City and County of San
Francisco
Elections Commission
Approved:
February 17, 2010
Minutes of the Meeting
at City Hall Room 408
January 20, 2010
- President
Joseph Pair called the meeting to order
at 6:11 pm.
- ROLL CALL. PRESENT. Commissioners Rosabella Safont, Gerard Gleason,
Joseph Phair, Winnie Yu, Derek Turner, Arnold Townsend (arrived at 6:18
pm), Deputy City Attorney Andrew Shen, and Director of Elections John
Arntz. EXCUSED. Commissioner Richard P. Matthews.
- Announcements. President Phair announced that City Attorney Dennis Herrera
has reappointed Richard Matthews to a new five year term on the
Elections Commission.
- Discussion and possible action to approve the
minutes of the December 16, 2009 Elections Commission Meeting. Commissioner Safont MOVED and Commissioner Turner
SECONDED this item.
The Roll Call Vote was UNANIMOUS to approve the minutes.
5. Director’s Report
Division Updates:
Ballot Distribution is
inventorying and organizing materials at Brooks Hall and at the
warehouse. Staff is preparing the initial ballot
order for the June election, updating the vote by mail envelopes,
obtaining quotes from vendors, preparing street closure requests,
examining the ballot security plan and organizing memory pack pick up
routes for the November election since the number of polling places will
increase for that election from 407 to 561.
Budget and Personnel has,
along with the Director, produced the first draft budget for the
upcoming fiscal year which has been presented to the Commission. The total is now $9.2 M which represents the Mayor’s
Office’s mandated 10% reduction in costs. There
will be two school district elections in November, but that revenue is
not shown yet in the draft, but will be added once information from the
School District is received. Other items which
are not yet shown are: Work orders with other
agencies who assist in the elections, and reductions for temporary
salaries, materials and supplies. The division
has been looking at its processes and believes it will be able to meet
the 10% cut.
Campaign Services Division is handling the Petition to Recall Supervisor Sophie
Maxwell of District 10. The suggested deadline
to begin review of the petition signatures is
January 25, 2010. Staff has held a workshop to answer
questions from candidates regarding the Judicial Offices for the
Superior Court. At this time, there are 40
candidates who have filed for the primary election in June, and staff is
working already on the November election which so far has 54 candidates
for supervisor who have taken out papers to run.
Outreach Division has been working on the next newsletter,
and a brochure that describes the accessible services of the DoE. Staff is beginning its work to create public service
announcements for the June and November elections.
Publications Division is determining where they can be more
efficient, such as building templates, and an in depth review of changes
in the developments of typesetting and printing the information that
goes into the voter guide, especially what goes into the primary
election because it will be a very large book with ballot types and
party information.
Poll Locating and ADA
Division is working to
find 157 more polling locations in time for the June election. We had fewer sites for the last two elections because
state law allowed us to consolidate them. Staff
is also checking if previous sites have increased voters above the 1,000
registered voters limit set by law. If so, those
precincts must be split into two.
Pollworker Division. The SoS (Secretary
of State) has issued pollworker training guidelines which may have
changes that the Division may need to incorporate in its training and
pollworker manual.
Technology Division is conducting extensive database changes. Staff is implementing a database for the warehouse to
centralize tracking procedures. In addition, the
Division is working for a database for the Outreach Division and one
for logic and accuracy.
Voter Services Division is currently heavily involved in the
upkeep of voting registration information which involves purging the
names of voters who have not voted in the last two federal elections
(since the year 2004), and haven’t changed their address or party
affiliation. The DoE will ask these voters, by
mail, if their information is current, and if there is no reply or if
the post office returns the letter, that voter will be removed from the
rolls. Staff is checking voters rolls against the
deceased persons list the Division gets from the state.
Director Arntz advised that he has notified
President Phair regarding the change in the campaign finance ordinance
that affects how notices related to campaign
expenditure ceilings are provided to the public.
The Director said that it was not the Municipal Elections Code that was
changed, it was a change within the Campaign Finance Reform Ordinance. In the past, there was an indication of which
candidates accepted or rejected the expenditure ceiling inside the VIP
(Voter Information Pamphlet). This will no longer
be the case. It will, however, be posted on the
Ethics Commission’s website.
Commissioner Gleason mentioned that campaign
finance reporting was the subject of a recent newspaper clipping
forwarded to the Commissioners by the Commission Secretary. Commissioner Gleason said that he did not want the
Commission to find out about these concerns after the fact, through the
newspaper rather than through the Department. The
Commission needs to get information on legislation that impacts the
City’s elections in a more timely way. This item
should be addressed at a future meeting.
President Phair asked the Director to let
the Commission know when such legislation occurs.
Deputy City Attorney Andrew Shen said that,
on behalf of the City Attorney’s Office, his office would do its best to
keep the Commission updated regarding changes in legislation that may
effect the operation of the Department, especially since the City
Attorney’s Office often helps to prepare such legislation.
Mr. Shen said his department will be more vigilant in the future.
6. Old Business
- Discussion
and possible action to amend the Elections Commission’s bylaws as
regards the Commission’s annual report (the “Report”) to conform the
period to be covered by the Report to the Commission’s practice of a
calendar year report and to revise the timing for preparation of the
Report by the Commission President and approval of the report by the
Commission all as set forth on Attachment A to this Agenda, and to
authorize the Commission Secretary to prepare an amended and restated
Commission bylaws to reflect the current state and content of the
Commission’s bylaws. Commissioner Turner
MOVED and Commissioner Gleason SECONDED this item for discussion.
The Roll Call Vote was UNANIMOUS to approve the amendment of the
Elections Commission Bylaws.
7.
New Business
(a) Discussion and possible action regarding the Voter Outreach
Report that was presented at the December 16, 2009 Elections Commission
meeting. (President Phair) President
Phair reminded the members that this report was not circulated prior to
the start of the December 16th meeting and that he asked the
Commission to review it and be prepared to discuss it at this meeting.
Director Arntz added that the turnout by district would be provided to
Commissioner Yu, per her request and that there is a table that shows
the events by supervisorial district. He asked
the Commissioners if they had other suggestions that could be used to
make the report more comprehensive.
Commissioner Safont said that she was pleasantly surprised to have a
representative from the DoE come into her non-profit office with voting
information and ask if she knew of other community based offices that
could use voting information.
Commissioner Yu said that she thought that the tables could be put in a
consolidated one page form or matrix that could be used to track
performances over several elections. She added
that a table showing how the budget effects outreach could be included. This would help the Commission and the Department to
advocate for these needs.
Commissioner Townsend said that he would like to see the Commission be
more actively involved in outreach.
Commissioner Turner said that before he became a member of the
Commission, he would have never guessed that the Department’s outreach
was as extensive as it is. He agreed that a
matrix comparing elections, season to season, would be very useful in
measuring success.
(b) Discussion
and possible action regarding the DRAFT Elections Commission Annual
Report for 2009. (President Phair)
President Phair and Commissioners Turner and Safont offered minor
typographical corrections to the report.
Commissioner Turner MOVED and Commissioner Safont SECONDED adoption of
the Annual Report with corrections.
The Roll Call Vote was UNANIMOUS to approve the draft Commission Annual
Report for 2009.
(c) Discussion and possible action regarding the review of the howsfvotes.com website’s precinct mapping
and suggestions regarding openness and community innovation with
election data. (Commissioner Turner)
Commissioner Turner explained that this website takes the statement of
the vote and color maps the results to the precinct level and turnout. He asked if there was any feedback regarding how the
Commission and Department could support these kinds of efforts
particularly when, in this case, the creator of the website is hampered
by how quickly the information is made available.
Director Arntz said that the current system that the City uses does not
by default provide real-time information on a precinct level. He said that he thinks the DoE can get close to near
real time election results with perhaps a 15 minute delay.
Aggregate totals may be possible for the June election with the totals
for the candidates and measures. The precinct
breakdowns can be available within a week of an election.
Commissioner Townsend asked Commissioner Turner the name of the person
responsible for the sfvote website. Commissioner
Turner answered that he thinks the website is an important service to
voters and the name of the person responsible is Jesse Costello Goode, a
software developer who does the website as a hobby.
(d) Discussion and possible action to elect Officers
of the San Francisco Elections Commission. The process shall be as follows:
The current president will open nominations first for the office of
president of the Elections Commission. When there
are no further nominations, the president will close nominations. Public comment will then be sought.
At the conclusion of public comment, there will be a roll call vote of
all commissioners during which each commissioner shall say then name of a nominee for whom he or she wishes to vote. Any nominee receiving four votes shall be elected
president. The same process will then be followed
for the office of vice president. The terms of
office for the new officers begin immediately at the conclusion of
tonight’s meeting. (Elec. Comm. Bylaws, Art. V,
Sec. 1(B).)
President Phair opened the floor for nominations for the office of
President. Commissioner Gleason nominated
Commissioner Phair and Commissioner Townsend SECONDED the nomination. There were no further nominations for President. The Roll Call Vote to elect Joseph B. Phair to the
office of President of the Elections Commission for a second term was
UNANIMOUS.
President Phair opened the floor for nominations for the office of Vice
President. Commissioner Safont nominated
Commissioner Winnie Yu and Commissioner Phair SECONDED the nomination. There were no further nominations for Vice President. The Roll Call Vote to elect Winnie Yu to the office
of Vice President of the Elections Commission was UNANIMOUS.
Commissioner Safont thanked President Phair and said that it had been a
pleasure working with him last year as his Vice President, and wished
the best to the new Vice President, Commissioner Yu, in the coming year.
- Discussion regarding
items for future agendas
Commissioner Gleason said that he would
provide better wording regarding how the
Commission is to be apprised of information and legislation that may
effect elections in the future.
Adjournment at 7:03 pm.