Elections Commission
2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002
City and County of San Francisco
Elections Commission
Approved:11-17-04
Minutes of the Meeting held
October 20, 2004
CALL TO ORDER. President Townsend called the meeting to order at 7:05 pm.
1. ROLL CALL. PRESENT: Commissioners Arnold Townsend, Gerard Gleason, Sheila Chung, John Trasviña, Richard Matthews, and Michael Mendelson. ABSENT: Commissioner Eric Safire.
2. Public Comment: Steven Hill presented to the Commission a door hanger his group, the Center for Voting and Democracy, produced to educate voters regarding ranked choice voting. Mr. Hill said that 20,000 of the flyers were being distributed in districts 5, 7 and 11 by various campaigns. Mr. Hill then gave a brief report on the Youth Commission of San Francisco’s “Youth Vote” where ranked choice voting was used to elect the student representative to the Board of Education.
3. PRESIDENT’S REPORT.
President Townsend reported that he spoke to the inmates in the school that the County Jail operates about the importance of voting and their responsibility as citizens. Election Department staff members Nicole Douglas and Barbara Banford gave a demonstration of ranked choice voting (RCV) for the students. The laws regarding the voting rights of incarcerated persons were also discussed. In addition to the visit to the jail, the President said that he had recently made a presentation at Hastings Law School and a senior center about RCV.
President Townsend recounted meeting a former prisoner who was released over 34 years ago and didn’t learn that he could vote until the 2000 election because he thought ex-felons were not allowed to vote. For this reason, the President said, he wants to send a letter to the Department of Corrections, with a copy to the Governor’s Office, urging that as part of the Department of Corrections release package to inmates, there be included an explanation about former prisoners’ voting rights. The President reminded the Commission that part of releasing prisoners is to bring them back into society and an important duty of all citizens is to vote.
President Townsend said that he wants to publicly state that no matter how good the job that the Department of Elections (DoE) does during this upcoming election, there will always be some complaint. He said the Commission appreciates that the DoE has done all that it can to get ahead of problems that have come up in the past. He thanked the Department for making more polling places ADA approved for the November election than have been approved in the past.
4. DIRECTOR’S REPORT
Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) – The main issue, currently, is how soon the results will be known. The Department will have the first ranking results on election night. As outlined in the plan presented to the Commission two months ago, the next day the alga rhythm will be run. Therefore the preliminary results for RCV will be made available on November 3, 2004 at the 4:00 pm Department of Elections’ Report. The ballot image report (information on each ballot card cast and counted) for RCV will be available the next day. On Monday, October 26, 2004, the Director will provide a memo that will give the time frame for reports and samples of the actual reports that will be issued throughout the election process. The DoE has never run this type of election and only practice runs will have been conducted prior to November 2nd. The Director said that he was aware that the media and campaigns are eager to know the results as soon as possible, but his plan is to release tabulation results once a day at 4:00 pm report as has been the policy of the Department for past elections.
RCV results will be released once a week. The Director explained that to create the report, all ballot counting must stop. The most important work the Department must complete is the ballot count. However, if running a alga rhythm is possible without much disruption, the Director stated that he would present reports more frequently. The main goal is to get the ballots counted and the election certified.
Commissioner Gleason reminded everyone that not only do we have the RCV election, but there are the other ballot issues that must be counted, and these counts would have to stop so that a report on the ranked choice voting could be made.
Commissioner Mendelson asked if the DoE were to do frequent reports, as requested by Supervisor Gonzalez in his Board of Supervisor’s resolution, would it interfere with the process of getting the results of the non-RCV election. Director Arntz replied that it would because all counting would need to stop in order to produce the frequent reports because there has to be a static data base to make the reports. Commissioner Mendelson asked if anyone from the Board of Supervisors had contacted him about the resolution. The Director replied that he was not contacted until after the resolution was introduced.
Commissioner Chung asked how long it would take to run the reports. The Director said that he wants to be very methodical and cautious in the counting of the RCV ballots and since this type of election has never happened before, there is no way of knowing how long it will take.
Commissioner Trasviña stated that the Director has a major educational effort ahead to explain to the press, supervisors and public exactly what is happening during the tallying process. The Commissioner asked the Director to convey in his October 26 memo, and where ever possible, what the public can reasonably expect at the end of election night or when the system shuts down that night, and lay out when other reports will be coming and what is necessary to make those reports.
Commissioner Matthews asked if it was accurate to say that it does not make sense to run the alga rhythm until we have adjudicated every provisional ballot, absentee ballot and signature check. Director Arntz replied that, as far as having an election, this is the case.
Commissioner Matthews asked what the Board of Supervisor’s resolution wanted from the DoE. Director Arntz answered that the resolution asks that RCV data be up by noon the day after the election, the alga rhythm run and the ballot image report be made every day.
The Director explained that the information for the RCV votes that is recorded in the eagle machines is in a separate memory system that can not be quickly removed from the machines. The memory system for the RCV votes is removed by opening up each machine and bringing the information to City Hall.
President Townsend asked the Director if Supervisor Gonzalez had contacted the DoE prior to presenting his resolution. The Director replied that the supervisor had not. President Townsend said that this was “patently absurd”. He said the supervisors have a job to do and they are not elections experts or elections department workers and should have spoken to the Director about his plans and asked why the plans were as layed out and what might be the difficulties expected.
Commissioner Mendelson said that one of the reasons the Commission was created was to insure the security and integrity of the process and that this is exactly what the Director intends to do. The Commissioner said that he prefers that the Director do his job and the Charter, not the Board of Supervisors, states that it’s the Director who makes the call.
Commissioner Mendelson said that the Supervisors are trying to intrude politics into the process.
Voter Services – Registration numbers in August were 453,000, today the number is 478,000. This number compares to the presidential election in 2000. There are still 2,000 to 3,000 registration cards yet to be processed. These do not necessarily mean new voters – some may be change of name or address. All registration cards postmarked before the deadline and received by election day will be entered in the system and those citizens will be registered to vote. There are still 10,000 to 15,000 absentee applications to be processed. There were 133,000 absentee ballot requests.
Voter’s Guides (VIPs) have been in the mail since one week before October 4th – the beginning of early voting in San Francisco. VIPs in Spanish and Chinese were added to the mail yesterday. By Thursday, the audio version of the VIP will be available.
Poll Location/ADA – All locations have been located.
Poll Worker Division - The division has 702 Chinese Poll Workers and 129 Spanish speaking Poll Workers. Any precinct that had 10 or more requests for information in a language other than English, now has a bi-lingual poll worker. Any precinct that had 75 or more requests for information in another language, has at least two bi-lingual poll workers. And any precinct with 120 or more requests for information in a language other than English, has four or more bi-lingual poll workers. The DoE is far exceeding the law in responding to these voter needs.
The Director reported that he met with representatives from the Department of Justice (DOJ) a week ago. The DOJ representatives were helpful in offering suggestions of more ways to reach more voters who might need bi-lingual assistance. The Director told the representatives and the audience at this meeting that the DoE is always eager to help voters with language assistance. The DOJ representatives suggested that they might lobby the Board of Supervisors to provide more funding and staffing to assist the DoE in its outreach in language assistance.
Commissioner Trasviña asked if the Justice Department was making suggestions for outreach because of some deficiency they saw. The Director stated that the DoE is not funded specifically for outreach. What the DOJ is tryng to do is to increase the DoE’s “data points”, that is increase the data sources for whom the DoE reaches. The purpose is for the DoE to identify who needs these resources. The discussion with the DOJ representatives concentrated on this subject.
Commission Chung added that she had the opportunity to meet with the DOJ representative, too. She said it was her understanding that the DOJ was visiting all jurisdictions that fall under the Voting Rights Act regarding providing bi-lingual materials. The Commissioner said the goal is to use information like the census, to automatically send bi-lingual voter information to people instead of relying of the voter to request it.
5. Budget and Policy Committee Report
Chairperson Mendelson advised that the Committee meeting had been cancelled due to the impending election, because it would have put a burden on the Director of Elections. He said that the issues could be taken up at the next Budget and Policy Committee meeting.
6. NEW BUSINESS
(b) Discussion of Commission member assignment for Election Day.
Commissioners Mendelson and Townsend volunteered for assignment to City Hall. Commissioner Matthews stated that he will be an Election Inspector, as he has in the past, however he asked if he could be assigned to a RCV precinct for this election. Director Arntz stated that he would try to find an assignment for the Commissioner in a RCV district. Commissioner Gleason stated that he would work as an Inspector at precinct 2211, Roosevelt Middle School, at Arguello at Geary Streets. Commissioner Chung stated that she was bi-lingual in Spanish and was willing to be placed wherever her skills would be helpful. Commissioners Trasviña and Safire may choose assignments at the warehouse or uplink sites.
7. Discussion regarding items for future agendas.
Commissioner Trasviña suggested that political flyers and mailers without identification of sponsors be on a future agenda. The Commissioner said he would speak to the Deputy City Attorney before deciding to calendar any future discussion on this issue.
8. Public Comment – Steven Hill said that he felt that the results of the RCV can be made available from all the memory cards and put on the website in three minutes.
Jay Martin said he had received his absentee ballot and commended the Department and Steven Hill for their work.
Commissioner Chung said that it is especially important for immigrants to know their votes are being counted and that she hopes the results are made public as soon as possible.
ADJOURNMENT @ 8:09 pm