Elections Commission Special Meeting December 1, 2023

we are quickly going to reconvene do a call to a roll call a roll call and then move into a ice breaker and then get into uh the material so um have we joined the web app we're doing it right this second okay does anyone have any questions about t support or anything before we get

started

okay okay welcome everyone to the December 1st 2023 special meeting of Election Commission I president Stone the time is now 220m to order secretary Davis will you please proceed with the roll call yes president Stone pres vice president here commissioner burol here commissioner Parker here commissioner D here commissioner Hayden Crowley here and then commissioner loli is excused absence thank you we have a um if it gets too noisy I may end up Closing one of the yeah thank you so much um and just as a brief announcement for for folks for joining us um from the public we will be continuing to follow rules of conduct and participation for um for this meeting each agenda item will have three minutes of public comment available you'll also be able to try general public comment for the end of the agenda as well um let me do the land acknowledgement the San Francisco Election Commission The unseated ancestral orabs San Francisco as the inds of this land and in accordance with their Traditions Shalon have receded 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 and benefit from living and working on traditional home we wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors relatives of community and affirming their

okay so we're going to do a little bit of a trivia just to warm up um it's all funny games but um and it is um we're going to project it on the screen it's going to operate kind of like Jeopardy but it isn't really Jeopardy you don't have to answer it in a specific um you know in a specific way Jeopardy it's just to kind of get us formed up in this unique environment that we're in hopefully be able to see the scen just go sles

to next okay good that's that's not bad okay so Al this will operate um and we don't have to run through the whole thing it's not that many um not that many questions but uh you can just raise your hand um to uh to leave the first to or to ask one of the questions and then with the first raise our hand we'll um have the first opportunity to answer the questions you get it right how much money you have there may or may not be sugar provided to the winner or to everyone even though we already Having excess sugar at the table um so would anyone like to get

us

Francis you click on the 100 okay San Francisco elections for 100 in what year did rank Choice voting first

Francisco commissioner Hayden

and thank your the opportunity to go I'll please so yes San Francisco elections for 200 how many physical places can voters cast in San

Francisco you know answer that is correct 538 there 5 ping locations 37 drop boxes okay hey did you include books yes that does oops [Music]

so Street okay San Francisco elections for 300 when was the first municipal election held in San Francisco and bonus how

many is [Music] 182 and you have a guess on how

many um maybe

10,000 have answer oh 1846 so the answer is 1846 and but we wer San Francisco the first the year in San Francisco okay well see never question okay um since commissioner Hayden Crowley did not successfully gu would another commissioner like to take a stab at election commission or Department of Elections election commission

for commission for 300 name three paid proponents of prop e which establish the Contemporary elections commission bonus 50 if you can also name it

a is the California clean money campaign who is the legal Women Voters who is common cause and I have no idea all right I'll do who is

f the answer to

all I have to check I don't think the league of I didn't see the leag of Voters but now I'm question there were trick question but I will check on the leag of VO I know for sure the money campaign was not there and common cause wasn't but now I'm but they don't normally um pay for these kind of things I don't have them on my list but now I'm starting to yeah but I thought it was interesting if we see the diversity the diversity of the different VES and that there were no performs um okay what was the citizens advisory committee it was the C citizens advisory committee of Elections was in

20

CI no it was separate body no not the same I read a little bit about it I'm not okay let's move on to uh uh

only would you like to do 200 ele Department of

el roller roller okay what is the average number of gall cards processed during a major

election sorry don't you know that let's say how about we say

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last voter

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or right right is I'd say it's at least four or too

many okay

answer wow but it it is

between I was thinking do we have another we have someone else who would like to take Department of Elections for 200 we do it let's do it Department of Elections for 200 what is the most amount of Elections the department

has no so it's Tri four is the runner up answer um this includes the elective office measures this is what the department has to operate so it's fair um okay let's go back we have what three more questions to do okay Department collections for 100 what is the average range number of phone calls that department felds around election per what just the whole for round of

election

what the answer is actually much smaller I thought it would be much higher as

well I TR that one um okay let's go elections commission what 200 200 and then we'll finish it how many supervisors voted in favor of placing Proposition E on the 2001 ball bonus if you can name at least what is

11 yeah I was to say that was a goodess um would anyone like to guess anyone any other

[Music]

others okay elections commission for 100 and

then

I'll go back I'll get back to it let's get

yeah oh the current okay yeah this the easy question in what year was the current elections commission

established and bonus 50 if you can name the year the first Election Commission

EST

1936 was when the new Charter 1932 not 193 any answers

1932 when it was pass yeah

I was going to make a b who had the highest and get the first I

think my first time yeah so you win congratulations for everyone too and

also thank you foring me thank you with that um I there's so much more trivia one of the one of the amazing I'll get the answer to question one of the amazing things that John shared with me as well shared with is the most amount of paid ballot arguments ever included in the voter information packet 300 which is I thought a lot

yeah information so thank you foring me hope that was fun Lear let's move to public comment and if you have public comment you just raise your hand and you can call on you and we'll give you a 3 minute time want the timer yeah is this just general public cover no this is about the the

specific

we have three minutes no you don't want it okay is there anyone online

comment No Hands no hands are raised okay thank you we'll close out that agenda item um agenda item number four and move to agenda item number five open source voting 101 and I will hand this over to vice president for that okay uh thank you president Stone so um first a little bit of housekeeping so for members of the public I've already made this change but for Commissioners um if you could take the document that's this

discussion just um remove the third page and then add add this page to

the okay so so for this item I I want to start off by reviewing the um schedule for the item basically um open source voting has come up a few times over the past you know couple years and we haven't really since then we haven't really ever had a chance to kind of just educate ourselves about some of the history behind it and you know why is open source voting important and really just have more more time to to kind of ask open-ended questions about it maybe filling with the gaps in our knowledge so so the purpose of this it is to basically give ourselves that opportunity and then to end with sort of a strategy session about how we can um finally bring a conour building to to S because as you'll see during this item this is an issue that goes way back and we're going to have a chance to see a lot of the discussion supervisors were having in the far act this 2007 so we're going to start out with um a bunch of short video clips that I kind of curated and I'll I'll say a few words about each one and the the guide has a list of all the the links and then um for the next portion um unfortunately Matt Ro couldn't attend today get a a personal emergency that came up this morning but he did offer to have a demo for us at a later dat that could even incorporate more more equipment and then next we're going to I have um Trent Lane as an invited speaker and he he'll be here in about 10 minutes um And he as you'll see throughout the item he's been a major force in in advancing open source bu in more recent years and has a lot of knowledge to share and then we'll end with a a more General um brainstorming strategy session to kind of use use what we found so um and then close public are there any questions about this schedule or so let's um let's move to the video clips and because Matt row is not coming today we are going to have a little bit more time so I'd like to encourage you to if you have any questions about you know where is this video from what 3 11 um so we're going to this may take a few minutes to kind of settle how we're going to do the audio and video for this but I'm just going to

yeah I'll

try

Okay so

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this one's M thank you very much my name is St Bennett I represents KO voting systems and uh our position from last week and after discussed okay so the first video is um back in 2007 the Board of Supervisors had a series of about four different hearings to discuss an upcoming voting system contract wither and back then they were very interested in incorporating some kind of Open Source requirement into the contract so this exchange is between a supervisor daily asking um Stephen B who's a sales representative of seoa you know can you commit to making the code

Source

from welcome good afternoon thank you very much my name is Steven Bennett I represent SE voting systems and uh our position from last week and after discussing with uh management we do agree with the the the request from the people of San Francisco to um be able to have more transparency in their voting systems and we'll work with this board this committee and the people in San Francisco in terms of willingness to include uh some language that's been kicking around that in terms of uh polish your code on on a website oror say open technology or other F yes you are willing or not willing to include in the contract provision to include that we are willing to include language that uh will will U have the source code yes but you are not willing to just publicly disclose your source code uh no on the internet no we have an issue with that currently okay okay so that was you know um so a little bit later in the year um supervisor Tomo introduced the resolution to for to Pilot an open source syst to so I'll play you that very this is very

short a resolution supporting the trial of an open source voting system supported by Grant funds uh the sooner we have a reliable open source uh uh software the sooner we can have confidence about transparency restored to the Electoral uh process okay so that was that was 16 years ago something similar what we we pass okay the next um is going to be another um Team City will help you get another um there going to be three segments from another one of the Board of Supervisors heing on the sea contract so so first um is a clip

fromo and they have agreed to the third party inspection of the source code and I think that's a step forward um I know some people are not satisfied with that which is understandable but this is not exactly a robust vital industry it's more of been if anything and um we are the ones who really should be setting the standards uh particularly given the state of of that industry um on the open source subject the push for open source um is in its very beginning stages this is not the end in the interim period between now and what this contract last came to up to us for a vote but we I think a lot of us have been very educated around the issue and the necessity to have open source voting system as soon as we can uh and there I think there are a number of steps that the board can take to ensure that we move forward full speed uh to achieve greater voter security and confidence getting open source system uh sooner rather than later and it's going to take some serious uh planning and research one thing is the okay so then um later in the meeting director erns is going to be talk about one of the provisions that was added to Theo contract and this is actually really interesting I learned about this last night but I was way for you

um so and also and also if uh the third aspect is if another vendor were to come forward in in California during the the term of this contract they had an open source or disclosed Source system that was certified by Secretary of State's office then SE is obligated to uh discl close it software Source codee or to actually have its system developed in a way that it would be open source or dis glos source and have it and bring it forward for certification at the uh Federal level first within a year's time y so that's interesting I actually had a provision that if during the course of the contract if another vendor came forward that got certified they would have to disclose their their code which is amazing um and then I'm sorry can presume that that just didn't happen right I think they

probably okay sorry I just question is that is that California law what what law requir to do that it was the contract that they agreed to just the contract yeah I did find the board resolution that discusses the contract I I wasn't able to

okay so so next um the Board of Supervisors formed a what was called a voting system task force back in I think 200 um N I think and it was a a nine member body that met for a couple years and they came up with some recommendations around voting systems and some of those recommendations were around open source and this video I'm going to show you is a a segment of meeting where they presented their final report and it's supervisor John AOS asking one of the members about open

source great thank M stford thank you for your presentation and for your work on this issue uh I do recall there was a fairly little bus debate back in 2007 as we were gearing up for approval of the Sequoia uh contract I wasn't on the board at that time I was the legislative a and I I do recall there was a great deal of talk about uh going to an open-source system uh development of Technologies here in San Francisco that we could uh Avail ourselves here with the talent that could create that that that technology and that that uh software here in San Francisco they're not looking elsewhere and I'm wonder if that was how if that was a discussion of the task force um your report um the last section of chapter 2 looks into development and acquisition models um and we did do an examination of the possibilities around open source um it is it's a complex topic and there's a lot of energy around that idea in the community um so we did look at it um and you can see some of our analysis there in that in that last section acquisition strategies we do think it's something that the city should should keep an open mind toward absolutely so um I mentioned the open source has uh there's a software issue there's also Hardware issue as well and on the hardware issue have you in your exploration of that topic um what did you find

um the current voting my name is Jim Sil by the way the current voting systems use uh specialized hardware and anytime you can go to standard offthe shelf components a standard PC and things like this you would be better off um because it is less likely to we're more likely to know what's inside and it's likely to be cheaper so where you can get standard off the shelf components that would be better so if we are you know we could probably have significant cost Sav in terms of software by own open source but in terms of um purchasing or finding the the hardware to run those in our different polling sites uh is that going to be would that be a major problem or a major Financial hurle for us to go over as a city if we were to move to an open source system your biggest problem is getting access to a fully certified system and there is none right now okay so now um flashed forward about 3 years in supervisor then supervisor scy Meer introduced the resolution to basically move forward on those recommendations to um to basically start pursuing ourselves developing

consis so this is he was introducing his resolution at the board uh in addition uh today I'm introducing a resolu uh to uh put us on record in favor of moving uh firmly towards uh open source voting in San Francisco free and fair elections are a Cornerstone of our democracy we need to continue to push for more transparency more security and more accurate election results uh so this resolution will move us toward the creation of free open source voting systems for elections in San Francisco open source voting means that the technology used to administer elections is publicly available allowing for greater accountability and transparency our current system uh private vendors holding proprietary software that is unavailable for public review uh limits public accountability and oversight uh the goal is to have certified and freely sharable voting technology which will enhance the Quality Security and availability of voting systems will increase uh security and sharable code can be viewed publicly if there are flaws in the system uh uh people can view them uh and people can flag them and make sure that they get get fixed uh and having a sharable code will reduce costs other than an initial investment to create the code the only ongoing expense for counties will be Hardware um and counties can use off the shelf computers tablets and printers they'll no longer have to rely on expensive proprietary private licensing contracts with vendors currently California spends more than $100 million a year to run elections a rate of $10 per valid test uh the state has begun to pay a way for us to move towards uh open source last year state senator Alex Pilla introduced and passed through the legislature Senate Bill 360 which provides the regulatory relief necessary uh for open voting systems in the wake of this legislation an organization was formed called the California Association of voting officials uh or Cavo this organization was formed uh to push for sharable open source voting systems uh Cavo has the support of 16 other California counties as well as organizations like the Equal justice society and the National Organization of Women the resolution I'm um introducing today will request that San Francisco become a member of Cavo and join efforts to make open source voting a reality thank you m thank you supervisor weer in addition uh so incidentally the the regulatory framework he's referring to there is the thing it took it took 10 years Secretary State to actually meet those regulations and that was done last summer okay next there's a very short clip of yes when they did it last summer did they already was there a deadline that already passed specifically

that that yeah so so before we want to be the pilot we knew that these regulations had to be in place so the summer before the the board introduced the ordinance um president Shaman Walton wrote a letter to the Secretary of State saying there there's actually a provision in state law like request that regulations be developed and they have to do it within a certain number of days and they did not meet that deadline so they they took maybe turn have more information kind like a year and [Music]

longer okay so this one is a very short it's it's Secretary State Alex P who's now of course US senator I'm speaking new show open source and that's the ultimate transparency and accountability for all uh but at the end of the day that's a decision for each County to make for themselves

okay

so oh gosh oh my

god um so so next we move forward um and now we're getting into the the period of time where Tren Lang and his organization became involved and you can see um his organization is going to start to be mentioned but this is supervisor Mia Cohen um basically calling for a hearing on open

source next up is supervisor col uh thank you very much uh ladies and gentlemen I'm sure you are aware uh the California clean money campaign has been advocating for the development and the implementation of an open source voting system here in San Francisco uh today I sent a letter to our colleagues in the State Legislature indicating my support for an open source voting in San Francisco I've asked Senator Wier as well as assemblyman to to advocate for matching funds at the state level for this program uh I've heard from thousands of of of our cons Citywide constituents over over the last 24 hours alone but the interest in and hope for this open source voting system so colleagues what I'm doing today is I'm introducing a hearing on uh to better understand the demands of Open Source voting I want to understand the investment required over what time Horizon that it would be spent I want to lay out a timeline for developing and implementing a new system and how that interacts with our existing vendor contracts if at all I believe that we must seek out experts to educate us on how the open source voting is developed um most importantly paying attention to the security of the system relative to our existing system and I look forward to the thought and educational discussion and hope that you will be involved in this uh very important

matter okay so now the next few Clips are from the hearing that usor Cohen called and um this this this is a hearing basically to um raise money for not raise money

but

the first one's me [Music] actually and fifth National leadership every state red and blue alike needs better election security but is short of money and if San Francisco leads every state in the country would benefit and in turn we benefit because how our leaders are elected in other states affects us as a whole including the

presidency so in March the elections commission unanimously voted to support three different things first to request at least $4 million for the 2018 19 fiscal year second to ask the mayor and budget chair to support assembly member two and Senator wier's budget request of $8 million in state matching funds and third to support the technical advisory committee's recommendation with next steps what should be allocated first in terms

of okay so the next is um Christine and Lane shortly after asked they can say it's not about the money but it's about the money what we can do rather than continuing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on machines that people don't trust where corporations are making a profit off of our elections we can instead move to open source and as the commissioner indicated do so in a way that is agile this is a feminist issue more women more people of color more people with disabilities more Grassroots candidates will be elected if we have clean money campaigns and if we have open source voting thank you thank you for your thoughtful comments appreciate it uh Trent want you come on down uh Trent Lang president of the California clean money campaign and uh a recovering uh PhD in computer science so I can speak to some of these technical things I will not be particularly I want to speak to the fact that the normally Califoria money campaign focuses on the issues of campaign Finance reform because people need to be able to trust the the election process and and that their candidates aren't uh owing allegiance to big money but when we pulled our 150,000 supporters across California after our big California disclos that Victory last year they said that the integrity and security and transparency of their elections with open source voting was was absolutely one of their top concerns because for all those reasons that Christine pointed out so we have been working uh uh with assembly member trueu and Senator weiner on the state budget proposal uh we absolutely congratulate uh the the incredible work being done here in San Francisco especially by the elections Commission of moving uh this this forward to put San Francisco in place to to to move forward but we understand that that the $12 million or so that it would take is a lot for one jurisdiction therefore this proposal is moving forward with with a in the the state budget process that provide eight up to $8 million in matching funds to a county to develop an open source projects such as been proposed here if it is done any parts that are done by the 2020 election and and test it and then certified

it and this is uh supervisor Stephanie and then again at the end of the

supervisor stepy um thank you chair Cohen I just wanted to thank everyone for coming out today and for their advocacy on this extremely important issue and for the emails that I received as well and I agree that this is essential to uh protect our democracy I learned a great deal from this hearing today and I want to thank my colleague supervisor Cohen for shedding light on the issue and continuing this discussion on how we can make this a reality in San Francisco I do look forward to taking a deeper dive on this and looking how we can um partner with our regional um with counties as well so um I think there's a lot to be learned a lot a lot more to be learned it's very complex so I will be following up with our departments and uh like I said this is an extremely important topic and I do thank everyone for their advocacy on it it's very necessary thank you thank you very much I want to thank everyone that that that came out to uh to participate in this hearing and thank you for turning out support um to the clean money campaign I think it was very thoughtful and import I think this is a good a good first step for us to continue the momentum and to continue to move forward so with that colleagues I'm going to um make a motion to file this hearing as heard and okay so then the next thing is an interesting clip from a regist former regist Cammy foot from Ino County was testifying before the little U commission which is a bipartisan group that EV that later um uh endorsed open source buring for California so she has some really interesting comments around this is

in development of Open Source voting systems had a lot of questions about that I'm a big proponent of it um the state can incentivize the development procurement and use of Open Source software in both culation systems uh we've talked about the many different benefits but I I would like to go into a little bit of the the lockin situation and what vendor lock in and what that means from a county system uh I have a good working relationship with my voting system vendor so I don't want to see this as negative but what happens is I just purchased this new system I'm locked in for eight years with this vendor if uh legislation in California changes all the time if there's uh upgrades to the system that needs to be made the voting system vendor may or may not be able to invest uh depending on what it is like for instance when prop 14 happened the top two our voting system vendor uh provided a human workaround to be able to report accurately um but that Legacy system was never modified um because the certification is is quite expensive and lengthy and it wasn't worth it um for this for this vendor to be able to do that knowing that there was a human work around that wasn't perfect but was okay um so that's just one example what vendor lock in um the situation is customers are dependent on a single supplier for a product and cannot move to another vendor without substantial cost or inconvenience if I wanted to go to another vendor I have to purchase a whole new loting system lock in tends to raise cost substantially reduces long-term value including functionality Innovation and reliability and be can become a serious security problem since the supplier has little incentive to provide a secure product in a regulatory environment that does not allow vendors to quickly fix problems so when we talk okay so the next um is an interesting statement I attended an event at KQ in San Francisco uh where secretary shley Weber was the the guest and also former Governor Terry Brown was was also in attendance and um you can see what Terry Brown about open

source

get engaged in that process okay thanks for question there is a risk to all this cyber turn off they can start a nuclear bomb attack they can turn off your hospital the power uh can they change the election uh it's all secret secret uh but it may be that people can do that so these voting machines have to be squeaky clean perfect open observation we got to know there can be no obscurity here nothing nothing that's what open source I'm all for yeah okay so now we're moving um into the final videos where we're going into um when President Walton introduced his um ordinance to do the pilot so we we'll first um request the legislation

president molon thank you so much Madam clerk today colleagues I'm requesting legislation from the city attorney to authorize an open source voting pilot in San Francisco for the November 2022 election which will require the San Francisco Department of Elections to submit a plan to the Secretary of State no later than February 8th 202 22 in the United States and California we rely on a for-profit model from election equipment security and one that is costly and lacks transparency open source voting will allow the city's it teams to work with venders on voting equipment software because it uses publicly available computer code the proposed pilot will give voters in City Hall voting Center the option of using voting Works accessible ballot mark parking device I also understand that director AR is already working with voting works on details and a contract for the pilot this legislation will codify that process earlier in August I sent a letter along with President David canipa of the SEL County Board of Supervisors to the California Secretary of State requesting her office adopt regulations governing voting system pilot programs as required under Senate Bill 360 which was passed in 2013 open source voting was also supported by former Secretary of State Alex Pia San Francisco has a long history of advocating for an open- Source voting system starting with former supervisor Tom amiano with their resolution looking into the feasibility of an open- Source voting system in 2007 and a resolution from former supervisor Scott weiner supporting the creation of an open- Source voting system in 2014 open- Source voting will allow the public to own these voting systems and ensure that our elections are fair honest and secure the rest I

submit so this is the next month the first piece of legislation I'm introducing today is an ordinance to authorize an open system helps you sell at every stage of your business need a fast and secure way to

take this legislation will allow the Department of Elections to submit a pilot for review with the Secretary of State before February 8th 2022 this has been a long time coming and I would like to thank then supervisors Tom manano and Scott weer for supporting the creation of an open source voting system I would also like to thank elections commissioner Chris jck and Trent Lane the director of California clean money campaign for their advocacy on this I also want to thank Deputy City attorney Anna Flores for helping draft this legislation elections director John arts for moving forward with this project and my chief of staff n g for helping to make this happen Okay and then the last one is sort of the aftermath of the pilot where where we didn't get to do the pilot but um this is

row that row um basically saying that you're still open to doing pilot that's more

expansive during our meeting now I I I I would like to just go on the record here that voting works is open to supporting a larger Scope Pilot program this is not uh the the the specifics of this program were continually uh descoped and minifi as we went along to make this as easy as possible to approve and even with that um we still receive resistance uh in the process including from the secetary state's office so if I understand you correctly if you had the support of Secretary of State um AR and our director arms you could have a pilot that also includes yes okay thank you but I know I'm not that's not what you propos that's not what was

projected in the letter i am I reading that right I I I am I I'm responding to the previous question that if there is a plan a pilot plan approved with support from director ARs and the Secretary of State's office for a more complete pilot program that included we'll call it handmark paper ballots or uh extensive ballot markting devices and tabulation in an open source model we would commit to performing the work and would agree to a contractual relationship contractual relationship to complete this work um it just we have been receiving resistance on this subject uh

process okay so that concludes the video clips and um tring next but um did anyone have any questions about any [Music] videos time good

job you want to also just before we over explain to everyone who m is who votings is and also what opportunities we have since he wasn't able to join us today how we might be able to engage him this conversation planning to do that later well I could well I was planning to do that okay sorry well before he was going to speak but be here um I did include a few paragraphs under letter B but let me just say verly that um you know just obviously voting Works was the The Entity that sancisco was going to work with to conduct a pilot they're the only entity that has developed an open source voting system that VI that's used in the United States for real rections and um you know Matt Ro has been the representative of Mor has spoken with interface with the department and the commission and they are um actually based in s they have an office sorry a facility the Dog Patch that um I I've been to and back before the pilot there was an invitation for Commissioners to go to their facility and they would show you their system so um they are continuing to work on their system um it's uncertified in New Hampshire he was going to show us those pieces of equipment but since he couldn't be here today he said he would be willing to D to do a demo for us at a later date perhaps in 408 or else have we can attemp go to the facility the do match see it that way okay um okay sure yeah so next we'll move on to um the segment where um Trend L will be um Pres and I just want to say TR has been a major force in advancing the for open source buing I know shortly before he had um kind of expressed interest in this topic I was sort of thinking to myself you know we we've run out of options and then Trent came and really um injected new life and into this campaign and um yes Tren for all the work you've done and um so Trent has said that he would like for his presentation to be more interactive you know what speak for himself but you know feel free to engage and we'll just

Lear thank you very much Chris for inviting me and uh a huge thanks the reason I'm here and the reason my open sour as far as it in San Francisco really to leadership of this elections commission along with San Francisco Board of

Supervisors just crucial to its development so far um so uh I'm the executive director of California money campaign as you saw me testify theree we have 150,000 supporters across California who care about their elections typically have uh uh worked on campaign Finance reform because people are concerned about money politics and the issues of care elections um uh I had I uh uh PC science former programmer uh I knew that Tim that open source was a real problem that had to be addressed uh every once in a while I talk to folks like Brent Turner who were leing the issue over the years before that and I figured well this shouldn't be this should be a no-brainer there should be open source voting systems it should it should not the should not be secret uh I don't need to do I don't even need to do anything money campaign doesn't need to do anything because obviously San Francisco's got it unfortunately San Francisco didn't quite get it though Advanced it a lot so uh uh and we became involved in 2018 after we had passed the californ disclose act that's the bill that uh see TB clearly shows the top three funders on a solid black background the bottom uh uh curve of the screen for 5 seconds the first state any does that that only took us s years to pass through the legislature uh quite a challenge us why we needed 150,000 supporters um when we looked at that we looked to revisit okay where is open source standing and it clearly it needed some some some help at that at that point um the problems have become even more clear uh and we uh uh you decided to to LEAP in and help expand the Coalition supp um the fundamental reasons that we and our membership care so much about this issue is the issue of transparency and security um it's just frankly nuts that the software in the voting machines is completely secret nobody can see it nobody knows what's happened with it nobody knows know what bugs they have in it nobody knows what security flaws they have in it and believe me all all software has bugs and security flaws accidental or mostly accidental um and the way you can open source by letting experts from uh uh anywhere be able to look closely at that code and examine it and say wait wait there's a bug there or there's a security flaw there wait this isn't going to work with this particular version of Unix this machine that's crucial that's why open source is so so important um but there have been fundamental statements examinated by other outside by outside experts that have shown the the the problem I mean the top to bottom review was certified voting assistance in 2007 by the Secretary of State uh uncovered serious security flaws withs at that time uh saying uh and some of those issues haven't been addressed in 2018 I I'm sure some of them haven't been addressed even now uh saying the security mechanisms provided for all systems analyzed were inadequate ensure accuracy and integrity of the elections result our secretary of state in 2007 with machines that that continued being used for for years and years um and then you have the the 2017 death conon security conference and several ones passed them uh where they took a bunch of proprietary voting and they let hackers at them they they went in and they were able to mess them up pretty pretty easy right and the summary of that was that every piece of equipment was effectively breached in some manner the report concluded that it was a national security RIS so these are the the sorts of serious issues that we deal with when we have P software that nobody else sees and and one way that we kind of get this across too is that's just assuming that they're just mistakes accidental mistakes programming books and I'm not saying that that that that anybody's intentionally hacking uh voting machines to change votes uh there's been no proof of that anywhere but I'll give one example in 2004 when John Perry was running against George W bush uh the CEO of Ben dbol before the 2004 election uh said I am committed to helping Ohio its electoral votes for the president this year the CEO of the voting machine company that that ran the majority of the voting maches in Ohio and the whole election came down to about I de was 60 70,000 votes in Ohio that now did dbol do something because the CEO made that promise nobody knows maybe not probably not but but you have generations of Democrats in that case that were concerned that maybe today there's a lack of some lack of trust in the election system and now as we've all seen a lot of Donald Trump supporters um so far we haven't seen any Merit to it but they're concerned that election votes were were were from and and nobody can really prove that they weren't because again the software is secret so these are the fundamental reasons why secret software today is so problematic open source voting systems especially with balance solves those problems it's open to anybody to to look at and test and point out and say hey there's a problem here there's a problem there and uh I haven't done any serious programming in years but but when I did let me tell you just as a programmer I remember that if I knew that other people were going to be looking at my software I would be a hell of a lot more careful with my work than uh uh than if than if nobody wants so even just as a fundamental uh background to so they're they're more secure uh they give that transparency that people need so even if there aren't any Shenanigans everybody can see well there aren't any Shenanigans look at the source code where you see the shenanigans uh fix the security issues fundamentally more insecure and then a real benefit is of course it's so much lower cost there are so few uh uh private voting machine uh uh companies right now and they have every jurisdiction over a barrel they especially have San Francisco over a barrel and other counties that that use rank Choice voting because there you only have one option right now um so uh estimates that I've seen consistently is that open source voting systems would tend to cost at least half of the the norem that's money that counties and elections uh uh departments could really use those savings half I'm sorry half original outlay or all the maintenance half all the because you know typically Dominion or anybody will they're charging both for the services so those services will still be there but they're also charging for the proprietary software and that's why they make to use their machines and and all that sort of stuff the software from open source is free that's right um so you still need somebody to you know bring your machine service them to make sure the software's money and all that stuff that's where Happ and can I ask I'm going you ask for interactiv yes please so have you been aware of or uh any of the places where voting Works software is now being used and how are those jurisdictions attending to those ongoing software needs um my understanding I me Mississippi and now New Hampshire has now got it certified I haven't follow that as closely as I should but my understanding is basically in this case voting Works itself is doing is is is doing the doing all so there probably are still service contracts with voting works over time to maintain that software that's a surve so they're voting works is effectively as far as you know yes and I realize Matt's not here and talk to later but they're providing the same kind of package of service and software that the proprietary companies are but the software itself is open absolutely providing the equipment insur I believe so I believe so they would providing a but one of the interesting things with open source so in this particular case voting works is said the only the only place has developed in the United States but it is open source so theoretically another service if voting works just got taken over by somebody decid they're going to jack up the rates a lot you can have other service companies say Hey you know we're going to use voting uh Works open source software and we're going to undercut them and we're going to give better service at a lower price they can do that if you can't do that you can't take your Dominion machines and ask somebody else to come and service them because that's part of the deal with their um thank you for your explanations this because this is a complex issue that um keepes a lot of understanding F problems that you have just like outside Theiss outside of theard in terms of explaining this maybe very superficial but from a marketing standpoint open source sounds like anybody can come in and change it and when that comes up in a conversation that I might have casually and they may ask me to explain it and I'm I don't know just better you know but but they wait a minute how could it be better and if anybody can can come in and look at it has just come in and hack it can't they can't they and and that is a huge I don't know if you can change the uh the name of it or what oh that F has been fought okay I mean and and I and I just haven't been pry to those conversations because this is a very small universe that knows about this yes so I I really feel you have a challenge I mean if everybody had the benefit of sitting here and watching these clips and listening to I think you know for the most part that a lot of people would be converted but I really do feel that people first of all don't like change right and they they get scared and and there is a perception open source you're going to come in and change everything and I I think that that's got to be fixed I'm just want to take a point of personal privilege are either president or secretary Davis have you remained unmuted one of you just to make sure we're being sound is being recorded online and recing I'm M you're muted are you muted not anym okay great that's fine thank you um yeah I agree it's kind of got a branding issue for that reason because that is the natural thing I mean uh c a little bit we we worked in the legislature to pass funding to help develop open consource did have to get something assembly but that was the question of every every legislator that we talked to every legisl we talked to open source and anybody just look at it so it is kind of it is kind of a branding problem but that is the term in in computer science where open source is really important not just for voting system but for all kinds of software Department of Defense uses open source for all these uh uh transparency reasons we just we don't have to convince every single voter of this I don't think we we have to to make sure that there's a voting uh system that uh is is certified by the Secretary of State that's your your fundamental trust trust and that counties uh use them and that in this particular case a county like San Francisco helps push that development and we can have those conversations and the answer to the open source is yes they can look at it but uh uh but they can't change the code the code lives separately right now with works for their system you could imagine the Secretary of State having a repository somewhere there's a repository that regular people don't have permission to edit they can look at it um but they can't edit it and another thing I I'll just mentioned in terms of the some people worri about open source can they look and they find secret ways to secret things and maybe but they don't need that right we all have Windows machines or or different computers you do not need the code to hack computers and mess things up at all they didn't have a source code at deathcon so you don't you don't need that and the security that's gained by knowing that the white hats can look at everything very and and find those holes and lock make sure that they brought the attention of can change it far far out that's that's but right we have that conversation you a marketing problem you really do to to win this battle you got to fix the I want to just respond I I disagree I I understand that um I mean this precise issue has played open source since for decades right and it if it's a marketing problem it's largely been solved among those who will actually be purchasing the software because almost everything you use is is also dependent upon open source libraries so we're all using it inside of proprietary product alongside of proprietary products and it's essentially the the marketing issue I think that the elections commission should be focused on is the security issues and the cost and I I'd say we can avoid I mean you've identified an issue that theu computer world has faced for literally for de and we're never going to solve it so we're going to get stuck behind that Boulder we're never going anywhere but I think the way to talk about it is this is a type of software that can be inspected by those who weren't involved in selling it to you and therefore problems can be found and accuracy can be tested well that's so I you can almost avoid the language if you I I mean I I you are right it is a problem but it's not one that I think we want to tr Sol because well perhaps I was being too simplistic by by just calling out the name of it yeah the fact of the matter is this it's a complex issue that that these two gentlemen boiled down to us because we have the opportunity to sit here for an hour and listen to it most people have about a 10c attention SC and I would just say that your points are very well taken and that may be the approach that we need to take but it's got to be boiled down into into into an elevator speech right well I and I agree with that and then talking to Chris in preparation for this I mean I think what I would hope we would be discussing here is which elements first of all everyone needs to be uh suitably comfortable with the distinction between proprietary and open source and what the benefits might be that could approve and then our work I would argue is how do we work from those benefits to finally get this ball across the goal line that's been you know sorry the metaphor is going to fall apart here not a healthy person um you know that was teed up what two decades ago at this point so and there's a question I have as to why it's not moving you have all this political right I mean that's that is why it's so stuck is really a good question I agree so I don't mind jumping and I actually really appreciate this dialogue two things I want to add I imagine you had more okay questions are great this is more a comment um which is kind of tangential in the context of narrative and public narrative because I think there's a fair point of who do we actually need to influence um and it's not necessarily influencing the average voter it's influencing the Secretary of State and also getting our Department of Elections on board to support a pilot program um but I will say one thing that could cause a barrier with the average voter and the public that I I react to is the sentiment around the Integrity of the 2020 election and the questioning of the of the results and I think that it is also our job as a commission to ensure that the public trusts our department and I think we need to be very careful about questioning those types of things I completely support the need for open source and moving away from proprietary but I want to be very clear that it's not because we don't trust the results of our elections and also there were several recounts that were conducted as a result of the um the contested the contest um the rejection of the results rather so I just I want to make sure we're making that very clear upfront but we do trust our election results they are trusted they have integrity we do believe as it I believe as commissioner myself I don't want to speak for everyone else that there is to make it more transparent so that we can be more trusted but um wanting to just lay that out for everyone is I do believe that there is a marketing component to that that we don't want to undermine our current system while we work

to and I I completely agree with that he money campaign certainly doesn't question the Integrity of of the last election or that 2004 election in Ohio but there are trust issues and they are magnified greatly by the lack of transparency and that's one of the things that open source can do in addition to really better resolve a lot of the true security issues that they they actually have been even if they haven't led to Just One Last point that we always advocate for open source paper ballot voting systems always make sure there's a printed paper ballot because that's another way people can have trust and there can be Rec would Fair way to say it for those who have question past elections that have they been open source it would be easier to food yes exactly that's exactly yeah and building on that I think it's actually this conversation made some of the prevails of the 2020 election may actually be help with because we will now have we now do have data on how expensive it is to repeatedly audit proprietary systems and once the Mississippi New Hampshire you know once there are some uh experiences using open source software should those have to be audited and I know they have to be audited in normal process uh the cost there I think are going to be significantly that's

that's can I just add one thing like not not that this affected any results but um even San Francisco that there were two cases where members of the public brought information about vulnerabilities in the buing system to us so we we um you know something actually affected us and you know they got fixed we think that if if they had been open source then there's very high probability that those before certifi so question I have for this strategic conversation is practically speaking what that looks like um if you can speak again I don't know if there other comments that you like to make and we're derailing you but just in practice what does that actually look like in terms of people having the ability to audit as Third Party Experts is I think the term you used right um the question how would that actually be done with in practice right so we let's say San Francisco move forward with open source we now have open source the whole package um the sheer fact that it consist does sure can help build some TR additional layers of trust but in in the actual benefit of being able to offer those experts access to source code can you talk about what that looks like to practice sure so yes um so uh once you know all the voting Works uh uh code is open source or repositories that anybody can go on and take a look at them now um when obviously Beyond a pilot program there isn't going to be any uh any jurisdiction using them until they're certified by SEC and and the whole deal with certification is no vendor make changes to the software that are going to be used unless it's kind of recertified there there's there's there's Arguments for legislation to to make that easier to do incremental uh um recertifications after things been C out in open SCE but but the basic idea is somewhere there will be that repository right now it may be um voting work is continuing to hold that repository there has been some discussion at the state level and at secretary of state that maybe the Secretary of State should be the reposit of any open source voting systems and hopefully eventually it'll be not just voting Works w't be the uh and I'm sure at some point there will be there will be others and ones that are modified off that Etc so so there will be a repository right now it's at voting works that they set up for their software anybody can go and and look at that software and then right now they would give feedback to uh voting works and say hey I found a bug here can you fix it it hasn't been certified yet building Works can look at that and say that's a stupid comment that's that's not right no it works anyway or they say oh thanks let's let's fix that right and then when it's certified then you know the wild continu to be a voting Works uh uh maybe there becomes a repository to Secretary of State but either way it can't be changed it will be public so anybody can look at it if wants to and it and software can't be changed for jurisdictions to do unless it's did I answer question yes this is actually precisely the kind of thing that a good graphic would go a very long way people who have never yes looked at software code know what a repository is I'm not saying that's your job Trent yeah no I write that down you're right job yes um but explaining what it means that everybody can get their hands on it I agree with Nancy that's not actually necessarily confidence boosting description good graphic everybody process it's a better description everybody can look at it but but not everybody can change it only only the holder of the depository of the certification can change okay but beyond just the um the marketing or whatever we want to call it there seems to be a lot of political support for this no yes okay so that's a that's a complex question maybe I'll talk about the second part which is what's what's been happening a little bit and I know the pic there's I mean there's been certain political will and certain not I mean fundamental problem the biggest fundamental problem is to develop a new open sour voting system costs a lot of money right the estimates were uh you know between 8 million and 20 plus million I think the higher end ones aren't aren't aren't really true but those were those estimates certainly cost millions and millions of dollars so California C got involved when we got involved in 2018 we saw our role as best um trying to get money allocated at that time since there were no uh uh open source systems um I don't know started at that point anything um was to try to get funding for in that case San Francisco to actually develop a system because there long been discussions as you heard having San Francisco actually development with those potential to 10 at 20 million uh so what we did is we commission and and a coalition of of people including groups that have been involved before like coo and others and then a lot of coalitions that support our camp Finance efforts to do two things one we were trying to get State matching funds uh uh for that uh we had a we did a couple budget requests but the most one about the furest was ab7 1984 the secure the vote act in 2019 was aued by C members Miguel Santiago when he was still in the C member Gonzalez and Senator Scott wi was a principal cooperator get $16 million of matching funds from the state that $8 million could have been used uh by a county with matching funds to develop um we moving that forward the same time as we were working with the Board of Supervisors uh in 2018 and you saw those hearings that uh uh bu chair Cohen at that time held and uh with a very large community outcry and there really were thousands of emails coming into these supervisors saying we need San Francisco to allocate some some some money uh um San Francisco the board of supervisor then did allocate 1 few million signed off by by new mayor London greed uh and by board supervisor so that did get the ball rolling but $1.3 million isn't isn't 16 million um unfortunately so a lot of it is a money really is a money money problem um the bill got all the way through the assembly pass on uh Byars and vote actually uh 60 to 12 vote for the assembly uh but then it kind of got derailed by the pandemic um San Francisco Department technology started working on it with to $1.3 million which of course wasn't really enough to get very far we weren't completely thrilled with the progress that the department of Technology was making at that time seemed a little bit slow uh we had asked for that there could be a more public into into that process and that didn't happen uh but then the pandemic then took the little remaining shreds of that money away also there a big money problem there uh there is a bureaucratic bureaucratic problem at the Secretary of State uh as as as Chris's testimony uh showed they were supposed to have created uh regulations for pilot programs back in 2013 when s SP 360 was passed and they never did right so when the good news happened and me it was brilliant news that voting works that a nonprofit based here in San Francisco had actually gone through and developed an open source buting system that was really thrilling because that meant we didn't have to B San Francisco to come up with the money or the state to come up with the money and you know uh government projects aren't always the best anyways even if you get the money uh that was thrilling and that's where the pirate thrilling came up with then kind of Ru block regulations not being uh implemented so disappointment was that despite all the community support and support from the Board of Supervisors that pilot did not happen election um the good news was that all that attention and and president Walton's uh official request uh to the Secretary of State to create the regulations and everything else they did finally get those regulations done so that won't be so it's kind of a money problem and a a bureaucratic problem I would say there probably some that some have raised concerns it's like some staffers in different places you know changes I'll just say changes hard and you're used when you're used to your current vend there this idea of going to open source which has a funny name uh uh uh sometimes has push back coup questions for the $16 million matching funds that we offered is that for to develop their own or what was the role of being able to use a partner or vendor such voting works and I guess part two of that question also comes to what was the intent behind having the one what was it 1.2 million there was a little change also the one m one plus million dollars uh those soups allocated what was the intent behind that going to the Department of technology so you may see why those questions go together yes yeah great great questions um the um the idea for this the state funding and this is how we got as Brad support as we had is that by dep it was it had to be for a general public license open source uh voting so whatever way we successfully convinced the assembly to pass it was to say hey whatever County develops it and it probably be San Francisco uh uh will make it open source so every other County will be able to to take advantage of that and use it themselves that's the great great thing if San Francisco is going to take the leave then great Los Angeles County also developed their own system they claimed they were going to make it open source by law as the 1360 they were supposed to Le 360 they're supposed to disclose Source it they still haven't we fought them for a while on that and we've temporarily given up on that fight because they're probably just never going to do it which is why we um so if San Francisco did it then everybody in California and the country would be able to V that was one of the things that got all of our supporters Statewide excited and got legislators on board um uh I don't know if the department of Technology was necessarily the best best choice for it there was a debate I understand that maybe the Department of Elections should have had control of that uh contract because it's it's going to be used by you and I understand Department of Elections didn't necessarily want to have control of of of that uh pling inexperience so there are lots of issues there um uh so all that money was used we would say was not used ideally uh and and belat um and that was part of the reason why we became so excited with voting Works uh solve solve the issue so voting Works came into the picture after that money had after that money had been used and taken away and and ad7 48 got delayed something should I should I start using

some um maybe I should facilita yeah why don't you facil I also I think it's really important for us to get to the strategy session too but let's let's do so we see how our hand up as well so just want to make sure you can

see Mine

isine mine's not a strategy I don't know if you know the answer to this question but following in the wake of 2020 uh several states have passed laws against the use of philanthropic contributions to election okay do you have any idea if the way I and I don't know if that's happened in California I don't think so it has not is voting work's nonprofit status potentially a complicating factor in places where that regulation is in place because it was launched with f tropic [Music] I can't really speak to that but my my gut is no they're essentially providing or selling a service to to counties uh or just like any any other vend so you haven't heard of anyone trying to go after or Chris have you heard of any I'm just there is I would argue not that I would ever pursue this but that that if you were

for what I do you have any idea Works based not that I've heard I mean I know normally you have to paying Works to right they definitely are providing a service for sale in a commercial way but because they're structured is a not for profit their original investment Capital Des the software was F in profit now it may be because it's already because happened before the laws of P I'm just I raise it not because I think that's likely to become the case in California but I could see that becoming a real impediment for votings if somebody wanted to go down that yeah I mean it would be a question Al but then in that case maybe you could someone confirm a for prence

ex well that then someone else beside them would have to be responsible for their product you what I'm saying someone's going to go after elections through this philanthropic loophole thing they there's an argument that they can make that the that software is entirely I don't want to I just wanted to it's an interesting issue I haven't heard much about it but I don't think it's going to be an issue I think won't be one yeah and and I just wanted to to ask only if this is a short answer sure what happened with LA if they got State money where theyed to make it open how do they have the right not uh they just have not followed the law and the secretary of state has not made them follow the

law they have they have their director has made various complain oh we can't release the software because then people will see it all yes and and and it wasn't they're not even required to make it open source they're required by the law to make it disclosed source so that you know so that people could could see it it's been very very frustrating um I think they would lose a lawsuit pay money campaign doesn't have the resources to to fight the the County of Los Angeles on this so uh kind of skated by on on that it's been very unfortunate okay so do you mind do you mind if we start the strategy session first mine was a question about the strategy I I mean I kind oh no I was going to say let's like PR introduce the strategy session then you'll be first as a part of it what is that what you want to do sure sure um so so we've got about 40 minutes left is that right for the um and you know as supervisor Stephanie said at the conclusion one of those hearings you know how can we carry this over the finish right and I want to um I want to just mention a few pieces of background information going into this discussion because

um there's sort of an elephant in the room that the director has already said he's going to be issuing our at spring for new voting system and it's it's not going to be an open source voting system because voting works not they're not certified so they wouldn't be able to B on the RP so um so that's one issue you know you know what's going to happen with RP there's another issue that the um the EAC a couple years ago they um upgraded their voting system standards this is like something happens every 10 years and now California is supposed to be ahead of the federal standards so now now because the Federal government upgrade their standards the secretary of state has now started the process to upgrade their standards okay that could take maybe take a year or two not really sure so so in California we're we're on the precipice of having upgraded standards and then um the the final thing I want to mention is that when when the department signed this contract back in 2007 for the Learning System the original contract was for 6 years it was a 4 years and then two onee options to extend but then in subsequent years the board extended that contract they they voted to extend a three more years beyond the original and then and they extended a two more years beyond that so they used that system for 11 years and when we were at the warehouse today I asked how's the equipment looking they said it's it's fine as well so I think one option could be can the department extend its current contract for a couple years we could number one we could wait for the open an open source system to De be developed or be certified and number two we could also wait for California to upgrade it standards because why why would we go into a a new voting system using the old security so I want to I want to put that option on the table it's not something that um we've talked about yet it's not something that we discussed with director HS obviously the department has extended contracts in the past but um I I I think we should talk about you know what do we want to do about the European spr we want to have some kind of position on on that or at least discuss it and number two is you know what are we going to try for another pilot at some point um so just to clarify the first of those final people you're suggesting a strategy of having the department just keep extending the existing rather than sign a new contract because the potential to then switch to an open source I just want to make sure follow yeah and because there's a there's a cost to switching in systems you've got to swap everything out retrain people and and then and then we're going to be behind the curve with the security well and also just make sure I understood if we have the RFP in the spring there's a risk that the the people B will not be comp with the new standards the St well they almost certainly won't because they don't know what they are right so in other words we might get locked in to another six 11 year contract with old security standards seems like a really bad idea and one of one of the things too is back in 2019 when the department sign the contract for a current system we we were thinking that there would be open source system available in few years so that's why it was only four contract so even back then we were sort of preparing for having something which which never

happens so yeah and then I'll there's a spreadsheet here you can see how much we're paying for our contracts going back to 2007 it averages out to $2 million so um so I it just comes down I you were the one who said it okay you got it passed by the assembly you had uh what 16 did you say 16 16 to 12 16 16 to 12 right and and if you don't have that it's hard to develop a system might well the difference is we don't need to we need to develop long so we have we are out of the business of asking the counties to develop because the system has been developed it just it does need to be certified by California and a pilot program how can you move move that ball to the gold post how the gold block being secretary of state am I can we get political support to push that I mean because it seems like that's who they listen to well I I'll just I'll say it I don't think the secretary of state is the only no I don't either home maybe we need to identify them and what kind of pressure can be brought to bear on the the um obstacles in the way and I don't think I'm just going to be I don't I think it's nice the elections commission put it out there that this is what we want to happen but it matters a lot more when the Board of Supervisors is saying that and matters a whole lot more than the assembly state senate members have said that's what we may I jump in so just to like C clarify a few things and Chris if you can just correct me I just want to rgit a couple of points and make sure we're all kind of talking and the say language so my understanding of what you are saying is that California is supposed but the federal standards are voting system standards are being updated as we speak California will have to be ahead of those Federal standards and therefore the secretary of state is now working as well to update those standards so we are up to we're on the we won't have the roadblock of the standard the regul regulat issues that we faced in the past we also already have the building open source building system available to us so the development of a system isn't necessary anymore the conversation that you want to have is now we're in a different position than we've ever been before because we have the system we'll have the regulatory standards what we need is the will to use your language to when at the right moment strategically position the department to um and ourselves to ensure that when the contract comes up we are timing it so that we could potentially allow for the open source vendor to compete to put in a bid is that where we're at would you say that's a fair a yeah I I think there's an additional piece where I think voting Works has limited time and resources they're only going to work on features if they have possible customers and if they don't see any interest from San Francisco they're not going to so I think there needs to be some kind of a interest shown from from Sisco because if if they don't think they have a chance ofing a contract they don't so I wanted to if you don't mind you mind I just cuz I actually there's one other piece I wanted to add to that which I think is this strategic conversation which is since I got the like initial part where the biggest one of the biggest points that has come up about sf's inability to get there there are many reasons but one that comes up most is brro voting and that voting works at this point doesn't have that functionality with their system so it's kind of been this chicken and egg problem of from my perspective of they have limited time and resources and therefore are going to work with jurisdictions that are showing vested interest but we might have vested interest but also don't have the general support that we need because we can't say that they have everything that they the system that we would want to potentially um use has everything we would need to so it's a chicken and egg problem whoever's fault it whose fault it is for where we're at is kind of a one of it I think that needs to be a conversation that we have today is around choice and how how we you and I did cut commissioner d off so if you don't mind yeah and there's one step in between which is vo still has to be certified under the standards that the Secretary State actually puts out so if it takes the Secretary of State a year to put out new standards it take more time for any system to be certified under those standards so well the so like voting Works example they're they're certifying to the federal the new federal standards and then the California standards are probably going to be a slave variation that there's a good chance that whatever they're working

on% but we still need to jump through that yeah but so this is kind of why I'm saying I I think that one strategy could be let's let's you know get the direct the same page let's let's extend a current contract for a couple years instead of investing all this money into switching something else and do an RP stand come out yeah to me that is like the most basic question you take open source out of it why would walk our into another contract if if we buy ourselves a couple years we'll have more time to figure out you know the interest voting and how do we get these groups talking to one another um you know our policy parties that we adopted a few months ago one of them is for the Department to issue a a call out saying hey you know are there any organizations that would be will to develop ring what you need from us that that sort of gets the

ball

iation however we proceed but I do think it makes sense that whatever we do we send a letter to all the members of board supervisors as to what we want because I think it's really important to have them on the same page otherwise he's going to go in front of them with a contract we need to explain why we don't think that that's VI and we need to do it sooner rather than later don't wait but we have to work with I I actually you don't mind back on that I think it's a great idea I also think what we should actually do is put together a robust like an actual report that we provide them with the history with like the full context a package that they can read basically compiling all of this where we are and so it gives them really first of all it creates a more a really cohesive comprehensive record um with the commission's like name on it saying here's you know 15 years of um history and effort and progress and then be able to provide here's the policy solution that we have here's how we want to approach it and we want your support and of course we would want to tell them that we're doing this before we just say here's a letter for you but I think a full robust Report with a letter explaining what we want to do ahead of the decision around the RFP is probably really would support that I think it would be an enormous amount of work to put that together but it it would lead to

the you just have put it into a binder in call a day well but I think highlighting what's different about this moment and why this strategy is also quite important we've sent letters to the board even since I've been on I would say it needs to go to the mayor and I also think before it goes to any of them got to call all their AIDS them personally and tell them it's coming and why always have that personal conversation always that's how you build relationships and Trust yeah and I would say um you know I don't know that we need to do a company the board has been intimately involved I mean we're quoting themselves back to them oh I like [Music] that but I mean I think other which just a point out that put a lot of two pieces together what is important I think is a relatively succeed no more than two page letter that explains what's different now and it doesn't have to be long and then say this is the why now part that's the part that needs to be crafted and and here's the history and you guys were an intimate part of it so you know that we've kind of been limping along for what 17 years now and now we're at this CL where standards are changing where we actually have developed systems we have a vendor who's potentially interest working with us to add the rank going east but it makes no sense to put out an RFP lock ourselves into another proprietary system worse with old standards I mean I actually think that's really the key Point like you could totally not even mention open consort and just talk about the timing of this contract that I think that's right I although I don't think you'd be locking yourself into a system that met old standards because they'd be required to up I do think

the yeah just going to say I mean I think you guys are right on the on the ball on this I think it would be valuable for that statement to include because we do want the option of being able to use a an open source system once one is certified and we're close we're we're we've never been closer yeah right and the city doesn't have to develop it we just have to make sure we don't lock ourselves into a 10 contract there the barriers before they've been removed yeah so so um I think prob mention this but I think it it would be worth having the conversation with I don't know it's oh yeah have because because the thing is you know he might think oh that's a great idea I'm not going to have it's going to save you some work totally like may maybe they'll say I was I was worried that you wouldn't be okay with this you know so it's like cuz if he's if he likes the idea then we don't have to point ofation you're saying to make sure I understand we're a conversation with the director you're saying about the fouryear contract extension or about our plans to advocate for the conversation about direct what do you think about extending the current contract instead

of well it's just like when when should

that um I think St should have it she has that relationship with direct and absolutely that's always the first thing do respect for him his position and I and I think that he could totally be inable to this we don't know how he'll respond even if he's 100% behind it this commission needs to build relationships with the Board of Supervisors and the mayor we need to build credibility we need to build trust a two-page letter saying what we're recommending I think is important Chris you've done an amazing job here and I mean if all they got were these clips me I like want to go home and look at them again you're amazing you're fantastic as a background with a two-page letter I mean you've done a great job I think that background is important like I I think a two-page letter is great but I think I I know I interrupted you when I saying I I no but I think context matters history matters and the Board of Supervisors change you know yes we do have some people who never seem to want to leave city government however I do think that it's important to show the long history here which you've already done it's here it's in it's in these CS I guess my point is we'll have an introductory letter and then a robust in incorporation of all all the work this is

yeah I want to I maybe backing us up and I'm taking us away then we can hold this but I have a question about the strategy from the history which is that was the first time I knew about this qua conversation and the idea that they would get proprietary vendor to make a public statement agreeing to do something that they then wound up not having to [Music] do is there anything in that experience for us to learn now is my question and I don't think I know enough about contract I ask a of clarifying question just to make sure we're all on the same page so just so I understand correctly because I was going to ask about this well so sequa was obligated to report to basically report if there was another competitor that came to Market that's it that came to Market offera that no that they were obligated to make their software operate this the condition was if during their during contract a vendor another vendor that was open source got certified in California C would have

to no but that was an open source no right but that's just how a company's change and they never had to do it because no open source but I'm curious about the strategy that was at Play to get them to do that and just reflecting on whether there's anything of value now for us maybe not because so much has changed but and if nobody feels comfortable enough with that history not know the answer is that is that contract

still I mean in that back then you could see that the bo back then was very strong like they were if we had a word like that we could they could do that maybe I don't know it depends on who [Music] well I would say that you know the pandemic has just thrown

everything I don't

know the other thing I would add which is why I asked the clarifying question is that that is specifically we asking a private company to do something as opposed to us being in control of the RFP process and which vendor us meeting like the city or the Department of Elections getting to have go through a full competitive process versus like pressuring seoa to make their code open because other I think it's always harder to try and force to hold them accountable to something be something more in house is not strategy I just question um given that voting works now is in New Hampshire and Mississippi that they're working to be ready to do these federal regulations that will be updated and such what does that do to the voting system um field as a whole is that all of a sudden is that what is the trend like is there are do we know if they were all talking about also like okay well the ship is sailing like we need to also get on with this because this is the new thing or they like no we still want to make money in this way so they're not incentivized to go to open source because maybe there's lower profit margin like what um do we know what the trends are few voting I think we can say for fair certainty that it's not having any effect now it's going to be a while

before so sorry I realized I'm I'm speaking quite a bit I'm just conscious of time there's something I really want to make sure that we come back to so I think it seems like we're all in somewhat of a general alignment about the contract idea how to handle it with John and the Board of Supervisors which I think we need to bring as a full commission at a regular meeting to vote on um since I have not agendized this is an action this is only a discussion um but the second piece is that I want to mention which I know you had said like contct first then later we'll deal with the r Choice voting question I would strongly encourage us to not push that too far down the road I think that needs to be like a two ProMed concurrent strategy because that continues to be a problem and it continues to be a friction between Matt row of voting works and John AR director of Elections is there also I mean I know that that that the RCB was what one thing are there other issues do I recall within the open source is that an issue

also like maybe having two languages simultaneously but maybe maybe one approach for me I don't know if you're saying you want to wait until after the or before the but just like meet with director erns and then say um how do you feel about this idea the contract and then in the same meeting say um are you do you have when can put this announcement out asking you know our policy proposal put a call out to ask what [Music] people CU I think it's more like director is the one that's going to be so I think it's worth us find

out I think I'm misunderstanding don't mind explain so what are you saying what are you envisioning or proposing John's

announcement um this that he's extending the contract and I didn't have the opportunity

to oh oh oh you mean in terms of the P the demo asking asking what people we're talking about two different things here like one is what we're going to do about the contract and then the second is about the policy priority so are you talking specifically policy priority yeah well the policy priority would address the

r um if if he if he puts out a does the Outreach to find out what people would need to call the r sodium that's the way we can make progress I and then and then simultaneously there this contract in spring so I think I mean do we want to have this as a public discussion it's probably better if it can be discussed in

private i i in the interest of time would I suggest that because we can't take action today perhaps you draft a proposal for I think just a proposal that the commission can review and vote on the next or take action on excuse me in the next commission meeting with what you discuss what we discussed today since it's still public well I mean it's not it's really just to okay yeah I me sure the only reason I say that and you don't have to draft it the only you can't take action I mean it's not it's not something that like anyone can talk to their parents but I know like at the last meeting I asked publicly they have you thought about for policy proposals you said I haven't thought about it can you tell us at the next meeting so it's like we just want to know where it stands it's not like we need to I think where I'm coming from is if we're going to make a decision for me to go to the director and share that this is what we want or or rather propose the extension of the contract rather than opening the r and in Tang I'm asking him to like I think the policy priority find we don't need to take action on that because we already have but if it's going to be in the same conversation where I'm also talking about the RF I I feel I personally don't believe I should do that without the commission but I'm open I'm one commissioner so I'm open to hearing what everyone else like one option would be you could just say this is something that the commission discussed we didn't make any decisions on it

but it's not CU we we haven't made a

[Music] performance I me I wonder if it's um if it is just recapping some of this conversation is we were thinking about this because you know it's the it's the whole soat you know we were suggesting um delaying or extending the contract for a limited period of time that and that is the conversation is that we're trying to figure out how to solve this thing right for almost two decades we have this priority on open source we have established a policy priority for our commission on Open Source on open source voting and so we're just figuring out how to get there this was an idea that came up just just want to talk to you about it and see where you are so the so that is very established but there's also the so that with timing that is discussed here that really matters and so that feels okay and I also tend to lean towards what you say that if there is a vote that needs to happen like we're saying John director arnest we we want you to extend you know extend of the year and not do a new RFP that I think we probably should vote on um but giving like the we're talking about the soda part can we just talk about that and just see where you are that feels okay to

me I I feel like we're just fing them out right because if I were done I would look at this and say oh my gosh sa so much work you know that I to put out urp I'm working with that I've been working with for 11 years and it's so much easier just to extend the contract and simultaneously solve some policy priority for the elections commission you know this this seems like it's easy right and so um you know it might not be that big deal any be that it would be necessary to to take a vote because if we agre with it then we're just saying we're going to delay the RP another year or two years and I don't know what you know that would be great to get inut on um and uh because of the timing of the election standards that are being updated right now the timing for an RP do that great you know you get get us feedback on it discuss that we had and we want to get your ideas on it because I you know again I'm putting myself in hisory say this I also think if I may that sort of inquiry footing is important because we don't know what what he's already done he may have already developed an AR you may have some some time into this and there are enough variables in this timeline going forward that are some of which are in John's control RFP some of which are out of John's control certification that it can't help but help it for us to better understand that rhythm of time that series of events so I'm just taking everyone's feedback um listening I think the only other thing I want to add though is that you know the Comm can't necessarily take tell John what to do about contract decisions so we do have to take that into consideration and I think especially if we're going to write a letter to the Board of Supervisors we need to keep that in mind so I'm happy to approach the conversation with John as [Music] a a discussion a discovery but I'm not going to I going be very careful about not telling any sort of line that falls outside lines and um and and I can come back come back to the commission with what I hear as well and if you do that I mean is it something that you could discuss at our next meeting in December if I if I sorry if I do that meaning have that ation you asking can I have the conversation before December meeting there is one caveat that that you all don't know which is that John won't be at our December meeting so that is a little wrch um but I'm happy to talk to offline a little bit more and make sure also make sure that I'm very prepared for that conversation as well um I would just say yes I I like the that commissioner Parker made about having that conversation but I would also say and I know we don't have control over this contract but we do have control over our Communications withis and you know we have that kind of conversation but then we can take a vote and we can send we can we can send them letter to May and and because the thing is is that they get these these uh you know proposals in front of them and it's just one person saying this sounds good okay but we actually have a position and I think that you know at some point sooner rather than later I think transparency is key respect for the person who's running the department is very important and we follow the protocol but we as a commission have the right to have a position that we can share with the elect okay I think we're all I think we're all on the same page so the course of action is have the conversation with John see what happens about what we talked about and then either way the commission can also depending on you know use the Insight that we get from joh take a take action on communicating our position to the El we'll take a v take

action are you comfortable with that yeah just just one question if if director turns out to be totally liking the idea of extending the contract would we still want to take that formal protction I think that we should I think that we should I mean I also think we have to be honest with ourselves that pres will he'll not be on theion for that long so we do need to be thoughtful of his participation and making sure that we can take all of his knowledge um while we can um not that we're pushing it up the door we just just want to make sure we um we get everything before go yeah um so was I lost my train thought just talking about um you said oh I think that either way we should take we should make take a vote um I don't know if that's going to be next month or January but I think I we should take a vote so that we can get your work SL you up get your work out there as quickly as possible and it's kind of you know to point it's out of respect for John let's have a conversation get his feedback hope that he's on board but either way we can still have a position that we present at publicly the only consideration that I will just add and we can talk about this when we do take action is I personally feel very strongly that we don't have controversy on this body next year and so if John strongly disagrees with this approach I think we need to be very have a very honest conversation with each other of whether 2024 is the right I think we need to be honest about what attention so um I'm just going to say that up front as a consideration I don't think we next hopefully it doesn't that but priorities need to be on the election is there anything else Chris that

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yeah I I just going to say Cav that this

is doely yeah I think the only the only response I have to is it would just influence my decision making about how I parate in this conversation I'm just want to mention that's all um though so totally fine commissioner uh we do have further agenda do still have to take general public comment um did you say you have to leave as well I'm going to have to leave very soon but I'll comment okay do have just one final like I um comment um I really appreciate like all the work that you've done Chris like all of this together I know that you made time probably for everybody here and you made time to help me understand this issue um and I really appreciate that along with all these materials so I'm sure it was a lot of

is and thank

you you're welcome thank you very much again a leader in all this we're almost

there

contract thank

you okay I mean the meeting was sched from 12 to

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you of course yeah I'm we're on schedule I just

didn't anything else anything else okay let's move to let's move to public is there anyone in person that would like

to just give me one [Music] moment okay go

ahead I'd like to set my time with you so I know where I am

okay alel here uh I really only came for the Jeopardy I'll stay for this comment um and a lot of what you said went right over my head okay because I'm not so familiar with this topic but I just want to mention a few things that resonated with uh and so I'm going to be critical right now this commission okay and that's not always easy but uh commissioner Stone during this discussion said and this is almost a quote we don't want it to be viewed as undermining public trust in elections by getting behind of source and I think that's a good thing to be concerned about um uh that's a good concern to have um but this commission didn't have the same concern when it inserted itself into the work of our duly sworn and totally independent redistricting task force in April of 21 it didn't have that same concern and I wish that it had because it totally undermined the public trust in their process and they were a duly sworn set Commissioners who had their own process and it was interfered in by this commission the selections Commission Now that undermines public trust in this commission and this commission has had its own problems with public trust for the past couple of years now and I think that's why we heard commissioner cley a moment go say that it's important for us to build credibility and trust with the mayor and the Board of Supervisors and this commission needs to do just that build commission or build trust with the mayor and the Board of Supervisors I agree with you commissioner now uh I'm going to leave it at that for the moment and I have some other comments to close with and public comment but thank you very much you guys for discuss on this thank you any other com in the

room you also are welcome to just

stand okay um well hello everybody my name is Brent Turner I'm um fellow Trent CL alluded to we've been on this Ronnie dter started this in 1988 and I've been working on it myself proo for over 20 years and stand on the shoulders of those before that have done that the heavy lifting um just I'm going to throw some some language at you some words that you might want to write down and research later because of my short time period to speak but open voting Consortium is the group that did the heavy looking on this initially and that is the design concept and the GPL when you he GPL general public license that's the guidance that voting works now follows is based on this heavy lifting that was done by open voting Consortium um I take pride in being known as The Catalyst for the voting assistance task force that I occurred I prompted Tom Alano and Chris ay to form that commission and I served as a secretary from Cavo who you heard reference that is a group uh set up to provide education to election officials and to encourage counties to share in uh this work of Open Source software um I have zero association with voting works and I only speak for myself here um just so you know the certification process that we reference casually is completely broken right now so that's a h that's being sort of tossed around casually but the father of that certification uh system um admits candly that the system will remain broken until we get proprietary code out of this um this is a very black and white simple issue if you don't want to know what's going on and you want lack security keep using proprietary intellectual property protected software code and your voting system if you don't if you do want to know what's going on and heighten the security you have to use open source software there's no if ands or vs and this discussion has been included for the past 30 years so the the public will probably never be able to grasp what open source means or understand any of this but hopefully the secet of state and the procurement people will understand what we're talking about the um Missing Link here that is confusing everybody is that Microsoft working through the vendors and then infecting John arnst they blocked Us in San Francisco so they will never do open source as long as John ARS is here I know you have the ability to fire him but you have not done that in the past which is unfortunate but we advocated for him to be terminated um 15 years ago 10 years ago because we predicted this would happen and it did we also predicted that when we procured $300 million for Los Angeles to do this that they would fall prey to what we call open washers a group called oet and that money would disappear and it did and we predicted that it would so now when you go back to the legislature and you say what happened they say well we already gave you $300 million so that's that's problematic um I'll go very quickly and and wrap up here um just so you know disclosed software is not open source so when you say somebody's going to disclose it that doesn't mean that it's open source so that's another little point of confusion that I don't want you to fall pre to and sorry Mr Turner minutes okay well please feel free to send your comments no that's okay I I don't come uh in front of you often I've suffered from cancer and I'm making a little comeback which allows me to appear here today but I'm always available and I appreciate the work Chris has done with Trent and and everybody else if we could get this done for the sake of the United States it would be great it's embarrassing that Mississippi new answer our head of us time thank

you and you're always welcome to sign writing as well my name is Tim mayor I was on that San Francisco voting task force so uh we spent two years sitting around the table talking mostly BS because it was a very simple issue this is not complicated open source publicly own software you will not uh get security and voting ever ever ever with propri it's never going to happen so it doesn't matter to you understood but then you'll get you know folks that are able to capitalize on that Institute folks that will challenged the presidential election you remember that that will occur again absolutely will occur again you don't have to go about it t so there's a lot of misdirection a lot of distraction but it's simple this is not complicated open source publicly owned uh accessible s it's just not more complicated in that so we talked a lot about complication relas but it is important to have that one particular part of any voting system one particular part open source publicly owned uh voting software for the calculation cture so I appreciate your time and this is the most intelligent conversation I've heard on this subject matter ever you guys have done really well I'm so impressed you understood all the subject man I'm like yikes so I'm really appreciative of that but don't get distracted and don't get misdirected because there is only one issue and that's it open source publicly owned uh accessible sof very simple great job thank you very much thank you thank you guys any

else any secet com there not thank you so much and big thank you

[Music]

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to okay so I know it's going to close out agenda item number five I know everyone is paes to to leave um I did want to talk about a few special projects and updates but I can I guess I'll move a couple of those items to our December meeting I do want to introduce the packet item a little bit um for folks it did arrive late so I had planned to just kind of be own context I had no idea that my was so large so um I do apologize for that kind of funny to see it um in real life so I'll give you I'm just going to kind of give read through this at a high level um the context is you know the San Francisco elections commission as we talked about earlier was it's it's the inaugural commission was started in 2002 and in its first year there was they faced enormous headand litigation removal of the director and budget mismanagement operational failures Etc and the Commission in its first year to overcome the challenges and carry out the new mandate as an oversight body they focused on specifically trying to help the Department of Elections build an infrastructure that would allow it to operate independently and autonomously um previously the department hadn't run that way the whole of the elections commission was really to insulate the department from political um political interference from elected so that and that is as we all likely know why there are seven different appointing bodies for the elections commission um it's it's a unique body in that regard um and the Commission in that first year prioritized passing policies priorities and bylaws that would help facilitate that level of Independence they focused on three things space structure and staff and it proved to really lay a solid foundation for the Department that through um the leadership of the director John who was the first um who was at the time he was a provisional director in the elections commission hired him as full-time director in the year following or actually may have been work year but in the two decades since then the commission itself uh hasn't had that same level of investment in system systemization and structure and operating procedures um we do have our bylaws that continue to have been updated over the last two decades but um I think there have been a variety of reasons that have contributed to the commissions you know lack of I don't want to say lack of progress but it's lack of let's say consistency and structure and how it operates and I'll give you some examples of what I mean by that in a moment um but there are a few reasons I wanted to cite I mean first and foremost are fiveyear terms your term maximum the fact that we elect new officers every year to manage the operations the secretary staff any business and um we don't really have a budget and we uh yeah we don't have a budget and then also um we have had significant turnover so not that often do we see that Commissioners are serving their potential 10 years so we have a lot of turnover from Commissioners to secretary um and it's caused a lot and not from my perspective and explain why I think that's what made it harder to be able to really build that infrastructure I said the the bylaw really become kind of the North Star when I joined or when I became president earlier this year I recognized I I I felt very um unsure of how to actually be effective as president um and that started by simply just recognizing that we don't actually have a laned up period there's no time between uh one president the next before we have to start you know December to January me regular meetings you're just or rather January to February you just started start a new so that was the immediate the immediate thing I recognized but then there are also circumstantial things things that were going on when I became president that I think also added to my very large level of um exasperation uh when I joined first of all the city was transitioning to new website so lots of things were changing um our website was completely done voluntarily by our phenomenal vice president who helped lead that effort but it also required him to learn how to do that process and US me relying on him to help and still continuously get things updated um we also didn't have a secretary at the time that we were vacant for I don't know five months um I the recruitment process for secretary was not clear and then we had to do on Ming or also some technical issues that we were everyone was facing in our meeting facilitation specifically from the transition to from fully hybrid or fully remote meetings during you know the height of Co to coming back in person and trying to operate both um again another piece of it is I I was relying on the bylaws and you know the vice president's historical knowledge to learn how to run the meetings how to facilitate how to set up the room you know what are we accountable for um there weren't there wasn't like a standard fold Drive where we have access to all these old templates and then of course just the basic ongoing commissioner requests trans new Commissioners that joined and then the last but more obvious one that we've talked about jokingly is we had unprecedented unprecedent long meetings um and so I basically tried to untangle a lot and rebuild at the same time so I've really started by going through a discovery process of what we have what processes we have what we don't have what are you know where do we find those how do we centralize them um some of these happened as they were requested for example Commissioners asking well I have a conflict what do we do this I don't know what's our process um so starting to just build the plane while we fly it um but then also identifying gaps that we will need um and really the goal is to build a centralized repository of resources procedures and materials that will allow future commissions to not to be distracted and to really focus on its Mandate of carrying out oversight for the Department of Elections um we are a volunteer body but um I think it is it is absolutely imperative that if we're going to be volunteer an actual a more fully effective volunteer body we have the tools to do that so I just provided a high Lev list here of some of the processes that I've um either fully developed or um or be to develop um when secretary Davis joined us I had actually built together like a pretty robust um checklist for of secretary responsibilities meeting facilitation responsibilities which actually commissioner D is familiar with because of um the fierce um the fierce meeting rooms I provided a list of how kind of the checklist of that process um and then also just like officer checklist from basically going through uh the bylaws because there were a handful of things in our bylaws that we were not complying with that now we are working to comply with but also City compliance things that the city asks us to do that we haven't been doing or that I didn't know that we need to do and putting it all into an officer responsibility guide um and some other things in here so this is just kind of a snapshot of what's already been in in development or have at least some Bare Bones to it um happy to share those specific if you have that if you have interest in those um but really the next phase of this is what I HED to present more bu today definitely wasn't able to get it all I'm not there yet but um definitely progress has been made the final output is to centralize and digitize so there are two components of this so the I mentioned the goal is this um robust Rules of Order document that has all our rules that has structure access to templates and things of that not templates but um processes and procedures um even you know like Roberts R for example like we weren't really following that I go to a reference guide like putting it into something that with that that will be available for every commissioner going forward and listed on the website so that members of the public have access to it as well and the second piece of it um is the digi digitization so I mentioned this in a meeting earlier this year but secretary Davis and I started going through the file cabinets at the department of election and we have two decades worth of paper materials and records and a task that I hope to refer to the um B committee is being able to incorporate funds for um funds for us to digitize these records and make them accessible to the public um and so on the last last page and there's this is really more of just an FYI you'll see kind of the table of contents of what I've been working with um for the this new gow is not exhaused but it is what I've already started developing like so this is just the outline but I actually already have the need for many parts of this I just didn't don't have a complete version to share with you today so if you're familiar with the Board of Supervisors Rules of Order it's very it's very helpful ours will be similar but we will have also many differences and the idea being that um you know when I've long gone from this Commission people will it will be easier for commissioner new Commissioners or um officers or the public to all understand how we operate and want tote any time at all so I just wanted to share this initiative I've kind of hint that it for months um and give you insight into what is already being worked on um and I'll continue to share progress as we go um and I'm happy to answer any questions otherwise we can just move to yeah I I would just say that this is heavy LIF bringing order to what was not ordered at all and I think bringing secretary dataon was the biggest um addition in terms of of just helping us all and helping you but I just want to thank you for taking the initiative not many people would do this not many people would have the organizational skills to do this but uh this certainly will serve um future commissions well um we we're blessed to have you your

leadership I and just also you know thanks for sharing all this with us um what do you need from us to help you with any of this you know that it is a big lift I have a tiny sense of how much time you actually put into this position um so other than just wait you know what are what are the next steps or what do you want to with thank you for asking and I also know they have to go so and we we'll wrap in like two minutes go to general public and then we can adjourn um so I think for now you know take a look um if you have feedback you know let's keep talking about it in our meeting in our in the um commission meetings I felt as though I've been talking about this for a long time and hadn't actually put anything on paper and there's a lot of value to just share being more transparent with these things um and yes it is a I've also been working on it for almost a year now so it's it's and people ask me for things right so if I ask hey what where is this oh God I got to put together this process so I just add it to the folder of all the processes that I've been developing like putting things on the website and things like that so if there are processes that you feel we are not mentioned in here that you think we need I know everyone's going to mention onward already already got that very very far down the road um Etc if there are things in here that you think are missing or that you want to make sure is included let me know we'll keep talking about it and then as I have a version to show you I will share it it won't be immediate going to be Contin you know I'm hope ideally I'm on this mission for another 3 years so it will continue to be something I work on um not three years but over the next

year it's great to get some visibility you have been working on mentioned it before and fabulous some process oriented

to structure and and procedures in place and yes I have been the beneficiary of some of these initial process so thank for that U I did want to mention that um like at our last meeting there were some requests for like all pass reports and I noed for example as par and I are working

on missing minutes from last year uh website and I don't even know if they were cre or not check with he wasn't sure either the special reading from April 8 last year no I know but I'm just saying that it's not it's one of those missing minutes and I don't know if they were Ed so that's that's one that that I notic that was on the AR website meetings simp missing and I not so I think there's some basic documentation um that that might be helpful to

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prioritize just um I know this is a m so and it's also so thank you time yeah I just had one question is the rules report is that like one giant document is it going yeah the table cont kind of blocks like shows you what it would look like three separate sections it is kind of massive it will not include all of the the um every single process that's in here I think one of the things I'm also trying to work on WE Maurice and I created a one drive that we want to make available but the challenge that I the biggest thing I saw even though really massive document things get so lost between commissions so I am so certain that thing more systems and structure was probably developed at some point and it's just nowhere so if we don't have like I think there is a benefit to having one massive document in some regards as well where it's just one cent one thing um we are working on website updates including the annual report and moving the structure of the annual reports is something re I so it will help to be able to put on the website um but I think for right now I'm trying to focus on one centralized document that's to a lot of other things yes it will

be I just went through this

job

right it just gets lost and that's that's when my hope well that sometimes happens when it works on people's individual drives or you know so when you have it in a centralized place like website L harder you know because good anything else okay um let's move to a public content and I'll just post

in on

this on this it right anyone online no okay we'll close out agenda item number six and move to General

Public

um Alano and I'll commissioner Crowley's comment on uh your initiative president I think is fantastic um just a couple of comments here I I came last meeting uh you had and there were 20 or so uh members of the public that joined me and at this meeting almost every one of them when they spoke they talked about uh how they did not want you to make recommendations in this redistrict and reform work uh that you're producing not to make recommendations and then following the public comment from these 20 or so members of the public some of the conversation between you all uh centered around how to frame the work and some of the comments were uh to characterize it as best practices or something different from recommendations and I just want to speak for these people again and say that whether we call them best practices recommendations suggestions all of that puts your thumb on the scale of of this initiative okay that's coming to you from political part political players common cause Le women's orders and it's wrong it's what's giving this commission a hard time maintaining its trust and credibility in the public and I just want to encourage you not to characterize it as anything like a recommendation or or a uh uh best practices or anything of that nature um finally

uh I would point to how uh commissioner loosi and commissioner D both mentioned that the Board of Supervisors is going to do what they're going to do and so if that's true why do you need to have any standard approval for on the scale with regards to this work they're going to do what they're going to do why uh put yourself in this position to to make such a framing of the work okay and then finally commissioner Parker uh had a great comment at that meeting and suggested that we find a way to make an inclusion for the public comments uh that were gathered uh during these meetings and I of course I'm wholeheartedly interested in that so hopefully you'll find a way to make that happen that's it thank you thank

you any

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