that's a safer space. But really, going out there and building the next best mouse trap, building the next best voting system — building a U.S. based voting system, trying to figure that out, you know, solving some of the problems that are out there that some people have with the voting technology, I think is something that we should look at doing. We should ask the federal government to partner with jurisdictions like yourself to build a voting system that's U.S. based. If that's what you want, let's do it, you know? There's ways of doing it instead of just kind of yelling about it, and I think that that's where, you know, I hope that the election space will get into that. We're in a fear factor type scenario, I mean, people are afraid in our industry to raise your hand. Nowadays, you're either on this side or that side, and that's all bullshit. We're not on sides, and that's what people don't understand, you know? We don't care about this side or that side. We care about the process and making sure it's fair, and that's hard for some people to believe, but getting, you know, I think those agencies involved, I think is, to a point, I think is a good idea, but I don't know if it's necessarily the best idea because I would like to have more people build something and get out there and do it, as well, because I think that there is opportunity out there.
And the way that I got started in the industry was — if I just walked off the street and said I have a better mousetrap for elections, it wouldn't sell. That's very clear to me. The only way that I got off the ground was I got to tell my story and say, “Hey, I'm like you. I've been in the trench. I understand what it feels like to go through Election Day. I've done it too,” and that's really resonated. I don't think like if Apple showed up or IBM or Microsoft, if they showed up and said, "Look at our touch screen" or "Look at our scanner" or "Look at this” — I don't think it would sell because I think that there's a trust factor that needs to be in play, which is within the election community. It's a close group of folks that do something very different, and we need to make sure that we're, you know, continuing to do that. So, I don't know if it's really utilizing the partnerships, I think that that's important, but I don't think Microsoft or Apple or anybody could come in and say, “I'm going to build the right voting system for the United States” because when you look at it, we're 50 different states with 50 different — 500, 5000 different rules — depending on what state you go into, and it's very difficult to do. And you know, at KNOWiNK, we've been able to to do that slowly, build that state by state, and understand what the rules are, and hire good people because most of the people that you deal with here in my business are — I look for people, you know, like yourselves, that have been in it and are like, “Hey, I just want, I love what I do, but I'm ready to do something different in this space,” and so, we hire a lot of those folks, you know, whether you're on whatever side, we don't care. We want good people that care about the election process, and I think that that's really key.
Brianna Lennon: You've been listening to High Turnout Wide Margins, a podcast that explores local elections administration. I'm your host, Brianna Lennon, alongside Eric Fay. A big thanks to KBIA and the Election Center for making this podcast possible. Our Managing Editor is Rebecca Smith. Managing producer is Erin Hay. Our associate producer is Katie Quinn, and our digital producer is Mark Johnson. This has been High Turnout Wide Margins. Thanks for listening.
