Elections Commission

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City and County of San Francisco

Elections Commission

 Approved: May 21, 2003

Minutes of the Meeting held

May 7, 2003

 

 

1. President Mendelson called the 36^th meeting of the Elections Commission to order

at 7:05 pm. 

 

2.            COMMISSION MEMBERS PRESENT:  Commissioners Michael Mendelson, Alix Rosenthal, Thomas Schulz, Robert Kenealey, Brenda Stowers and Richard Shadoian.  ABSENT: none.

 

3.         FLAG SALUTE was led by Commissioner Robert Kenealey.

 

4.         President Mendelson introduced the new Commissioner, appointed by the Mayor, Rev. Arnold Townsend, who then took his seat.  Commissioner Townsend said that he wants to work toward achieving good, fair and just elections and that one of his goals is to find a way to increase voter participation, particularly in districts with traditionally low voter turnout. 

 

5.         Public Comment – Charlie Walker wished the new Commissioner and the Commission good luck.  Cedrick Jackson, president of the Black Leadership Forum, welcomed Commissioner Townsend and said that he hoped the new Commissioner would be an advocate for underserved communities that are looking for the Commission’s support in seeing that there is active voter registration. 

 

6.         Discussion and possible approval of Minutes for April 16, 2003 and incorporating a report as part of the record.  Commissioner Kenealey MOVED to approve the minutes.  Vice President Rosenthal SECONDED.  The voice vote was unanimous.  MOTION PASSED.  President Mendelson requested that the report be made part of the record.

 

7.            President’s Report – President Mendelson announced that he would not make a report.

 

8.             Secretary’s Report – Commission Secretary Shirley Rodriques reported that Commission members have presented questions that they would like to have the three candidates for Director of Elections answer during the interview process and that DHR will be formatting the final questions.  The Commission will be sitting as a Committee of the whole to conduct the interviews. 

 

9.         Annual Election of new Commission Officers. – Commissioner Kenealey nominated Alix Rosenthal for the office of Commission President.  There were no other nominations.  There was a role call vote that was unanimous.  Newly elected President Rosenthal thanked the outgoing President for all his work “during an extremely challenging year.”  She said some of her goals as President were to encourage greater transparency in the Department, encourage more public participation in Commission meetings, implement ranked choice voting, assist the Department in growing its institutional memory, appoint a permanent Director, conduct productive discussions regarding the role of Commissioners – especially in relation to their appointing offices and conduct a Commission Retreat.

 

            President Rosenthal stated that she has determined that a good practice under the Brown Act and Sunshine Laws is to have public comment after each item in which business is conducted whether or not it is an action item, in addition to public comments during any item before a decision is made.  President Rosenthal plans to limit public comment to two minutes for non-action items and three minutes for action items.

 

            President Rosenthal then entertained motions for nominations for a Vice President.  Commissioner Kenealey MOVED to nominate Michael Mendelson for the office of Vice President.  There were no other nominations.  There was a roll call vote:  Kenealey – Yes; Schulz – PASSED; Mendelson – Yes: Shadoian – No; Stowers – Yes; Townsend – Yes.  Vice President Mendelson was elected by a vote of five votes in favor, one against and one pass.  MOTION 05-07-03-1, Alix Rosenthal elected President of the Elections Commission; MOTION 05-07-03-2, Michael Mendelson elected Vice President of the Elections Commission.

 

10.       Director’s Report – Provisional Director Arntz welcomed the new Commissioner. 

            Ranked Choice Voting - Mr. Arntz reported that the contract for Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) still has issues that need to be resolved between the vendor and the City before it can be signed.  Mr. Arntz said that these issues were small and could be resolved soon.  Supervisor Matt Gonzales of the Board of Supervisors has submitted a supplemental appropriation for $1.5M to the Finance Committee but it has not be calendared.  This presents a time lag for funding for the contract.  The DoE has presented an outreach plan to Supervisor Sandoval’s office.  The plan is estimated to cost $2.5M and the Supervisor will put forward the supplemental for this amount.  This supplemental has not yet been introduced to the Board.  Mr. Arntz stated that if the DoE had funding for the contract, it still could not go forward without funding for outreach.  

           

            The Secretary of State had been scheduled to visit the DoE to observe a practice of the manual vote counting process this past week.  This process is what the Department potentially could use if there is no state-certified mechanical system available.  There was a scheduling problem and the Secretary of State is expected to visit later this month.  However, the DoE went ahead with its practice. 

 

            Vice President Mendelson asked the Provisional Director what he thought the total cost for RCV would be, including outreach and labor.  Mr. Arntz said that the contract amount, which he doesn’t anticipate will change, is for $1.6M including sales tax.  The outreach element will be in addition to this amount.  Mr. Arntz stated that he expects the total to be at least $4M.  Commissioner Townsend explained that he was very concerned with the outreach because it needs to explain how the voting works and what voters are expected to do.  Commissioner Townsend continued that he thinks elections are continuing to get too complicated and some people are getting turned off to the voting process.   Mr. Arntz explained that a single mailing to registered voters will cost $150,000 and it will take many mailings to explain the RCV system to the voters.  The Provisional Director says he plans to use his staff and community organizations to get the information to the voters. 

 

            Commissioner Schulz asked the Provisional Director if he had received any significant comments regarding the DoE’s manual vote counting plan that was sent to the Secretary of State’s office.  Mr. Arntz replied that the DoE has received no comments. Commissioner Schulz asked President Rosenthal if it would be possible to ask for a representative from the Secretary of State’s Office to come to the Commission and report that office’s progress regarding approval of the DoE’s plan.  President Rosenthal replied that she would work with Mr. Arntz to determine who at the Secretary of State’s office would be appropriate to ask.  

 

            Commissioner Kenealey asked Provisional Director Arntz when he expects that the contract will be signed.  Mr. Arntz said that City practice is not to sign a contract until there are funds to incumber.  

 

            Commissioner Shadoian asked how far along  Elections Systems and Software (ES&S) is on their design.   Provisional Director Arntz answered that ES&S has said that it continues to go forward, even though there is no signed contract, however he has not seen any product from them and he must take them at their word.  Commissioner Shadoian asked if ES&S has a deadline for when they must produce the product.  Mr. Arntz replied that there are proposed incentives that give ES&S more upfront money as they complete each step and it goes before the Secretary of State for approval.  The DoE has done this to encourage ES&S to get as much done as possible before June 30, 2003.  Commissioner Stowers clarified that there is nothing to prevent ES&S to present their finished program before the contract is signed and Mr. Arntz agreed that Commissioner Stowers’ statement was correct.  Mr. Arntz explained that ES&S has submitted what it called a preliminary application that was rejected by the Secretary of State.

 

            Budget and Personnel – The Mayor’s office will finalize its numbers for the budgets for all departments this weekend.  The Departments will not know those numbers, however, for sometime.  Mr. Arntz reminded the Commission that although the Fiscal Year begins on July 1^st, the money often is not released until sometime in September.  The DoE has had two responses for its Request for Proposals (RFP) for ballot printing.  There are also RFPs in development for the Voter Information Pamphlet and direct mail services.  The Department’s Human Resource division took a week-long course to learn the software that handles human resources for the City.  This training will allow the DoE to completely take over the task of handling its own human resources from Administrative Services.  This will aid the Department in its mandated goal to be an independent department.  Training DoE staff to take over invoices and billings will be the next step towards the department’s independence.

 

            Poll Locating – For two weeks staff in this division have been reviewing maps using information from the 2000 census to determine if geographic factors cause difficulties for voters.  Staff are also visiting every poll location to check for accessibility and usability.  A database will be created with this information.  

 

            Outreach – This division’s staff have been preparing the supplemental information for Supervisor Sandoval’s office over the past few weeks.  Staff continue to attend community meetings.

 

            Training – The head of this division has been out with a serious illness the past few weeks but has returned.

 

            Ballot Distribution – This division has been working on the RCV manual process.  Commissioner Townsend asked if services have been geared to communities who have traditionally had low voter turn out.  Mr. Arntz replied that the DoE treats each district the same and doesn’t target low turnout.  However, the Department targets information about registration, being a poll worker, and voting.  The reason, he said, was that the DoE has to be concerned with the entire City.  Therefore, there is no specific targeting of low turn out precincts or areas.  However, staff is sent to any community that requests them to meet and give information such as how to mark a ballot, etc.  If the DoE were to target areas, it would need much more resources.

 

            Commissioner Townsend stated that it seemed to him that if the Department has limited resources, those resources should be spent not in communities where there is already a high voter turn out, but in communities where the turnout is low.  Provisional Director Arntz said that he will not turn down any request for training. 

 

            Voter Services – The division had the biggest pool of people involved in preparations for RCV.  They continue to update voter registrations records.

 

            Campaign Services – The division continued to hold  “Brown Bag Lunches” to educate candidates about expectations and requirements.

 

            Election Support Services – The division is reviewing the information being sent out to poll workers and getting ready for poll worker recruitment.

 

            Technology Division – The division has been involved extensively in the contract negotiations with ES&S.

 

            Commissioner Shadoian asked the Provisional Director what was the current number of registered voters and the number of anticipated precincts.  Mr. Arntz replied that there were approximately 436,000 voters and under 600 precincts are anticipated after re-precincting is completed. 

 

            Public Comment – Jon Golinger, from the Center for Voting and Democracy, offered to work on public outreach and education for RCV. 

 

10.       New Business:

           

a.         Discussion and possible action whether to institute a performance evaluation procedure for the Commission Secretary  – Commissioner Schulz MOVED to consider this for discussion purposes.  There was no SECOND.

 

b.         Discussion and possible action to schedule a date to interview candidates for permanent Director of Elections – President Rosenthal recommended that the next regularly scheduled meeting of the Commission be used to have a closed session to interview the three candidates for the position of Director of the Department of Elections.  She requested the Commission Secretary to proceed with arranging the interviews for that date, Wednesday, May 21, 2003. 

 

c.        Discussion and possible action to approve the Annual Report – President Rosenthal removed this item from the agenda and directed the Budget and Policy Committee to consider it at its next meeting.

 

d.        Discussion and possible action to approve additional materials for inclusion in the Annual Report  – President Rosenthal removed this item from the agenda and directed the Budget and Policy Committee to consider it at its next meeting.

 

e.        Discussion and possible action on Commission policy requiring the Elections Department to ensure funding availability before entering into any binding contract with vendors – President Rosenthal removed this item from the agenda and directed the Budget and Policy Committee to prepare the wording for this new policy at its next meeting.

 

Meeting Adjourned at 8:20 pm