Elections Commission
2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 City and County of San Francisco
Elections Commission
Approved: February 20, 2007
Minutes of the Meeting at City Hall Room 421
February 7, 2007
1. CALL TO ORDER. President Jennifer Meek called the meeting to order at 7:02 pm.
2. ROLL CALL. PRESENT: Commissioners Gerard Gleason, Arnold Townsend (arrived at 7:07pm), Victor Hwang (arrived at 7:06 pm), Michael Mendelson, Tajel Shah (arrived at 7:04 pm), Richard P. Matthews, Jennifer Meek, Deputy City Attorney Jon Givner, and Director of Elections John Arntz.
3. Director’s Report. Director Arntz reported that staff was working on the Budget for 2007-08 for the Commission and submission to the Mayor’s Office. The Ballot Distribution Division has completed the Retirement Board Election which involved 54,000 cast ballots. The Campaign Services Division has received 10,000 Campaign expenditure reports (required by the Fair Political Practices Commission). For the first time, the DoE will scan this information and have it available on a monitor at the front counter instead of referring visitors to the paper files. The Outreach Division has been attending Immigration and Naturalization Service ceremonies, working on the compliance plan for equal access ordinance (which is due annually), and preparing for the Bay Area Outreach Committee meeting that will take place next month. Deputy Director Linda Tulett is the chairperson for this group of counties that discusses ideas and shares best practices regarding providing outreach to voters. The Poll Locating/ADA Division is working on the website to make it fully accessible, and staff will be visiting sites and reviewing issues that arose from the last election regarding polling locations. This division is putting together Phase Five of the accessibility plan focusing not only on the thresholds of polling sites, but the sidewalk and path of travel outside the sites, for steep slopes, sidewalk cracks, etc. The Pollworker Division has met with the Chinese for Affirmative Action Organization regarding that group’s report regarding the last election concerning signage and voting materials in non-English. The Division is also reviewing its training manual. The Technology Division is putting together the canvassing data base, and is centralizing all applications which previously had to be accessed with a “local client.” This will enable access by way of the internet for DoE staff. Additionally, the Division is working on Phase Two of the Cal Voter data base to shorten the time information is forwarded from the counties to the Secretary of State, which does comparisons, and back to the counties to update the voter files. Phase Two is to make the updates happen in “real time.” The Voter Services Division is primarily working to purge information from the data base, by sending out confirmation postcards. The Division also sends out postcards when an absentee voter does not vote in two consecutive elections, asking whether they wish to continue voting absentee; if no response is received, they are removed from the permanent Absentee Voter list. This is done for local and state elections. The Division is also reviewing signatures on a petition regarding Community Colleges Funding.
Director Arntz gave an update regarding the New Voting System Contract. He reported that the Board of Supervisor’s Budget Analyst is preparing that report on the contract which should be available on line, and on February 14 there will be a hearing at the Budget and Finance Committee. The Director said that potentially the Committee will recommend the contract to the Board and then the Board will approve a resolution on the contract. If this happens, the DoE and Sequoia can move forward on the contract.
Regarding a backup plan for the New Voting System, the Director said he has contacted ES&S for information but has not received it yet. The latest word is that the information will be received by next week.
Commissioner Matthews referred to the Contract, Appendix D, on page 25, section 3.2.11, tabulation of results for ranked choice (RCV) contests, the sentence says “In any ranked-choice contest, a ballot that is exhausted in the first iteration shall be recorded as an exhausted ballot.” He asked if it is exhausted coming into the iteration or as the result of the iteration. He said that the only way it could be exhausted coming in is if the ballot is blank. Director Arntz added that it could also have two marks (or choices) in the first column; this would also be an exhausted ballot. Commissioner Matthews asked if the under-voted ballots would still be counted as under-voted and if this is what this portion of the contract is referring. Director Arntz said yes, and added that in this contract, the system is more flexible than in the past ES&S system. It will break down information so that people will understand better how the ballots were marked and there will be true pictures of how the ballots are marked. With the ES&S system this was not the case.
Commissioner Matthews asked the Director about the progress regarding RCV. Director Arntz said that the RCV for the touch-screen and the IV-C (the high speed counter) is almost complete.
Commissioner Gleason asked about Appendix D on page 10 of the contract in which Sequoia says that there is a provisional voting function in touch screen DRE devices, and asked if this is something the City can disallow. Director Arntz said that this would not be a good idea because if a voter has a disability which doesn’t allow them to vote on a paper ballot, they would have to vote on the touch screen, even if they needed assistance to do so. The Commissioner said that having a provisional ballot go into a tabulation device was problematic. He said he was concerned about the distinction between a provisional ballot and a regular ballot being put into the device. Commissioner Gleason said that he has observed that poll workers often don’t know how to handle paper provisional ballots. Director Arntz said that he could look into this, but reminded the Commission that federal law requires accessible equipment in each polling place and this includes provisional voting on a touch screen. The Commissioner asked if the Director could check with other jurisdictions regarding how they are handling this situation, and the Director said he could check.
Commissioner Matthews asked the Director if provisionally voted ballots were fed into the tabulator and electronically held off to the side with the DRE.
Director Arntz replied in the affirmative.
Commissioner Shah asked for the status of the Open Source Task Force. Director Arntz said that originally the vendor and the Secretary of State’s Office (SoS) was to be involved as well as the Open Voting Consortium. He said he is still waiting to hear from the vendor. The Director said that he wants to complete the contract process first, and use the Task Force later to give structure to how to implement open source. There are serious operational issues that elections departments must consider when they are making any change in how voting is taking place.
Commissioner Mendelson asked what “DRE” stood for. Director Arntz answered “Direct Recording Equipment”.
Commissioner Hwang asked the Director how the Task Force would function in relation to the Commission, i.e. would there be any relationship between the two entities? Director Arntz said there would not. He said that he wants the Task Force to identify the issues, how to accomplish the goal of open source and determine a timeline. There would be an advisory opinion produced by the Task Force.
Commissioner Meek asked what would be the Director’s back up plan should ES&S not respond to his request. Director Arntz replied that the plan would be for the Department to implement a hand count.
Commissioner Shah said that she felt there should be some involvement of the Commission regarding the Open Source Task Force because if there are to be recommendations about direction, those recommendations should come before the Commission with as an advocate who can move that agenda. This potential would be lost by excluding the Commission’s involvement.
Commissioner Townsend said that because there are so many new members of the Elections Commission, that he hoped we would plan a retreat so that the Commissioners would have a better sense of their role.
Public Comment. Steven Hill said that at the end of the first round of
voting in a ranked choice contest, there should not be any exhausted ballots; Director Arntz nodded in agreement. Mr. Hill went on to point out that the contract language with Sequoia appears to permit this possibility, but that maybe it's "just a clarity issue" with the contract language; again, Director Arntz nodded in agreement. Additionally, Mr. Hill said that he was concerned about the July 15th deadline for Sequoia to submit tothe federal ITA (independent testing authority. Carol Bella thanked the Director for his idea for an Open Source Task Force and said that she had concerns about the readiness of Sequoia for RCV. Jennifer Hammond agreed with the comments of Ms. Bella and said that the City should not go forward with the Sequoia contract until the Open Source Task Force has presented its findings. Alec Bash said he was in agreement with forming an Open Source Task Force and he presented a sheet of information on that subject to the Commission and urged the Director to make an effort to insert open source language into the Sequoia contract. Ann West said that the F.B.I. was investigating Sequoia Voting Systems in connection with the Venezuelan government. Jim Soper said that Sequoia has announced that they will be selling their company, and if the voting equipment is secure, it will not matter who owns the company. Brett Turner offered a paper with additional language to the Commission to consider regarding the resolution for the Board of Supervisors.
4. Special Presentation on the 2007-08 Department of Elections Budget. Director John Arntz presented a draft budget and organizational chart. He called the Commission’s attention to the temporary job positions and said that these were discussed during the Controller’s audit last June. Director Arntz explained that there have been many vacancies in a short amount of time in the administration positions on the chart. What is presented today ($21M) must still be reduced. Compared to past budgets presented to the Elections Commission, this one has more detail including the sub-object codes, and explanations.
Director Arntz introduced Greg Wagner, and explained that the DoE worked very closely with him to bring about the budget draft. He said that Mr. Wagner was not working with the DoE when the Controller’s Audit was released last year. The Director acknowledged the work that Greg Wagner has done with the Department, and credited him as being largely responsible for improving the tone in the communications between the Department and the Mayor’s Budget Office. Director Arntz said the Mr. Wagner was proactive and wants to be sure that the Department is supported in having a budget that will allow it to do its work.
Commissioner Shah asked how many positions were on the organizational chart. Director Arntz answered that there were 37. Commissioner Shah observed that 14 of the positions were currently filled by temporaries, and that 2 are vacant temporaries. Director Arntz affirmed this analysis.
Commissioner Matthews asked if the ones marked as “temp” were identified by the Controller, in the previous year, to be eliminated. Director Arntz replied that he didn’t feel that they were identified as positions to be eliminated, but were identified to be either reduced to “seasonal time” or reduced to “temporary as – is”, which are the people the Department considers its “base temp people”, that is people or positions that have been in the Department for the last four and a half years. The Director said that he has been trying to move the positions into “permanent status” and the Controller’s Audit Report identified them as not needing to be permanent.
Greg Wagner advised the Commission that the Mayor’s Office issued targets for every City Department to reduce expenses by 3% this year. But the Elections Department has a much different situation – it is going from a one-election-year to a three-election-year. Therefore, to expect the DoE to cut its budget by three percent would be meaningless. It is hard to give the Commission a “target budget” amount at the present time.
Commissioner Shah asked if there was historical data from a previous three-election-year. Director Arntz said that there is, but it is for a four-election-year. He said that the numbers for staffing are very much the same, however, there have been step increases and cost of living allowances.
Public Comment. Jane Allen asked at what warehouse the employee identified as “warehouse supervisor” worked. Director Arntz answered that in the past, the person running the warehouse has been a temporary employee, but he would like to hire a permanent employee and the current warehouse is at pier 29. Steven Hill said that regarding RCV, he noticed the budget had a website and video but nothing for mailings or new postings regarding the new equipment. He said that these would be expenses that should be included. Director Arntz said that it is difficult to consider those items until the contract is finalized, and he reminded everyone that the contract does cover materials, supplies and outreach.
5. Special Guest, Greg Wagner, Fiscal and Policy Analyst, in the Mayor’s Office of Public Policy and Finance, will answer questions from the Commission regarding the 2007-08 Department of Elections Budget. Mr. Wagner responded to the written questions Commissioner Shah emailed him. He presented an informational packet and gave a brief explanation of each page. The first page was of the budget deficit each year since 2003, when $347M was cut from the General Fund Budget. Currently, the deficit is expected to be $64M. The next page explained that the entirety of the shortfall is due to wage and benefit increases for City Employees.
Commissioner Mendelson said the DoE has been traditionally under-funded and that it is incorrect to treat the Elections Department like any other City department. He asked Mr. Wagner if there is any plan to establish the DoE as a “critical department.” Commissioner Mendelson praised Steve Kava and the Mayor for recognizing the outstanding work of Director John Arntz by granting him a merit raise recently. However, Commissioner Mendelson said, the Department needs special recognition, too, that would prevent it from chronically going back to seek supplementals just because “that is the way the game is played.” Mr. Wagner said that the reason he is pointing out the City’s budget concerns is that “the DoE is not alone in going through some pretty rough funding issues over the last few years.”
Commissioner Townsend said “that it takes a certain amount of money to have a proper election,” and without that money, the City cannot have the kind of elections that its citizens can have confidence and security in.
Mr. Wagner said that the DoE has done a fantastic job of running elections that have been conducted without the historical issues.
Commissioner Mendelson said that he agreed with Commissioner Townsend and added that this is the “infrastructure of democracy and that everything rests on successful elections”. The DoE needs special handing when it comes to allocating its budget.
Mr. Wagner responded to the written questions of Commissioner Shah. Question: To what degree does the Controller’s report influence/inform your budget recommendations? There is a charter amendment that gives the Controller the responsibility to audit all the City’s operations. This is ongoing. The purpose is to see if operations can work more efficiently and effectively. These reports are taken seriously. Mr. Wagner said there are issues with the report which he had discovered through his discussions with the DoE Director and Deputy Director regarding their perspective of the Report. In the upcoming year, the level of work in the DoE will increase.
Question: How do you recommend that the Department approach (achieve greater ease) with supplemental budgets, since it is becoming standard protocol for this department, given the unknowns of election ballot sizes and number of elections in a year (i.e., current debate to move up President Primary in February)? Mr. Wagner said the best way is to avoid it to the extent possible. He said that generally speaking, they work hard to get it right the first time, because you get into a situation that at this point in the year when all the money that the City has to allocate has been allocated, so when we have to do a supplemental, it must come from the emergency reserve. They try not to tap into those funds, however, things happen. He said the most important thing is to have very clear and concise accounting of what is driving the cost changes and to have that information clearly laid out so that everyone can understand what is the source of the problem.
Commissioner Mendelson said that it has been his experience with the City that sometimes when the Department summits an “honest budget” the Department gets penalized, that is, money is cut; but those who are adroit in the game’s process take that into account when they submit their budgets. This Department is run honestly.
Commissioner Hwang asked if Community Groups will be used to educate citizens with the new equipment for the upcoming election? Money had be provided in the past to do this, and the Commissioner asked if that use of Community Groups will be considered again this year.
Commissioner Townsend said that the City received more than it spent on that program with the Community Groups. He said the money spent for outreach was largely responsible for the lack of problems on election day when RCV was first implemented.
Commissioner Gleason said that there is about $12M allocated in the DoE budget to fund the operation of 561 precincts and the mailing of a 200 – 300 page Voter Information Pamphlet. He said that he has worked in precincts during elections when only 70 people have shown up to vote. Although we keep opening the same number of precincts, fifty percent of ballots are returned as absentee ballots. He said something needs to be done to update the configuration of precincts to the changes in how people are voting.
Commissioner Townsend said he agreed with the Voter Information Pamphlets being too large, however, if only one person walks into a precinct to exercise his/her franchise, it is worth it. He said that he didn’t know if it is possible to make democracy cost-effective.
Commissioner Shah said that she hopes, with Mr. Wagner’s assistance, the DoE can make some of the temporary staff permanent employees, particularly in the Outreach Division. In a Department this size, she said, she doesn’t see how it can function with 16 of its employee (roughly half) working as temps, many as part-time.
Commissioner Mendelson said that in his opinion, the Controller’s Audit was not a fair document.
Commissioner Matthews said that when the Report came out, it said that the budget had to be a particular number, and that the DoE was at a particular number and then, miraculously, the Controller’s number came “exactly at the mid-point between those two numbers.”
Public Comments. Steven Hill said that the DoE needs a full-time outreach worker, not only to educate voters about RCV, but to do voter registration. He said that the Elections Commission itself needs funding instead of relying on the Department. Mr. Hill said that originally the Commission, which is an oversight Commission, was separate, but it is difficult to be separate when, whether or not the Commission has office space is dependent upon whether the Department wants to give you office space because it has its own space needs, and whether the Commission’s staff person gets full funding is under the Department’s budget.
6. OLD BUSINESS
(a) Discussion and possible action to approve an amendment to the Elections Commission Bylaws:
(iii) to include a policy requiring Commissioners to forward correspondence addressed to a majority of the Commission to the Commission Secretary for inclusion in the public review file.
Commissioner Townsend MOVED and Commissioner Matthews SECONDED this item. Commissioner Matthews asked why the item had been held over and President Meek responded that there had been some minor edits to the policy for clarification. The Roll Call Vote was UNANIMOUS. Motion CARRIED.
7. NEW BUSINESS
(a) Discussion and possible action to approve the Elections Commission minutes for the meeting of January 17, 2007. Commissioner Matthews MOVED and Commissioner Shah SECONDED this item. The Roll Call Vote was UNANIMOUS. Motion CARRIED.
(b) Recommendation from the Budget and Oversight of Public Elections Committee regarding its review of the Elections Plan for the November 7, 2006 Consolidated General Election. Commissioner Gleason reported that the Committee reviewed and discussed the Plan at its Thursday, February 1, 2007 meeting. The Committee found the Plan to be adequate, found no cause for concern regarding the elements of the Plan, and voted to recommend that the full Commission approve its success.
(c) Discussion and possible action to evaluate the implementation of the Election Plan for the November 7, 2006 Consolidated General Election. Commissioner Gleason MOVED and Commissioner Matthews SECONDED this item. The Roll Call Vote was UNANIMOUS (with Commissioner Townsend having stepped out of the meeting). Motion CARRIED.
(d) Recommendation from the Budget and Oversight of Public Elections Committee regarding its review of including appropriations for Elections Commission activities in the Department of Elections’ Supplemental Budget request for fiscal year 2006-07. Commissioner Gleason reported that the Committee reviewed two specific items to be included in the 2006-2007 Supplemental Request: The travel item totaling $604.50 for re-imbursement for Commission travel for the voting equipment certification last August; and the full-time position for the Secretary of this Commission for the balance of this fiscal year.
Commissioner Mendelson said that he recalled that in November 2006 the Commission was notified that there would be a problem with payment for the Commission Secretary. He asked what has transpired regarding a solution. President Meek said there have been some discussions regarding how to proceed, but no solution as yet.
Commissioner Gleason said that he didn’t recall any feedback from the memo that the Commission sent listing all the responsibilities and duties that the Commission Secretary performs. He reminded everyone that this is a Charter Commission and that Controller Harrington pointed out that there would be $100,000 to set up the Commission at it’s onset, including the position of the Commission Secretary. Commissioner Gleason said that, in support of the Commission having its own budget, the fact that the citizens of this City voted for the Charter Amendment, and the expense of the operation of the Commission is the strongest argument for its budget.
Commissioner Shah asked the Director where in the process is the Supplemental Budget request for the Department. Director Arntz replied that he would have the draft completed tomorrow, and that if the Commission votes tonight to put the Commission Secretary’s compensation on it, this will be done. It then goes to the Budget Analyst and then to the Budget and Finance Committee. The Commissioner stated that Commissioners could go to the Committee meeting and restate the Charter Amendment “as a reminder to them”.
Commissioner Matthews reminded the Commissioners that this item was passed unanimously by the BOPEC.
Public Comment. Steven Hill suggested that Commissioners should be meeting with Chris Daly, the chair of the Board’s Budget and Finance Committee and tell him that the Commission needs $100,000 for the Elections Commission. He said it is time for the Commission to have proper funding.
(e) Recommendation from the Budget and Oversight of Public Elections Committee regarding including appropriations for Commission activities in the Department of Elections’ Proposed Budget for fiscal year 2007-08.
BOPEC Chairperson Gleason presented a draft proposed budget that was discussed at the last Committee meeting with recent amendments. He explained that the membership to professional organizations has been amended to $875.00 per year which brings the total to $3,905.00, including the incidentals from the originally proposed budget.
Commissioner Shah asked if this was the full budget for the Commission. Commissioner Gleason responded that what was proposed in the draft budget was incidentals without the Commission Secretary budget.
Commissioner Townsend asked that the Commission Budget be separated from the Commission Secretary’s Salary because if he chooses to vote for the salary and not for the Commission’s Budget he would not be able to do so. He said that he was “unalterably opposed to a Commission Budget”, because he said he did not recall the Commission ever having one in the past and there didn’t seem to be a need for one now. Commissioner Townsend said that he would spend his own money if he needed to travel on Commission business.
President Meek said that originally the Commission had a budget of $50,000. Commissioner Mendelson said that this was not true.
Commissioner Mendelson said that the Commission does not need its own budget because it hasn’t had one before and there’s no reason to change. He asked that when this item is voted, that the Secretary’s salary be separated from the rest of the Commission’s budget.
Commissioner Mendelson asked the Director what is the procedure if the Commission decided to have its own budget. Director Arntz said that he has the spending and appointing authority over the Department, but he did not know if the Commission needs to get spending authority for its own budget.
Commissioner Shah asked the Director if the items listed in the proposed Commission Budget were ordinarily paid for by the DoE. Director Arntz answered that the Department has been paying for the costs, and that he has never proposed that the responsibility for the costs be changed.
Commissioner Mendelson asked the Director who would be responsible for administrating a Commission Budget. Director Arntz said that if it was part of the DoE budget, that is that it was a line item in the DoE budget, then the Director would be responsible for administrating it.
President Meek said that it was not the intention of the Commission to administer its part of the budget but to allow the Commission and the Director to know how much the Commission would be intending to spend on these items. She added that the Commission has the jurisdiction to make inquiries into any area of the DoE, and that costs might be involved while making those inquiries.
Commissioner Gleason noted that he didn’t receive a press release, a contract and other information which were made public by the Department. He said that the Commission needs to have the ability to allow it to obtain information to operate as a body and that there may be expenses involved.
Commissioner Townsend said that “for a Commissioner to do the job that they were appointed to do, we don’t need this budget. The membership fees, the travel expenses are outside the scope of what we were appointed to do. You don’t need to do that to do your the job.” Again, he said that if he were to do anything that was out of the Commission’s jurisdiction, he should pay for it out of his own pocket.
Commissioner Matthews said that there is disagreement on the Commission regarding what is the exact scope of Charter Sec. 13.103.5. However, everything so far mentioned regarding the budget is within that scope. He reminded the members that the Commission held a Retreat in July of 2005, in which the Commission received three very informative memos from the Deputy City Attorney Julia Moll that established that the Commission had both the authority and the duty, and in his mind – the responsibility, to do things beyond rubber-stamping.
Commissioner Mendelson asked what the membership expense of $875 to CACEO (the California Association of Clerks and Elections Officials) was for and what was the organization. Commissioner Matthews explained that it was $175 for each Commissioner per year. The point of paying the membership was not to attend their meetings, but to have access to their information about updates and analysts of what the state legislature is doing with elections code changes. Only members have access to CACEO’s information, and although the Director of Elections is a member, he cannot forward that information to non-members. Commissioner Mendelson asked for more information about the organization.
Commissioner Hwang proposed that the MOTION read that the Commission make a recommendation to the Director to include $2000.00 for the Commission Budget. He said that if it turns out that the Commission decides that it wants to join CACEO and wants to pay for travel expenses, it can come from the $2000. The DoE already carries the expenses for the other items in the proposed Commission Budget and can continue to do so. Director Arntz was asked if this could continue and he answered affirmatively.
Public Comment. Jim Soper explained that the CACEO represents 50 California counties with registrars of voting, and recommended that anyone interested in joining would benefit from the information it provides. Steven Hill said that he has been coming to meetings since the beginning of the Commission and that members may have lost sight of the original goals regarding oversight.
(f) Discussion and possible action to approve the inclusion of appropriations for Elections Commission activities in the Department of Elections’ Supplemental Budget request for fiscal year 2006-07. Commissioner Matthews MOVED and Commission Shah SECONDED the item. Commissioner Mendelson MOVED to amend the motion to make two items for approval: The first to approve $604.50 for the travel expense of a Commissioner to attend the certification testing of the voting equipment in 2006; the second to approve the Commission Secretary’s salary to 100% in 2006. Commissioner Townsend SECONDED the separation of the two items. The Roll Call Vote for Commissioner Mendelson’s amendment was: Shah-No, Mendelson-Yes, Matthews-No, Hwang-No, Gleason-Yes, Townsend-Yes, Meek-No. MOTION FAILED four to three. The Roll Call Vote to include $604.50 for the travel expense and to cover the full salary for the Commission Secretary in the 2006-2007 Supplemental Budget was: Shah-Yes, Mendelson-No, Matthews-Yes, Hwang-Yes, Gleason-Yes, Townsend-Yes, Meek-Yes. MOTION CARRIED (six to one).
(g) Discussion and possible action to approve the inclusion of appropriations for Elections Commission activities in the Department of Elections’ Proposed Budget for fiscal year 2007-08. Commissioner Hwang said that he MOVED that the specific language read: That the Elections Commission Secretary position be fully funded and in addition that there be $2000.00 allocated to the Commission for incidental expenses. Commissioner Matthews SECONDED. The Roll Call Vote was: Shah-Yes, Mendelson-No, Matthews-Yes, Hwang-Yes, Gleason-Yes, Townsend-No, Meek-Yes. MOTION CARRIED (five to two).
(h) Discussion and possible action to approve a commission general policy statement regarding transparency in all San Francisco Elections Department activities involving voting systems technologies as well as providing voting systems security. Commissioner Matthews said that if everyone was agreeable, and since this item and the others following it on this agenda were not time critical, he would MOVE to adjourn the meeting due to the late hour.
Commissioner Mendelson said that there were many people in the audience who had something to say on items and that the Commission owes it to them to go forward with the meeting. Commissioner Mendelson MOVED to have a vote to adjourn.
The Roll Call Vote to adjourn the meeting was: Shah-No, Mendelson-No, Matthews-No, Hwang-Yes, Gleason-No, Townsend-No, Meek-No. MOTION to adjourn the meeting FAILED (one to six).
Commissioner Mendelson MOVED and Commissioner Hwang SECONDED discussion of this item. Commissioner Gleason said that although he is in favor of disclosure, he could not agree one hundred percent with the policy, as proposed, because some parts are still “up in the air.” He said he agreed with point one, had an amendment for point two, and that points three and four are on hold for him.
Commissioner Mendelson said that he would like to MOVE this item to the committee to take testimony from the public for scheduling at the earliest possible date. Commissioner Townsend SECONDED.
Public Comment. Alec Bash said he was pleased that the Commission has calendared this item, and handed out his suggestions for additional language for the proposal. Jim Soper said that he is “thrilled to see that San Francisco is considering this,” and said that he also had additional language for consideration. Brett Turner said that his main concern is the language. Roger Donaldson said that he would like to see a resolution tonight because the contract will be before the Board’s committee in a week.
The Roll Call Vote to move this item to the Budget and Oversight of Public Elections Committee was UNANIMOUS.
President Meek announced that the next meeting of the BOPEC would be Wednesday, March 7, 2007.
(j) (This item was taken out of order) Discussion and possible action to resume one meeting a month for the full Elections Commission.
Commissioner Townsend MOVED and Commissioner Mendelson SECONDED discussion. Commissioner Gleason asked if the once a month meeting would occur on the third Wednesday of the month. President Meek concurred. Commissioner Townsend added that it has been the practice of the Commission to resume two meetings a month when there is an election pending and there is more activity.
Public Comment. Carol Bella asked if the BOPEC meeting was open to the public. The President replied affirmatively. Steve Hill reminded everyone that the current meeting has lasted over two hours and asked if the Commission was sure it could handle all its business during a once a month meeting.
The Roll Call Vote was UNANIMOUS to hold Commission Meetings once a month on the third Wednesday.
(i) Discussion and possible action regarding the disposition of over-voted ballots. Commissioner Gleason, the person who generated this item for the agenda, asked that it be TABLED.
(k) Discussion and possible action regarding a retreat for the Commission. This item was TABLED.
ADJOURNMENT was at 9:32 pm.