August 21, 2013

1. Call to Order & Roll Call
President Jill Rowe called the meeting to order at 6:00 pm. PRESENT: Commissioners Jill Rowe, Winnie Yu, Rosabella Safont, Catalina Ruiz-Healy and Richard Matthews. ALSO PRESENT: Director of Elections John Arntz, Deputy City Attorney Josh White, and Commission Secretary Tachina Alexander. Commissioner Gleason arrived at 6:04pm

2. Public comment on any issue within the Elections Commission’s general jurisdiction unless otherwise included in an item on this agenda.
NO PUBLIC COMMENT

3. Approval of Minutes from previous meetings.
Commissioner Matthews moved to approve the Minutes of the June 19, 2013 Elections Commission Meeting and it was seconded by Commissioner Safont.
The roll call vote was UNANIMOUS to APPROVE the minutes with corrections.
NO PUBLIC COMMENT

4. Director’s Report.
Director Arntz
Division Reports
(a) Administrative (Budget/Personnel) – Working on getting materials and supplies for the November election as well as personnel and paperwork for the temporary and as-needed workers from the Department of Human Resources. The Department will bring in about 60 people for September and an additional 120 by the end October. The Election Plan is basically finished and Director Arntz will distribute that and the waivers to the Commissioners by Friday.
(b) Ballot Distribution – The ballot order is finished for this election and the ballot distribution department are the point persons for the security with the Sherriff’s department and they’ve already had a meeting. The vendor who provided the equipment to process the vote-by-mail envelopes is on-site sharing information to make improvements. They’re putting a parking plan in place around City Hall, working on an updated vote-by-mail-ballot-tracking database (with a future rollout date beyond November 2013), distribution of the ballots to the poll workers and other divisions regarding transferring ballots out of their possession.
(c) Campaign Services – The proponent arguments were submitted for the four measures and the paid arguments. Currently we have 97 pending payment for the November election. We have 3 contests where candidates are running unopposed; The City Attorney, Treasurer, and Assessor so there will only be one name printed on the card unless we receive qualified write-ins. For District 4 there will be a Special Vacancy election and there are 2 candidates for that contest. The write-in period runs from September 9th – October 22nd.
(d) Warehouse Services – Will be starting maintenance on the equipment next month. A “jumper cable” will be installed in the memory pack in order to preserve data in the event of a power surge.
(e) Outreach Division – Will bring on two coordinators on the 1st of September; one will be Spanish/English bilingual and the other will be an English coordinator but they will be assigned to the low voter turnout neighborhoods. Be-A-Voter theme continues and posters and handouts will be coming out later this month. Next month governmental agencies, schools, Muni buses (90 exterior and 1,000 interior signs), 25 bus shelters, 15 community newspapers, SFgovTV, City College TV will display information on their stations, buses, and agencies. 8/1 held voter information network meeting; 9/12 next voter information network mtg – City Hall, Room 34 All Commissioners invited. Voter information pamphlet is available online and they want to get the word out that it’s viewable on the website every election. Additionally, they’d like to inform the public of the vote-by-mail drop off stations that they’ll have around City Hall as well as the consolidation of polling places. 9/24 National Voter Registration Day – will go to four BART stations in the morning and evening during commute hours and register people to vote. They will be attending the upcoming citizenship ceremony, attending the 1st Wednesday library day, and have attended the following events: Gay/Asian Pacific Alliance Gala, Commonwealth Club of California, Project Homeless Connect, Cayuga Park Opening, and the Bayview Backpack Giveaway.
(f) Precinct Services – ADA (a group that works on consolidating the precincts for this election) we’re down from 562 from last November to 393 polling places and about 15 mail ballot precincts. They’ve already brought in and trained their temporary folks who’ll be locating the polling places for precincts that still need a site. They’ve produced a video about sensitivity to people with disabilities and have identified temporary staff who can deliver and pick-up voting equipment.
(g) Publications – Other than District 4 all of the districts will have a one-card ballot. Voter guide will consist of 132 pages, Spanish & Chinese versions will be 48 pages.
(h) Technology Division – They are working on the ballot-tracking database, online time sheet within the department, a visual display precinct map, and creating and testing a field app for the deputies.
(i) Voter Services – Registration numbers dropped 60,000, which is normal after a Presidential election and the Department must give notice to voters during primary cycles. Next Friday begins E60, overseas ballot mailing. They will receive local and federal ballot because the law changed.

NO PUBLIC COMMENT

5. Discussion and possible action regarding Amendments to Municipal
Elections Code Section 500 With Respect to Voter Information Pamphlet
page limits.
Commissioner Rowe stated that she put this on the agenda just to let the
Commissioners know what happened as a result of our last meeting where we
talked about the proposal that was being made to allow some materials not to be
printed in the voter information pamphlet when the legal text was too long. She
was authorized to appear before the Rules Committee of the Board of
Supervisors to present our position on that. She did and our position was that we
were urging the Supervisors, for whatever solution they came up with to make it
temporary and to have it automatically sunset following this election. The
Supervisors received legal advice from the city attorney’s office that they should
not take that approach and should not include the sunset in the current
measure. However Supervisor Chiu was very thankful for our input and
concerns and wanted us to know that after this election that he would make
efforts to rescind the ordinance. The amendment that they did pass to section
500 is that they’re going to leave the full text in the voter information pamphlet for
all charter amendments but for other types of measures if the legal text is over
100 pages then they will only include the first 20 pages.
Commissioner Gleason – This is the most straightforward example of the kind of
thing this commission can do. The board did look to the Elections Commission to
give advice and input on this and they listened to it. Supervisor Chiu brought it up
not only at the Rules Committee hearing but at the final vote of the Board of
Supervisors, where he mentioned that the Elections Commission gave input on
this issue and he was taking advice on it. I will send the link to everyone.

NO PUBLIC COMMENT

6. Discussion and possible action regarding the Commission President’s
2012 Annual Report.

Commissioner Matthews moved to accept the Commission President's 2012
Annual Report.
Commissioner Ruiz-Healy seconded it.

NO PUBLIC COMMENT
Roll call vote was UNANIMOUS to APPROVE.

7. Commissioner’s Reports
NONE

8. Announcements.
Commissioner Matthew’s - BOPEC meeting September 4, 2013
Commissioner Rowe – Has been in contact with the Mayor’s office and they had
hoped that they would have an appointment by this meeting and the person in
charge of that is on vacation so hopefully by the next meeting we will have an
appointment.
NO PUBLIC COMMENT

9. Discussion and possible action regarding items for future agendas.
NONE


10. ADJOURNMENT 6:40pm