City and County of San Francisco
Elections Commission
Approved:
Minutes of the Meeting at City Hall Room 408
August 18, 2010
1. CALL TO ORDER. President Joseph Phair called the meeting to order at 6:03 pm.
2. ROLL CALL. PRESENT: Commissioners Richard P. Matthews, Rosabella Safont, Gerard Gleason, Joseph Phair, Winnie Yu and Arnold Townsend (arrived 6:17 pm). Deputy City Attorney Mollie Lee, and Director of Elections John Arntz.
3. Announcements
President Phair announced that he had received a notice from Commissioner Derek Turner stating that he was relocating to Washington D.C., and therefore resigning from the Commission immediately.
Commission Secretary Shirley Rodriques announced that this meeting would be her last as she will be officially retiring on August 27, 2010. Ms. Rodriques introduced Gail Hilliard, who has been accompanying the Commission Secretary to its meetings since April, and thanked the Commissioners for their volunteer service to the City. The Commissioners thanked the Secretary for her eight years of service to the Elections Commission.
4. Discussion and possible action to approve the minutes of the June 16, 2010 Commission Meeting. Commissioner Matthews MOVED and Commissioner Safont SECONDED this item.
The Roll Call Vote was UNANIMOUS to approve the minutes.
5. Director’s Report
Ballot Distribution: Staff is currently working on a Business Investment District Election (the Mission Miracle Mile Improvement District). This involves twenty properties. Staff is organizing the ballot with the vendor for the November election and conducting an overview of their procedures for ballot tracking and processing.
Budget and Personnel: Staff is hiring personnel for this election, and obtaining and organizing supplies for all the Divisions in preparation for the November election.
Campaign Services: Staff has been busy over recent weeks holding workshops for candidates and conducting a ballot argument workshop. They have received 144 paid arguments and 77 candidates have filed for the November ballot. There was an extension for one of the Board of Education seats because an incumbent did not file for her seat.
Outreach: Interviews for outreach coordinators have begun. Advertisements in the bus shelters and on the buses are being prepared.
Publications: The Ballot Simplification Committee, with the assistance of Deputy City Attorney Mollie Lee, was in session for two full weeks, and the Committee’s President, Betty Packard has stated that this election has been her most challenging so far. There will be five ballot cards for each district in the November election. This is the second time the City has had a five-card ballot. The Voter Information Pamphlet (VIP) is expected to contain approximately 250 pages. This will be one of the largest ever produced by San Francisco.
Poll Locating: Staff is reviewing the responses from the last election day incident report, and comments from the Field Election Deputies (FEDs) and Department of Elections staff to determine what modifications may be needed to modify their procedures or activities for November. Staff mailed out poll location availability letters early this month, and staff has begun finding the 31 sites needed so far. There are 180 previously used polling sites that were contacted but have not yet responded. The Poll Locating Division is mapping the City according to ballot types and these maps are important for the routes for the FEDs and supply deliveries.
Pollworker Division: Staff has sent out availability letters to 2500 people. The recruiting and scheduling of High School pollworkers has begun, as well as the review and changes to the Training Manual. There are training videos available on the Elections Department website. Recruitment has begun for the training staff for the pollworkers.
Technology: The division is working on a data base for the Publications Division to accumulate candidate information which can be used for future elections and developing a “pollworker on-line profile” which will be a web page for each pollworker. With the pollworker profile, the pollworker can go to the website, pull up the information she or he needs for training, including videos, look at their assignment and check the dates of training classes. The Technology Division is also working with the Voter Services Division to track the mail received and categorizing the types of mail.
Voter Services: Staff has been busy checking the many signatures on the petitions the Department received. Having completed the signature certification, now staff can catch up on file maintenance from the June election. There is a new version of the registration data base being tested.
Commissioner Matthews asked what was the basis for the Board of Education’s extension for one of its members to file her candidacy for the November election. Director Arntz replied that whenever an incumbent doesn’t file for the seat that the incumbent holds, the nomination period is extended another five business days. Commissioner Matthews asked if this is true for all City offices or just for the Board of Education. Director Arntz responded that this is the case for all City offices.
6. Commissioner Reports.
Commissioner Gleason reported that he has made a final attempt to get a response from the City’s Legislation Committee regarding the Commission’s Voter Profile Resolution, particularly in light of the Elections Department’s efforts to reach voters before the recent June election regarding a mishap with some of the ballots that were mailed. Commission Gleason said that he contacted two members of the Legislation Committee and there has been no response.
7. Old Business
(a) Report regarding observations of the June 8, 2010 Consolidated Statewide Direct Primary Election. Commissioner Derek Turner.
This item was taken off calendar because Commission Turner has resigned.
(b) Discussion and possible action regarding working with the City’s State Legislation Committee to propose amending the California Elections Code to redefine precincts as greater than 1,000 voters. Commissioner Gleason.
Commissioner Gleason asked Director Arntz for an update regarding this item. Director Arntz reported that since the last Elections Commission meeting, the legislature passed a bill that allows counties to subtract from the number of voters per precinct, the number of permanent vote-by-mail voters (VBM) in that precinct to determine the number of eligible voters within that defined boundry of voters. The only criterium is that the percentage of VBM voters does not exceed the number of voters who are not VBM voters.
Director Arntz said that this will have no effect on this November’s election but when redistricting is done next year this new bill will take effect.
The bill helped the Department to modify its ballot order for the coming election because state law requires that we order enough ballots for 75% of the registered voters in a precinct, so the number of permanent VBM voters was taken in account and that order of 75% will be enough. In the past, there have been too many ballots, and this has been an expense that we can now minimize because of this bill.
8. New Business
(a) Update from the Director regarding the “Audio Voter” equipment and its ability to read back the ranked candidates, and other voter equipment remedies since the November 2009 election.
Director Arntz reported that the issue regarding the Audio Voter was that when a voter used the touch screen and voted in a Ranked Choice Election (RCV), the audio would say the name of the candidate the voter chose for their first, second and third choice. But when the voter tried to review his or her selection, the audio would not tell the voter the ranking that was chosen.
The Secretary of State has allowed San Francisco and Alameda to put a disclaimer in place that tells the voter that they will not hear the rankings in the audio ballot on the Edge machine that these counties use.
There was an issue in the November 2009 election in which the Chinese character screen would not allow voters to review their selections after they voted. The State accepted the San Francisco Elections Department’s plan to inform voters, at several points during their navigation of the voting process, to use the “back button” which will take the voter to their most recent screen.
The Director reminded the Commission that in the recent June election, the Department needed to increase the RAM (Random Access Memory) on the touch screens because there was an abundance of ballot information and the memory cartridge of the Edge machine needed more memory. The Director said that if the larger memory is not needed for this November, he would still like to keep it for future elections. There is a good possibility that the Department will be able to purchase larger memory cartridges from Riverside County in the future because that county has more than they need because they have lowered the number of touch screens they use per polling site.
President Phair asked if the Department purchased the increased RAM or did it come from Riverside. Director Arntz answered that the increased RAM has been installed by the vendor and does not expect this to be an additional expense for the Department. President Phair complimented the Director for finding these economic solutions.
(b) Discussion and possible action to approve the Voter Profile Resolution and approval of forwarding the resolution to the media in the form of an OpEd with additional information regarding its importance. Commissioner Gleason to present.
Commissioner Gleason said that this impacts approximately 20 to 25 percent of the voters in San Francisco. He said he is willing to write an opinion article for the press to get this issue out to the public because it is important that voters know that the personal information on their voter registration forms, such as their email address and/or their telephone number, is kept private by the Department of Elections and not given to campaigns or the public. This information is important when the Department needs to contact a voter to let that voter know that there may be a problem with the ballot they received or if the voter forgot to sign their ballot.
Commissioner Gleason said that he will prepare an opinion article regarding the importance of having contact information for voters on file at the Department of Elections, and he will present it to the Commission at its September 15, 2010 meeting.
9. CLOSED SESSION
(a) Discussion and possible action regarding whether to hold closed session for attorney-client communication on matters of pending litigation, held pursuant to Ralph Brown Act, section 54956.9 and Sunshine Ordnance Section 67.10(d)
Closed Session began at 6:30 pm for attorney-client communication regarding:
ProtectMarriage, et al. v. Bowen, et al. (E.D. Cal., filed January 7, 2009, Case No. 2:09-cv-0058-MCE-DAD)
Dudum, et al. v. Artnz, et al. (N.D. Cal., filed February 4, 2010, Case No. 10-cv-00504-RS)
Field, et al. v. Bowen, et al. (San Francisco Superior Court, filed July 28, 2010, Case No. CGC-10-502018)
Alba-Swanson, et al. v. Arntz, et al. (San Francisco Superior Court, filed August 10, 2010, Case No. CGC 10 502446)
Commissioner Gerard Gleason left the CLOSED SESSION (at 6:47 pm) before discussion of the following case:
Arntz, et al. v. Superior Court of California for the City and County of San Francisco (Cal. Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, Division Two, filed July 28, 2010, Case No. A129173) (writ proceeding challenging decision in Alioto-Pier v. Arntz et al., San Francisco Superior Court, Case No. CGC-10-500796, filed June 17, 2010)
CLOSED SESSION ended at 6:58 pm and Commissioner Gleason returned.
10. Discussion and vote regarding closed session deliberations or actions.
Commissioner Safont MOVED and Commissioner Matthews SECONDED that the Elections Commission finds that it is in the best interests of the public to not disclose its closed session deliberations or actions regarding the cases discussed in closed session.
The Roll Call Vote was UNANIMOUS to not disclose.
11. Discussion regarding items for future agendas
President Phair suggested that a member of the Voting Systems Task Force or Mr. Roger Donaldson present an update at the September Elections Commission meeting. Commissioner Gleason to present his opinion article for the media on The Voter Profile Resolution and a presentation regarding post election audits in Humbolt County. Commissioner Gleason said that he will forward information on AB2023 regarding scanning post election ballots to the members of the Commission. The Commission will decide, after reading the information, whether to schedule this on the September calendar as well. President Phair asked that the temporary appointment of Gail Hilliard be on the September agenda.
ADJOURNMENT at 7:04 pm