Budget and Oversight of Public Elections Committee
2009 2008 2007 2006 ELECTIONS COMMISSION
BUDGET AND OVERSIGHT
OF PUBLIC ELECTIONS COMMITTEE
City Hall, Room 421
City and County of San Francisco
Minutes of the Meeting Held
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
(Approved: __________)
- Call to Order and Roll Call. Chairperson Matthews called the meeting to order at 5:32pm. PRESENT: Commissioners Richard P. Matthews, Rosabella Safont, Gerard Gleason, Deputy City Attorney Mollie Lee and Deputy Director Aura Mendieta.
2. Discussion and possible action to approve the Budget and Oversight of Public Elections Committee minutes for June 3, 2009. Commissioner Safont MOVED and Commissioner Gleason SECONDED approval of the minutes. The Roll Call Vote to approve the minutes was UNANIMOUS.
3. Director's Report on preparations for the November 3, 2009 Municipal Election. Deputy Director Mendieta reported that the Budget and Personnel Division was continuing its preparations for hiring personnel and setting up purchase orders for materials and supplies for the election.
Voter Services Division continues its maintenance of voter files, the permanent vote-by-mail ballots were sent out this week, and coverage for early voting began on Monday, October 5.
Ballot Distribution Division has hired staff to prepare the inspectors’ supplies and the Division is receiving the precinct ballots for the polling sites.
Pollworkers Division is continuing its hiring of Field Election Deputies (FEDs), recruiting pollworkers and the first training will be October 10th. The pollworker manual has been posted on the Elections Department’s website.
Publications Division has posted the Voters’ Information Pamphlet (VIP) on the Elections Department’s website. The English version has been mailed to voters, and the Spanish and Chinese VIPs should be mailed on October 12.
The Logic and Accuracy and Warehouse Division have hired staff to prepare polling place supplies and conduct the logics and accuracy testing. Testing began September 23, 2009.
Outreach Division is making voter education presentations and, beginning this week, will run advertizing for two weeks in the Sing Tao and El Mensajero Newspapers.
- Discussion and possible action regarding potential for enhanced
methods to allow voter registration to include personal contact
information (phone numbers and e-mail, currently optional – include or
exclude) to the Department of Elections with option for administrative
use only. (Referred to Committee by the Commission at the August 19,
2009 meeting). Commissioner Gleason presented a draft resolution (attached to these minutes) regarding the Voter Profile.
The issue brought forth originally by a San Francisco voter is seen by BOPEC as a voter protection issue. To summarize, it is optional for citizens to provide their phone number and/or e-mail address on the voter registration form. The Department uses this information for administrative purposes that generally help the voter, for example, contacting the voter if his or her vote-by-mail ballot was returned to the Department without a signature-- if not corrected before Election Day, then that ballot cannot be counted. The value to the voter of the Department having this information is that it might just protect that person's vote someday. However, it is also true that campaigns are entitled to all this public information for campaign purposes, and other organizations can obtain the voter information for research or other limited purposes. It is also the case that some entities either improperly obtain this information, or they use it for improper commercial purposes. As is typical for all California counties, the entire voter rolls of San Francisco County are available on a disc from the Department of Elections for 75 cents; yet at least one entity resells this data for commercial purposes for $9,700. Citizens then receive unsolicited calls at home for commercial purposes.
The result of these contacts from entities other than the Department of Elections is that some citizens then do not provide phone or e-mail contact information in an effort to avoid unwanted phone calls, but at the cost of not having their vote protected if there is a problem with their ballot and the Department is unable to reach the voter before Election Day. That is why BOPEC sees this as a voter protection and election administration issue.
After extensive discussion about how to proceed should the full Commission approve the draft resolution, Commissioner Matthews MOVED and Commissioner Gleason SECONDED the following:
That the Budget and Oversight of Public Elections Committee adopts and recommends to the Elections Commission that it adopt this resolution and go through the State Legislation Committee of San Francisco to pursue the relavant statutory change in the California Elections Code; simultaneously, the Elections Commission should forward a copy of this resolution together with the appropriate cover letter to the Secretary of State.
Commissioner Matthews thanked Commissioner Gleason for bringing this issue forward to the Commission as it is the perfect example of an issue that helps voters but which only a good citizen on a board would bring up, as any county's registrar of voters might not be inclined or have the incentive to make the changes to use of the voter profile that we citizens want to achieve. Commissioner Safont joined in these thanks.
The ROLL CALL VOTE was UNANIMOUS.
ADJOURNMENT @ 6:54 pm
DRAFT RESOLUTION ON THE VOTER PROFILE
Whereas, vote-by-mail use in San Francisco County has increased from 25% of all ballots cast in November 1996 to 46% of all ballots cast in November 2008; and
Whereas, vote-by-mail ballots that are submitted without the required voter signature on the exterior ballot return envelope cannot be processed or counted; and
Whereas, if a vote-by-mail envelope arrives at the San Francisco Department of Elections without the required voter signature, the Department is contacting such voters by telephone and/or e-mail to inform them of the error and options to correct the error before the end of election day and have their ballot counted; and
Whereas, if the Department of Elections does not have a telephone number or e-mail for a voter, options to notify a voter of an error with their vote-by-mail ballot are limited to slower postal communications; and
Whereas, California voter registration forms state that providing telephone number or
e-mail information is optional; and
Whereas, a voter's telephone number and e-mail information, when provided, becomes part of the voter's public profile; and
Whereas, some voters choose not to provide the optional public profile information because such information is posted outside of polling places on election day and voter profile information also becomes available to political campaigns and improperly to commercial enterprises, often resulting in unsolicited and unwanted telephone calls, which often cause registrants not to provide their phone number when registering; and
Whereas, if a voter does provide telephone and e-mail contact information, the Department of Elections is better able to assist the voter by contacting the voter in a timely fashion should there be an error that may prevent their ballot from being counted,
Therefore, be it resolved,
That the Elections Commission of the City and County of San Francisco requests that the State Legislation Committee of the City and County of San Francisco urge that the California Secretary of State and the California State Legislature consider changes and modifications to the California Elections Code which would allow San Francisco County to accept a voter’s telephone number and e-mail on voter registration forms and update requests, with the enhanced option allowing a voter to provide telephone number and e-mail information for the restricted and exclusive use by the San Francisco Department of Elections for notifications regarding issues directly involving a voter’s registration status, a voter’s ability to cast a ballot, and issues involving the ability to process and count a voter’s ballot.
Done this _____day of October 2009 _____________________________________
Joseph B. Phair, President, San Francisco Elections Commission
I so attest:
____________________________
Shirley Rodriques, Secretary, San Francisco Elections Commission