City and County of San Francisco
Elections Commission
Approved
Minutes of the Meeting at City Hall Room 408
September 15, 2010
Call to Order:
President Joseph Phair called the meeting to order at 6:02 pm.
Roll Call:
Present:
President Joseph Phair, Vice President Winnie Yu, Gerard Gleason, Richard Matthews, Rosabella Safont.
Also Present: Director John Arntz, City Deputy Attorney, Mollie Lee.
Excused:
Arnold Townsend
Announcements:
President Joseph Phair announced that he had contacted the Board of Education regarding the vacancy left by Derek Turner.
Commissioner Matthews announced that the BOPEC meeting for October 6, 2010 has been cancelled, and that a Special Meeting of BOPEC will be called for October 27, 2010.
- Discussion and possible action to approve the minutes of the August 18, 2010 Elections Commission meeting.
The roll call vote was UNANIMOUS to approve the minutes.
- Director’s Report.
Ballot Distribution:
Preparing for three special elections: Mission Miracle Mile Business Improvement District, Ocean Avenue Community Business Improvement District, and the Retirement Board.
For the November 2 election, the Department is preparing for delivery of ballots coordinating security with the Sheriff’s office.
Outreach:
Conducting neighborhood presentations such as for this weekend they will be attending Autumn Moon Festival in Chinatown. Muni ads should be posted on buses and bus shelters this week. Ads will appear in 16 neighborhood newspapers and are scheduled to begin over the next two weeks.
Publications:
Ballots have been completed and at the printer, voter information pamphlets are nearly complete, two of four sections are currently being printed.
Poll Locating / ADA:
Precinct Services is still relocating cancelled sites. Currently 13 polling places need to be relocated and all are in precincts in which polling places are difficult to locate. All of the polling places may not be located before voter information pamphlets are mailed, so the Department will likely need to send change of polling place notices to some voters.
Poll Worker Division:
Fifteen hundred poll workers have been recruited which is 65% of the total desired number. Rooms for 114 poll workers have already been secured; Classes for clerks will begin on September 28th and the poll worker’s manual has been posted online.
Technology Division:
Database Development continues. Logic and Accuracy (L&A) database additions are now completed allowing for more specific tracking of the testing of backup equipment Insight and all Edge components separately in addition to the tracking of equipment during staging and delivery. Poll workers may go online this profile will go live this week. Poll workers will be able to log in and check their training classes and polling place assignment information including directions to the classroom/polling place from their home. Inspectors will also be able to see information about the clerks assigned to their precinct and can track information regarding bilingual requirements. The election has been defined in the database and system and testing has begun.
Voter Services:
Most recently we have been conducting voter file maintenance in preparation of extracting files for the permanent vote-by-mail voters to send to the printer; and overseas and military voter files have been sent to the printer.
Election Security:
The Sheriff requested that the Ethics Commission consider whether Prop B would have a material financial impact on the deputies who would be providing security for the election. The Ethics Commission quickly organized a special meeting and ultimately voted unanimously that the ballot measure would not adversely impact the deputies’ work. The potential impact of the measure cannot be known on specific deputies and also impacts would apply to most city employees including those working with the Department of Elections. Commissioner Matthews asked the Director what changes have been instituted by the vendor who handles our vote-by-mail since the June election so as to avoid the same mistakes. Director Arntz described some changes that should prevent mismatched ballots and envelopes in the future.
3. Commissioners Report:
None
- Old Business:
Discussion and possible action to approve the Voter Profile Resolution and the approval of forwarding the resolution to the media in the form of an op-ed with additional information regarding its importance. President Phair agreed with suggestions that perhaps the report could be condensed and any grammatical errors be addressed. Commissioner Matthews agreed to assist Commissioner Gleason to make any needed adjustments. President Phair asked that this be presented at October’s meeting.
5. New Business:
(A). Discussion and possible action to approve the Election Plan for November 2, 2010.
Moved by Commissioner Matthews, seconded by Commissioner Safont. The roll call vote was unanimous to approve.
(B). Discussion and possible action to approve the waiver allowing City employees to assist the Department of Elections with November 2, 2010 Consolidated General Election.
Moved by Commissioner Matthews, seconded by Commissioner Safont. The roll call vote was unanimous to approve.
(C). Discussion and possible action to hire a Commission Secretary, including but not limited to defining the positions description and qualifications and approving procedures for posting the position and hiring an individual to fill the position.
Commissioner Matthews stated the classification 1446 most closely compares to the actual job of Commission Secretary. President Phair explained that the City’s hiring freeze could cause a delay, however he feels that the Commission will be able to go forth with the hiring process. Deputy City Attorney Mollie Lee agreed with President Phair, however cautions that procedures must be adhered to. Commissioner Safont agreed to take on the responsibility of receiving the applications and working with Commissioner Yu to aid in the interviewing process of the applicants.
Moved by Commissioner Matthews, seconded by Commissioner Safont. The roll call vote was unanimous to approve.
(D). Presentation and demonstration on post-election audit pilot project in Humboldt County.
Commissioner Gleason introduced guest speaker Mr. Mitch Trachtenberg of the Humboldt County Transparency Project. Mr. Trachtenberg gave a brief overview of a pilot project in Humboldt County to scan and make publicly available images of all voted ballots from public elections in that county. A PowerPoint presented by Mr. Trachtenberg is linked here.
Presentation (pdf)
Public Comment:
Jim Soper, member of the Voting Task Force, spoke regarding the guest speaker Mitch Trachtenberg, in support of the Humboldt County Election Transparency Project.
Brent Turner, verbally endorsed the success that the Transparency Project has had on Humboldt County elections.
Announcements, reopened
President Phair announced that the process for the annual job performance review of the Director of Elections will begin soon, and asked Commissioners to send him any criteria that Commissioners think should be used in the review, and invited the Director to submit his own suggestions, too.
Meeting adjourned at 7:15 pm.