welcome everyone to the July 17th
2024 regular meeting of the San
Francisco elections commission I’m the
president Robin Stone The Time Is Now
6:07 p.m. and I call the meeting to
order before we proceed further I would
like to ask commission secretary Marissa
Davis to briefly explain some procedures
for participating in today’s
meeting thank you
um sorry secretary Davis can you make
sure your microphone is turned
on Can You Hear Me Maybe just pull it
closer can you hear me yes okay there we
go thank you as authorized by the
elections commission’s February 15 2023
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 to a specific commissioner when
joining by phone you will hear a beep
when you are connected to the meeting
you will be automatically muted and in
listening mode only to make a public
comment dial Star three to raise your
hand when your item of Interest comes up
you will be added to the public comment
line and 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
you will hear the system say you have
lowered your hand when joining by WebEx
web browser make sure the participant
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
hand icon to raise your hand you will be
unmuted when 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 public
comment in writing by 12:00 p.m. on the
day of the meeting to elections.
commission
sfgov.org it will be shared with the
commission after this meeting has
concluded and will be included as part
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 here here commissioner
bernh holes here commissioner Dy here
commissioner loli here commissioner Wong
present president stone with six members
present and accounted for you have a
quum thank
you the San Francisco elections
commission acknowledges that we are on
the unseated ancestral homeland of the
raay to shalone who are the original
inhabitants of the San Francisco
Peninsula as the indigenous St of this
land and in accordance with their
Traditions the to shalone have never
seated lost nor forgotten their
responsibilities as caretakers of this
place as well as for All Peoples who
reside in their traditional territory as
guests we recognize that we benefit from
living and working on their traditional
Homeland we wish to pair respects by
acknowledging the ancestors and
relatives of the rsh community and
affirming their seven rights as First
Peoples it closes agenda item number one
and we’ll now move to agenda item number
two general public comment public
comment on any issue within the election
commission’s General jurisdiction
jurisdiction that is not covered by
another item on this
agenda just a
moment so you on YouTube right I mean
it’s too bad because whatever uh yeah
it’s Theory yeah maybe you know me from
other places in the city hall basically
I’m going to develop a little more on
what I said uh the first time I came to
see you on May the
15th precise for people to check it out
together okay we are dealing with a dead
hand here in the system of Elections
because uh it’s not really intelligent
to pretend not to know that it’s
technology allowed the system to be
rigged basically so we
are we need we cannot avoid a sort of a
revolution in the system we can’t about
it otherwise that’s it it’s the end of
see so the way I I put it last time was
to say
okay obviously some people won’t like it
that’s normal
because you need to Pro to proceed with
the system of election by
drawing so basically you have five
candidates let’s say five candidates for
any important post you know any
government you select 12 citizens at
random the let present a program
okay then after that the one that stand
by drawing from the citizens are drawn
again the winner is drawn understand
with only one mandate the first mandate
for only one
year which makes
corruption almost impossible that is if
the candidates elected by drawing
doesn’t do what he said on this program
sorry you
out that’s the only way we can solve the
problem here that’s called real
democracy now well you are in a tough
situ position here I perfectly
understand it’s the only way to go I’m
here to serve that’s it that’s my
mission
so in France too by the way but after
have a good night thank you
thank
you are there any other public
commenters there are no other public
commenters okay thank you secretary
Davis um that closes agenda item number
two we’ll move to General uh to excuse
me to agenda item number three approval
of previous meeting minutes discussion
and possible AC on previous Election
Commission meeting minutes and actually
we won’t be able to move forward with
this because I realized right before the
meeting that the minutes are not posted
on the website and so um in order to
give the public time to review the
minutes um we we have to postpone this
uh this agenda item so I actually have
to move to agenda item number four
director’s report discussion and
possible action regarding the July 2024
director’s report I’ll hand it to
director Ernst thank you president Stone
uh I don’t have more more to add than my
report we are in the we have started the
second nomination period for the other
local offices and then also we’ll be
receiving the local
measures and any District measures as
well um but uh so right now we’re
basically just uh gearing up for uh
November and then moving through the the
the nomination period uh we have been
doing a lot of Outreach events uh
recently U we’ve been consistently going
to the U the naturalization ceremonies
on a weekly
basis and um I don’t know I think from
there I can take questions from from the
commission on the report or any other
topic
so thank you director erns I’ll take
questions from commissioners
anyone yes vice president
Parker
oops so I’m set up um is that okay yeah
um I don’t have a lot um thank you as
usual for your really detailed report um
I know we ask you this like every month
but are you getting any better sense of
the ballot length even though we haven’t
hit all of the deadlines yet for
measures and candidates so I don’t know
the number uh but the number will be
less than 30 is my uh perception at this
point which is Big because it 30 was
sort of the breaking point I think uh
for us so if we’re around 15 to 20 then
uh I don’t think I have not seen the
ballot questions all the ballot
questions I’ve not seen the state ballot
questions for the state measures but I
don’t think we would exceed six cards at
this point okay which you know was the
big issue uh for lot of reasons uh and
so if we get even if we get 15 measures
local measures for instance then
potentially we even have a five card
ballot which be which be actually
wonderful so okay great thank you I
wasn’t sure that you’d be able to give
me any answer but I thought I’d ask um
okay I think let’s see uh a couple of
comments um I really appreciate the
thoughtful theme for November I liked
how you spelled it out for us you know
how you got there uh so thank you for
that um I also um a couple other
appreciations in report um I appreciate
the recommendation from the language
advisory councils to include caregiver
um in that non-citizen voting
information super relevant and necessary
here so I appreciate that they made that
recommendation I um already sent you a
note earlier today I really liked the
video and brochure on rank Choice voting
I thought they were um useful and I plan
on sharing them with my network because
I I’m still continue to um be surprised
at how many people don’t understand both
how to fill out their ballot and how it
Works um so thank you for that um I also
appreciated the Safety and Security
brochure especially after the
conversation we had last year to or last
month to uh understand more all the
security measures you all um have been
taking so thank you for that I
appreciate the transparency and I think
if at least the public can access it who
knows if they will but at least it’s
there um and then the two questions I
had um are for the the RCB and ncv
grantees um that you listed in the
report are they you’re doing training
with them is that to be coordinated with
the the messaging of the department um
around the election um or is it just
managing a grant I’m just what I’m
wondering is um how we can get a sense
of what it is the grantees will be doing
to support those two
efforts so the grantees provide plans
yeah so that could provide the plans
that were they submitted in response to
the
rfps okay I was just ious are they
already on the website somewhere or is
that something we would just ask to see
I don’t know if they are on the website
it’s mostly just curiosity on my part to
see what kinds of things they’re doing
um okay so I can follow up with you on
that um and then the other question um
the note about adding Vietnamese um
because the threshold being lowered uh
for the 2026 ballot I was curious about
what kind of fiscal impact you expected
for um related to that we haven’t
started looking at the costs for that so
I don’t I don’t have a number on that
right now either um but it would I mean
we were adding another language so
everything all the materials and all the
actions we take around the the current
languages would be replicated with
Vietnamese for Vietnamese uh
so it is
significant uh addition for us but we
haven’t done the cost analysis yet um
when that decision was made um did you
get any sense that the city would
recognize that when it comes to giving
budgets to the department because will
we have the same sort of budget but have
to serve more languages or do you think
that they’ll account for that to our
budget and still have to provide
languages well I hate to think that but
okay but there wasn’t some like we’ll
make sure we funded it won’t be like an
unfunded
correct all right that’s all from
me thank you vice president Parker any
other
Commissioners yes please
commissioner bernh hols uh thank you
president Stone um hi director arens two
quick questions my usual question have
there been any security incidents either
digital or physical in the last
month hello commissioner bernel no
there’s been no instances uh in our with
our department last month okay and then
the second question quickly looking at
the um 15 nonprofits are these are there
any differences between this and the
last round
there are
some that I know there’s some that
didn’t make right did now receive grant
funding this round I don’t know if all
the name all all the groups are the same
though um compared to last round I can
just do a compare and contrast but yeah
it looked like there was some difference
okay thank you you’re
welcome thank you commissioner
burnol I a follow-up question to
commissioner bernh hols were all of
those did all those grantees receive
equal amounts of funding or was it
different based on the proposals correct
the lad based on their yeah that’s what
I would figure okay any other
Commissioners
okay thank you director ARS keep up the
good work ahead of November hopefully
folks are taking vacations
now um and uh doing some self-care ahead
of a busy couple of months y um that
let’s move to public
comment uh no public commenters hands
raised thank you secretary Davis that
closes agenda item number four let’s
move to agenda item number five
commissioner Commissioners reports
discussion and possible action and
commissioner reports for topics not
covered by another item on this agenda
uh meetings with public officials
oversight and observation activities
longrange planning for commission
activities in areas of study proposed
legislation which affects elections and
others I’ll open the
floor anything to
report okay let’s move to public comment
for commissioner reports
No Hands raised okay thank you secretary
Davis moving right along
um uh we’ll move to agenda item number
six closed session discussion and
possible action regarding the annual
performance evaluation of director John
of John ARS the director of Elections
let’s move to 6A public comment on all
matters pertaining to this agenda item
including whether to meet in closed
session so let’s move to
public
comment No Hands
raised thank you secretary
Davis uh we’ll move to 6B vote on
whether to meet in close session to
consider the agenda
item I move that we uh uh move to meet
and close session to consider this
agenda item second thank you vice
president Parker
let’s move to a roll call
Vote Yes
VI
yes
I
I
yes
yes
okay thank you okay we will now move
into close session thank you director
Arts that was very was record time um
enjoy your evening see you next
month um let’s just take a quick moment
to make sure our Tech is supported for a
Clos session
and then I want to make sure also that
we’ll still be able to see
Lucy Lucy can you hear us
still yes I can okay
[Music]
good and the record we should pause the
recording as well because that will be
harder to truncate