January 19, 2022 Elections Commission Meeting

welcome everybody it is uh january 19th 2022 304 pm uh i'm calling to order this
regular meeting in the san francisco elections commission uh secretary dell video would you please
call the uh would you please call the roll um would you like me to do instructions
first oh yes please follow the instructions for the remote meeting someday i'll remember that
thank you madam president the minutes of this meeting will reflect that due to the covet 19 health
emergency and to protect commission members city employees and the public the meeting rooms of city hall are
closed however commission members and staff will be participating in today's meeting remotely this precaution is
taken pursuant to the various local state and federal orders declarations and directives
commission members will attend the meeting through webex video conference and participate in the meeting to the
same extent as if they were physically present public comment will be available on each
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at sfgov.org thank you madam president thank you uh would you please take the
rule sure commissioner bernal i'm sorry president bernhard's here
vice president john yeah commissioner nomogi here
commissioner gerdonic and commissioner chapel here
okay with five members in attendance we have met forum thank you uh so 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 is there any public
comment i don't see any hands raised from the public
all right seeing none okay item number three discussion and possible action on
resolution on continuation of remote elections commission meetings uh there's
the city attorney memorandum on this uh and the draft resolution uh
can i get a uh we need to vote and pass this i'm sorry i'm a little rusty today
we have to agree to accept this resolution today so moved
thank you all right get a second second
is there any public comment no hands raised
call the room uh president bernhard yes
vice president john yes president mogi i'm sorry commissioner
yes commissioner donna and commissioner chapel
yes okay with five in the affirmative it passes
thank you uh item number four approval of minutes of previous meetings discussion and possible action on draft
minutes of the commission's december 15th 2021 regular meeting and i'll note that
there's both draft minutes and draft um revisions or not proposed revisions to
those minutes in the packet is there any discussion by members of the commission
commissioner yeah for people that didn't read the
document i attached it was just because i noticed the discussion around the um
the newspaper article was saying it was the reporter that we needed to
talk to but it was actually the sales representative so it's just to fix that
thank you and i think we should consider those um revisions uh as part of the
minutes move to approve the draft minutes with
commissioner gerdonic's change thank you second second
no hands raised all right
yes i'll call um president bernhard's yes vice president jung yes
commissioner mogi yes commissioner giordani
and commissioner chapel yes okay with five in the affirmative it
passes great thank you uh item number five commissioner mogi's term has come to an
end uh discussion and possible action on this um i as a colleague of commissioner
mogi simply want to extend my gratitude and appreciation for your service um
you've been a wonderful colleague and i very much appreciated your guidance as i uh took over from you as president um i
don't know if there's anything you'd like to say to the commission or to the public like other than and let me again
extend my gratitude and thanks for your service thank you president um bernholtz i yeah
i will my term has ended and i do think um you know we've been
um short on our commission and i don't know if i'll be able to find an appointment by next month and if it doesn't then i
would you know gladly stay um up to the 60 days so it would be and my last
meeting would be next um next um next month in february
um i i also will it's i won't be seeking a second term um and so this will be
my whole i don't know if will be my final meeting but if it's if it is then you know i really appreciate it i've
learned so much and you know i've also just even more proud to to know that the
city runs such a great election um and it's been such a joy to work with each and every one of you and with
director arts and and with the different deputy city attorneys and our secretaries that we've
had um it's been such a joy and so um i i um
i'm definitely um sad to be leaving i just i also have like other personal things that are come up that i won't
actually be able to um even stay on the commission so i will only be serving i'm glad that
i've been able to serve my full term and yeah i hope that we can find a great
replacement from the district attorney's office so thank you so much
thank you commissioner mogee and we wish you all the best and yes we are um
desperately in need of employers to make appointments um but uh and also i think it would be
wonderful if we could count on you through the february meeting i'm highly skeptical that we'd have an appointment
replace a replacement appointed in that time but um certainly understand if that's not possible
um deputy city attorney flores is there any uh official something we need to do with that uh
expectation um in terms of you mean like voting for her to stay on
uh the hold over time or anything just as if if we expect her if we expect commissioner morgan to attend the
february meetings or the uh there may be meetings between now and then is there any action we need to take
care of no okay no it's just a a holdover that um you know comes and then
passes when the time lapse so hopefully we'll be able to find a replacement
a new appointment by then but if not then that means that the commission will have to continue
without an appointee from the district attorney's office okay
that places us in a tight spot i think i think pragmatically what that means is that
uh we're worse because we're a seven member commission
and if we lose commissioner mogi without replacement after february then
all four remaining commissioners will need to be in attendance
or for us to have quorum at any any regular commission meeting
that's right yeah we're in a tight spot um
i have uh discussed excuse me with the city attorney's office anything i can do to um
try to encourage employers to make appointments they've assured me that
the city attorney's office is is working on it um i don't know if there are um we've discussed this several times
any kind of outreach or anything that can be done to the other appointing bodies um we'd be happy to do it if we think it's
um allowable and would make any difference
you know i know many years ago there was a period of time like maybe over a year where the board of education didn't
appoint someone and i know back then that i think we had voted to authorize the president to write a letter to the
board of education just like emphasizing to them but um that's just something i remember
we did in the past well i'd be happy to do that i believe
we have the city attorney's office the district attorney in the school district are the current appointing authorities
whose seats are vacant um if we think it'll make any difference i'm happy to do so
as you know like the the the school district and the school board are going through their own challenges and
leadership including a recall election and so i think that
um even if a letter goes based on the election their leadership may or may not change
and so i i just think it's like a it's just a and you know it's been continuing to be a trying time for for the district
side and so i i mean i think a letter would be helpful so there's something
in there on the record and and that they know that they should make an appointment whenever that there is an opportunity to
um but i also know they have their own process and so unlike other appointing bodies um they would have to be you know
they they they listen they collect applications and then they hear it enrolls committee and then they vote on
it so it will take a couple months so maybe it might just be a worthwhile to just send a letter out um
i can send you any contacts that you need to i think it might be helpful to let like the superintendent know and the
staff know as well um that support the board of education so
great thank you commissioner
i think you're muted yes sorry this is a question for deputy
attorney flores um can president bernholtz just write a letter on her own or do we need to vote
to authorize her to write such a letter to this scoreboard uh no i think it is within her
discretion as the president of the elections commission to reach out to
entities on behalf of the commission without a vote okay yeah okay well i would support such
a letter then okay is there anybody who has concerns about
me doing so i would suggest that i do it to the three appointing bodies simultaneously
i see heads modding all right i will i will take that action i'm following this meeting
um any other discussion then of commissioner mogi's term before i turn it over to the public
thank you for your service commissioner mogi thank you
a public comment we do have one caller on the line i will go ahead and mute them now
unmute them caller you have three minutes hi commissioners it's brent turner just
wanting to associate myself with the comments of commissioner bernholtz and and thank commissioner mogi for her
service thank you thank you
all right and we're lucky that we'll get you back for another month
all right and that's it but i am going to have to um clear the hands up so it might mute
everyone just a warning there we go all right thank you
all right moving on uh election of commission executive officers discussion and possible action to elect the
commission president and vice president per article 5 of the commission bylaws
per the bylaws the term shall begin immediately at the conclusion of the meeting and then it goes on to list the
appropriate procedure i will open nominations any commissioner who wishes to nominate a candidate for president
will state the name of that person if the person agrees to run then that person is nominated
um when there are no further nominations president closes the nominations and a role is taken
um nominee must receive four votes or more
so i will open nominations for position of president of the commission
ah
commissioner dog i guess it probably makes sense to ask like is anyone willing to serve as
president next year i am
okay then i'll nominate um president brownhills for another term
unless commissioner jung is ready to take the
take the lead but i would highly support also uh commissioner i'm president bernholtz to
continue on another term so would i
uh so yeah okay i second that nomination
[Laughter] are there any other nominations hello mr
jones sidekick he's voting
yeah so i won't be nominating anyone and then all right
okay they're no further nominations we call for a roll call vote
president bernhard how do you vote i vote for president burnhall's i do too uh vice president john
yes i i do too okay commissioner gerdonic president bernoullis
uh becca chapel sorry uh for president bertolt okay
and [Music]
uh commissioner mogee there we go still here i know i'm sorry oh i just been already
left uh i don't want to see your commissioner
okay so with five who are recommending uh president burnhall's
she's appointed is that appropriate uh i guess so thank you very much that's
fine thank you um my pleasure uh just to serve uh this we
use the same process then for a vice president so we need nominations for vice president
i nominate commissioner uh chapel
uh yeah i am happy to accept that nomination
right second second oh
who's the official seconded uh i don't i didn't hear i'm sorry i didn't
hear what commissioner mogi said i seconded it but i'm not even sure that's what i'm supposed to be doing oh no i i we second at the same time so
that's why i think um secretary secretary doug diaz confused um you can second it it's fine
are there any other nominations for vice president seeing none uh you can take the vote
secretary okay uh president bernhardt yes i have a uh vote for um
commissioner chaplin i'm sorry i'm sorry is there um did i miss public comment um
before the vote oh i thought we were just doing both and then doing oh we have to do it up for
every vote uh before you take before the vote um
before the vote for president and vice president that's not it doesn't say that in here but okay
so do we need to undo the vote for president
my apologies i'm having technical issues which i don't care the realities are coming
[Laughter] too yeah maybe they know the answer
because they know the answer is
i think your technical problems have a name [Laughter]
um yes uh before you vote um on the on whatever action you um are going to take
then you should take public comment okay so we will cancel out that vote for president and turn to the public for any
comment on the nomination of commissioner bernholtz for president
okay i think the better um the most appropriate way would be to um
rescind the vote and yes and then to um take another
um vote and then before before sorry take another um stab at public comment before
actually making a vote okay so in order i officially rescind
the previous voting on the presidency and i'm opening it up for public comment
on the nomination of commissioner bernholtz to be president so
comment on both at once since we already did second or no you yes you could do
public comment on both um you just before you uh make the the vote um before you take the action um
you should have public on it all right so public comment on the nomination of commissioner bernhardt
president and commissioner chapel to vice president secretary dell video we can take public on that now okay we have one caller on
the line you are unmuted you have three minutes can you hear me now
yes david pilfel see i'm sorry i'm late i'm late stuff happens oh
uh we couldn't get to uh going back in time uh you may need to take a vote on a
motion to rescind and then vote again in any event i am still supportive of uh president
burnhole's four more years and commissioner chapel for vp doing a fine job i will shut up now
thank you for listening thank you mr pillpow uh uh city attorney flores is there
something different we need to do
you can vote on the motion to rescind i i i don't think things are going to
change um okay
all right may cover all our bases um i will make a motion to rescind the previous vote vote that was taken on the
presidency for commissioner bernholtz can i get a second please second all right
um i don't need to take public comment now do i okay can you call the vote please martha this
is to be done did we send the motion of president bernholds yes vice president
john yes commissioner jerdone yes
commissioner mogee yes commissioner [Music] yes
okay so and we have a motion on the floor for the presidency of commissioner bernholtz and the vice presidency of
commissioner chapel is there any other public comment
all hands are raised is there any other commission or discussion
can you call the vote please martha sure uh president bernholds yes vice president jung
yes commissioner jordanic yes commissioner mogi
yes and commissioner yes okay let's find the affirmative
passes thank you thank you very much and um welcome to
the vice presidency commissioner chapel thank you very much uh commissioner jung for your service um per the bylaws these
terms begin immediately the conclusion of this meeting all right item number seven open source
voting discussion and possible action on open source voting including the pilot submission process the attachments
include the draft pilot program plan and attachments i wanted to open this item
by thanking director ernst for the department's work on this i found the
submission to be extremely um both detailed and
highly understandable um i appreciate the amount of work that's gone into this uh i my understanding is it has in fact
now has it now been submitted to the secretary of state no no
what is the where are we in the actual process no so this is the the current
drafts of the plan did you request it at the last meeting to see a draft before i
submitted so this is that draft right no it's not done yet there's i still have to put more information there around the
uh the timing of the bowel production uh but this this is mostly done and this
is really for your review i guess and for of any comment you have on it
wonderful great thank you um are there any comments or discussion
from the commission commissioner jerdonek
yeah so i just wanted to let people know what happened at the board on um
on monday january 10th the board's rules committee met and they approved the
legislation 3-0 and then it went to the board of supervisors the following day and they they passed it on first reading
11-0 and then they have to vote again which is going to be next tuesday
for what's called second reading it's the final reading and because there was no um board meeting yesterday because of
martin luther king day holiday and um and also the legislation
has six co-sponsors right now it's kind of like kind of like co-author
sort of like that and um i um did have
and also i i'm also very um happy with the work that you did director on so i think what you put
together looks great so um thank you very much for your work on that
um i had one question on the materials uh directorance
and um it's just kind of a question but i noticed the remaking process i noticed
that you use the ballot marking devices to remake the ballots is that um is that something that you've
always done for did you used to do it onto the normal handmark paper belts and then
so since we've had the belt market devices we've used those for rema for remaking because it allows us we don't have to
order the uh what we call duplicate ballots we want to guess how many ballots we would need
in the remake process so if we could just use basically copy paper
uh for those valves for the printouts that's why we use the about marking device for remix
okay great so that was my only question on that
thank you any other commissioners questions
i don't see any um i also had a i had a question about the the remaking process but i think
what you just discussed uh covers it um uh
no i don't have another question uh so if there's no other questions from the commissioners we can go to public comment
we do have one caller oh okay so we now have two hands i will unmute the first
one paula you have three minutes to comment uh good afternoon this is jim soper from
the national voting rights task force and this is in part connected to
something that will come up on item nine which is a letter from david jefferson
but is a very good example of why you want open source and i i keep on repeating this
it's not just for the source code in this case people are trying to get a hold of a
security report of dominion systems and in georgia won't let many if any
people see it and that's going to be in part because the
system's not open source we've seen this with previous lawsuits in
alaska it would be bold and they always bring up the idea that this is proprietary information and you can't
see it well if we have open source which i would encourage
here that the commission uh assist this project forward
uh if we have open source then a lot of problems drop away not just looking at
the source code and not just looking at who is programming this these things
and there was in about 2003 a programmer
uh named jeffrey dean who had 23 convictions for embezzlement
and he was programming medieval systems and almost nobody knew
it's this kind of thing when you do open source by the way when you submit code the system generally lets everybody know
who submitted the code so that wouldn't have happened so on many reasons but i'll limit that to
that you'll want open source because then you can get access to a lot of information
that the public can't see thank thank you mr soper any other comment
yes we do have another caller on the line caller you are unmuted you have three minutes to speak on the open
source voting hello uh commissioners uh brent turner calling uh just to again thank
you all for your support of this effort uh i think everybody now is aware
um of the of the volume of work that has gone into
this effort and now we see that overwhelming 11-0 vote
again at the board of supervisors and uh i think we have a magic moment
here where san francisco was so far ahead of this issue
now it's becoming very clear to everyone with sort of a new angle on this
naturally we all recognize the issue of having corporations in control of the
software that does the vote tabulation but now we see the extra necessity of
having this particular transparency in that it is now obviously crucial that we
are able to show the losing party in an election that they legitimately lost
so with this system that's coming into san francisco with open source there will be no doubt
in anyone's mind uh that is even somewhat rational and of course we know
there's problems in our world but with those of us that hopefully have some
relationship to to rationality these systems will make
it obvious that the loser actually did lose the race and hopefully that will
quell more uh civil unrest like we've been seeing in the last couple years
surrounding elections so thank you all for your great work uh and your historic work thank you
thank you mr turner is there any other public comment no other hands are raised
all right um i don't believe there is any action necessary here director aren't you don't need any
um further direction from us on this you're
correct so the board after the board does a second reading on the ordinance next week then i'm authorized to submit
to the secretary of state's office and i'll do so my deadlines is uh february 8th and i'll get in by then
okay and then if i recall we're all uncertain as to how long it will take the secretary of
state to respond correct and this secretary of state still has to uh
create regulations around the pilot program so that still hasn't happened and then in that process i don't know
there's so i guess would be a simultaneous promulgation of regulations
along with reviewing of this application that's my guess right okay
pretty wonderful well good work everyone thank you very much and thank you commissioner jerdonic for your steadfast
leadership on this it's been um impressive okay
item number eight budget meetings discussion and possible action on proposed public hearings on the department of elections budget uh we
have to have two public hearings on the department's budget um
and we are making a proposal uh within this action item to have the first of
those be on january 28th and we would convene the bopec committee which you'll remember we also have to reassemble
um and then a proposal to consolidate our february regular meeting with a
budget meeting to be held on february 14th um any
commissioner discussion or questions on this
i have a question so you're suggesting the second meeting to be on the monday not wednesday
correct okay just wanna make sure
um so i i guess we should be fine for that but
i did not attend on the 14th cause i have a i have a mediation that
day scheduled to go all day got it okay so we will then be running
into quorum issues although if uh commissioner mogee can continue to attend
we would require all the remaining four of us to be able to make that meeting on the 14th right
now does that pose any problems for the other commissioners no i can oh let me just double check
i'll definitely attend if it's on the 14th
commissioner donna does that work for you yeah that works
okay director orns just has a really busy week yep
i don't know if it's better that we ask you to show up the day before the election day or the day after like it's
like the 14th is the deadline for the the hearing though on the budget oh
so that's why it's valentine's day as well on the day before the election that's the deadline that's right we
pushed it as far as we could yeah yeah exactly so in terms of the january 28th meeting
can i um uh i'm not quite sure what the verb is here but requests
that uh commissioners chapel jung and i round out that beaupac obviously any
other commissioners are welcome to attend um but we can be considered the vopek team for the january 28th meeting to
discuss the budget um i i'm very sorry to say that i'm
about to be in a six-week trial starting monday so i will not be able to do that
commissioner donick would you be able to serve what day of the week is that
wednesday or 28th is a friday friday
oh yeah thank you so much um all right so we have a bow pack for the 28th with
turdonic bernholten chapel um and then a full commission meeting for the 14th
um and appropriate public notice will be made as well thank you to those commissioners yeah commissioner
actually um can i just ask maybe deputy attorney flores knows but are we are we resuming in-person
meetings at some point i thought i saw an email that said february but um
as far as far as we know um the status quo remains until the end of
february at which point um the mayor can continue uh remote uh
meetings um or can um allow all the public meeting bodies to meet in person but it's kind of like
a wait and see um situation at this point okay so it's after february okay thank
you all right
uh any other commissioner comment on this item
is there any public comment yes there is we have one caller caller you're unmuted
it's david bill pal uh just to clarify so for friday the 28th uh beaupac uh
what time were you thinking of for that 3 p.m
um and then commission on february 14th also 3 p.m
yes yes okay and then the regular commission meeting for the 16th
would likely be canceled yes it would be consolidated with the 14th got it okay um i think that works and
the materials for the 28th would be available earlier in the week for all of us to dig into fun and fun fun
correct correct okay we're looking forward to that all right thank you thank you and we can take the
day off on the 15th because there's nothing happening that day right oh sorry never mind thank you for listening
thank you mr phil any other public comment we do have one more caller on the line
caller you're unmuted you have three minutes to comment
high commissioners brent turner just to say from the public's perspective we appreciate this call-in capability and
and the uh zoom works well um so even after
uh if you go back into the public setting maybe it might stay available to the
public just a thought and thanks again for your time thank you
is that the end of public comment that's the end of public comment all right uh commissioners reports discussion and
possible action on commissioner's reports on topics not covered by another item on this agenda meeting with public officials oversight and observation
activities long-range planning for commission activities and areas of study proposed legislation which affects elections
do any of the other commissioners have reports i do but i'm happy to go till at the end
commissioner jerdonek so i have two things to report on um
one of them is i i watched the um the january meeting of the bay area
yuasi to see if there was any talk of the internet voting project that we we met about last month
and there was an agenda item that included an update on that year's projects
and i attached to the packet their document that was associated with that item
and it was interesting there's a little bit more specificity on the changes they're making to the project
but what they're doing is they're using that one million dollars to purchase
mobile via mobile voting vehicles and i think they're planning for four
vehicles to um i guess make it easier for people to vote from home they would they could station those
wherever they want and um
sure and then um the other thing is this isn't um
my item or anything but i wanted to draw attention to this letter that um david jefferson
wrote to the commission and um president bernholtz were you planning on mentioning that okay
i'm hoping we can spend time talking about that yep that's all thanks great um i actually i appreciated your
uh inclusion of that document from the aussie and i was curious uh director orns if you if the city has ever used
mobile voting vans no we have not we uh we do bring
equipment to voters if they request it we also drop off ballots we've got a very robust emergency ballot program
we don't have we don't have vehicles that we drive as mobile voting platforms now yeah
is it a common practice or a practice you're familiar with other jurisdictions using some
counties yeah they've got trailers some have you know step vans uh yeah it's that's not common but it is
something that counties utilize and specifically for people with disabilities or for anyone no usually
it's for any voter um any other commissioner's reports
thank you director okay uh there are two items uh that i
worked on uh between the last meeting and now first was in response to uh the
discussion at the end of the meeting in december i sent a letter to stephen bennett the
salesperson from dominion voting um asking him to respond to the
um our interest in the quotations assigned to him in the newspaper back in
november um due to family health reasons i wasn't able to get to doing that until just last week but i sent the letter last
week and i have heard nothing in response so that's where that stands uh the second item is the are the
materials uh that were forwarded to the commission and made available to the public that were submitted to the
commission by dr david jefferson um regarding the lawsuit in georgia
uh i've had several conversations about these um materials with the city attorney's office and um director arts
um there are a number of significant concerns here
but i will say that at this point from the discovery that we've been able to do
primarily city attorney's office and i'm grateful to them for their help um there are
first of all some notable and important differences between the equipment that is used in
san francisco the equipment that it's used in georgia and the way that
equipment is certified or not by the secretary of state's office which is to
say um the equipment we use here in san francisco and throughout the state is
goes through a certification and review process by the secretary of state which does not happen in georgia
um the uh and then director arts can speak with
more specificity to the differences in the equipment the other thing i'll say is as i
reviewed the materials and thought about the um breadth of the um implications
it seems to me that the appropriate um
office or jurisdiction if they're if that's the right term to act on this if any action is to be taken
is not san francisco city and county but the secretary of state of california and possibly the attorney
general um and so uh my that my thinking to date based on the
information i've received from the city attorney's office um is that if this body seeks to take any kind of
action um to follow up on this and and this information which i should have
opened by saying i'm grateful to the member of the public for sharing with us um i believe it should be to urge the
secretary of state's office to intervene not to do so ourselves
so that's a both a status update and a sort of
sense of what i've learned over the course of the month since the information are two weeks since the
information was brought to our attention
um thank you so much for um having these meetings and having these
conversations i i wanted to um i know last meeting when we did talk about
um you know about the letter that you would submit so i really do appreciate that you
followed up and submitted a letter to uh mr bennett um and i know that the
commission had different including myself like had just different opinion and approach
um if he is completely unresponsive then i would be open to having like you know
a follow-up of some sort but i just wanted to at least say that because i was strongly in disagreement with just
bringing on someone publicly without them on you know more on a personal
level first um and so i just want to open that up to the commission because i
know that i was the one who was like strongly opposed to just having him come um to the next meeting as a
next step so are you is that are you suggesting an additional letter
or actually an uh invitation to appear before the commission given his silence
you know i'm i'm just like not i'm just like i just wanted to just say that i'm open to it i know that other commissions
have had stronger opinions so i just didn't want to you know i i don't want him to be just like
completely i mean he did send it about a week ago maybe people do spend a little bit more time to respond but um i would
at least um just kind of like i wanted to voice that i would be supported to other um engagement if the
commission feels like it's important too thank you
commissioner judonick um yeah i just wanted
to comment on um president bernhard's your report for starters i want to thank you for the
letter you wrote i thought it was a good letter thank you regarding the
david jefferson's letter um is
is that something that we can discuss today like whether to write something to the secretary of state or is that
something we would need to do at a future meeting uh no i believe we
uh could take action or it's it's on discussion and possible action today
but deputy attorney flores am i correct on that
that if we wanted to take action of some sort to follow up on the letter from mr jefferson dr jefferson we could do so
um to [Music] we are on commissioners um
i do think that it would be proper based on the way that the agenda item is written
to take any action possible [Music] which would include you know um
writing a letter or forwarding the information or whatever the commission decides to do
thank you so then yeah since we can talk about it today i
would support um writing some kind of the letter to the secretary of state
asking for them to um to you know
follow up and look into this on behalf of the counties in california that are using that equipment
and to kind of well let us know their findings or something
there commissioners
i'm supportive of that approach just a letter to the secretary of state
nope
i would be too
yeah agreed
okay um does anyone want to make a motion to
that effect
um i mean i i would make a motion i guess the one thing that's not clear to me is like exactly what the letter
should say is that something that we should just you want to have full discretion on or should we talk a little
bit about what you should say today no i i welcome the input of the
commission um my my um i should also say that i did respond to
dr jefferson and thanked him in email for his his submission um
i would all i had in mind and this is just a starting proposal was to essentially um
pass on the materials that dr jefferson submitted to us with um
under the auspices of the commission say this information has been brought to our attention um we are um interested and concerned in
it as we use um similar equipment not exactly the same and that um actually a brief scan on my
part of the counties and jurisdictions in the state that use similar equipment
is significant or significant number of counties according to the verified voting foundation's website which tracks all
equipment use across the country and that we feel this is something that the secretary of state's office
should would be interested in and we'd hope wouldn't wouldn't investigate um
possibly requesting information uh from the courts in georgia as the
state of louisiana has done i don't know if there's there's more to
it than that that sounds good i think maybe the only other thing would be just to
maybe specifically ask if they could provide some kind of response at some point
to us so it doesn't just say a response to us yeah
um and then may i also ask a question to director ernst um director in a situation like this is it
normal i mean i assume dominion already knows about this report but
is this the kind of thing where they would um at some point
like i guess contact you about it if they um are they i assume they're looking into it on their own or
would that work i think they would report secretary of
state's office and then the state and the state and the vendor would have conversations on how
to approach the situation especially if it involved security so possibly something would come my way but
would be after discussions with the secretary of state's office i see okay
um well unless someone else wanted to i could make the motion to
i do have one question just uh just thinking about this and it may affect the motion commissioner donek
which is i did not have not reached out to dr jefferson to ask him if he has also sent these materials to the
secretary of state um and uh
if he ha has that may just affect the wording of a letter
it might not cause us not to send one if he has not
um i would be curious as to why not and if it would be something he would also want to be part of
um so let's put that on the table for other people
i don't know if there are any ramifications of doing that that i'm
not thinking of at the moment being a part of in the sense of like
signing it with us or something or uh well
i don't know how an individual signs something with a commission but um at least
yes somehow referencing that that's how this information came to us and yeah you could see him maybe
him and his standing in the the field yeah i would caution against um
having him co-write something um because he is not a member of the commission right um and so i think that
if you're writing the letter on behalf of the commission you should not have a co-writer
a co-author or co-signer whatever you want to call it the other thing is you know you receive
this as a public record so sending this would not violate any
any rule because you received this as a public record from the public um and there's no indication in dr
jefferson's letter that um this letter is intended to be a private letter
right but would it be inappropriate to cc him
um i think that that is a policy decision um not a legal
question okay okay thank you
thank you attorney
does anyone have any policy inclined thoughts on whether to cc him or not
um i mean i mean i think i think
i would say it's your discretion but um i mean either way we're gonna forward it to him i'd imagine
but um i i think it seems fine to see see him
to me i don't know dude i mean okay
i don't see anyone else with any strong opinions or if you are you're keeping them to
yourselves quite nicely okay uh commissioner donick you were
motion ready i believe yeah i move that we authorized president bernholtz to um draft and send a letter
to the secretary of state which um forwards the information that david jefferson sent to the commission
and asks that she look into this matter and
provides some sort of response to us
seconded okay uh public comment
we have four persons waiting um caller you are unmuted and you have three
minutes to comment can you hear me now yes yes great uh david
uh so some uh brief thoughts i have not gotten into the detail of the letter and
the attachments but i think the motion is um entirely appropriate i think communicating with uh mr jefferson may
uh influence the the content but i agree that it should not be a
cosign letter whether it's cc or just you know a copy sent
to him i think is fine but i think having something that's relatively uh vanilla flavored uh that just
forwards it to the uh secretary of state um
yeah i i was thinking about the attorney general but i i think probably just decided to get to the the secretary of
state forwarding it and and saying that you received it you would ask them to look
into it if they choose to and if they are able to to provide
an acknowledgement and response to the commission that would be a public
record because there may be issues that they need to examine that they can't or shouldn't disclose to you
or to the public and that it whatever they there are a lot of things that could be implicated is what i'm saying
um so it would be more in the way of a request uh to them to a investigate and be to report back uh to this commission
when they can um in a way that you could make public um that's my thinking and i think you are
in scope to do something like that on this agenda item and i therefore support the motion thank you um mr president
before you leave you're wondering about the attorney general um
if you had any more thoughts on that again having not um gotten into the the
detail of the thing if it seems appropriate to you or the majority of the commission that that too
is an appropriate referral um then so be it i mean i again i
if there if there's something that you think may be worth their time to
examine then so be it um and if it turns out that it's nothing or it's something that can
be dealt with in a different way then then that's cool too um the point is it's it's kind of like it's
on them it's not on you it's not on director arts so i don't know if that answers i hope that
helps thank you
i am unmuting the second caller caller you have three minutes to comment
good afternoon again this is jim soper from the national voting rights task force
i have met dr halderman a couple of times and have been following his career
since he was a graduate student almost 20 years ago he's meticulous he's
serious he's a world-class security expert and if he's raising red flags
you got to sit up and pay attention this is not some kook out there this is somebody that's very serious and knows
what he's doing another point is that there's an issue of whether or not that system in georgia
is similar to what's used in san francisco i don't know and
it makes a difference but we don't have that information if it's they painted a different color
that doesn't matter if it's as it may be a problem with qr
codes that matters but that gets very serious and
we need to have experts look at this now the secretary of state when they certify a system they have a security review
where they have specialists on nondisclosure uh agreements and so on
and i don't know if it's possible for them to do another review just on the basis of their doubts of the
certification they have or what but i think we do need to encourage the secretary to follow up on this
and find out what's going on because we don't know and
that's not good thank you for your time and work on this thank you
we do have another caller caller you are unmuted you have three
minutes to come in yes hello again commissioners it's brent
turner i just have to share a few uh stories with you at this point this is
about where i came into this uh about 20 years ago was dealing with the
certification issue myself and a fellow named jim march we went to
the district attorneys the attorney generals and and all law enforcement people
regarding the certification issue and consumer fraud issues
i'm disappointed that steve bennett isn't here today and i hope he shows up because
there's somebody that deserves to speak directly to the community at this time
uh and this just to be clear this certification issue is confounding
to many people the father of the certification process is a fellow by the name of roy saltman
who sat on my board years back and uh was very clear that the certification
process in the united states is a broken process so this conversation we're having is
about 15 years old and it's due to the fact that we're still using proprietary
software in voting systems as long as there is proprietary software code and
voting systems you will not be able to properly certify or quality assure
the voting system so that's what we've got now the system we're using in san francisco may be slightly better than
what they have in georgia but it still is in the same category to be disqualified the work that you're doing
making a new system is a thousand times more important than the conversation
about talking about breaking the old system there are makers and breakers in
this arena the work that you're doing toward the solution is historic and
crucial this conversation i appreciate but just to put it into
context we've known for 15 years that the proprietary code systems don't cut
the mustard they're not up to appropriate security level uh in standard so the work that you're doing
creating the solution for the country is really the essence uh what holderman says is correct but he's saying the same
thing that's always been said about these systems again back to steve bennett uh that's unforgivable what i've
been reading in the newspapers and uh is is something i think we need to address
and i just believe you're on the perfect right track thanks again to everybody for your great effort
thank you mr turner
we do have another caller on the line i'll unmute you you have three minutes to comment
um hi can you hear me yes okay uh this is david jefferson i'm the
author of the letter and i uh have been listening to your your discussion i really appreciate your considering it
and uh and your comments on it uh i just want to add a few updates the first place i
have not sent this material to the secretary of state i do intend to there have there isn't any reason other than
time that i haven't done it and i have been waiting for one particular event um which is that uh
um the halderman report was received by
uh uh dominion executives not just their attorneys but actually the executives i understand it
on december 10th and uh so i wanted to wait until 30 days after that because of the law
in california as i understand it is that if a vendor comes into information that would uh
cast a doubt on security issues in in their voting system they have an obligation to
report it to the secretary of state so i wanted to wait until that reporting obligation uh
um is is in force which i think it is now i assume i'm understanding the law on
that correctly a couple of other updates to the content of the letter um i wrote that the
judge has not yet decided whether to grant the state of louisiana's request for access to
alderman's report the judge has since denied
louisiana's request for access she wrote besides a balance of the security issues
that she was facing she her argument was also that louisiana had
other ways to deal with this and she suggested for example that they
might contact professor halderman independently of this court case
so that's presumably an option that the state of california might have as well i
don't know how much time professor halverman has to deal with this but anyway that was the substance of the
judge's decision which i can also send you and will send to the secretary of state
the other update is that fox news has filed a
request to the court similar to that from the state of louisiana
uh it's a little hard to imagine the judge granting the fox news request if she denied
the louisiana request but just uh note that um
that the press is is is getting interest in this subject and uh
um you know it's only it's only going to grow so the longer the report stays secret the longer i think the um
the bigger i think the problem problems public public relations problems will arise from it
and the last comment i wanted to make is that uh holderman's report comes in two forms
a highly technical form and a redacted form and i would suggest that if this if the
commission or the secretary of state uh does not want to ask for the
the full technical form they might ask for the redacted form the redactions were by
professor halderman and under his judgment as to what uh would be appropriate to release to the
public the judge has not yet permitted it to be made public even in the redacted form
but one might ask for that the usual practice is to redact for the public purposes
anything that would actually help an attacker uh construct an attack but the
implementation sorry the implications of vulnerabilities and
a successful attack that kind of information is what we normally think we in the security
community normally think can be made public so that's my update uh and uh
if you want to ask any questions i'm happy to answer them
thank you uh dr jefferson um i would ask uh
you uh just a point of clarification on the
your understanding of dominion's need to notify this secretary of state so
there's a 30-day period which will have now passed would that notification
be something that we or you as a member of the public or we as a commission would be able to know
about or is that not something that would be i don't i don't think so but i'm not sure maybe
director orange knows the law on this better than i do i don't think the secretary is obligated to make this
information public and i don't know whether
how dominion would be expected to convey that it looks dude do they put their own spin on the
material i i just don't know correct okay director orns do you know anything about this or uh deputy city
attorney flores i don't know the process though okay
dca4 is i don't suppose you know anything about this
no okay all right um thank you so much
thank you uh deputy attorneys for uh commissioner do you have a question for mr jefferson
yeah please yeah i have one question um you mentioned that the judge had told the state of
louisiana that they could talk with halderman directly yes um
but i from what i was reading that um i thought
the judge is not allowing alderman to share his report independently with other
jurisdictions that's correct so so she the judge suggested that they
separately commission and you know pay alderman or similar uh
experts um to do a another investigation
but no he is not authorized to release the report to anyone including louisiana
but is he allowed to share some of the information that's in the report i think he's allowed to redevelop it
on behalf of the state of louisiana that's i can send you i can send you and the rest of the commission the judge's
decision if you're if you're interested and maybe you'll want to attach that i don't know to to your letter to the
secretary of state maybe after this if if commissioner bernholtz is
okay can i can i mail uh the fox news and the
uh request for intervention and also the the judge's decision declining
louisiana's request yeah you and then you can do with it what you what you see fit yes please do
okay any other questions for dr jefferson
thank you so much for bringing this to our attention and and for your um your attention to the issue and we'll
look for this thank you thank you thank you very much for your attention as well okay
dr jefferson are you on uh through your computer and your phone
because i see two entries for you your hand is raised on both uh yes well i i i am but uh but um
i it wasn't clear to me whether i could have responded uh through webex so i redialed
in through the computer but i'm still watching you on to be recognized webex
thank you sounds good thank you i think i just want to make sure
we have no other callers raising their hands okay uh so if i recall where we were in the
process uh we had a motion on the table for a letter to the secretary of state
asking them if they're able to acknowledge and provide a receipt uh provide a response
for public record um we had a second
any further discussion or can we take a vote to authorize that action
i think we're ready for a vote done martha okay uh president bernhard yes
vice president john yes commissioner donick
yes commissioner mogee yes and commissioner chapel
yes okay with five in the affirmative the motion passes
all right thank you um there is still about i i don't know if anyone wants any
additional discussion of uh steve bennett
i don't see any okay are there that's it for commissioners reports then i believe
okay item number 10 director's report discussion and possible action on the director's report
um thank you again director arts for a very clear and complete uh report especially
given all that you're juggling it looks like things are well in hand for february
15th and preparation for the possibility of a an additional
uh election in the one district um is there anything you want to point our attention to in your director's report
not so much we i mean i took any questions i just so far we've received 12 000 vote-by-mail ballots back from
voters so it is really the second day of the early voting period that's a good number and then also i want to thank the
department of public works for its very quick efforts to install the ballot drop-off boxes throughout the
city there's 34 and it was just it's really amazing the work they did and how quickly they did
it to get those boxes in hand get their staff organized get the resources put together and then to
secure the boxes to the to the sidewalk so i want to thank the director and dpw uh for their
efforts beautiful any comments or questions from the
commission i i was thrilled to see two ballot drop-off boxes and my rulings
around the city so yeah i got to see them as well and um
i'm curious to know um director arndt if um we actually know how if you will be
actually like i know in the past um we knew how many people would come to
the polling place um how many people would um you know be submitting uh
their ballots through the mail will we know how many people would be utilizing the ballot box and just kind of want to
know how well it would be how well it would be like utilized um this first
round so we tracked the number of ballots received from each box for each day
so we have a running tally for each box as we go through the cycle and so i could provide numbers at the
end of the cycle or anytime during the cycle if you're interested yeah that'd be great thank you
commissioner gerdonic um thank you for your your report truck
currents i had one question that is may not be related to what's in your
report but um i was watching one of the one or two of the board meetings where they were discussing the
um allocating the money for the board of education portion of the election
costs and i think a couple supervisors were asking you about whether you had
enough money for translation services do you remember that and i was wondering um
do you know what that's about like are they are they looking to expand some kind of a service or
or were they just wanting to make sure that you had the baseline
um needs addressed or so those questions were relation to the
redistricting task force and not to the department and so the question was whether the
registrant task force has sufficient funding to provide translation interpretation services to people in languages other
than english and then in both instances i respond that we do and so far i'm not seeing any reason to
to think otherwise okay so that was just limited to the
task force and not to the department as a whole okay that's all i had thank you
anyone else great thank you director orns um
all right uh item
public comment on the director's report have we done that i'm sorry my fever's kicking in uh public comment
i don't see any hands raised okay great um item number 11 discussion and possible
action regarding items for future agendas anyone have any items for future agendas
this would be for the february 14th combined budget meeting and obviously the budget will be an item
all right seeing none i will report out on the actions authorized
so far and um martha and i will work on that agenda all right the final item for this agenda
is the annual performance about comment on that yeah sorry thanks public comment on uh
future agendas yes we do have one caller caller you are unmuted we have a few minutes to comment
uh can you hear me okay yeah uh david pilfel um so just two uh quick
items i'm assuming that at the bopec meeting on the 28th that you'll also have the ab 361 findings because i don't
think of opec was included with the uh 361 uh findings earlier um and
i just looked i'm sorry i missed the beginning part of the meeting i did have a couple of uh minor
non-substantive uh edits to the meeting if i can communicate those uh to secretary delgado and if president
burnholes can have final approval authority uh on those uh
you know totally non-substantive just want to get uh names and format uh right i hope that's acceptable
otherwise keep up the good work and happy closed session
mr
great um all right no more public comment this item is closed
we've got
i didn't know if you're going to go into closed session i probably won't stick around uh unless you're gonna have public comment before
uh agenda item number 12 if if you're going i i didn't know your
process here are you having a public comment before
as well i'll wait for that okay thank you all right thank you
so moving on to item number 12 the way this will work uh discussion of possible action regarding the performance
evaluation of the director of elections um we will take public comment on this item
uh we will then vote on whether to move into closed section uh session uh if we so vote we will go into closed
session um and we will then uh take have a discussion of possible
action we will then vote uh pursuant to the sunshine ordinance on what if anything we will make public uh from the
closed session we will come out of the closed session reconvene an open session reveal what if anything we decided to
reveal and we will then adjourn the meeting
all right so uh is there any public comment on the annual performance
evaluation of the director of the department of elections we do have the one caller
caller you're unmuted you have three minutes to comment yes commissioners friend turner uh
regarding agenda item number 12. um just wanted to put in a word toward john
arnst from the public although john and i have gone round and round on how fast
we and how hard we should push towards these open source election systems over
the past many many years um we are pleased that he is
uh getting into the groove with this particular of effort and and the ability
for us to uh get get into a um
uh demonstration with voting works i i think it's great work
that john's doing i think uh the public is now appreciating his efforts that
being said we still need unfortunately because of the of the gravity of this work there
still has to be complete oversight by the commission and
a very um strong consistent oversight of this open source
testing and trial um that's just the nature of this it's not
personal or that there's not trust but because this is leading the country on
maybe the most crucial issue of our modern times and our democracy we
really need to be paying strict attention i know he's got a monumental
a a job in front of him that is almost unfathomable unfathomable in in its
breadth but we're still going to be hopefully rigid in making sure that this
open source trial proceeds expeditiously and properly as
it really is the hallmark in the keystone of the work of the san francisco elections commission and again
mass applause from the public not only locally but nationally for your
work on this issue thank you thank you
any other members of the public i do see [Music] i believe it's mr bill pell whose hand
is raised i will unleash you you have three minutes yep last time uh for today so
uh this year was supposed to be a relatively calm and quiet year and is turning out to be quite other than uh in
the the world of our local elections and i think we are incredibly well served by
a cool common collected uh uh department head uh such as director arts um so um i
my my positive thoughts are are there as you go into your closed session to
evaluate and scrutinize carefully his performance uh on behalf of the public thanks
thank you any other members of the public uh i believe that there's still mr turner's
hand up i'm gonna go ahead and clear it and i don't see any any other hands
okay well let me begin by saying first to director orange directly um thank you for all of your work um
it's been a pleasure and an honor to work with you throughout the year as president and and throughout my time on
the commission i'm also very grateful for the very very detailed uh report you
provided to us on your uh the inner workings of the department and your leadership uh prior to our consideration
so uh and i wanna echo actually the comments of the last caller which is that through
um thick and thin it seems [Laughter] you are um as a steadfast um
extraordinary colleague and i do believe the city and county is lucky to have you so thank you i don't know if there's any
other commissioner comments so uh we need a uh motion and a vote to
go into closed session i moved thank you another second
second thank you called the rule martha yeah president bernholds how do you vote
yes vice president john how do you vote yes yes commissioner donick
yes commissioner moggy yes yes
and commissioner yes yes okay with five votes in the affirmative
motion passes okay um technologically i don't believe we we've had a closed session in in
zoom times so i don't know what martha it's technologically yours
i don't know i'm gonna take us back to practice session okay and we can
okay and we are back in open session and the commission has
decided to um report that the action taken was to for
the president to synthesize the uh information for the director of the
department of elections uh performance evaluation and provide that feedback to the director
um with allduhaste and with that uh the meeting is adjourned
thanks everybody thank you uh everybody and particularly you commissioner mogi glad we got