City & County of San Francisco
Elections Commission

COMMISSION ANNUAL REPORT
2004

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

Arnold Townsend
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

COMMISSION ANNUAL REPORT
2004

Table of Contents:

I. PRESIDENT'S REPORT

II. 2004 COMMISSION MINUTES

III. BUDGET

ANNUAL REPORT

Unlike previous years, 2004, for the San Francisco Elections Commission, was a year of welcomed uneventfulness. Gone were the packed meetings and all of the anger and hostility of our first year that centered around the firing of former Director Tammy Haygood, and around Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) or Instant Runoff Voting the following year. I had a much easier task ahead of me than any of my predecessors and the experience has given me a great deal of respect for their efforts.

During 2004, the Commission simply had the task of doing the job that the City Charter mandated. That job was to ensure that the process the Department of Elections staff carried out was one that met the needs and the desires of the San Francisco electorate. To that end, we had, I believe, an excellent year of supporting staff in their continuing improvement of running, not only the Department of Elections, but the elections that they held in 2004.

The Elections Commission began the year knowing that there was much concern among citizens about ranked choice voting. We recognized that this voting method was mandated by law and that the voters had approved it. The Commission went on record, by voting, to reaffirm its commitment to implement RCV. While we knew we had to implement RVC, we wanted to give the citizens comfort in our ability to that commitment.

In January members of the Green Party challenged the mayoral election that took place the preceding November, alleging voter fraud. It has been a tradition in San Francisco that the loosing side in an election brings forth allegations of voter fraud. That's their right. And the Elections Commission will always take such allegations seriously. Ultimately, there was no fraud found.

The first month of the year saw a discussion regarding paper ballots while the Department sought approval of a voting system. Some people wanted us to start a process for paper ballots in case the system was not approved and we had to conduct the RCV election by hand. Many of the Commissioners felt that processing paper ballots and then doing a hand count of all of them was not appropriate. After that, another discussion that loomed large in January was that after consulting with the Commission, the Department decided to run on two tracks simultaneously - meaning that because we still did not have a state- approved system, we had to be prepared, in case the system did not win approval, to go forward with a normal election with a December runoff. Therefore staff was working double-time. The Department needs to be commended for its efforts in preparing two possible election scenarios - not knowing what was going to materialize. Hopefully, this situation will not reoccur and we are excited and grateful that it was resolved before they had to go too far.

In February, the Department submitted its election plan to the Commission and the Commission decided to reduce its meeting schedule to one meeting a month, on the premise that if there was no necessary business for the Commission to transact, no meeting would be held. This plan, although wise, was rescinded because there became a need for more frequent meetings and the Commission gladly returned, almost immediately, to it's regular twice-a-month meeting schedule.

In March the Commission took umbrage to the fact that the Chronicle made a big deal of the fact that five dead people had voted in the last election. This was front page headline news, insinuating there was voter fraud. The Commission would be alarmed, of course, if only one person voted fraudulently. But only by the act - we certainly were not concerned by the number. I think that the number proves that there is no wide spread voter fraud in San Francisco, rather than the opposite. We asked the Director to look into the allegation and the matter was referred to the District Attorney. The March 3^rd election ran smoothly with very few complaints. It was successful and there was even a fair turn out. In fact, the election ran so well that within that same month the City's budget analyst recommended that security should and could be lessen to save money. The Commission, or course, disagreed, because we thought we should have a few more good and smooth elections under our belt before we took such a step, especially with advent of RCV. With the arrival of RCV, we had no idea what would happen and certainly did not think that this was the appropriate time to lessen security. This certainly can be an issue to revisit in the future.

In April, things began to get more exciting for the Commission. The election for the Board of Supervisors began to become active. The state approved the RCV equipment for the November election. We were delighted that we, and especially the Department, knew where we stood for the November election. The Board of Supervisors, the attorneys and the Department were still dealing with the Tammy Haygood issue during this month. The Commission encouraged the Board to finalize the Haygood settlement so that the City could put the matter behind it. In this same month, Terry Baum, who had been a candidate for the State House of Representatives, and who had filed suit to force her name to be put on the ballot, turned in signatures on petitions that were determined inadequate. There was much discussion around this issue and the court denied Ms. Baum's challenge. The City of San Francisco discovered that there was no Latino representation on many of its boards, the Elections Commission being one. I had pointed out this observation frequently at Commission meetings and voiced my concern and displeasure over this fact. There had been no Latino representation and no person of color, except myself, since David Serrano- Sewell, a Latino Commissioner, resigned. He had been appointed by former Mayor Willie Brown and I took his place when I was appointed by the Mayor.

I was glad to see that the City had finally recognized this negligence. Although I had some concern regarding why it took so long, I'm glad they did it later rather than never.

In late April, The Department of Elections formally announced that RCV was finally ready, much to the joy of many of the people in San Francisco and no doubt to the consternation of some others, but for us it meant we knew what task lay ahead for the Department. At the same time, Asian and Pacific Islanders voiced their concern that they were not represented on many of the City's boards and commissions. That is not to say that there was anything wrong with the Commissioners already on this Commission. I have been privileged to have served with excellent Commissioners who are dedicated and concerned about all of the people of San Francisco. It was my concern that people ought to be able to look at any commission in this City and see representation that reflects the City's ethnicity.

Sadly, disabled voters were informed by the Department that it was not going to be able, for the upcoming election, to make every polling place accessible. However, we announced that we would make absentee ballots available to any disabled voter whose polling place was unreachable. The Department is working very hard to comply with the American Disabilities Act and we are hopeful that by the election for 2005, all sites are accessible. This is a big priority for the Department and the Commission.

In May, some District 10 citizens filed notice of intent to recall their supervisor, Sophie Maxwell. Also, the Commission discovered in May that there would be a real test of RCV in District 5 because 22 candidates filed intentions to run for that seat on the Board of Supervisors! It was amazing, but then that's democracy - everyone who wants to run has the right run and it was good to see demoncracy exercised. But we knew that if RCV could pass this test, it could pass almost any thing. There was a new settlement offer for the Haygood suit that was presented to the Board. We all waited with crossed fingers hoping that all sides would agree and move forward on this issue.

The Department released its Request for Proposals for community education grants and also designed an educational website for RCV. The community education grants were designed for community groups to go into the communities and districts effected by RCV and educate people regarding how the new voting system worked. In this month I was honored to be elected President of this Commission with the support of my colleagues. The Commission passed a resolution to support filling the vacancies on the Ballot Simplification Committee and to encourage the appointing authorities to do so quickly. This Committee is charged with the responsibility of going over all the printed election materials to make sure that the language in which it is written is in a manner that the greatest universe of people can understand and comprehend.

Sadly, both Alix Rosenthal and Richard Shadoian resigned during this month and I have missed their counsel, support and input. They were fine Commissioners who served admirably and in very difficult times.

In June of 2004, the Commission created the Voter Outreach and Participation Committee whose operation was to coincide with the Voting Rights Act to the year 2007. It was thought that the Voter Outreach Committee would be of great assistance to the Commission and to voters. On June 16th the Commission recommended a Charter amendment to the Board of Supervisors to move the elections for Public Defender and Assessor/Recorder to the November Election. Hopefully we will be able to start this by November 2006. This would move the elections of these offices from March to November, thus eliminating extra expenses. Under the current Charter, if a new person is elected, the incumbent is able to stay in office for ten months before the new electee is able to take office. It just seemed to be a very unwieldy method of electing public officials. On June 24, once again with regret, the Commission accepted the resignation of Vice President Tony Winnicker. Though Mr. Winnicker was on the Commission for only a few months, he made a tremendous impact. He resigned to allow, then Treasurer, Susan Leal, to appoint a woman to what was at that time an all male commission. I had pointed out this observation to the Commission at the time of the resignation of Commissioner Rosenthal and the leaving of Commissioner Brenda Stowers. While we missed Commissioner Winnicker's advice and counsel, we understood his commitment to doing the right thing in this case.

In this month the Commission welcomed Eric Safire, who was appointed by Public Defender Jeff Adachi, to the Commission.

In July, the petitions for the recall of District 10 Supervisor Sophie Maxwell, were submitted to the Department. It was also in this month that a press conference was held with Director Arntz, Board of Supervisor Matt Gonzales and myself to unveil the ballots for RCV. I should note that, then Board of Supervisors' President, Matt Gonzales, introduced a proposal to allow non-citizens to vote. Also, during July, Measure M was removed from the ballot, it concerned Real Estate rentals and the demolition of apartment buildings with a certain number of units. Problems with the language of this proposition arose and a judge decided that it not go forward.

The Commission welcomed Sheila Chung who was appointed by Treasurer Susan Leal, as its newest member.

On August 17^th, the recall petitions for the District 10 Supervisor were certified as insufficient. There were many meetings, discussions and presentations made to the Commission regarding this issue. But because the certifications had not met the necessary requirements, the Commission's hands were tied.

In September, federal funds were frozen due to concerns about the Secretary of State's handling of those funds and then were eventually released by the governor's office to counties. These funds were important for the training of poll workers and to fund the City's ADA (Americans with Disabilities) requirements. In this same month, because the Department of Elections awaited a ruling from the courts regarding measure M, production of the voter information pamphlets were delayed. On September 3rd, Richard Matthews was appointed to this Commission by the City Attorney. On September 22nd the Commission approved a resolution honoring Commissioner Robert Kenealey, dedicating the meeting gavel with an inscription of his name and also presenting a certificate honoring him. Mr. Kenealey had resigned earlier in the year due to ill health and had been on this Commission since its inception. He was a wealth of knowledge, information and advice while he served. I am honored to have been able to serve during his tenure.

In October, early voting began in City Hall and community based voter education which had begun earlier was still ongoing. Voter training intensified in October and we had 11,000 new voters on the rolls bringing the total of eligible voters in San Francisco to over 489,000. This is an extremely large number of voters and was very gratifying to see. We believe that the work of the Department, of the Commission as well as so many community groups played a part in increasing the voting rolls and we were excited to see more and more people desiring to participate in the electoral process.

In December, we were sadden by the resignation of Commissioner John Trasvina although we were excited by his appointment to a new very prestigious job with the Justice Department in Los Angeles. The Commission approved the request for waiver template for future waiver requests. Every time there is an election there has to be a waiver requested to allow City workers to work in the election. The waiver has to be designed and approved. By approving this template, we will have a form in place for every election which will make the process so much easier, especially for staff.

All in all, 2004 would have to be considered a banner year for both the Department and the Commission. It was a year that saw successful elections run, saw the Department moving towards making many of its temporary employees permanent, it was a year that saw elections with almost no complaints. It was a year that, even at the Commission level, we were yelled at very infrequently. We look forward to another year that will prove to be even better and we will then begin to make San Francisco the kind of City where the greatest number of people are active participants in carrying out the democracy that was so hard fought for and won by so many sacrifices.

Signed:___________________________________
Arnold Townsend, President
Elections Commission

(It should be noted that all statistical records of voter turn out and election tallies are available at the Department of Elections website.)