Elections Commission Regular Meeting (Rescheduled)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfx7dK30bcw

September SFEC regular meeting 20240925

oh
all right now it is on welcome everyone to the September 2024 regular

meeting of the San Francisco elections commission I'm the president Robin Stone The Time Is Now 5:33 p.m. and I call

them meeting to order before we proceed further I would like to ask commission secretary Marica Davis to briefly

explain some procedures for participating in today's meeting thank you president Stone the

meetings uh uh the minutes of this meeting will reflect that this meeting is being held in person at City Hall

Room 416 one Carlton B goodlet place in San Francisco and remotely via WebEx as

authorized by the elections commission February 15 20 23 vote members of the

public May attend the meeting to observe and provide public comment either at the physical meeting location or remotely

details and instructions for participating remotely are listed on the commission's website and on today's

meeting agenda public comment will be available on each item on this agenda

each member of the public will be allowed three minutes to speak six minutes if you are on the line with an

interpreter when providing public comment you are encouraged to state your name clearly once your three minutes

have expired staff will thank you and you will be muted please direct your comments to the entire commission and

not a specific commissioner when joining by phone you will hear a beep when you are connected to the meeting you will be

automatically muted in the listening mode only to make a comment dial Star

three to raise your hand when your item of Interest comes up you will be added to the public comment line you will hear

you have raised your hand to ask a question please wait until the host calls on you the line will be silent as

you wait your turn to speak if at any time you change your mind and wish to withdraw yourself from the public

comment line press star three again you will hear the system say you have lowered your hand when joining by WebEx

or a web browser make sure the participant's side panel is showing at the bottom of the list of attendees is a

small button or icon that looks like a hand press the icon hand icon to raise

your hand you will be unmuted when you it is time for you to comment when you are done with your comment click the

hand icon again to lower your hand in addition to participating in real time

interested persons are encouraged to participate in this meeting by submitting comment in writing by 12: pm

on the day of the meeting to elections. commmission sfgov.org it will be shared with the

commission after this meeting has concluded and will be included as part of of the official meeting file thank

you president Stone thank you secretary Davis will you please proceed with item one commission roll call President Stone

present vice president Parker she will be here in a few moments commissioner

burnol here commissioner Dy here commissioner

loli here commissioner Wong present president Stone with six members present

in accounted for you have a quorum great the San Francisco elections commission

acknowledges that we are on the unseated ancestral homeland of the ramitos alone who are the original inhabitants of the

San Francisco Peninsula as the indigenous stewards of this land in accordance with our tradition their

Traditions the Rait to Shalon I have never seated lost nor forgotten their responsibilities as caretakers of this

place as well as for all people who reside in their traditional territory as guests we recognize that we benefit from

living and working on their traditional Homeland we wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors and relatives of the ritish community and

affirming their seven rights as First Peoples closes agenda item one we'll move now to agenda item number two

general public comment public comment on any issue within the elections commission's General jurisdiction that

is not covered by another item on this agenda there are no people uh

participating via WebEx with their hand raised great

Miss buts hello are you

there hello are you there

Miss

Butters okay we did have one participant uh on WebEx with hand raised but they're not answering um if that person would

like to make a comment please let us know with your hand rais on the system

thank you thank you hear me oh yes now we can

hear you okay thank you hold on just a second I'm going to start your timer here

okay you're ready to go thank you my name is Karen butter and I'm a member of

the Alama County election commission that was formed in 2023 um and one of our first projects

was a recommendation to our Board of Supervisors to implement cast vote records throughout the vote canvas

process instead of after the election is certified as the ROV has done in the

past in Alama County this was especially important due to the miscount in the

2022 election where the results were incorrect in three races in one the

wrong winner was declared requiring a judge to reopen the election to report

the winning candidate we have a recommendation this coming Tuesday to

the Alam County Board of Supervisors to ask the board to re to direct the ROV to

release the CVS throughout the vote counting process we've been monitoring

SB 1328 which are ROV declared would make it a felony to re release the CVS

the bill was amended without the confusing language and we have a statement from Senator Bradford's

legislative director that states there is nothing in the bill to prevent the release the bill is now on the

governor's desk however we do expect challenges in the next legislative

session we have looked to San Francisco for their leadership with cbrs and hope to

partner on ongoing challenges to the CVR process we think this is an especially

important process in election integrity and the accuracy in vote counting thank

you thank you thank you

is she muted

now she's still on you can mute on the on the not on the computer

are there any other public

commenters there are no other public commenters okay great we will um close agenda item

number two and move to agenda item number three approval of previous meeting minutes discussion and possible

action on previous Election Commission meeting minutes and we welcome vice president Parker to the

meeting yes commissioner D sorry thank you president Stone um I caught a couple

of um errors in the minutes uh one was uh SB

1328 was incorrectly stated as 1348 in multiple

places and um I thought it was a little

misleading uh for former commissioner jonic I just wanted to clarify that he

had not sent us a report he had um sent us an email regarding his updated rank

Choice voting results reporter software um so just to clarify

that and then finally this might be

um I just wanted to clarify that uh under commissioner's

report um that uh that I had brought up uh the

information about SB 1328 to express the commission's concerns on this matter um

I wouldn't say stance is correct since we weren't sure what the shape of the

amendment was actually in at the time so was to raise concerns and kind of uh um

educate about about our past practices and I'm happy to provide all of these um

edits directly to uh secretary Davis um one other thing and maybe um vice

president um uh Parker could clarify it wasn't

consistent with my notes um she had also found an error with the previous minutes and it said here that

uh something about that the review needs to be on the next regular meeting agenda and I don't think that's

correct vice president Parker uh thank you I wanted to offer

that correction as well um commissioner D um and it was and my recommendation is

just to strike the final clause in that uh part of the minute um we didn't suggest that it should be on the

September agenda it was just that we had already had the Clos session in July so it wasn't going to be scheduled for

August

yes was that it commissioner D thank you and thank you for the catch on the um

legislation as well with

those with those edits do we have General consensus to approve the minutes with commissioner Dy and vice president

Parker okay great let's move to public comment

there are no public commenters great that closes agenda item

number three let's move to agenda item number four the director's report discussion and possible action regarding

the September 2024 director's

report thank you president Stone uh just to give some updates in addition to the

report so the English and uh Chinese VOE information pamphlets the PDFs are

already online they've been online since last week actually and then the overseas

and Military ballots were uh mailed last Friday and then the uh the English VIP

the paper the hard copy versions will be in the starting to drop in the United States Postal Service starting third

this Thursday and then the vote by mail ballots U 500,000 or so will be dropping

uh PS next Thursday October 3rd uh so and we've already got 100 or more than

100 ballots back so far from overseas voters so the election is fully in swing

um and really from there I can take any questions on the uh on the director's report

so thank you director ARS open it up to commissioners

vice president Parker thank you I I feel like I'm always the person raising my hand

thinking somebody else will want to go first um let's see um I feel like

there's so much that I could say thank you for the report um I am impressed we

have four cards and not more than that this time um I was also really happy to

to read about the inclusion of why an accurate and complete vote count takes time and of course the RCV stuff in the

the voter information pack pamphlet and I um was wondering how you plan to ensure that

people will pay attention to that in the VIP I'm wondering if um instead of just flipping to whatever they're searching

for is that going to be like in the the press release or anything when that goes out or I don't know just wondering if

there's any way to draw attention to that uh well we had not planned on

issuing a press release specific on that page in the v vation pamphlet uh we can

we will be providing information and we can reference that page uh certainly

about the result reporting as we go through the cycle yeah if there's any um you know I

see later in the report that you talked about um drawing attention for the media

um and things like that to this uh why it will take time to process all of this

and and have an accurate count um so if there are any any public Communications

to go out about it I would encourage you to include like take note this is in the voter information pamphlet because a lot

of Voters may be wondering um I also really appreciated the new web page with

all of that information and I I don't know if it was in response to the conversation we had here you all were probably already thinking about on your

own but I think it's a really proactive and important move um and it shows just a lot of great alignment between what

the commission is interested and what the department is doing doing and prioritizing um and again as I was just

saying I'm glad to see that will be also shared with the media um also relating back to a conversation we had after the

primary about um us caring a lot about the media's role and helping the public

understand the process and the timeline for certifying the election so um so that's great was happy to see those

things um and the the folks who have signed up to view the voter information

pamplet online so in my calculations that looked like about 10% of the voters of registered voters receiving that so I

was um excited to see I think we're making progress there and had a question related so once they sign up to receive

it um and not a paper version are they signed up for all future elections that way as well they don't have to opt in

each time correct okay great um let's see what else I have in my notes um

congrats on finalizing all the polling places and recruiting enough poll workers um and all that success that you

have the job fair that's um all great news um let's

see um uh I also and I know we'll talk about

this a little later in the agenda but because it's here in your report I just wanted to mention I I really appreciate the background on why we have an

alternative security plan um I think that's really important for the public to understand um so that the trust in

our elections is prioritized so that all the potential conflicts of interest are voided um so I appreciated that

information and hope the public pays attention to that as well I'm wondering what is the timing for when it goes from

the commission to the Board of Supervisors for approval so the commission approves and

then forwards it to the board there's no need for the board to take action oh they don't have to do an approval L okay

just goes to them for review a notification okay great um it'll go under their petitions and Communications

okay great um um oh sorry point of clarification we can also talk about

that process on that agenda item as well um if folks want to talk through like the whole process of that it's just a

point of clarification great thank you um I was also excited about the enhanced results reporting um it's really

comprehens comprehensive and also very much in line with the conversations we had after the primaries so happy to see

that was of course thrilled to see the record number of high school ambassadors you have and the mentorship program with

staff um for this election and after the election is over I would personally love

to hear any anecdotes about the students experience or the impact that that program is having on them and their

peers as they're engaged in that program um and wondered also the celebration

that you mentioned that would be had with the students um would that be open to members of the commission to attend sure

um i' I'd be interested um if I can get information about that later um and then

the last comment I had um just lots of lots of happy praise here in in my thoughts um the I love that the voting

Outreach campaign includes the street sheet in addition to sort of more traditional standard media Outlets so I

was glad to see that that's it thank you vice president Parker

commissioner

Wong thank you president Stone um thank you as always for the detailed um uh

report and I have a lot more questions and comments for the later sections on the elections plan but there's one thing

I do want to ask because it's more relevant to the director's report I'm really excited to see the thoughtful

planning and Outreach for noncitizen votings uh as I'm aware you know uh the

non-citizen voting collaborative is already you know ready for um enhance Outreach so I'm really excited for that

uh it would be helpful to have the new registration data for for non-citizen perhaps kind of broken you know maybe by

month so we can track kind of the effectiveness of the Outreach adits and kind of which area we should be focusing

on too just a thought so if there's a data available it would be great to share that's it from my end

yeah thanks commissioner burn hols thanks president Stone hi director

ARS um building on uh what others have said I want to just um uh clarify for

myself that item 2B the improved reporting um process is actually the

open- source tool built by former commissioner jonic and I want to note that because of uh annual performance

reviews um so that is what we're talking about here correct it's part of it correct yeah there's and also um Kudos

on the other pieces of it it looks like um you've been making quite a few

changes um other question my usual question at this point especially given

um the Secretary of State's office and other places around the country have there been any security incidents that

required any form of response not in San Francisco okay is

there can is there any um formal reporting structure from the local

election offices up to the Secretary of State's office for security

threats it depends on the the incident

if it if it was cyber security we we'd bring the state in uh if it was a let's say like a isolated incident for a

physical security threat potentially not yeah so the Secretary of State's office

in California is not or there is no centralized repository of tracking

threats to election departments over time not all threats no the cyber

security cyber security right U most of the the physical Securities is Tes is

taken care of locally so we have a lot of meetings and interactions with the local agencies but uh regarding physical

security potential issues okay thank you uh and thanks for a report and all your

work thank you sorry I was off thinking about that

um commissioner D thank you president Stone um uh director ARS I I of course

I'm really excited to see the enhancements for the results reporting

um can we get a sneak peek of that is that going to be uh uh I think October 7th is when we'll

post to zero reports around then so right um wonderful um and also um glad

to see the progress on the Go Green campaign I think 10% is great um

so I think it would be good to have a goal and I was looking at at a note it

says that we have over 300,000 households so ideally we would get from

the 500,000 down to the 300,000 so maybe there there could be some kind of

tracking against how we how we get to 300,000 because I think um that would be

a good goal right so then one per household as opposed to all the roommates

Etc um and I have um many more comments

for the election plan and I will wait till we get to that item thanks commissioner d

I had just a couple of uh follow-up questions well just one

question one comment and then one point of clarification um I do believe as it

pertains to threats to elections offices at the local level unless they're not getting reported to local law

enforcement I do think that DHS is tracking that um if if as like a on a

national scale so tracking what's happening in local offices um through the local goal um uh

through the law enforcement entities up into the federal level I believe I looked that up at one point um so not

necessarily through the state or through the Secretary of State but through other um federal agencies um one question I

had about the overseas voters so you said you've already received 100 ballots

back can you remind me what date you sent those you sent them to the overseas

voters that's Friday and you already have a 100 back that's incredible um thank thanks for

clarifying that um wow that's great um and then I have a

ton of stuff on the election plan that because obviously there's a fair amount of overlap but then one thing I wanted to mention about go green which isn't

relevant to this year's this election but maybe in the future to increase um

folks's willingness to switch to dig is someone had I was talking to someone

about how long our uh vo information pamphlets are and they suggested uh or

they'd heard of another jurisdiction that does QR codes on different things so you could either use a q code on

advertisements um or in other places to sign up to have it you know fully to not

have one sent to you and also to just use it um to re review the actual voter

information pamphlet so food for thought for a future idea um and like I said the rest of my comments are uh in as it

pertains to the election plan I'll open it up to any other commissioner who has a question or for yeah commissioner well

do commissioner ly did you have anything you want to add before I switch okay commissioner D thank you yeah no I was

just thinking on the QR code um it might be a way to to shorten the voter information

guide as well for certain sections that you could just have a big QR code for more details so that you could have kind

of a summary so that might be a way to to reduce the

bul thank you commissioner D if there are no other comments Let's uh move to public

comment no other comments great that closes agenda item number

four let's move to agenda item number five commissioner's reports discussion

and possible action on commissioner reports for topics not covered by another item on this agenda meetings

with public officials oversight and observation activities long range planning for commission activities in

areas of study proposed legislation which affect elections and others

yes commissioner D thank you president Stone I just wanted to make a brief comment um uh

considering the public comment we had from Miss butter of the Alita Election

Commission uh just a quick update on SB 1328 which as predicted did pass and um

is in the process of of being implemented as um uh as noted by Mr Hill

last time it did not include uh any kind of felony or ban on um

publishing the cast uh vote record for now um and I understand we're going to

have this as agenda item to have a more thorough discussion at the next meeting um but uh just so the public knows I did

share uh put together the information that I promised at the last meeting and shared it with the rest of the

commission um including some of the communications with the um Senator

Bradford's legislative director ctor and some of the background on the situation in Alam which we will post for the next

meeting uh I did want to point out for Miss butter uh I recommend that she take

a look at um our extremely thorough and complete election plan that we always

get from director arnst and if you look on page 60 uh it has information on vote

transparency and indicates how we share the cast vote record and in fact valid

images um uh quite uh quickly uh in order that the members of the public can

can do their own tabulations to to check our machines and um unexpected

results thank you commissioner D we'll I'll be sure to look at all the materials and we can decide what makes

sense as a packet item any other commissioners

okay let's move to public

comment okay that closes agenda item number five let's move to agenda item

number six November 2024 Consolidated general election plan discussion and possible action regarding the proposed

election plan for the no November 5th 2024 Consolidated general election hand it to director arson do

you have any comments before we dive in I think the plan is a good overview and

provides a lot of detail uh regarding the upcoming election I'll be glad to take any questions I no detail at all

was put into this election plan thank you director ARS take

Commissioners comments and questions

is

Lucy I'm happy to start if everyone's a little shy sure

um I was joking about the details obviously um I just want to start by

saying what an exceptional election plan I mean incredibly comprehensive I think

gold just like the gold standard um reading through this it's just

remarkable and I I think it's important that we take a second to recognize that

there are the vast majority of Elections departments can are not putting things

this anything like this out so a huge huge just thank you um for the public

for just demonstrating The Depths to what the department does to make sure it's a fair

functional process with trust and integrity so I just I just want to say thank you um for

such an exceptional uh plan um first and foremost I had a couple of just

follow-up comments and and questions uh for you and also additional more

specific praise um the RCV training or

like I wouldn't what would we call it curriculum like that you're offering the public of that's better thank you the

educator over here um working in education uh spoke much better than I

did on that uh but did you develop that yourself did the department develop it

develop that is that a resource that you used from um from a nonprofit organization can you just share a little

bit I mean I don't I apologize if I missed it in previous election um plans

but it was the first i' had seen it I did not develop it uh myself we uh folks

in the department developed it and our it group uh put put it together and we've had it uh for several years we uh

went added again prior to the selection so it's an updated version wow um that's

great awesome very cool um I also wanted to Echo I think it was commissioner D

maybe it was vice president Parker the part about RCV information going in the

bo information pamphlet I think that's great uh I I feel that when I talk to

voters in San Francisco people still do really love the paper voter information pamphlet and

it is much more trusted than some of the political material that they receive and

so the fact that they are using these pamphlets the pamphlet and are have this

resource available to them I I just think it's a great idea so um I think

it's excellent um I wanted to ask a question about

something pertaining to ballot curing um which just seemed like a another level

of service that I was very surprised to read on page 22 and it you don't have to

go in it's just you had said there was one line in there that basically said

that if you couldn't reach a member of the like a voter to cure their ballot

you would also hand deliver them can you speak to that I mean

that that is that something that you've offered in the past is that because of new legislation can you just speak to

that briefly it's similar to the ballot delivery that we've been doing for many years so if if someone really just can't

uh receive information or get it back to us then we will you know make the trip and pick it up or deliver it wow thank

you um one oh I also was glad to see as it

pertains to commissioner bernh holz's comments about threats I it was great to see the Emer emergency response plan in

here as well um of many different scenarios so I think that's also very

helpful and also very great very good from a transparency perspective so you

know if measures have to be taken how the department is planning to respond to those things I think that's great um so

thank you for including that um I had a question about the number of ballot

types um 38 seems pretty substantial can you just speak to well I guess it's

technically 39 right it's 38 plus the non-citizen ballot um is that correct or

well it's actually less because we have three ballot types that are empty because of the the voters on the islands

okay um but uh it's it's about the normal number of valot types we have is

there yeah it's just not it's it's not unsurprising is what we would expect about that range okay great thank you um

and then in the public awareness in the results reporting public awareness

campaign I wanted to ask about um how much you plan to incorporate and

apologies I you may have this on the website I think that website is great by the way I'm really excited that that was

um newly developed and provided to the media um I had a I was able to glance at just very briefly but I wanted to ask if

the in the public awareness campaign that you or public education no

awareness um campaign that you're hoping to do with the uh results reporting are

you I don't know that I had seen this as one of the like key objectives are you planning to talk about the how about the

role of vote by mail ballots and when they are counted when they're received at on or

after election day because that is often what takes the longest um can you just speak to that

briefly yeah so that's that's one of the main messages to get across is that we get the volume of ballots that we

receive on Election Day and also after election day now just require X review

and and also we stop processing on Election Day and so that's one really

one of the most important messages for us to get out isn't the length of time to process the ballots it's the fact

that there will be no results report on Wednesday following election day um so we have to start the process back up

again but yeah we we'll provide that and I'll be speaking a lot to the media

about it it's it'll be a consistent message as we go through the cycle thank you for doing that I think

that's going to set I mean we can't predict how the city and the media will

react but I think just doing our best to put put put some messaging and education

behind it um is just great and the fact that this website exists is just another

another tool so um thank you and then as it pertains to um non-citizen voting I

appreciate you putting this level of detail for public transparency purposes

um there is obviously a lot of debate about this issue on a national level at

present um and particularly as it pertains to local elections offices namely Arizona comes to mind um I i'

would love for you to just if you could just talk very briefly for the kind of the record here

you obviously put it into the election plan but if you could just talk briefly walking through the overview of how the

voter roles are managed separately from the uh the rest of the citizen voter

role well you said it essentially uh so

there's the all counties are are connected to Secretary of State's Statewide registration database and the

the Statewide registration database is the the information of record and so to

to have a valid registration in California one uh must be a citizen and so there's no record that goes to the

Statewide registration database that the Secretary of State's office maintains would ever be a valid record so we've

had to to replicate that database process within the office it's not a matter of just

having the name uh on in a table we because all the elections functions all the history the

issuing of ballots uh assignment of polling places the printing of names and rosters it all comes from that database

uh so we've had to replicate that database and administer a separate database in our office uh that uh can do

all the same processes that the Statewide connection does for regular voters and then when we count the

ballots though we don't separate the ballots the the votes are uh included in

the aggregate total of votes for the Board of Education contest and how do Folks at the through

the system that's managed at the state prove that they are registered

citizens well it's all penalty of perjury uh in California and it's all cross ref and the information that is

submitted to the Secretary of State's office or local offices as cross reference with DMV information also with

Social Security information uh dph to a certain degree and also with the State Department of Corrections uh but in

California there's it's all registration information is submitted under the

penalty of perjury and signed by the by the voter thank you and so would you say that the separation of voter roles is

what part is what ensures that a non-citizen would not receive a ballot

that is not specifically intended for a non-citizen voter oh yeah I'm sorry didn't catch that

yeah so it's it's it's a separate issuing it's it's a it's actually a separate election that we're conducting

so it's a so it's a separate database so it's actually a separate election we actually Consolidated the non-citizen

election for Board of Education into the M the municipal election in San

Francisco um and and so but we also consolidate the Statewide offices the

federal Offices so we're not we're not consolidating just because of the noncitizen voting but it's it's part of

the Consolidated elections that that are occurring in November thank you I just think it's

important to for transparency to explain the E safeguards that the department offers to ensure that uh the voter rules

are kep separately and there aren't any errors there are safeguards in place

to prevent a um in inaccurate ballot being sent to an inac a nonen voter um

so thank you for providing that transparency and both the election plan and out loud um I think that was

it yes that's it for me I think thank you director

ARS commissioner Juan thank you president Stone director

ANS the elections plan is really comprehensive and informative I'm really excited about introduction of new uh

ballage ker 2 for this election the online portal that people can sign on and correct um and cure the ballot I

think it could streamline the ballot processing and Counting process um and

you know echoing what president stone shared I think the launch of Outreach materials particularly the YouTube

presentation on uh rank Choice voting and the interactive TW is really impress

impressive and highly educational and um as I mentioned a review the Chinese

version is really clear and easily understandable so really really happy to

see all of that and thank you for all your hard work and your the department staff as well I do have like a few

questions some of it's just clarifying questions and comments um the first one is for the

Miss and dismil information MDM EV evaluation response plan it's really

hard to like say the whole thing it's really hard so basically it is like um the plan to you know uh tackle

misinformation I'm glad to see that department has developed a solid strategy to Monitor and respond to

various levels of MDM incidents and I kind of want to provide one nuances that

misinformation is equally if not more prevalent in non-english uh spaces um especially

targeting immigrants voters or people who don't read English and I actually

has a recent nonprofit report that examining Chinese language disinformation they found that similar

to English disinformation a major narrative involves casting doubts on the Integrity of um elections and

interestingly X or formerly known as Twitter is the leading platform for

spreading Chinese um language disinformation actually far surpassing WeChat which was the main platform like

one to two years ago so I I find it really interesting to see that um but still we CH and telegram remain popular

channels for circulating elections disinformation so I just want to like share that information with the

department and with the public um I understand that it is not feasible to check all this information circulating

online but I wanted to highlight the context of Chinese language dis disinformation and perhaps we can resort

to our nonprofit partners that have more diverse language capacity and research

so we can come look into the matters if it's R for this elections and I'm also happy to share the report with the rest

of the commission uh with the public and the department um so this is just like a

context um and I do have a questions about s housing uh situation and I know

that the department will provide a number of s facility operator with a list of reminders of how they should

receive and handle elections mails um because there has been some issues

before with that um I was just wondering how many as operators has the Departments contacted so far do you have

a number so far no there's over 50 over 50

yeah I don't know the number that we've contacted so far if we've sure we we've already sent information to all of them

at this point but I don't have the the final total I have to get back to on that yeah no worries um just another

context uh um I actually spoke to some s voters recently um and and basically

kind of the common concern for S folders is that actually a lot of well-managed

SOS for example those run by Chinatown Community Development Center doesn't usually face significant issues with um

M surfaces they usually have a property management um and they know how to handle males especially elections males

but then less manage s still face challenges sometimes because um it's

really up to the property management to decide how to handle those males so um

some people receive it some don't um and so that's why I'm interested to see the

list of s operators um or private landlords because you know I would love

to just like keep track of that and see if you know we can help we collaborating

with out of nonprofits um you know for Asos that operated by CCD the chinat

town Community Development Center usually you know they don't handle other

SOS in Chinatown for example so it's up to individual landlords um or operators

to do their job I know you know this is not completely on the department but I would love to facilitate those

compensation and possible um and I also received some observation that some

people don't receive ballots um especially um Asian Elders living in

SOS but then it's individual issues so so if that is anything I will share with

the Department here to assist individuals um so that's it for the SL

housing um the last questions it's just a clarifying question is B adjudication

and remake I find it really fascinating to like just look at the the procedure and how to like actually do that um I

I'm aware that two people will be handling the bage adjudication and remix I just have a cing questions in the

event of differing opinion um for example one person think that you know one one thing another thinks the

other thing who will be um who has the authority to make the final decision

there's a supervisor also involved so if there's if there needs to be a third opinion that would be the supervisor the

the supervisor so it will be the one of the two persons or the third person the third person okay gotcha I think that

just really you know informational to know like who's going to make that decision okay cool I think that's it

from my thank you thank you commissioner

Wong commissioner D director erns yes thanks um again let

me add my kudos to everyone else really great elections plan um really a model

um for for other counties uh even though many of them don't require it um I

actually watched the RCV um YouTube for the first time I actually thought it was

great it was quite informational although my fictional narrator was was Sam not Alex um and you have been using

this for a couple years yeah it's good it's good to refresh our memory every two years

because people forget in in between of of how to do it so

um I was happy to see that there was an assessment plan for all the Outreach

events and um other things in the elections plan uh and again we've had this

discussion before a lot of the Quantified statistics are what we would

consider outputs not outcomes so just the fact you've done so many events and you've provided the training doesn't

mean that people got trained and actually absorbed anything so um uh I

was happy to see that there are surveys planned for these Outreach events and even things like uh the RCV video

for example um you know kind of asking a question at

the end and allowing people to comment what is one thing you learned that you didn't know before

like um you know uh I I learned I didn't have to vote for all the candidates

right or I learned what an overvote was um you know just to get a sense of

what's actually being retained uh in these educational efforts uh and how

effective the Outreach events are uh there is the opportunity to take almost

any kind of quantitative data and quantify it so I I just want to offer my

support should your department need it I've done a lot of work on outcomes versus outputs and and how to quantify

qualitative data I'm happy to review any surveys or or make suggestions but yeah

we've got great numbers but we want to kind of see what the conversion rate is so to speak but I'm glad there's a plan

to do it

thanks vice president

Parker um I don't have a whole lot to add after all of those comments um but I

do want to just add um my gratitude and um appreciation for this really

comprehensive um plan and and also I know we we are

not the most highly attended um commission meeting in the city um but if anybody happens to watch this later I

really encourage them to take time to review the plan partly because it's such a great view into the structure and the

work of the department and everything that goes into elections um and making

sure that you know as you say in the introduction that every eligible voter has access to Safe barrier-free

registration and voting options um so I hope that people who Wonder um will take

the time to review it um and I you know as well as you you all do

run the elections I appreciate that you continue to be so invested in growth and

Innovation after many many years of people who are very experienced with this you've been with the department for

a very long time um but there I mean the section on like the new and improved practices is so long um in this plan and

we've already discussed them in our meetings um so much so I'm not going to comment on all of them um because we

have talked about them so much here but um but again sort of encourage and and congratulate that that is the culture um

of this department um and then just one last comment um you know I know we discussed

this last month but I um in relation to some of the other comments I appreciate all of the efforts you all make to cure

ballots um so that everyone who is eligible to vote has their vote counted

and I think that's a really strong statement you know I think you were talking about this President Stone you

know at the beginning sort of you know going to homes and you know there's just so much effort put into curing ballots

um I think it's a very strong statement about how much we mean every vote counts and that we really want to reduce

barriers for folks and you know sometimes people's signature looks different than it was when they first

signed out you know registered to vote or whatever it is um I just think it's a really strong statement and

um and really grows trust you know in my opinion so um that's all that wasn't

already covered thank you thank you vice president

Parker does commissioner burol haveand that's I thought commissioner

burol thank you and uh thank you director ARS just two quick questions

I'm curious on the merp the three tiers of um severity if that's a structure

that was developed in the house or if you uh brought that over from somewhere

else we mostly developed that in house around the time that we had the hearing

remember when it was regarding uh artificial intelligence po potential impact on local

elections uh so we thought about that and that's where the that those those

tear came in came into play and then on page 20 uh 25 where you mentioned the

deescalation training is Al is that also is that something being done by an

outside vendor or um is it an in-house

curriculum it's a continuation of our in-house curriculum we we implemented

this at least in March and I think even before 22 okay yeah and then yeah so now

we've we've we've gone beyond that okay thank you and fantastic I'm very excited

for the election and I very much appreciate your work and the work of the department

thanks thank you commissioner bernh hols see did you have

anything okay you need to

any um just just one second uh secretary Davis do you need to pause the meeting

uh there's no there's no one on oh we're not moving to public comment yet just one just in a second did anyone have any

other comments about the election Plan before we move to public

comment okay now we are moving to public comment

there are no public commenters okay great thank you secretary Davis that was fast um let's move to agenda that closes

agenda item number six that let's move to agenda item number

seven oh that's a very thank you that's correct um do we need to approve the

plan yes my apologies a little bit of an oversight to say the least thank you

vice president Parker um I move that we approve the election plan

second thank you commission VY let's move to a

vote okay president Stone yes vice

president Parker yes commissioner d

i commissioner burnol yes commissioner loli yes commissioner Wong

yes great motion passes thank you vice president Parker for making sure we did

it um that now closes out agenda item

number six we'll move to agenda item number seven alternative security plan discussion and possible action regarding

the proposed alternative transportation and security plan as required by the San Francisco Charter for the November 5th

20 24 Consolidated general election so director ARS you want to walk us through that yes thank you president Stone so

the charter requires the department to development alternative security plan whenever the incumbent Sheriff appears

on the ballot and this is the uh actually the second time that we've put forward this plan and the plan is for uh

Chief Deputy McConnell uh who's the operations director I guess you could

say for the Sheriff's Office to assume all operational responsibilities for uh

the deputies who provide security for the election as we go through the cycle until until

certification uh and this essentially separates Sheriff mamoto from any

operations operational decisions or any sort of influence on on the the the

planning and the execution of the of the plan through the election cycle and

Chief Deputy McConnell is also a permanent civil servant so is not a

directive Point D of the sheriff uh the we have in the past looked at not using

the sheriff's deputies uh to provide security for the elections and I think

2016 2017 was was the last time we did this and we actually had to enlist I think it was like five different uh

private security firms uh to potentially provide the number of of of personnel

that would equal the number of deputies that are signed to to assist especially on Election Day election evening to pick

up the ballot at the polling places then also the the the potentially the memory devices from the polling place as well

from the from the voting equipment and the security the private security couldn't even promise US they could

provide all the Personnel they they they gave us quotes on the number of they gave us quotes based on the number of

people they think they could provide but they couldn't make assurances so even though there's deputies still involved

in providing security and picking up the ballots uh this is a process that they've been doing doing for since

2002 and it's also a a a uh a number of

personnel that we really couldn't promise be be promised to have if we if

we left out if we didn't go through the Sheriff's Department uh to obtain this the services that we that we receive so

and also the I think our work order with the sheriff's office is around $400,000 for all security uh for this

election and and in 2017 or so when we went not to to bid for this uh the costs

then were over a million dollars I mean so it's just it's more coste effective

to use the deputies there's the the sheriff will be separated from any operational planning or decision- making

uh the deputies uh they know that they know the operation they know the drill um and there's also there's the hard

there's a hard copy ballot we also have the memory devices and two separate groups are picking up the ballots and

the memory devices so and the the deputies are in possession of the ballots literally for an hour or so on

Election night and they drop them off at our warehouse on an election night and the memory devices the parking Control Officers bring to City Hall and we

upload them right away so there really is no Risk by having the sheriff's deput

is still involved in providing security for the election and that's why we're putting forward this plan seeking the

commission's approval so thank you for the for the background

will you also just reiterate what you shared with vice president Parker earlier about the process after or

should we approve the plan you just talk through what the next steps are so the

charter requires the commission to approve an alternative security plan uh when the sheriff appears in the ballot

and then to forward that approved plan to the board supervisors and essentially what happens is that the the alternative

security plan will appear on the petitions and Communications uh portion of the of the the board's agenda uh probably for next

Tuesday's meeting so be it be publicly noticed by the board in that

manner and then once they approve is there they don't they just it's just notice to it's just a notice and you

don't have to actually appear there it's just literally okay thank you um open this item up for

commissioner questions or comments

yes yes commissioner D yes so just kind of curious um how usual or unusual it is

for um this kind of requirement uh in other jurisdictions altern security

plan I don't know of any other county in California that has a requirement that the Sheriff's Office provide security

for the ballots the voted ballots so I I would think that means there's

there's no other County that would have this requirement in California no

um so what what's typical in other counties then if they don't use the

sheriff I yeah I don't I don't really track how they do this so okay um yeah I

was just kind of curious because I I I think given that we do use the sheriff's

um Department that this is again an example of how San Francisco really

tries to bend over backwards to make sure there's no conflict of interest which um just noted for the public and

with that I move that we approve

this I'll second but want to open it up for other Commissioners to answer any or

to ask any questions or add any comments as well

I'll just add um since I don't see another commissioner i i in addition to

seconding the being a second to the motion I also second the sentiment that

I think this is really great and I appreciate all of the information that

goes into educating the public about why this process exists and um your

explanation of it and also the idea of using I didn't know it was going to be a

million dollars as a quote but I could only imagine how expensive it would be to use private security and it's a it's

um quite a it's it's great to see the relationship between your department and

and the Sheriff's Office and working with the deputies um I've seen it in action for myself and it's really a

well-oiled machine so very easily wanted to Second this um this alternative plan

any other

comments all right let's move to public comment before we move to the the roll call or did commissioner bernel have her

hand up no okay then let's move to public

comment okay since there are no public comments we will move to a vote

president Stone yes vice president Parker yes commissioner d

i commissioner burnol yes commissioner loli yes commissioner

Wong yes okay motion passes thank

you that closes agenda item number seven let's move to agenda item number eight

employee waiver approval discussion imp possible action regarding the waiver for city employees to assist the Department

of Elections with the November 5th 2024 Consolidated general election s ARS president St so the same

Charter amendment that required an alternative security plan also prohibited city employees from assisting

the Department of Elections in in conducting elections unless uh the the

elections commission explicitly and the and the and the or the election commission uh recommended and the

board's approved a waiver allowing city employees to assist the department and

this is that waiver uh we don't really expect to have a need for city employees to help us specifically to conduct the

election uh but you there might be some pole workers uh people who who uh join

us to be po workers and I don't want to have someone who works with us and uh

you know during leave who's a city employee and we don't have a waiver so uh there's not really a need for us to

enlist the assistance of city employees for the selection but we U by habit uh

have requested that the the commission recommend that the board approve a

waiver to allow C the employees to assist the department to conduct the election if

necessary that waiver so thank you director ARS any comments or questions

from Commissioners yes commissioner d

um yes director ARS could you just um expound on what was the thinking behind

prohibiting uh city employees from working on elections for the benefit of the public I

cannot so um uh let me Let Me Maybe guess at

what was the thinking behind it and uh see if anyone else has any comments um

my theory is that uh one there may be city employees who

are political or affiliated with electeds and that might be considered a

conflict of interest that it's one um and my other thought is that to the degree that it's possible that we want

to offer our seasonal and temporary employment uh for pole workers and other seasonal employees to um non- city

employees uh to give them some Economic Opportunity so those are two reasons that I thought

of is that it I just had a question about this is

um president Stone I just had a question about how many city employees usually

participate as pole workers um in any

whether it's the presidential election or midterms I'm just curious how often

folks actually do once it's waved which I assume at always is it has been not

many uh some elections maybe like a June gorial primary election we might be in

need um but through time our recruiting I don't know is I guess we've

had better results so we haven't really had a need or for uh city employees to

volunteer as B workers and would they just be at the pole worker level and not

let's say at an inspector level or a or a higher level at the as a employ as a

as supporting the department in its administration of the election under the waiver yeah they could take any position

any not a permanent civil servant position or year round position but any temporary needed position potentially

could be filled by a city employee uh we've never sought that sort of scope with this waiver it's always been

Election Day related work and this waiver for

20 years was basically uh we had a a group of folks associated with uh the C

attorney's office the the department of Technology uh the city administrator's office uh who assisted us with uploading

the memory devices and um but now we've taken over that work too and it it

wasn't because we had a need for those group for those folks that was really sort of something they took pride in

doing based on on work they had done with an earlier voting system that we

had uh prior to the Charter Amendment coming to being in 2002 and it's just

something that continued through time but uh really we we haven't had a need

for any city employees to help us other than maybe an occasional pow workking poorer slot uh with and specifically

with the language uh bilingual language abilities so makes

sense thank you yes commissioner

Wong thank you um yeah I know that like there there's there not like a big need

for city employees to do that but just out of curiosity what is the screening

process for city employees to for example become a cooworker in kind of

the evaluating the potential conflicts of interest is there a process we provide

them an application as we would anyone else you will be screening and just to make sure that's there will be no

conflicts of interest of serving as po workers

or uh no we don't have a criteria that we apply to people to prohibit them from assisting the department okay y SC thank

you any other Commissioners commissioner burnol I can't see her

no okay let's move to public comment

hi I'm George kabor San Francisco election Integrity team uh my only concern about this issue is just that U

make sure that whenever waiver is given to Public Employee to participate as

pole Watchers Etc and yeah I I I hear what the director is saying that you know it may not be a great need for this

fortunately which is a good thing but that um adequate procedures are in place

that you know if you're stuck under the wire and you've got to get people in a hurry at the last minute that they

receive adequate training including you know the ethics part of it so that they have some sort of conflict uh interest

in some way that it's mitigated by proper ethics training uh so that you know everyone has their political

beliefs so but the people behave professionally whether they're a pole worker or they're working with the cabul

or whatever they're doing um uh with with the election process thank

you thank you and if you're open to sharing your

name with secretary Davis written down that would be great since you did state

it for the record thank

youed okay commissioner d uh thank you um president Stone just

to follow up on the comment from uh member of the public here

um I'm assuming as you said that they have to do an application like any other poll worker and they have to complete

training like any other pole worker just confirming that yes thank

you thank you commissioner D let's move to a roll call vote

resident Stone yes M got on a plane to come and see

her vice president Parker yes point of order point of order do we have a

official Motion in a second you I thought you made a mo I didn't but I'd be happy to oh yeah yeah the last one I

thought already had okay my apologies I thought we had already move to approve okay second second thank

you thank you um okay now let's move to a roll call vote okay let's start over

president Stone yes vice president Parker yes commissioner bernh holes yes

commissioner d i commissioner loli yes commissioner

Wong yes okay great a motion passes thank you commissioner loli for keeping

me honest um that closes agenda item number eight let's move to agenda item

number nine agenda items for future meetings discussion and possible action regarding items for future

agendas yes commissioner D um of course I want to make sure we have SB 1328 and

any possible letter on the next agenda and also do we need to start working on

uh secretary Davis's review yes as I think as I um mentioned

in earlier this Summer that that process begins in October I need to go back and review

what the process is but I know that it commences in October

anything else okay let's move to public

comment okay great that closes agenda item number nine the meeting the time is now 6:47

p.m. and the meeting is now adjourned