Can confirm, I know somebody in CA who had the rights to the benefits (not me), and actually getting them was a nightmare. Yet, somehow criminals managed to steal billions. I am torn between gross incompetence (always a good first guess when CA government is involved) and actual collusion with the criminals.

And no, different auth system wouldn't help it. Probably would make it worse - the system would inevitably be buggy, deny entry for people who don't look like their out-of-date photo, glitch on hundreds of systems that are different from whatever the designers assumed, and would require a lot of manual adjustment - while the support workforce will be reduced, because we've got this shiny new expensive automated system, why should we keep paying for human support?