Elections Commission Regular Meeting

welcome everyone to the July 17th

2024 regular meeting of the San

Francisco elections commission I’m the

president Robin Stone The Time Is Now

6:07 p.m. and I call the meeting to

order before we proceed further I would

like to ask commission secretary Marissa

Davis to briefly explain some procedures

for participating in today’s

meeting thank you

um sorry secretary Davis can you make

sure your microphone is turned

on Can You Hear Me Maybe just pull it

closer can you hear me yes okay there we

go thank you as authorized by the

elections commission’s February 15 2023

vote members of the public May attend

the meeting to observe and provide

public comment either at the physical

meeting location or

remotely details and instructions for

participating remotely are listed on the

commission’s website and on today’s

meeting agenda public comment will be

available on each item on this agenda

each member of the public will be

allowed three minutes to speak six

minutes if you are on the line with an

interpreter when providing public

comment you are encouraged to state your

name clearly once your three minutes

have expired staff will thank you and

you will be muted please direct your

comments to the entire commission and

not to a specific commissioner when

joining by phone you will hear a beep

when you are connected to the meeting

you will be automatically muted and in

listening mode only to make a public

comment dial Star three to raise your

hand when your item of Interest comes up

you will be added to the public comment

line and you will hear you have raised

your hand to ask a question please wait

until the host calls on you the line

will be silent as you wait your turn to

speak if at any time you change your

mind and wish to withdraw yourself from

the public comment line press star three

you will hear the system say you have

lowered your hand when joining by WebEx

web browser make sure the participant

side panel is showing at the bottom of

the list of attendees is a small button

or icon that looks like a hand press the

hand icon to raise your hand you will be

unmuted when it is time for you to

comment when you are done with your

comment click the hand icon again to

lower your hand in addition to

participating in real time interested

persons are encouraged to participate in

this meeting by submitting public

comment in writing by 12:00 p.m. on the

day of the meeting to elections.

commission

sfgov.org it will be shared with the

commission after this meeting has

concluded and will be included as part

of the official meeting file thank you

president

Stone thank you secretary Davis will you

please proceed with item one commission

roll

call President Stone present vice

president Parker here here commissioner

bernh holes here commissioner Dy here

commissioner loli here commissioner Wong

present president stone with six members

present and accounted for you have a

quum thank

you the San Francisco elections

commission acknowledges that we are on

the unseated ancestral homeland of the

raay to shalone who are the original

inhabitants of the San Francisco

Peninsula as the indigenous St of this

land and in accordance with their

Traditions the to shalone have never

seated lost nor forgotten their

responsibilities as caretakers of this

place as well as for All Peoples who

reside in their traditional territory as

guests we recognize that we benefit from

living and working on their traditional

Homeland we wish to pair respects by

acknowledging the ancestors and

relatives of the rsh community and

affirming their seven rights as First

Peoples it closes agenda item number one

and we’ll now move to agenda item number

two general public comment public

comment on any issue within the election

commission’s General jurisdiction

jurisdiction that is not covered by

another item on this

agenda just a

moment so you on YouTube right I mean

it’s too bad because whatever uh yeah

it’s Theory yeah maybe you know me from

other places in the city hall basically

I’m going to develop a little more on

what I said uh the first time I came to

see you on May the

15th precise for people to check it out

together okay we are dealing with a dead

hand here in the system of Elections

because uh it’s not really intelligent

to pretend not to know that it’s

technology allowed the system to be

rigged basically so we

are we need we cannot avoid a sort of a

revolution in the system we can’t about

it otherwise that’s it it’s the end of

see so the way I I put it last time was

to say

okay obviously some people won’t like it

that’s normal

because you need to Pro to proceed with

the system of election by

drawing so basically you have five

candidates let’s say five candidates for

any important post you know any

government you select 12 citizens at

random the let present a program

okay then after that the one that stand

by drawing from the citizens are drawn

again the winner is drawn understand

with only one mandate the first mandate

for only one

year which makes

corruption almost impossible that is if

the candidates elected by drawing

doesn’t do what he said on this program

sorry you

out that’s the only way we can solve the

problem here that’s called real

democracy now well you are in a tough

situ position here I perfectly

understand it’s the only way to go I’m

here to serve that’s it that’s my

mission

so in France too by the way but after

have a good night thank you

thank

you are there any other public

commenters there are no other public

commenters okay thank you secretary

Davis um that closes agenda item number

two we’ll move to General uh to excuse

me to agenda item number three approval

of previous meeting minutes discussion

and possible AC on previous Election

Commission meeting minutes and actually

we won’t be able to move forward with

this because I realized right before the

meeting that the minutes are not posted

on the website and so um in order to

give the public time to review the

minutes um we we have to postpone this

uh this agenda item so I actually have

to move to agenda item number four

director’s report discussion and

possible action regarding the July 2024

director’s report I’ll hand it to

director Ernst thank you president Stone

uh I don’t have more more to add than my

report we are in the we have started the

second nomination period for the other

local offices and then also we’ll be

receiving the local

measures and any District measures as

well um but uh so right now we’re

basically just uh gearing up for uh

November and then moving through the the

the nomination period uh we have been

doing a lot of Outreach events uh

recently U we’ve been consistently going

to the U the naturalization ceremonies

on a weekly

basis and um I don’t know I think from

there I can take questions from from the

commission on the report or any other

topic

so thank you director erns I’ll take

questions from commissioners

anyone yes vice president

Parker

oops so I’m set up um is that okay yeah

um I don’t have a lot um thank you as

usual for your really detailed report um

I know we ask you this like every month

but are you getting any better sense of

the ballot length even though we haven’t

hit all of the deadlines yet for

measures and candidates so I don’t know

the number uh but the number will be

less than 30 is my uh perception at this

point which is Big because it 30 was

sort of the breaking point I think uh

for us so if we’re around 15 to 20 then

uh I don’t think I have not seen the

ballot questions all the ballot

questions I’ve not seen the state ballot

questions for the state measures but I

don’t think we would exceed six cards at

this point okay which you know was the

big issue uh for lot of reasons uh and

so if we get even if we get 15 measures

local measures for instance then

potentially we even have a five card

ballot which be which be actually

wonderful so okay great thank you I

wasn’t sure that you’d be able to give

me any answer but I thought I’d ask um

okay I think let’s see uh a couple of

comments um I really appreciate the

thoughtful theme for November I liked

how you spelled it out for us you know

how you got there uh so thank you for

that um I also um a couple other

appreciations in report um I appreciate

the recommendation from the language

advisory councils to include caregiver

um in that non-citizen voting

information super relevant and necessary

here so I appreciate that they made that

recommendation I um already sent you a

note earlier today I really liked the

video and brochure on rank Choice voting

I thought they were um useful and I plan

on sharing them with my network because

I I’m still continue to um be surprised

at how many people don’t understand both

how to fill out their ballot and how it

Works um so thank you for that um I also

appreciated the Safety and Security

brochure especially after the

conversation we had last year to or last

month to uh understand more all the

security measures you all um have been

taking so thank you for that I

appreciate the transparency and I think

if at least the public can access it who

knows if they will but at least it’s

there um and then the two questions I

had um are for the the RCB and ncv

grantees um that you listed in the

report are they you’re doing training

with them is that to be coordinated with

the the messaging of the department um

around the election um or is it just

managing a grant I’m just what I’m

wondering is um how we can get a sense

of what it is the grantees will be doing

to support those two

efforts so the grantees provide plans

yeah so that could provide the plans

that were they submitted in response to

the

rfps okay I was just ious are they

already on the website somewhere or is

that something we would just ask to see

I don’t know if they are on the website

it’s mostly just curiosity on my part to

see what kinds of things they’re doing

um okay so I can follow up with you on

that um and then the other question um

the note about adding Vietnamese um

because the threshold being lowered uh

for the 2026 ballot I was curious about

what kind of fiscal impact you expected

for um related to that we haven’t

started looking at the costs for that so

I don’t I don’t have a number on that

right now either um but it would I mean

we were adding another language so

everything all the materials and all the

actions we take around the the current

languages would be replicated with

Vietnamese for Vietnamese uh

so it is

significant uh addition for us but we

haven’t done the cost analysis yet um

when that decision was made um did you

get any sense that the city would

recognize that when it comes to giving

budgets to the department because will

we have the same sort of budget but have

to serve more languages or do you think

that they’ll account for that to our

budget and still have to provide

languages well I hate to think that but

okay but there wasn’t some like we’ll

make sure we funded it won’t be like an

unfunded

correct all right that’s all from

me thank you vice president Parker any

other

Commissioners yes please

commissioner bernh hols uh thank you

president Stone um hi director arens two

quick questions my usual question have

there been any security incidents either

digital or physical in the last

month hello commissioner bernel no

there’s been no instances uh in our with

our department last month okay and then

the second question quickly looking at

the um 15 nonprofits are these are there

any differences between this and the

last round

there are

some that I know there’s some that

didn’t make right did now receive grant

funding this round I don’t know if all

the name all all the groups are the same

though um compared to last round I can

just do a compare and contrast but yeah

it looked like there was some difference

okay thank you you’re

welcome thank you commissioner

burnol I a follow-up question to

commissioner bernh hols were all of

those did all those grantees receive

equal amounts of funding or was it

different based on the proposals correct

the lad based on their yeah that’s what

I would figure okay any other

Commissioners

okay thank you director ARS keep up the

good work ahead of November hopefully

folks are taking vacations

now um and uh doing some self-care ahead

of a busy couple of months y um that

let’s move to public

comment uh no public commenters hands

raised thank you secretary Davis that

closes agenda item number four let’s

move to agenda item number five

commissioner Commissioners reports

discussion and possible action and

commissioner reports for topics not

covered by another item on this agenda

uh meetings with public officials

oversight and observation activities

longrange planning for commission

activities in areas of study proposed

legislation which affects elections and

others I’ll open the

floor anything to

report okay let’s move to public comment

for commissioner reports

No Hands raised okay thank you secretary

Davis moving right along

um uh we’ll move to agenda item number

six closed session discussion and

possible action regarding the annual

performance evaluation of director John

of John ARS the director of Elections

let’s move to 6A public comment on all

matters pertaining to this agenda item

including whether to meet in closed

session so let’s move to

public

comment No Hands

raised thank you secretary

Davis uh we’ll move to 6B vote on

whether to meet in close session to

consider the agenda

item I move that we uh uh move to meet

and close session to consider this

agenda item second thank you vice

president Parker

let’s move to a roll call

Vote Yes

VI

yes

I

I

yes

yes

okay thank you okay we will now move

into close session thank you director

Arts that was very was record time um

enjoy your evening see you next

month um let’s just take a quick moment

to make sure our Tech is supported for a

Clos session

and then I want to make sure also that

we’ll still be able to see

Lucy Lucy can you hear us

still yes I can okay

[Music]

good and the record we should pause the

recording as well because that will be

harder to truncate