City & County of San Francisco

Elections Commission

COMMISSION ANNUAL REPORT

January 1, 2005 – June 30, 2006

Pursuant to the Bylaws of the San Francisco Elections Commission, Article XI, I herewith submit the Commission's Annual Report.

Richard P. Matthews

President

San Francisco Elections Commission

#1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, Room 48

San Francisco, CA 94102

web site: www.sfgov.org/elections

Commission email at: elections.commission@sfgov.org.

phone: (415) 554-4305

fax: (415) 554-7457

2005-06 Annual Report

The year 2005 began with the Elections Commission at less than full strength, a regrettably common occurrence. The appointee of the Board of Education was previously John Trasvina, who left San Francisco in the fall of 2004. The Board of Education's seat would remain vacant until filled by Jennifer C.L. Meek in late summer. Arnold Townsend was president and Eric Safire was vice president.

January 19, 2005

Director John Arntz reported that, among other things, the Department was clearing and creating new data bases, as it had successfully completed seven elections in the past two years, with five of them in the last 13 months. This is a most remarkable accomplishment, one which should have earned the Department the respect, gratitude, and understanding of budgetary needs from all points under the City Hall dome.

The then-contract with Election Systems and Software (ES&S) expired January 15, 2005, leaving the DoE without a contract with an elections systems provider. The Department was preparing a Request For Proposal (RFP). Mr. Arntz said that the most favorable approach would be to get a two-year contract extension because ES&S already has a certified Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) system. This would be the least expensive route for the Department; however, in preparation for any contingencies, the Department is going forward with the RFP process for an election system to be used this November.

Director Arntz said that the RCV portion of the City's voting system had conditional certification – good for one election only. In February, the Voting Systems Procedures Panel of the Secretary of State's office was expected to review that conditional certification and consider how that system performed in last November's election and the DoE's opinion of how it performed. The Director said that he had no indication that the certification was being removed and that he remains optimistic. Unfortunately, as events unfolded, this review never took place, due to upheaval in the Secretary of State's office and the resignation of Kevin Shelley.

The Director reminded the Commission that the State sold bonds in 2002, under Proposition 41, for $200M to upgrade voting technology. San Francisco was allotted $5.2M for this purpose. The DoE used $2.5M for upgrading the optical scanning voting equipment, leaving a remainder of $2.7M. Mr. Arntz reminded the Commission that the Help America Vote Acts requires that all polling places be handicapped accessible by January 2006, and this is where he hopes to spend the balance of the Proposition 41 funds.

Commissioner Gerard Gleason suggested that a stipend might encourage more citizens to join The Ballot Simplification Committee (BSC). The BSC serves a vital function in the conduct of elections, making the ballot as clear, fair, and effective as possible. With the large number of candidates and ballot measures that San Francisco routinely has, the BSC members are among the many unsung heroes of San Francisco elections.

February 16, 2005

Language access is an ongoing concern for the Department and the Commission, and one which, unfortunately, does not seem to attract the attention and support of many of the budget decisionmakers on the Second Floor of City Hall. For example, Director Arntz reported that due to the Department of Justice's (DOJ) investigations of the Department over the years and the implementation of RCV, concerted efforts were taken to make sure materials were available in at least two languages other than English - those languages being Spanish and Chinese. Sometimes materials are also available in other languages as well. The DoE sent out 32,000 letters asking if the voter was born in a country in which Chinese or Spanish was the dominant language. Approximately 5,000 to 6,000 voters responded. After checking the recent census data, if the numbers showed a 3% or more population of foreign language speakers in a precinct, the Department tried to have bilingual poll workers in the precinct. Mr. Arntz said that the DoE is not funded, separately, for outreach and he assigns resources for that purpose. Funding community organizations for outreach during the last election was possible because of RCV, however, the DoE will try to continue giving grants for this year. The Director said that he needed the Commission and the public to help inform the Mayor and the Board of the need for monies in the DoE's budget for this outreach. Funding for voter education and outreach remains a critical need for the Department, and one which should have the support of all city leaders and their staffs.

San Francisco is a depository for Fair Political Practices Reports& for 8,000 committees in California. There are 8000 committees that send reports to San Francisco's Department of Elections. In an odd-year, two reports from each committee are filed. In an even-year, six reports from each committee are filed. These reports can number from one to multiple pages each. Each report is copied. The Director estimated that in an odd-year, with three reporting deadlines, it will take three to four staff persons to work an eight-hour day for 16 days each to copy and file these reports.

In an even-year there are six reporting deadlines, and this would require five staff persons 16 days to complete the filings.

The manager of Campaign Services Division, Rachel Gosiengfiao, has reported to the Director that ten or less people come into the DoE to request information from these files annually. Visitors to the DoE are more interested in the local forms rather than these state forms. An FPPC representative who was visiting the Department this week informed the Director that there is legislation for changing FPPC filings, and there is a possibility to remove San Francisco and Los Angeles as depositories.

Voter Outreach Committee of the Elections Commission. It was also at this meeting that the Commission discussed whether to continue to have a Voter Outreach Committee. There was a motion to revitalize that committee, which failed 4-2. The rationale for not continuing it was that it was not clear that the Commission has charter jurisdiction to become involved in outreach, and that the full Commission can oversee and support the Department's exemplary efforts without need of a standing committee. It was also an expressed concern that outreach, by its nature, usually requires choices be made that some groups are going to receive resources that other groups are not going to receive, and that this is a quintessentially political question. The Commission has always supported increased voter outreach and participation.

April 20, 2005

Department improves ability to track dollars-per-task. Director Arntz reported that the DoE is, for the first time, tracking budget expenditures to specific tasks within the Department. Eventually, the Department will be able, for example, to estimate with real numbers, how much it costs for such tasks as registration data entry. All divisions had either completed or were going through their procedures and are tying the procedures into a budget spreadsheet. This division has just completed approximately 50 large postal bins of returned absentee ballots from last November's election. This information is used to update registration rolls. Next week over 40,000 Alternative Residency Conformation postcards will be mailed to citizens who have not voted in the last two general elections nor indicated any name, address changes or party changes to the DoE. If there is no response from a voter, their file will be inactivated. The voter can still vote but will not receive a Voter Information Pamphlet.(VIP), and their name will appear in a different section of the roster on election day.

Voting System Request for Proposals (RFP). The RFP was posted April 1, 2005. The Director said that before issuing the RFP, he spoke to most of the Board of Supervisors members, the Controller, members of the Commission and the Purchasing Office. It became clear that the City could not fund a touch screen system, however, the potential for purchasing such a system is allowed in this RFP should funding become available. All vendors were required to provide a proposal based on optical scanning technology and if funding had become available by June 3, 2005 (the submission deadline for the proposals), then the City might have entertained touch screen proposals.

There were one hundred base points, and twenty-five bonus points in the evaluation process for the RFP. There were forty points for technical criteria, system design, software design and development, life cycle and the ancillary service; fifteen points for qualification and financial stability of the proposer, twenty points based on pricing, twenty-five points for implementation, planning and scheduling. The latter is for a Ranked Choice Voting solution. There were ten bonus points for any vendor who has federal and state certification and five bonus points for approval only at the federal level. On the advice of the City's Purchasing Department, there were up to ten more bonus points for any vendor who could demonstrate that it has a joint venture with a disadvantaged business enterprise. There was a mock election open to the public to test the proposed systems in City Hall in August 2005.

At this meeting, the Commission voted to retain the City of Oakland's city attorney as outside counsel to advise the Department of Elections and Elections Commission on matters concerning the San Francisco City Attorney's election. In November 2001, when the San Francisco voters amended the Charter to create the Elections Commission, the voters authorized the new Commission to use outside counsel under certain circumstances when the City Attorney is standing for election. The outside counsel must meet certain qualifications and comply with specific conflict of interest rules, and the Commission must pay for the outside counsel from the Elections Department budget. On November 8, 2005, the City Attorney stood for election for the first time since the outside counsel provision was adopted.

May 18, 2005

ES&S Contract Update. Mr. Arntz reported that ES&S (Election Systems and Software) had signed the contract with the DoE.

Voter Rolls Maintenance. The DOE had sent out 42,000 Residence Confirmation cards two weeks prior and were being returned to the Voter Services Division to update the voter files. The 8D2 cards ( notices from the postal service that mail recipients are no longer at an address) would be sent out over the next week to voters. The Health Department's lists of deceased citizens was being used to remove names from the rolls. The Secretary of State's Office gathers voters names from its statewide data base and checks for duplicates; the results are sent to the individual counties to be incorporated into the local databases and the Voter Services Division is updating its files with this information. Names of persons who have felony convictions are sent to the DoE by the Superior Court to assist in updating voter files.

Again, SF DOE goes above legal minimums to serve voters. Division members recently attended HAVA (Help America Vote Act) training. It was noted that San Francisco goes much further to fulfill its obligations under this act than is required. For example, with provisional voting, San Francisco voters are provided a website and an 800 phone number to verify whether their provisional ballot was counted. Most counties only provide one or the other means to verify these ballots.

On election day, most counties provide elections results updates three or four times during the day. In San Francisco, we provide a continuous live feed of information throughout the entire day and voters can phone in to get results throughout election day.

RFP Update. In the previous week, the Department issued an addendum to the RFP. The Addendum deleted language about a buyback of existing voting equipment, and added requirements for logic and accuracy testing. The submittal date for the RFP was extended by one week, and the length of time to conduct the mock election was shortened to two weeks (instead of four) due to these changes.

And at this meeting, the Commission held its elections for officers. Richard Matthews was elected president of the Commission and Sheila Chung was elected vice president.

June 20, 2005

RFP update. Two bids had been received. They were from ES&S and Sequoia. The selection panel was reviewing these bids and would complete its initial evaluation the following week.

Commissioners get more involved in budget process around City Hall. Commissioner Matthews stated that he had a brief discussion with the Mayor and his Chief of Staff on May 18 regarding the Department's budget needs for the upcoming fiscal year. The President said that the Mayor was aware of the Department's concerns and was interested in having the DoE funded as fully as possible. One example was the need for an accounting position. The Mayor agreed that this was a necessary request.

Commissioner Gleason's suggestion to move Assessor and Public Defender elections is endorsed by Board of Supervisors. The Rules Committee of the Board of Supervisors held a hearing the previous week regarding the Charter Amendment to move the Assessor and Public Defender's election from the Primary to the General Election. This idea came from Commissioner Gerard Gleason.

Commissioner Arnold Townsend raises the issue of voting rights of incarcerated persons. Commissioner Townsend said that felons who are presently incarcerated cannot vote, but those in jail for misdemeanors can vote. He said that he had spoken with the Director about working with the San Francisco Sheriff's Department to provide voter information to incarcerated persons. The Commissioner said that another issue is to request that the Secretary of State, through the Department of Corrections and Department of Prisons, inform prisoners when they are released, after serving their time, that they can vote. In addition, if they are on parole, they need to be informed that upon completion of that parole, they can vote. As a result of this effort by the Commission and the Department, the Department – in cooperation with the office of Public Defender Jeff Adachi – produced a great pamphlet to inform jailed persons of their voting rights.

July 20, 2005

RFP Update. The initial review of the systems was completed. The two vendors who went forward with the pilot programs and mock election were ES&S and Sequoia. Director Arntz said that September 30, 2005, is when the selection panel is to make a recommendation.

Others take notice of Commissioner involvement on behalf of Department. Vice President Chung reported that Commissioner Matthews, Commissioner Townsend and she attended the previous meeting of the Budget and Finance Committee of the Board of Supervisors. She said that members of the Board said that it was refreshing to finally see a commission actually be supportive of a department that they are overseeing.

Director John Arntz thanked the Commissioners who participated in the budget process and said they made an excellent contribution by making their presentations before the Board. He said that DoE staff noticed and appreciated their contribution. The Director said that it was time to prepare for next year's budget season and that he wanted the Commission to be involved. The budget process topics will present a bigger challenge because there would be a June Primary (right in the middle of the budget process), and there would be the RFP, and the new voting system to consider. Mr. Arntz said he wanted to sit down and plan the approach with members of the Commission as soon as possible.

July 22, 2005 - RETREAT

The Elections Commission held a retreat at the Fort Mason Officer's Club Lounge to discuss and address some of its own institutional questions and to define further some of its purposes under the Charter. There were commissioners who did not think the Commission had the power or authority to do much of anything; others saw virtually no limits on what the Commission could do involving elections. This meeting was to discuss the issues as much as possible.

This meeting was very valuable, and simply could not have been valuable without the great work and preparation of Deputy City Attorney Julie Moll.

Deputy City Attorney Julia Moll, gave a brief introduction to the topic. She said that the Charter establishes a chain of command that applies to the governance of City departments. The Commission sets policy for the Department and communicates that policy to the Director. The Director is responsible for administration and management of the Department and for executing the policies established by the Commission.

Another topic: the conduct of commissioners in relation to their appointing authority. President Matthews stated that he wanted this item on the Retreat's agenda was to revisit the Board of Education's meeting in which that Board, which has an appointment on the Elections Commission, expressed its desire that their appointee would keep in mind the needs of the Board of Education and of parents of public school students when considering matters before the Commission. President Matthews said that this was classically wrong& and the Charter says the appointee, is broadly representative of the general public, not broadly representative of parents who have children in our schools or any of the other constituencies that the Board of Education wants represented.

In Deputy City Attorney Julia Moll's presentation, she stated that members of the Elections Commission, like all City boards and commissions are City officers, and as City officers, they owe a duty of loyalty to the City and must act in the City's best interests. She explained that although members are all appointed by different appointing authorities, those members do not owe a duty of loyalty to that appointing authority.

Activities by Commissioners between meetings and on Election Day. Commissioners reached a consensus that our role is to produce policy and exert oversight of the entire elections process, and to work with the Director as cooperatively as circumstances allow. A supermajority of commissioners expressed that the Commission's role is more than just holding monthly meetings and regarding oversight involvement as optional.

August 17, 2005

The Commission heard a presentation by Supervisor Sean Elsbernd regarding proposed legislation to allow individuals and organizations to submit only one free ballot argument per measure and establishing new priority level for state and local elected officials registered to vote in San Francisco who submit ballot arguments. Ultimately, the Commission did not support this legislation for two reasons: (1) enough commissioners agreed that the proposal as finally drafted was Constitutionally defective as it would impinge on First Amendments rights of association and of speech; and (2) would not be effective because it would be extremely easy to get around by asking numerous friends to submit the same essay but with their individual names attached. Additionally, the requirement that the DOE check every submitted ballot argument against every single other ballot argument for shared authorship was deemed undesirably burdensome on the DOE.

RFP Update. The demonstration election program went well in City Hall. The vendors were surprised at the turnout. From August 29 until September 9, the selection panel will have an opportunity to interview the vendors again.

Ex-Offender Voting Rights, revisited. Commissioner Gleason reported that the Budget & Policy Committee heard a presentation from Eileen Hirst of the Sheriff's Department who explained what the Sheriff's Department does regarding ex-offenders' voting rights. He said Director Arntz reported to the Committee on steps the DoE is taking to do outreach to ex-offenders as well. The Commissioner said he was very impressed with the new information that will be in the VIP informing the public of ex-offender's voting rights because the information can reach their friends and family, and the general public who may not have known about the laws. Director Arntz reported that the DoE has now added a web page to its site with information for ex-offenders regarding their voting rights.

September 21, 2005

RFP Update. A second addendum to the RFP had been issued. It extended the time for the vendors to submit their supplemental proposals by one week. Proposals are now due September 30^th. The review period was extended until October 14^th.

During public comment, many members of the public spoke strongly in favor of such issues as open source computer code (not favored by commissioners, as (1) that would open the possibilities for hacking even wider, and (2) having a wiki audit of election code rather than the current system of independently contracted disinterested analysts to review the code seems much safer and more efficient). Others spoke about the unreliability of touch-screen systems. Director Arntz assured the audience and the Commission that San Francisco will still be a paper-based' voting county.

October 19, 2005

Jennifer C.L. Meek, appointed by the Board of Education, was officially introduced as a new member of the Commission.

Insufficient funding delayed the opening of the early voting counter for the November 2005 election. Commissioner Matthews asked why the early voting counter wasn't opened as it has been in previous elections. Director Arntz replied that it is a greater convenience for voters to be able to go to the early voting counter, which has been set up in the past, to verify their registration information immediately. This is also convenient for the Department's staff. However, now two divisions' work (Voter Services and Campaign Services) have been combined into one small area. Mr. Arntz explained that the Department was watching its temporary staffing budget very closely, because the budget was under-funded.

Update of the process for selection of a new voting system. The previous Friday, the Selection Panel completed its scoring of the proposed companies, and a letter of intent to negotiate a contract was sent to Sequoia Voting Systems because that company received the most points. This meant that the county will continue to have optical scanning and paper ballots, but to meet the accessibility requirements of HAVA (Help Americans Vote Act), one touchscreen voting machine will be in each polling place beginning June 2006.

Commissioner Gleason asked what was the time line for the RFP contract to be signed. Director Arntz replied that the schedule in the RFP states that the contract is to be executed by December 23, 2005.

Discussion about adequacy of Department's budget. Commissioner Townsend said that the Supervisors and the Mayor are not recognizing the importance that every election should be as easy as possible for citizens to participate in.

Director Arntz said that the legislature has not authorized re-imbursement funding for the Special Election.

Director Arntz explained that every department head was asked by the Mayor's Budget Office to sign off on her or his budget, thereby stating that the amount funded is sufficient. He said that he has not done so for the Department's budget because the amount was not sufficient. Basically, the budget is not enough to hire temporary staffing for the June Primary Election, especially with the new voting system being implemented.

November 15, 2005.

November 15, 2005

The November 8, 2005 Consolidated Special Statewide Election. The Director reported that all polling sites were open at 7:00 am on election day, this is the first time in several elections that this has been accomplished. The Director praised the poll workers for this extraordinary achievement. There were fewer (only 750) phone calls into election center and only 1800 to the phone bank. This is an incredible decrease in calls and the Director attributed the decline to better poll worker and Field Election Deputy (FED) involvement. These workers were more eager and able to resolve problems because they were better trained.

Director Arntz said that voters were concerned that their ballots were frequently rejected by the Eagle machines because they did not complete all three columns. This is partially attributed to the Department not having enough funding to conduct pre-election outreach to voters. Community outreach would have enhanced voters awareness of how the ballots needed to be marked in order to be counted efficiently. Therefore, voters were less prepared to vote in this, the City's second ranked choice election. Also during the development of RCV in San Francisco, the majority of public comments wanted voters to be alerted if all three columns were not marked. People were concerned RCV would not be successful if voters did not have every opportunity to mark all three columns.

This year, for the first time, voters were asked to fill out voter-feedback-forms. This survey asked voters about their experience at the polls. The Director reported that voters really took their time filling out these surveys and were happy to do so. The overwhelming majority of the responses to the survey questions and the comments section of the survey were positive to the Department.

For the November election, there were: 2,808 Poll Workers, of those, 1,240 were High School students (many assisting in the bilingual services needed at the polls); 473 polling places had bilingual Chinese workers (at 84% of all sites); 183 polling places had bilingual Spanish workers (at 32% of all sites); 46 polling places had bilingual Russian workers (at 8% of all sites); 116 standby Poll Workers, which is the lowest number in recent memory; and 56 FEDS. This demonstrates that the Inspectors, FEDs, Poll Workers who chose to work this year's election actually showed up in greater numbers than before.

The Director reported that he expects that once all the ballots are counted, over 50% of the registered voters will have turned out to vote. This is higher than expected. Of the 138,000 absentee ballots that the Department mailed to voters, 93,000 were mailed back.

Director Arntz asked the Commission to review the implementation of programming ballot accepting equipment so that voters will be able to make only one selection of a candidate for an office without the tabulating equipment automatically rejecting that ballot as being under-voted, thus requiring Poll Workers to ask the voter if this was, indeed, the voter's intention, and therefore, perhaps, invading a voter's privacy.

President Matthews thanked the Director and the Department for running the eighth consecutive great election. Commissioner Townsend said he had visited the Department several times before election day and observed the operation during those critical last days. He reported that everything ran smoothly, he was impressed with the hard work of the staff and he wanted to make sure that the Department sends Thank You letters to the Poll Workers.

Comments regarding State Senate Hearing in Oakland regarding RCV (Ranked Choice Voting): Director Arntz was invited to the hearing by Senator Bowen because the City of Berkeley is interested in implementing RCV. He was asked to share San Francisco's experience and answer questions. The Director informed the Commission that his office provides many documents and CDs of documents to persons inquiring about how RCV is implemented in San Francisco.

Commissioner Chung asked if other jurisdictions contact the Department about RCV. Director Arntz responded that North Carolina, for example, called his office today because that state is considering using RCV because in that state's primary election, if neither candidate gets 40%, the person coming in second place can ask for a run off election.

Commissioners' Reports

President Matthews reported that he had participated in discussions, along with the Director, with various City Hall budget officers, regarding budgeting issues that will be affecting the DoE beginning in December. He said that these talks represent the Commission's effort to secure the needed funding to carry out the June 2006 election with the same quality that the City has received in recent elections. President Matthews said that the tradition of well-run elections must continue.

Commissioner Townsend reported that he and Director Arntz have also met with members of the Mayor's office and with the Mayor's budget office regarding getting appropriate funding for the upcoming June election and the need to keep the quality of the City's elections at the same high level as recent elections.

Commissioners' Reports of their observations and activities on Election Day.

Commissioner Townsend reported that due to his having an accident and not having an automobile, he spent Election Day watching the City Hall operations and occasionally answering questions from the public. He said he was impressed by the morale of staff, even when dealing with difficult citizens.

Commissioner Chung reported that she attended 20 hours of Field Election Deputy (FED) training to prepare to work her 23 hours on Election Day. She complimented the Department staff for their excellent training program. The Commissioner singled out Lucy and George for their instruction. The High School students were lauded. The coordinators at City Hall were responsive and were praised as well. Commissioner Chung said that the biggest issue for the FEDs was the Eagle machines. Eight times out of ten a ballot would become stuck somewhere in the machine. The Commissioner said that she and the other FEDs were grateful that they had received adequate training on the Eagle machines because they found that a big part of their duties was to provide technical support. She said that the messages from the voting machines when the ballots were rejected was not clear, and voters may have felt embarrassed when their votes were initially not accepted. For many voters it was their intention NOT to vote the entire ballot, but the equipment rejected those ballots and those voters had to give up their privacy and verbally explain that their vote was intended. However, there were voters who were pleased that their ballots were rejected because they did not realize that there were other races on the reverse side of their ballots. Commissioner Chung asked that at future elections the Sheriffs and FEDs should be coordinated in their pickups when the poll closed.

President Matthews reported that he served as an Elections Inspector during this election at precinct 2122, at George Washington High School. The Commissioner complemented Jasmeer and Alex who were his trainers. He said that the trainers highlighted respect and comfort for the voters and secrecy of the ballot. This was the first election for the FED in his precinct, however, she was well trained and President Matthews commended the FED manual with its many checklists for the success of the FEDs in this election. He also complimented the high school students as exceptional poll workers.

President Matthews reported that he had not anticipated the problems that could arise at his precinct site, a school. There were state ballot measures concerning teachers, and he was concerned that there might be some electioneering near by. One teacher proceeded to have very loud political conversations near the precinct and the Commissioner explained the laws regarding electioneering; after the second offense, he advised the teacher that the Sheriff would be called if his activities continued.

President Matthews explained that in his conversations with poll workers, FEDs, and inspectors he found that a very high percentage of voters intended to leave particular contests un-voted, or expressed a preference for fewer than three candidates.

After observing operations at City Hall with Commissioner Gleason for a short period around 9:00pm, President Matthews and Commissioner Gleason went to Pier 29 to observe their completely organized election day operations. The following DoE employees at 240 Van Ness Avenue who were responsible for getting all the supplies to the FEDs, Inspectors, and Polling Sites were singled out by the Commissioner for commendations: Cuong Quach, Alan Samatra, and Aura Mendieta.

Commissioner Gleason complimented the Department's training efforts to ensure that all workers understood that voters did not need to speak English. He said that he worked as an Inspector at Precinct 2213. The scheduling for training was convenient, and the pick up of supplies at 240 Van Ness was very efficient (4 minutes for getting the supplies). Although the training last year was fantastic , Commissioner Gleason reported that the training this year went beyond that . He singled out Jim Dowling for his excellent training classes, and suggested that keeping good trainers for future elections may not be possible because these workers are temporary and may not be available to work with the Department next year. The Commissioner suggested that the City take a look at how keeping good staff is important for maintaining good elections. The training emphasized good customer service and is getting better each year.

Commissioner Gleason showed the Commission members and audience a sample custody form and sample ballots to explain some of the responsibilities of an Inspector, and how ballots are tallied at the polling sites. He suggested that wording on reports be adjusted to show exhausted and eligible ballots, and that there be a post mortem on this past election with employees and interested parties to work on clarifying the wording used to explain voting procedures and best practices . The Commissioner commended the people who pushed forth Ranked Choice Voting and said that by using RCV, the City did save money this election and RCV was a real service to the taxpayers and to the voters.

The City is running two systems to do the same operation Commissioner Gleason said when comparing the numbers of voters who were permanent absentee and precinct voting, this is one reason costs are up. The number of people needed to open and count the growing number of absentee ballots needs to be budgeted.

Commission Secretary Rodriques reported that she assisted staff at the City Hall Election Day voting counter who handled over 1100 voters that day. There were five counter employees available to handle 222 voters each. Staff was polite, efficient and a tribute to the Department.

Director Arntz complimented the Commissioners for their valuable participation in the election and said he looked forward to working with members in the future. He said that it is encouraging that the Commission and Department work together to benefit the City's citizens and that in past years no one had stood up for the Elections Department. Many good people have left the Department because of the demands of the work and the lack of resources.

December 21, 2005

Report on Canvass. The Canvass was completed December 4, 2005. The total number of voted ballot cards from each precinct are compared to the number of voted ballots recorded on each optical scanner at the polling places. The unvoted ballots are also counted to assure that the number of ballots sent to the polling places equals the number returned. Seven precincts are chosen randomly in a one-percent manual tally which is compared to the machine tabulations in those precincts. Additionally, the write-in votes are hand tallied, and signatures in each precinct's roster are counted and compared to the number of voters on the optical scan machine's tape.

Certification of the November 8, 2005 Election. The Election was certified December 5, 2005. The Secretary of State was provided the results so that the Charter Amendment to move the Assessor-Recorder and the Public Defender race from the June Primary to the November General Election, which was passed by the voters, could be put into law. The Board of Supervisors was provided documentation of the election.

Update of the Voting Equipment Contract. The contract negotiations to provide each polling place with one optical scan unit and one touch screen unit for the June 2006 election are ongoing. The Department's primary goal is that the touch screen unit meet the HAVA (Help America Vote Act) requirements. The Director reminded the Commission, however, that the City will still be a paper ballot city and most voters will still vote using paper ballot cards.

The Sequoia Voting Equipment is not certified for a Primary Election because it cannot report those results, or provide a character based language at the present time. That certification is expected in January from the Independent Testing Authority and then will be reviewed for certification by the SOS.

The Director reported that 138,000 absentee ballots were mailed to voters: of those, 121,000 were permanent, 17,000 were from voters who came to the DoE counter or requested them by mail or telephone. Approximately 95,000 absentee ballots were returned by voters.

Commissioners' Reports. Commissioner Townsend reported that he and Commissioner Chung attended a meeting with Director Arntz in the Mayor's Budget Office. Their goal was to inform the Mayor's Office of the necessities to run a department that is required to perform successful elections. He reported that the Controller will visit the DoE and conduct an audit in January. Commissioner Townsend said that this will give the staff an opportunity to show the Controller how all the equipment and staff perform their duties. A report will be made to the budget office and the Mayor's Office of the findings of the audit, and there will be another meeting.

Supplemental budget request made by the Department of Elections. Director Arntz reminded the Commission that the primary need for the June Election will be staffing. He pointed out that the DRAFT budget has no mention of Outreach. The Director asked that the Commission consider this a very rough DRAFT and asked members to contact him if there's something more that should be listed.

Suggestion of an open forum regarding the feasibility of voting systems that operate with open source code. Commissioner Gleason said that he would like to hold this forum after the budget is finalized.

Programming of ballot reading equipment to allow voters to skip one or more selections for a candidate without the equipment rejecting the ballot as being under voted, and possible associated concerns such as voter annoyance, delay and privacy. The Roll Call Vote was UNANIMOUS that it be the policy of the Commission that the Department reprogram ballot reading equipment to allow voters to skip one or more selections for a candidate without the equipment rejecting the ballot as being undervoted.

Identification of unvoted and over voted Ranked Choice votes within the exhausted ballots category for purposes of reporting results. President Matthews reminded the Commission of the public comments and written correspondence about confusion regarding the ballots in the first pass that do not continue on to the second pass. Director Arntz said that the Department added a chart to the RCV results for the November 8, 2005 election that lists the number of over votes and under votes separately from the exhausted ballots.

January 18, 2006

Director's Preview of Supplemental Budget Request and Budget for Fiscal Year 2006-2007. Director Arntz reported that the status of the supplemental budget request hasn't changed since his last report and that once the Sequoia Voting Systems contract is completed later this week, the budget request information will be brought up to date.

" Update on the Independent Testing Authority's certification process. The SoS (Secretary of State's Office) has received the application from Sequoia for the system the DoE will use for the June 2006 Primary Election. The system has been tested according to the 2002 requirements. The Director stated that he does expect to have the system in place for the June election. An optical scanning voting machine and one touch screen system will be at each polling place for that election.

Commissioner Gleason asked the Director if the three issues being examined by the testing authority were: decline to state reporting, Chinese characters for the touch screens, and the upgrade to 2002 requirements. Mr. Arntz responded that he has been focusing on the 2002 requirements (which the current equipment does not meet), the Chinese character requirement and the reports for the non-partisans in the primary.

Commissioner Chung asked if there is a time line for the submission of the RCV module to the testing authority for the November election. Mr. Arntz said that part of that information will be in the contract which is now being finalized and that the sooner, the better, prior to the June election is his opinion.

Commissioner Meek asked about a back up plan in case the certification is not given. Mr. Arntz said there is the hand count that could be implemented. However, it is too soon to worry about that happening, and he feels it will not be necessary.

President Matthews asked Director Arntz to address the reasons for the change of election equipment vendors. Mr. Arntz answered that the ES&S contract expired in January 2005. The City required that an RFP (request for proposals) be made. There was a January 1, 2006 deadline for the DoE to receive money from the state in the form of Prop. 41 funds. There was a concern that all voting systems in the state would need to meet the 2002 testing requirements in time for the June 2006 Primary Election – which the ES&S contract did not meet. In fact, ES&S said that it would not upgrade its equipment to meet those requirements. Additionally, the City had to include an ADA accessible voting unit in each polling place.

Commissioner Gleason asked if some of the counties will be getting waivers to not meet the 2002 requirements by the primary election. The Director answered that the ES&S system could not be used with the touch screen system. Commissioner Gleason asked if changes in RCV voting would require testing. The Director responded that changes would require testing, and emphasized that any counties that stay with the eagle (ES&S system) can't make any changes to it because it will never meet the new requirements.

Commissioner Townsend asked for further clarification and asked in the event that the City wanted to change RCV to allow people to vote for one, two or none without having ballots rejected by the machine as having an error, would the City need to have this change tested by the testing authority. The Director answered in the affirmative.

February 15, 2006

" Update on the Independent Testing Authority's (ITA) certification process. The Director reported that ITA testing was completed on January 30, 2006. ITA issued a letter to the Secretary of State's Office (SoS) recommending that the Sequoia System be certified for use in California. This completes the ITA process.

" Update on Secretary of State testing of Sequoia's Voting System for certification. The Director reported that functional testing, also known as stress testing, was completed that day. The Director said he was not made aware of any issues that may have been discovered during the testing. The next step is for SoS staff to make a written report of the testing. On March 1, 2006, there would be a public hearing on the Sequoia system. Seven days after the hearing, the SoS can choose to certify its use in California. In Sacramento, on Friday, February 17, 2006, the SoS was providing a demonstration of all the systems being tested.

" Update on voting equipment contract. The Director reported that the contract has been negotiated and currently the language was being finalized.

Commissioner Gleason asked the Director whether the Department expects to sign a contract before the RCV certification is completed. Director Arntz said that the contract will be signed before the RCV certification is completed. He said that within two weeks of the execution of the contract, he will meet with Sequoia representatives to finalize any RCV elements that were not completed for the pilot program. The system will then go for ITA testing and the expectation is that this will happen before the June Primary. Director Arntz advised the Commission that payment to the vendor will not be made until certification is completed. Commissioner Gleason asked if the SoS is aware of this situation and the Director answered affirmatively.

Commissioner Chung asked when the certification of the RCV portion of the contract would occur. Director Arntz replied that it would be in May and that this would provide the SoS with sufficient time to review the RCV system; Sequoia has a platform built for RCV and he has no concerns regarding it being ready for the November Election

Commissioner Gleason asked about the memorandum the Director sent to Supervisor Mirkarimi dated February 10, 2005, and if the vote-by-mail option as an alternate plan had been presented to the Commission before. The Director explained that the all-mail-ballot idea had been discussed in the past, however, before it can be used, there would need to be a 2/3 majority of the legislature to pass this bill. Such a plan is unlikely to be approved in time for the June Primary. Commissioner Gleason asked about ES&S's Automark system and whether ES&S has submitted an application for certification of its use with the Eagle system. Director Arntz said that he met with ES&S last Friday and was told that ES&S has a letter from ITA on file with the SoS that apparently supports the idea that Automark can be certified with the current system, but that it was his understanding that no process has been initiated nor has an actual application for certification not submitted to the SoS.

Commissioner Reports. President Matthews reported that he had spoken to various interested parties regarding certification and that Supervisor Mirkarimi's office has requested that he testify at tomorrow's Rules Committee about the issue of certification for this year's elections.

The Commission unanimously approved the Supplemental Budget request for Fiscal Year 2005-2006.

Commissioner Gleason reported that the Budget and Policy Committee met on Tuesday, February 7, 2006, and received a well prepared and presented supplemental budget request. After review and discussion, the Committee voted that the Department needs the $1,454,912 of supplemental funds and recommended approval to the full Commission.

The Commission unanimously approved the Proposed Budget for Fiscal Year 2006-2007. Commissioner Gleason reported that the Budget and Policy Committee met on Tuesday, February 7, 2006, and received a well prepared and presented budget request. After review and discussion, the Committee voted that the Department needs the $9,521,999 for Fiscal Year 2006-2007, and recommended approval of the budget to the full Commission.

" Update on the proposed Voting Systems Forum for March 29, 2006. Commissioner Gleason said that the Forum will be held at the Main Library. Commissioner Gleason asked if the Commission agreed with his proposal to have a panel of four or more knowledgeable persons. He presented a list of possible panel members and said that a letter to the prospective panel members would be mailed out early next week. There will be press announcements about the forum that will be sent to the Board of Supervisors, the Mayor's Office, other government agencies and the media.

March 15, 2006

" Update of the voting equipment contract for June 2006 election. The Director reported that Sequoia decided that because a contract had not been executed, the company cannot commit substantial resources to San Francisco for implementation of their system. For this reason, negotiations for a contract for the June election with the company have ended. ES&S (Elections Systems and Software) has agreed to provide the services and equipment for the June election. Our contract with them will be an extension of the existing contract that expires in April 2006..

" Plans for voting equipment for November 2006 election. The Director reported that ES&S has agreed to contract with the DoE through the November election. However, there was still an opportunity for Sequoia to provide a voting system that could be used in the 2007 election. For this to occur, the General Fund would need to provide up to $3.5M for the purchase before Sequoia can be an option. The ES&S ranked choice voting system had conditional certification twice in the past, and ES&S will need to receive that certification again from the Secretary of State before it can use the system for RCV in November 2006.

" Election Plan for Consolidated Primary Election for June 2006. The Director reported that the Eagle and AutoMARK voting systems that will be used in June are not certified for use in tandem. Therefore, they will be treated as two individual certified systems at each polling site. Their ballots will be different, and the AutoMARK ballots will not be tabulated at the polling site. They will be counted at City Hall with a special tabulator.

Commissioner Chung said she was concerned that $3.5 M was being spent (to use the ES&S system) after all the advocacy the Commission has done with the Board of Supervisors and the Mayor's office for additional funds to run the Department and the upcoming elections and now the Department would need additional funds to go forward with Sequoia. She said this puts the Department and the Commission in a tough situation. Director Arntz said that this will be a decision that the City will have to make if it wants the option of moving to Sequoia in the future, and if that is the case, more funds will need to be allocated from the General Fund.

Commissioner Gleason asked if the $3.5M was for service and equipment that includes the Eagle and the AutoMARK or was it for the AutoMARK alone. Director Arntz replied that this amount was what ES&S said is needed to incorporate the AutoMARK into the Department's existing system/equipment and he was not sure how much of this money will be used to cover service. He couldn't give a more precise answer at that time.

Introduction of proposed amendments to the Elections Commission's Bylaws. President Matthews introduced several proposed amendments to the Bylaws, which were later amended and adopted, infra.

April 19, 2006

Update on the Voting System – The Director reported that the contract with Elections Systems and Software was complete for June 2006, and was now at the Purchaser's Office. Once it is signed there, the application would go to the Voting Modernization Board. This was necessary to get the grant monies from the State to pay for the use of the AutoMARK for the June Election.

Report of the Forum on Voting Systems held on March 29, 2006 (Commissioner Gleason). Commissioner Gleason reported that the forum was well attended with approximately 50 to 60 people in the audience. The panelists were: Ms. Courtenay S. Bhatia, President & CEO of Verified Voting, The Hon. Warren Slocum, Assessor, County-Clerk, Recorder for San Mateo County and Mr. Alan Dechart, President & CEO of Open Voting Consortium. Due to time constraints at the forum, the questions and replies from the panelists are posted on the Elections Commission website under meetings and will also be available on the Department of Elections website. The Commissioner thanked the Commission Secretary for her suggestion to cover the audiences' written questions by having the panelists respond in writing and making those responses available to the public on the Elections Commission and Department websites.

Elections Commission approves a letter to the Secretary of State of California asking that the conditional approval of the ES&S Ranked-Choice Voting system and methods be upgraded to approval.

Elections Commission adopts Bylaws Amendments introduced at previous meeting.

May 3, 2006

Ballot Distribution. The Director reported that the following Monday, approximately 80,000 out of a total 120,000 Absentee ballots will be mailed. The remaining 40,000 will follow.

Secretary of State visit. The Secretary of State visited the DoE the previous Wednesday and participated in the introduction of the AutoMARK at a media event outside room 48 in City Hall. There were representatives from the Mayor's Office on Disability and the Lighthouse for the Blind.

Voting System – The Director reported that all of the AutoMARKS had been received and acceptance testing completed. The audio files for these units were expected this week and would be reviewed. The three units that will be available for early voting will need to be tested before they are used on Monday.

ELECTION OF COMMISSION OFFICERS. President Matthews explained that this election was for officers who would be serving from the close of this meeting until January 2007 when officeholders will be chosen to serve for one year. Commissioner Gleason nominated Richard P. Matthews for President. There were no further nominations. A Roll Call Vote was unanimous. Richard P. Matthews was elected President of the Elections Commission. Commissioner Sheila Chung nominated Jennifer Meek for Vice President. There were no further nominations. A Roll Call Vote was unanimous. Jennifer Meek was elected Vice President of the Elections Commission.

May 17, 2006

At 7:16 pm, President Richard P. Matthews called the meeting to order but announced that this was not an official meeting because there was no quorum. Present were Commissioners Matthews, Meek, Gleason, Director Arntz and Deputy City Attorney Marquez.

President Matthews announced a reassignment of Committee members: The Budget and Oversight of Public Elections Committee will still be chaired by Commissioner Gleason, the new Vice Chair is Jennifer Meek, and Commissioner Matthews would continue to serve as the third member.

June 21, 2006

Commissioner Victor Hwang joins Commission as appointee of Public Defender Jeff Adachi. Commissioner Hwang introduced himself and briefly described his background. He said he has been a public interest attorney for 14 years, and works for Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach, in the areas of domestic violence, human trafficking and immigration work. His experience in elections has been work regarding redistricting and polling place compliance issues.

June 6, 2006 Election. The Director reported that, generally, the election went well. One of the major concerns had been having sufficient pollworkers. The introduction of the AutoMark voting machine was another concern. There wasn't sufficient time to load the Cantonese language software into the AutoMarks. One problem early on Election Day was Automark ballots were being placed in the Eagle machines. This caused the Eagles to jam. Technicians were called to correct the problems. Currently the turnout of voters is reported to have been 38 percent.

Voter Information Pamphlets; lateness was fluke. One problem with formatting the VIP (Voter's Information Pamphlet) was that the vendor had problems with the Chinese letters. This caused a five to six day delay in completion of the guide, because a sample ballot has to go into the VIP before it is mailed. There were also delays due to problems getting the AutoMark ballot formatted.

Director Arntz explained that for a primary election, the VIPs had to be in the mail no later than ten days before the election. The Department met that deadline.

President Matthews agreed that the election went well. He asked if the deadline for mailing VIPs for this election also followed the guidelines of the City's Municipal Elections Code. Mr. Arntz replied that since this was a state primary, it is the state's election code that would be followed.

Update on Voting System - The Director said that the Department was not prepared for the AutoMark vendor's lack of support. There were no complaints of the AutoMark incorrectly marking ballots on election day. The pollworkers were trained to inform all voters that the AutoMark was available for their use; however, it appears that conveying this information to the voters was not done consistently. There were 158 ballot styles for the Eagle machines, 158 ballot styles for the AutoMark, 158 ballot styles for the AutoMark audio files in Spanish, English and Mandarin. This was a huge increase in the workload to implement the AutoMark in San Francisco. HAVA (Help America Vote Act) funds were used to purchase the AutoMarks. The City and County of San Francisco did not pay for the election; it was paid for by State and Federal grants.

President Matthews said that a number of the ballot cards for the AutoMarks were hand-marked. He asked if there was a tally of the number of voters who did so.

The Director responded that such a tally will be made and reminded the Commission that all of these votes are counted. During the canvass, after an election, every single ballot is accounted for by hand at City Hall.

President Matthews congratulated the Department for its extra layer of accuracy that is provided by the canvassing. He explained that even the wrong ballot card, used the wrong way, put into the wrong machine, is detected and counted within the 30 day time limit. The Director told the Commission that San Francisco has the most thorough canvass of all the counties in the state and is a model for other counties.

Preparation for November 7, 2006 Election – The Director reported that he spoke to representatives of ES&S and was advised that an application is ready and will be sent to the Secretary of State after the first of the month. Mr. Arntz said there would be two challenges for the November election: getting the Eagle machines re-certified for Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), and having the AutoMark machines certified to work with the Eagles and with RCV. There will be improvements in training of the workers for the next election and in getting the vendors to prepare materials earlier. The contracts for November were almost completed, and staffing did not appear to be an issue for that election. The concern is for staffing for the period between January 2007 and July 2007 when the planning for the next three elections commences.

Director Arntz asked that the Commission send out letters to the vendor and to the SoS.

Presentation by speaker on update of the status of the Voting Rights Act renewal pending in the U. S. Congress. Commissioner Sheila Chung gave background to this Act and introduced Robert Rubin, legal director at The Lawyers Committee on Civil Rights for the San Francisco Bay Area. Mr. Rubin explained that his organization has been active in this cause for years. One example was the blocking of the efforts by the Governor to stop implementation of the motor voter law, The National Voter Registration Act, which has led to tens of millions of new voters. Mr. Rubin reported that the House of Representatives had, just hours ago, refused to take up a vote on renewal of the Voting Rights Act. It was last renewed in 1982. The objections seem to be principally around minority language rights. The Senate, he said, was prepared to vote on reauthorization next week; however, after the House vote, the issue is uncertain. There were two principal provisions up for renewal: Section 5 which requires pre-clearance of certain jurisdictions which was intended to shift the burden of inertia from the victim of discrimination to the perpetrator of the discrimination, and Section 203 which is the minority language provision. Mr. Rubin suggested that the Director and the Commission let the Congress know that providing materials in languages other than English does not break the system, but enhances it. He suggested that letters be sent to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.

Commissioner Chungannounced her resignation from the commission effective this meeting. She cited her increasing involvement in immigrant rights, and personal reasons for this decision. The Commissioner thanked the members for the opportunity to work with them, the public and the Department. She praised the Department staff with whom she has worked during her training to volunteer on the election day phone bank and to work as a Field Election Deputy (FED).

Commissioners' Report of their activities and observations of the election held June 6, 2006.

Commissioner Townsend reported that he observed the activities at the Department during the election. He also visited four polling places including one on Fulton at Fillmore because he was interested in getting feedback on the use of the AutoMark voting machines. No one had used the AutoMark when he visited and this included the Fulton/Fillmore polling place that was located in a senior citizen/disabled residence. The Commissioner said that some of the workers at the Fillmore Center location told him that they felt that they were not sufficiently trained regarding the differences between the Eagle ballots and the AutoMark ballots, and that these two ballot types could not be exchanged for one another. He said that the complaints coming in to Election Central were higher in the early morning and lessened during the day and evening. He said that there will be glitches, but that all in all, the Department did a great job .

Commissioner Sheila Chung reported that she worked as a FED (this required two full-days of training plus 20 hours on election day beginning with waking up at about 3:00 am. For this election, her precincts were increased by two to make eleven. She was in the Mission/Potrero Hill area. The Commissioner said that one of the most difficult jobs that pollworkers had was to explain to voters who were registered as declined to state , what their voting options were. The best way to explain this to the voter was to show them the different types of ballot cards they could use and allowing them to make their selection. In the morning there was some confusion regarding which ballot types were for use in the AutoMark. The Commissioner said that the AutoMark sometimes had a technical glitch by not recognizing the ballot. She recommended that the FEDs and pollworkers be given the different ballot types during training so that they will have hands-on experience with the real ballots. Commissioner Chung reported that she spoke to a disabled voter who said that she was thrilled to now be able to vote for the first time by herself with the AutoMark. The Commissioner encouraged High School student ride-alongs with the FEDs on election day to encourage the students leadership development to be long term pollworkers and eventually to be FEDs. She suggested that FEDs also attend the Inspector training to learn the closing procedures, because they are often called upon to assist the Inspectors in closing the polls. Other suggestions were that the FEDs be given street index maps, and that there be more Russian bilingual materials, even in the areas where she worked, those materials would have been helpful. Finally, Commissioner Chung thanked Efrem, George, Raj and the rest of the staff for their good work.

Commissioner Gleason reported that he had a written report that would be given to the other members. He said that the DoE has consistently put together a terrific system to organize, manage and support elections. He described the pollworker training he attended as fantastic. For this election, the Commissioner was an inspector and said that fifty per cent of the pollworkers for his precinct did not show up for work. He had to open his polling place with one sixteen year old high school student. Commissioner Gleason said that he feels that the quality of pollworkers needs to improve.

Commissioner Hwang said that although this election happened before his appointment, he was concerned regarding the lateness of his receiving his Chinese bilingual VIP. He received it the Saturday before election day. He visited two poll sites, and was taken with the diversity of the pollworkers (four to five) at each site. He said the diversity of races, and ages of these workers made for a welcoming environment at the polling place. Previously, at an earlier election, the Commissioner recounted that if he had not voted all the selections on his ballot, the poll workers would ask if it had been his intention not to vote the entire ballot; this time this didn't happen. The Commissioner said that he appreciated the confidentiality of not being asked this question.

Commissioner Meek said that overall, she felt the election went well. Her concern was that the VIPs should be sent out as early as possible, especially to absentee voters. Commissioner Meek worked as an Inspector during this election, and felt that her training was adequate; however, her pollworkers were not as informed as they should have been. She said that she was in agreement with Commissioner Gleason that the quality of pollworkers needs to improve from wanting to earn $86.00 for the day to really caring that every vote is counted. Improving the selection process is a real challenge because so few citizens volunteer for this work. The high school students are terrific pollworkers, Commission Meek explained, and that program needs to continue. She suggested workers need to arrive at the precincts one and a half hours early, for primaries, to allow more time to set up. The Commissioner reported that she was rushed to set up for the 7:00 am opening even though she arrived at 6:00 am. She found it necessary to explain to her pollworkers about the ballot information, why the ballots had to be layed out in a certain format. After the morning, the rest of the day went smoothly, except for the voters who declined to state , and therefore had to request their ballots.

Commissioner Matthews said that on June 1^st, he sat in on the new inspectors training which was excellent. He praised the training manual with its photographs of the AutoMark and said that the training materials get better with each election. The Commissioner said he observed the canvassing on June 9, 12, 14 and 20, the staff and supervisors of the canvassing do excellent work going through every single card of every precinct. He praised the Department for doing this extra layer of accuracy and security. The Commissioner said that he has been studying the complaint log and emails from aggrieved voters and the DoE's responses. Most of the complaints fall into the user error department; that is, voters not following directions to turn their ballots over to vote the back of the ballot card. He acknowledged the lateness of the mailing of the VIPs and said that this problem was due to the change in plans for the voting system, and is unlikely to be repeated in the future. He asked the Director to provide a breakdown of the provisional ballots by cause and which were accepted and which were rejected within the next few weeks.

Department's budget/Controller's report. Director Arntz reported that the first draft of the Controller's Audit Report came out June 14. The Department was putting together a response to the report to present in one to two days. The audit report combined all of the year-round permanent provisional staff with the year-round temporary staff to make a total of 36 people. This is the DoE's permanent base. When the report suggested cutting or reducing the temporary positions, it was cutting the positions that they added in the Department's permanent staffing number. When compared to other counties, the Director said, San Francisco's Elections Department does more with less workers than other counties. The Director asked each Commissioner to call each member of the Budget Committee of the Board of Supervisors and lobby for the DoE's budget and staffing. Commissioners should remind the Board that the Department has had these temporary people on staff for the last four years and the Department has run very well for that time, so why are they being taken away now? How do we do our work without them? How can the Department meet its legal obligations with less staffing? By making these cuts, the Department is prevented from performing its core functions.

Public Comment. David Pilpel said that the full Controller's report was now posted on the City's website. Mr. Pilpel said that he was displeased that that office has little or no underlying analysis behind their recommendation. It is as if they decided what the answer was and then put some facts together to support it. Additionally, he said that it appears that the Budget Analyst is deferring his responsibility to the Controller's office for analysis of the DoE's staffing and that this is unusual.

Commission unanimously approves a letter to the Secretary of State and ES&S regarding upgrading the conditional approval of existing Ranked Choice Voting equipment.

June 26, 2006 – SPECIAL MEETING

Presentation by Supervisor Jake McGoldrick's Office regarding the proposed Charter amendment related to moving elections that occur in odd-numbered years. The Commission discussed this matter at a later meeting.

July 5, 2006

Summary of canvass and certification of June 6, 2006 Election – Deputy Director Linda Tulett reported that the canvass has been completed and the election was certified on Monday, July 3, 2006.

The selection of the random precincts for the canvass was changed this year. Each precinct was represented on a piece of paper, and there was a random draw of one percent of the precincts.

Update on preparation for November 7, 2006 Election. Deputy Director Tulett reported that the Department had not received any information from ES&S (Elections Systems & Software) regarding equipment certification for RCV (Ranked Choice Voting). The DoE signed its contract with ES&S and was awaiting the final reply from ES&S for that contract.

President Matthews said that there is such a lack of understanding and a lack of concern about the ramifications of moving these particular jobs to these classifications, and that folks (in City Hall) can't see that you're going to blow a hole clear through the Department if these folks are made seasonal or other bizarre classifications that really aren't going to allow good folks to come back. He continued, it's no accident that we've had nine straight, great elections in four years. It doesn't happen randomly. And perhaps that's made people (in City Hall) complacent. It hasn't made us complacent.

The Commission unanimously approved a letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives to encourage the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act.

July 19, 2006

Deputy City Attorney Márquez announced that he would be returning to the Unified School District and introduced Ann O'Leary who would be his successor for the Department of Elections and the Elections Commission. Deputy City Attorney O'Leary said that her elections background was primarily from her number of years working in politics in Washington, DC.

Update on re-certification of voting equipment for RCV. The Commission had been given a letter that the Secretary of State's office (SoS) sent to the State Certification Manager of Elections Systems & Software (ES&S) about that company's inaction in seeking certification for its system. In the case that the equipment cannot be certified, the Department was preparing its hand tallying procedures for the RCV election. The Director said that he spoke with the SoS yesterday and was assured that they will do everything they can to assist the Department.

Commissioner Meek asked if the Board of Supervisors had been notified of the letter and the events that led to the choice of ES&S over Sequoia voting systems. The Director answered that the choice has been well documented. He asked the Commission if it would consider how to move forward and whether the DoE should go with Sequoia, ES&S or some alternate system and then advise the Department. He recalled the Commission's Voting Systems Forum with its public testimony as one example of past input. Director Arntz said he would like to hear from the Commission about what would be its recommendation as the best plan, and how the City should proceed with its voting system and voting system's provider at the conclusion of 2006. The the Director said that contract with the vendor must be signed BEFORE December 31, 2006 for a new system if the City is to continue with optical scanning technology. However, if the contract is signed after that date, the City cannot get the HAVA reimbursement for that system, therefore the system will have to be touch screen. This interpretation turned out not to be accurate; later advice from the California Secretary of State's office countermanded this requirement to spend by December 31, 2006.

President Matthews referred to the letter from Bruce McDannold of the SoS's office to ES&S, in which reference is made of a June 20, 2006 letter that said that the originally certified system does not fulfill HAVA's requirements for accessibility. He asked the Director if he had been notified of this by ES&S. The Director answered that this letter was the first he had heard of this information being formally stated – although the Director had been saying it for several months.

The Commission unanimously found that the Department had conducted the June 6, 2006, in compliance with the previously approved Election Plan.

Supervisor Elsbernd's proposed amendment of municipal election code which would require mailing the Voter Information Pamphlet at least 29 days before an election. Commissioner Gleason reported that the Supervisor attended the Budget and Oversight of Public Elections Committee's meeting on July 13, 2006 and advised the Committee that he had received his Voter Information Pamphlet (VIP) three days before the election and that his office had received many calls from constituents with similar complaints. Commissioner Gleason said the Supervisor is concerned that the current code deadlines do not help to make voter information accessible to voters during the early voting period that begins 29 days before an election. Additionally, the Supervisor said it was unfair to people who paid for their arguments to appear in the VIP because they are not arriving in time to be effective. The Supervisor said that he wants a system in place to make sure this situation, of mailing the VIPs so late that voters do not receive them in a timely fashion, never happens again. Commissioner Gleason said that it was apparent that the Supervisor is very willing to work with the Department and the Commission to move this forward and added that he has five Supervisors who are supporting this proposal for an amendment.

President Matthews reported that Supervisor Elsbernd said that he would be willing to hear any refinements or suggestions from the Commission or the Department regarding the amendment within the next two weeks. The Commissioner asked Director Arntz if the Department wanted to make any input to the proposed amendment. The Director replied that the Department was already looking at deadlines to make the 29 days work, but so many parts of the process are out of the Department's control. He said that to begin the mailing at 29 days would be a better statement. The Director said that he will have suggestions for the Supervisor's proposal next week.

Commissioner Townsend said that, again, the Commission has a Supervisor trying to set policy for the Elections Department who doesn't know how the Department works and doesn't know how elections happen. He said, what are we going to do if we get another situation where there's a lawsuit ? Then, we wouldn't be able to await the result of the lawsuit before sending out the VIP, and if the lawsuit changes what is in the VIP we would have to mail out a second VIP at double the cost and it will get there late anyway. Commissioner Townsend said that the problems that caused the late mailing of the last VIP were out of the Department's control and will likely not reoccur.

President Matthews summarized discussion so far as: That the Commission would authorize the President to appear before the Rules Committee or the Board of Supervisors to discuss Supervisor Elsbernd's proposal supporting, perhaps, some movement back and some number of days as long as it is commensurate with a similar moving back of the deadlines of the public review period and other deadlines of the Charter.