hello perfect okay welcome everyone to the March 28th 2024 regular meeting of
the San Francisco elections commission I'm the president Robin Stone the time is now 6:01 p.m
and I call the meeting to order before we proceed further I would like to ask commission secretary Marisa Davis to briefly explain some procedures for participating in
today's meeting welcome everyone um thank you president Stone the minutes of this meeting
will reflect that this meeting is being held in person at City Hall Room 408 one Dr Carlton be
goodlet Place San Francisco 94102 and remotely via X as authorized by the election 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 oh Marisa I don't think you
are heard you can be heard is your microphone on I can oh you can hear yep okay uh um let me
ask let's proceed okay 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 public comment dial Star three to raise your hand when your item of
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to participating in real time interested persons are encouraged to participate in this meeting by
submitting public comment in writing by 12:00 noon on the day of the meeting to elections.
commmission sfgov.org it will be shared with the commission after this meeting has concluded and
will be included as part of the official meeting file thank you president Stone thank you secretary
Davis will you please proceed with item one commission roll call President Stone pres vice
president Parker here commissioner burn holes here commissioner D here commissioner loli here
commissioner Wong present with six members present and accounted for you have a forum
wonderful thank you I will State the uh the land acknowledgement resolution adopted or the land
acknowledgement is adopted in the 10922 elections commission resolution the San Francisco elections
commission acknowledges that weal homeland of Theo shalone who are the original inhabitants
of the San Francisco Peninsula as the indigenous stewards of this land in accordance with their Traditions the amalon have never seated lost nor forgotten the responsib abilities 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 pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors and relatives of Theos community
and affirming their Sovereign rights as First Peoples Let's now move to agenda item number
two general public comment public comment and any issue within the elections commission's General
jurisdiction that is not covered by another item on this agenda I you will have three minutes to
speak and secretary Davis when you're ready um will you just let the public commenter know no
problem just bear with us for one
moment
sure microphone is on try now how's that you can also lift it up to be closer thank you we'll make
sure you get your full I'll keep an eye and give you extra time okay perfect thank you so much um hi my name is Jen nosikov um before I get into my comment I just wanted to say um
thank you for all the work that you do for the elections um in I'm a candidate for district one supervisor um and I've had a really good exper experience with the Department of Elections in
general outside of the um comment that I'm about to make here and I wanted to say that first and foremost uh my name is Jen nosikov and I'm a current candidate for supervisor in District
1 I'm here tonight to discuss a concern regarding the recent change to the policy on the candidates
use of Chinese names last July when I filed to run for supervisor I was given the Chinese name
GA suan by a member of our Chinese Community this name has significantly helped me connect
with the Chinese speaking voters and has been a key part of my campaign since the beginning
I was following a wellestablished practice for non-chinese candidates in San Francisco despite
there being no guidance from the Department of Elections on this matter however the rule change
mid campaign to require candidates to have used their Chinese names for at least two years has
put this practice in Jeopardy and it directly affects my ability to communicate effectively with voters who know me by this name on top of that replacing window signs and other campaign
materials at this stage would not only be cost prohibitive but timec consuming resources I as
a firsttime candidate am stretched thin on I'm asking for my Chinese name to be grandfathered
in given that I adopted it based on the rules and practices in place before the recent changes this
request isn't just about my campaign I believe it's about fairness for all candidates in the election process and respecting the connections I've already made within our community allowing
the continued use of my Chinese name on the ballot aligns with our City's values of diversity and inclusion and and recognizes the Practical challenges of such unexpected
rule changes it's crucial for ensuring that our electoral process remains free and fair
and accessible to all candidates and voters alike thank you for your time and consideration thank
you secretary Davis are there any public commenters on the
line
wonderful Let's uh close out agenda item number two and move to agenda item number
three approval of previous previous meeting minutes discussion and possible action on
previous elections commission meeting minutes namely the February uh regular commission meeting
it will open up for uh for commission discussion I think the timer is on I think the timer's on
it's okay it's going to go on a second just so commissioner D yeah I didn't have many I didn't
have really any substantive comments except um on item number four under director's report I
think for the benefit of the public uh it'd be helpful to provide a description of resolution
regarding the use of Chinese character based names or something like that that's it that's it wow um would you recommend that so you want the context of that
we could also potentially hyperlink to the the um anything to make it easier to understand yeah
cool thank you commissioner D anyone
else okay let's move to public comment on agenda
item number three the approval of the previous meeting minutes from February 14th thank you secret thank you secretary Davis let move to agenda item number four the director's
report discussion and possible action regarding the director's report and I will hand it over to
director ARS thank you president Stone uh so this report's not specific to the election uh there is
election information so I won't I'll wait till next uh month's meeting before I go into all
that uh there is information here about the city moving to a new uh content editor for the website
so all that we've gone through More's coming uh so we don't we we've not seen this ourselves I we
don't have any information Beyond this bit that's in my report regarding the the new content editor
um so we'll have to take lessons on that as well it'll affect the commission's website then also attached to my report are the um is a slideshow that we received from Department of equity racial
equity and so if the commission uh wants to provide information into the department in May
I forget the May 13th I think uh to include an our equ report then we'll send that information to me
then we can include it and we'll we'll submit it um other than that I can take any questions on my
report thank you director erns open it up to
Commissioners vice president Parker um thank you always for your report and um congratulations on
the election I know we'll we'll be uh officially certifying next time but congratulations on that
I have a few things so maybe I'll just do a few and see if other people have other things to mention um and I think knowing what is in some of the commission reports we'll probably talk about
some of what I was going to say so I'll probably not spend too much time on that but I did really like the improvements um to the reporting site um I really liked the bar um the visually was
showing how how many ballots were left to count in the different types um and of a question again I'll leave for the commissioner reports later um I like the jump to the different sections and things
like that that were great um and I generally found the the landing page to be really easy to navigate
um and I also let's see I'll go through a couple more of these um this was not in your report but I
also wanted to just mention and note in case other Commissioners hadn't seen this um on Twitter I I
really liked the um the mythbuster Monday content that you all did on Twitter to try to um you know
increase public understanding of things like the voting machines and the systems and software provisional ballot counting and things like that so um just wanted to acknowledge that but I also
noticed there was like little to no engagement with those posts and so I wondered um if you all
have thought about Partnerships with other City agencies to retweet those or um you know just
other ways to get that content out there because I think it's really great you know for dispelling some myths obviously because that's the hashtag you all use for that um you know or perhaps
even providing like a general content calendar to other agencies who might be willing to help share
that information for public education um and then maybe I'll do one more comment and then pause and
see if you have um anything to say um I wondered um on the section related to um you'll be shocked
that I'm I'm mentioning the high school School Ambassador um section I wonder if there's any
capacity to highlight the high school Ambassador plans and success on social um during the next
um High School voter education week um through those Ambassador programs maybe not tagging them
because I know there might be we don't NE maybe necessarily want to um tag high school students in that way um on social media um but some way to perhaps celebrate the Civic engagement and
Leadership of young folks who are trying to increase um election participation so and I'll pause I have a couple other things I will I have to ask and bring up but I'll let others have a
chance or see if you have anything uh we know we've not thought about partnering with other
agencies about the myth buster Monday content we can consider that and we can also consider uh uh
providing more prominence to the ambassador program as well on social media so thank
you I I can pause on do you want me to I mean I can keep going but I don't want to monopolize time
here um okay uh let's see I also um had noticed uh well actually I'll ask this question then I'll
do the things that are not directly related to your report but um are tangential um with the
Outreach events um you've talked about these in the past are they mostly initiated that were in
your report are they mostly initiated by Partners or by the department because you've talked talked in the past about how you all go wherever you are invited to come um and I noticed in this
that it looks like you generally spent more time in the districts that have General lower voter registration and turnout and I wondered if that was intentional on your part or if that was
ORS reaching out to you for those Outreach events that was intentional on our part okay awesome okay
great and then um the couple like tangential um I notice that the secretary of state has scheduled
the next California Student mock election for October 8 um in 2024 to encourage students to
become active voters once they're old enough and it looked like that was something that's coordinated um via schools as opposed to through the department and so I wondered now that you
have some more um Communications with sfusd um I wondered if there's a way the department
can help make them aware of this opportunity to get Young Folks engaged more in um in the
election and participating in that mock election it looked like you know and sharing at least by kind of the back to school time um the schools have to register by September 16th so it's not
that far before the actual mock election happens but I just wanted to lift that idea if you all
hadn't considered that before um and then the last question I had is um I was recently asked
why our ballot counting um slows down so much after the first you know several days after
the election happens um and I wondered if if you could provide an explanation just so folks
are aware I have my theories on why that is but it would be great to hear from you and and also
ifate that information with all of the other kind of you know you have the great page on
what the reporting schedule is like but maybe so people don't move into conspiracy theory land you know on why it slows down so much and so and that's it for me do you do you mind if
I jump in quickly because I think that thank you vice president perker I think we should also talk
about that in the context of results reporting okay um so we can talk about it now but we I
think let's also make sure we bookmark it for the that conversation as well if you don't mind yeah
sorry am I on pause on this play play so the we do provide explanation in the press releases that
we issue about the status of the accounting and as we go is once we get through the initial uh
batch is of vote by mail ballots we have to do more manual review of the ballots and so it's
just a slower process and then the second week is usually the provisional ballots which all require
manual review and processing and then a lot of times when people vote provisionally they go to the wrong polling place so we have to remake those ballots so we have to make physically re
re uh insert the intent of the voters in into the program using the correct ballot types and that's
done manually so just because we can't just run the ballot through a scanner and then upload and then report so that's that's the reason for the the the slower Pace after the the initial four
days um just quick follow-up question are we also um because you have such a a ramp up in
in Staffing also right around the election does that have anything to do with it also as we get further away or is it same number of Staff it's just literally just the manual um the manual
work that's involved with counting those final ballots do we have fewer staff who are involved depends on what time frame you you have in mind if it's if it's the the second week then no the
Staffing is not an issue okay and then really even the the first week is not an issue it's just the we don't report on Wednesdays because we stop processing ballots on Monday and that allows
us to send out lists of Voters who voted to the polling places because in California if someone
shows up at a polling place without their vote by mail ballot and and we can communicate to the
poll workers that the vote has not been cast those voters can vote a regular ballot not a provisional ballot and so that's why we stop processing on Monday but that means that there's no re no re
uh results to report on Wednesday so we have to pick it back up again on on Wednesday and that's why there's there's a lag there but once we pick up on Wednesday you'll see that the the
totals increase pretty much through Saturday and then it slows down again they were doing the man reviews thank you I was also just going to add as it pertains to the provisional ballots I mean
based on the what you put in your director's reports the director's report it's also pretty
remarkable how many like not La how many B provisional ballots were not challenged or
like made it through and were counted so that is a very long process that ultimately still yielded
those ballots to be counted um I just wanted to call that out um other folks yes commissioner Wong
thank you um I want to go back to commissioner's Parker first comment on the mythbuster Monday I
actually really enjoy the content as well it's really simple and and concise but I realize that
it is currently only in English on Twitter but I understand that because Twitter is primary for
English speakers so I wonder you know because I think those those message is so is simple but
then it's very concise to dismantle some of the myth going around you know elections and it's going to be a big issue moving forward and this is something I want to work with director Arn
with it just to turn those materials into multiple languages and potentially collaborating with local
cpos that are we at the department already have been working with and when you know you guys go
out and do those um orientation we can add those as part of the um the existing materials because
I feel like um community members will be really benefit from learning and kind of asking question
because sometimes I realize for L um folks that don't speak English they have a lot of questions
but they don't know how to ask those questions right so it's good to have those this is the myth this is the correct information and they they can then prompt them to ask questions when we
when um your your staff are doing Outreach so I would love to work with you more on that and see if there's a possibility to incorporate some of the things that is already there into Outreach
materials um for multiple languages just a comment yeah yeah most the information is
already on our materials and it is translated it's on our website as well uh it's just not it's not posted as a as a tweet or or whatever you call it now um so uh on Facebook but we do
provide this information already in in multiple languages um but certainly we can discuss this further commissioner D um yeah I think it's a great idea and actually I was thinking uh
you remember the the the quiz format that the uh the commission did on our in our off-site Retreat
um Jeopardy the Jeopardy yes pride and joy doing something like that uh you know at the beginning
of some these Community meetings with some of this material and just kind of getting a show
of hands as a way to kind of engage people it's like how many people think X are true or false and it's a really great way to kind of get people into to actually asking questions and
contributing and wow I'm really surprised that's false Etc uh so it's it's a a thought about taking
the same material you already have that's all translated and it's great for reference but changing it into something that the audience can engage with but great idea Love The Jeffy format
um yeah I think it would really uh Jazz up the uh Outreach sessions uh so I had a couple questions
I can't believe the the city is changing to a new content management platform in one year we
just got used to the last one although it had a lot of flaws and one of the flaws was that the
department had to continue to maintain a separate website because it was not compatible um with what
the department of Technology chose to expose with Drupal any idea if by moving to this new content
management platform you'll be able to avoid having to maintain a separate not for November
but also it's a content manager it's not really uh program for applications and tools and so it's
uh so I right for I'll just right now I can say for November no we we'll continue the the current
process as far as the the tools are concerned in our our content on sfgov okay just thinking that
maybe it might reduce the the maintenance of having to maintain two separate sites but we
can always hope for that um and my second question is uh wasn't in your director's report but I was
wondering speaking back to our offsite um where we had a discussion about um possibly extending the
contract for dominion and waiting on the RFP I'm just wondering where where you came out on that
what wasn't it about now that the RFP was going to have to be due yeah so there's no R RFP issued for
this uh and there there's been there's no update I can provide at this point on the contract okay
so there's so what was the timing then for the if you had to put RFP out when was it supposed to go there's no RFP uh so uh it's GNA it'll be a probably a s Source contract and I just I
just have to get to that point where uh we have a document we I haven't got there yet okay thank you
okay thank you commissioner d i I had some thoughts but I want to
make sure commissioner see did you have anything commissioner burn Halls thing well feel free to jump in at some point if you do um
so the statistic about the well thank you for putting this together also congratulations on
another successful election looking forward to reviewing it um in April there was one Stat or
statement that was that you included in the director's report that well there were a few things that jumped out at me but this one in particular according to the Secretary of State's
last Statewide report San Francisco is currently leading and voter turnout among 15 counties with more than 350,000 voters would you say that's still true because I know we put the you put
the director's report before the like is that still I think so yeah actual yeah it's amazing
that um you know we're going to be talking a little bit more about like the media narrative that came out of this election and I think that's something that perhaps gets lost that actually San
Francisco well California voter turnout may have been lower generally San Francisco actually had
the highest turnout among um among these large counties so it's pretty awesome and I definitely
think speaks to the the department um and I think we should continue to get that message out there
in some way as a as Commissioners um and just as a city um I will want to ask more about this
in the April meeting where we just do the review of the election specifically about the the 3200
vote by mail ballots not the provisional ones but just the the vote by mail ballots that were challenged um and the amount that were cured uh specifically how that compares like the I
can't recall how many which I mean obviously we more folks in San Francisco are voting by mail
than they did in the last actually probably not obvious because that was 20120 I take that back
I would like to just understand how that would compare as proportionally percentage wise to previous presidential years if that's a lot or a little um and then I also wanted to ask a little
bit more more about ballot curing and if you think that the Cure rate is um because it says
288 voters have cured the challenged ballots do you think that voters are not curing theirs
like do you think that the window is very short to cure um which I imagine is a law um or what
do you think the reason is for folks not curing their ballots um best guess also if you'd rather
wait till next month that's totally fine um the the themes for like the challenged ballots I'm
curious to understand some of the like which ones come up most often you know there are different
example I think you gave five examples as to or five reasons why about would get challenged
um I assume that an envelope not being signed is the most frequent um but I would just be curious
to know um without you having to go into like extensive detail just curious to understand how
people are how the how San Francisco voters are voting and their behaviors and how we
can support um I I was going to ask about the wagtail transition as well um and if this has
any like dramatic practical implications uh which may not be relevant at this point uh and then two
other things I just wanted to mention was 100 Outreach events between February 1st and the
29th is actually a lot um and so I just really want to make sure that we're celebrating that
as a commission because that's amazing that's a lot uh and the you know V voter registration is
doing really well so thank you it's really amazing and impressive uh the other comment was just about
the racial Equity report which is more a an item for the commission to take note of and um for me
to kind of circle back with the director that we will agenda this at the next commission meeting
in April so you'll have time to review and um we can put some thoughts together that we can just
discuss uh during that meeting and then finalize before we share with um the department for their
inclusion in May that's it for me I don't know if you want to address the ballot like the specific
questions around ballots at this meeting we can wait until April if you'd prefer and like I said no intense level of specificity required just curious to understand some of the themes
there uh so I don't know the reasons why people don't cure we we uh we contact them by uh USPS
mail everyone who has to cure ballot we email them if we have an email address we call them
if if we have a phone number um they have until two days before the election is certified to
cure the ballots oh they have within okay and so that's so in this case they had three weeks
essentially to cure the ballots uh different elections will have different response rates so
for November we'll have a higher response rate probably than we did for the primary election
and uh not signing the envelope is is one reason but also ballots arriving late is another reason
why we would challenge that's really the highest category is that the ballots came after for the the time frame where we could accept them and uh so we we do and we also do follow-up phone calls
and emails uh with folks if we have their conf their information uh before the deadline so uh
that's a it's a voter based decision I I think it's not something I could generalize uh really
why they respond or don't why why they respond is obvious but why they don't I don't have an answer
and then um as far as the wag tail I don't know the impact on the department um what was your
other points um I think you kind of spoke to that all of them okay and just to clarify I wasn't
actually I wanted make sure I I understood that I was not at all suggesting that the department did
anything wrong um I wanted make that I just more was curious about what voters are doing um I I'm
certain that you follow up that the department follows up with them I mean you in your report you said call text voter portal USPS so I I should have said that up front I that was not my intent
um and one thing I did want to ask as a point of clarification is about two days before the
election was certified I misunderstood that so what is the 24hour window that was included in
the director's report oh yeah it says with curable the department has contacted voters
I see so the department contacts voters within 24 hours of review of challenging the ballot I
see so it's not actually the voter has 24 hours it's the department has 24 hours okay thank you
that makes sense I think we actually have three days but we our policy is one is one day that's amazing wow great oh thank you uh commissioner D yeah just a quick followup um so you mentioned you
know um reason number five that the uh envelope was postmarked or returned late have you seen an
increase in ballots just trickling in late because of the longer because of the delays in the Postal
Service no uh the Postal Service in San Francisco we we collaborate them before every election then
through the process we have I have daily Communications with the post office and the
post office processes are are not an obstacle to Ballance getting back to us and so and I I think
even in relation in comparison to other counties I I I think our post office does a really really
good job and uh we do me B will be coming into to us for a year I mean that's that's that's
mean they just they'll trickle in for a long time for whatever reason but uh the majority
of the ballots will will be that can come to us within a week that are postmarking election day usually come the first two or three days after election day and then we'll get several thousand
uh the day after several thousand potentially on the second day after election day then it really
starts to slow down and then we'll we'll get you know may maybe a few hundred a day maybe maybe
different for the presidential but but but the but the the point is is that the post office is
really capturing these ballots that are mailed in San Francisco and G those ballots to us so we can count them and then we also monitor the postmarks on the ballots through the election
cycle and so we report back on a daily basis the number of ballots through the through the early
voting period and then election day and post election day number of ballots that are are
not postmarked so the the post office is getting daily feed back from us on whether its processes
are are are stamping those those ballots or not uh so by the time whatever issues a post office
has by the time we get to election day uh all of the ballots are are postmarked there might
be one or two and then that aren't postmarked by the machines and then those are handstamped
by the postal uh Representatives uh so by so the US getting ballot from the post office there are
no delays they're postmarked and uh 99% of them are are getting processed and counted
so so um so if it's not postmarked it's just it didn't get through fed through the machine
properly or something like that do you are are you are we required to make sure that the vote
by mail ballots have a postmark even if we get it if even if the department receives it within
the within the time period right so we we need to look at the for the postmarks after election
day but not prior to election day okay and then if the ballots aren't postmarked uh onor before
election day following election day then we can take the signature date on the envelope that the
voter places on the envelope and so if it's not postmarked it's not a potentially fatal error on
the uh fatal situation for that ballot if the voter has signed the ballot and dated it on or
before election day we can still count that ballot and then you said that you can receive them up
to a year after no they'll Tri go in yeah and um would those be envelopes get that got lost in the
mail or they just got sent in really really late or what I couldn't tell you it's just all again
I don't have specific knowledge on these ballots that come back um but yeah I mean it's not like
there in the hundreds there'll be a stray ballot here and there that'll come in wow okay thank
you anyone else
no okay let's uh let's move to public
comment oops there are no public
commenters okay great thank you that closes agenda item number four we'll now move to agenda item
number five Commissioners reports discussion and possible action and Commissioners reports for topics not covered by another item on this agenda meetings with public officials oversight
observation activities longrange planning for commission activities areas of study proposed legislation which affects elections and others uh before we dive into the like bigger discussion um
there are a couple other areas that I like we should discuss or uh speak to I have a couple
of updates and then I also wanted to ask folks um if they wanted to speak to or have a discussion
about the public commenter who came uh for general public comment um so would folks prefer we start
with the Earth quicker updates and then dive into the discussion okay um there was one there were
a couple things I just longer things one specifically to the director but also to
everyone I will share this uh with you but last Mar last month the Department of Education like
the federal government uh is announced that they will uh permit federal work study funds to be used
for Departments of Elections to hire College St students to work in elections offices so basically
what this means is the federal government would be paying for college students to be able to work in
elections offices that would include anything from getting out the vote activities voter assistance
at polling places through voter hotline serving as a poll worker supporting voter registration um
and it allows the department to all departments to recruit college students to do this but also
doesn't have to front the bill to pay for those folks the federal government would pay for it so
I just wanted to make sure that the department was aware of this if it if it's a interest um as
a cost saving as well um obviously not an enormous cost-saving but um it made me uh think about some
of the work that I know vice president Parker has been timeout with high school students I think a good way to engage um young folk Folks at the college level as well so I just wanted
to make everyone aware and I'll share around the announcement and toolkit for folks's reference the toolkit from the um the department of Ed for everyone's interest um I also wanted to chat
or just remind everyone about the form 700 and sunshine training not for uh new Commissioners
but just for current uh not new Commissioners um longstanding Commissioners please make sure you
get those in by April 2nd um it's the form 700 and the Sunshine training declaration training
is earlier I think it's do really I add a same time I think sure yeah you got the weekend well
you're ahead of the game well we will confirm um but I will take a look when we have a second
and make sure it's April 2nd um I also want us to talk about move the June meeting it is on a
national holiday so um I think we might want to move it to the following week but we should talk
through that um and then one other item that I think is worth talking about is around absences
and providing notice um for meetings obviously we had to move this meeting and so uh knowing
that we are a commissioner down or we do have one vacancy our need to get to Quorum is a little bit
quicker um I mean our potential to not have Quorum rather is a little quicker so I'd like
to just kind of talk through that um and remind folks and also share that you know we do provide
the city with notice of our meetings um and in our bylaws we require that everyone attend every
meeting if they can uh that they should plan as far ahead um and one thing that I don't know if
folks are aware of but wanted to make sure they are is that uh secretary Davis provides
attendance updates to the city as a part of our bylaws um and responsible for providing also our
appointing authorities with attendance reports each year um it doesn't it doesn't speak to what
is in excused versus excused everything for the most part has just been considered excused but I
do think when like we should all be striving to come to every single meeting but I want to talk
as a body about what notice should or should like what's fair for notice outside of the bounds of illness you know emergencies those things are not what I'm speaking about but I
think we should talk about it because it it is something we commit to the city to the public
to the director to the DCA to the secretary and I I think it's just fair for us to make it come
to an agreement about that so um those are just some small updates and before we dive into uh the
other piece my my proposal for uh absences is that we inform that folks who are not able to
join would try to get in notice within the month so a month before the meeting let us know um let
Marissa excuse me secretary Davis and myself no but I think after one week out if it's something
unrelated to illness or emergency that might be to me grounds for an unexcused absence I'm
completely flexible though and would like to collaborate with folks now that we've talked through what the bylaws say and also kind of theid consider other considerations um
so just a recap talked about the department of Ed talked about the uh June meeting the form
700 Sunshine training and uh the policy around absences and I will open it up for discussion
about those or if other people have updates other than uh the other item that we plan to discuss yes commissioner D yeah I think it's um for a regular meetings I think
it's completely reasonable for every I mean everyone knows the schedule for a year in advance so there's really kind of no excuse if you have a conflict you should be able to
tell the rest of the commission by the meeting before if you're not going to make it um so I
don't think that's unreasonable at all if it's a special meeting and it's not on our regular
schedule I think there should be a little more latitude but yeah I mean I think all of us are
aware that we're in inconveniencing you know five or six other Commissioners and staff and
people who might have wanted this room having had to book city hall rooms before um if we're
going to have the cancel it's best not to do the last minute and just to let everyone know I've already informed um President and Vice President Stone and vice president Parker be
able to make a meeting in the latter half of June so apologies I forgot you said the latter
half of June I thought I was just thinking about that date I wasn't thinking about that
week one just thank you commissioner d one piece that I wanted to just clarify is you
don't have to share it in the public forum that you won't be there um really you're only just
the ask is or at least the the bylaw State just let the secretary and me know so that
we can make sure we're managing attendance um so you know sometimes we don't want to
always tell the world where we're going to be all the time um and that's that's quite all right um from my point of view but uh if folks disagree obviously open to hearing
that and yes this was specific to regular meetings not special meetings of
course
vice president Parker um yeah I just want to agree I think it's um great to give notice
and that a month seems also reasonable I think once in a while there is something that comes up you know with your work that you may not have known a month out but a
week um you know is certainly at work you know like these things can be managed even
if you have a heavy work week you work around it because that's what we do and that's what we've committed to um so but I think that the ideal of being at least a month out is is very
reasonable missioner Wong yeah I agree I think a month of noctus uh sounds reasonable of course
there should be some flexibility surrounding emergency um and si le and I personally have
to go home every year at the end of the year and you know this is something that we can work it through and I will give you of course like Ms and the F of like this
is you know family trip I have to do um but is it's more or less regular when I will go
back home and then I think think this is something that we can work it through um but I think a week out would be a little bit difficult for everyone um to reor rearrange
our schedule so I think um a month in advance but also um depending on everyone's you know
conditions and the reasons and we can be understandable and flexible about that too
yeah thank you just definitely don't want to be rigid but anyone else commissioner
Wy commissioner brol okay else all right seems like we have General consensus um as it pertains
to the June meeting uh we could we could punt this conversation to the agenda item on future
meetings um so that we can get to the next topic and then also let the director go um unless folks
want to have strong feelings about that now June okay let's get into it so um two memos
on the topic I'm going to just like introduce my piece and then I I know commissioner D has
uh has raised some specific areas of feedback on that's a little separate um so I'll just introduce
mine which is uh I've rais the issue about kind of the media putting a little bit be the cart
before the horse uh sometimes or jumping to make determinations about races uh way pretty much a
little prematurely uh we've been talking about this since 2022 specifically around the recall
elections and the midterms um and as a commission we've asked the department and the director to
update the website and results reporting page to provide greater Clarity and transparency um to
which the department has accommodated I I think to Echo what vice president Parker said a little
bit earlier that the website and the results reporting page looks much clearer and stronger
and I know commissioner D is going to share more specific feedback um she has about the the website I wanted to just specifically address the challenge around public information in the media
um because I think similarly to the conversation about mythbusting is that we want people to trust
the process and the results and uh as I kind of outlined in the memo there are some gaps that I
think there could be a little bit of Education done uh specifically we know that vote by mail
is increasingly how people are voting upwards of 90% um what they don't know when they are voting
by mail is that there are more steps for the Department with vote by mail ballots so thing
that processing takes longer as the Director kind of talked through earlier almost as if the steps
some of the steps that the voter was you know having to take by going to a specific location
to cast a ballot previously some of those steps though not exactly are steep are passed on to the
department um and so it takes longer to count and I think as the city and as the state have moved
toward a lot more use of vote by mail it's also important that we move the media to understand
this as well and I think it will Al alleviate some of the pressure on the department as well if we
can help reframe some of folks's expectations so one thing that was really effective in 2020 if
if you all remember the the national media did a pretty effective job and I know through the work of a lot of pro-democracy organizations as well election night was no longer a night it was very
much positioned as election week um and I think that we can do if we start talking about this
now some prep work on this ahead of November we talked in the last meeting about how our ballots
are going to be even longer in November than they are were for the primary election and so
uh if that's the case again the pro the process of managing all those vote by mail ballots will
continue to be extended uh and so it's really be on us to make sure that um people the media is at
least aware I think the dep Department's done a really great job updating the website their
process is very very clear but unfortunately as I showed in my in some of the screenshots people
in the media did not necessarily pick up on some of these things for example Outlets were so going
so far as to calling actual races on Election night when less than half of the total ballots
cast had been counted um there were conf there was confusion from voters that I saw on Twitter
or whatever we're calling it now X um but also from candidates who reached out and said I don't
really understand can you explain this to me um and I think uh you know we saw this as well just
from the element of all these hot takes of what our city has become in like less than you know well well well well before the department had uh called any of the races and certainly well
before the election was certified so I did ask the director I gave the director a heads up that this
is something that I thought would be important for us to talk about uh and if he could share a little
bit of insight into how the media is prepared uh how the department engages with the media on this
issue but I think also the commission I'd love to see us do some brainstorming about how we can work
with folks the media and perhaps our appointing authorities other avenues to ensure they really
understand the ballot counting process and are AC accurately communicating that process to voters
and the general public um one other example is that I think was not picked up on which I should
have mentioned earlier is you know the department doesn't release election results doesn't release more results the day after the election but some as you see saw in some of the screenshots that's
not how the media was talking about it they didn't understand this so you know a couple ideas I was having just putting thoughts together would love to have more discussion about this is could we
have some round taes and invite local press to participate this summer um can we invite
candidates and electives to participate in that are there ways in which we as a commission can support this ask while not putting more labor on the department who already are like doing
quite a a bit to prepare for November so um that is that is the that is my concern about results
reporting over to commissioner D to talk through her feedback as
well director erns do you want to provide a little bit of insight on how on the relationship between
the department and the Press um obviously you provide press releases ahead of the election
and extremely thorough press releases and very clear press releases multiple times throughout
the counting process but could you just talk to share a little bit about what that looks like ahead of the election um in general well the beyond the press releases yes so during the
cycle I speak to probably most of the media of in San Francisco and either email phone or they
stop by and speak to them at the office and so I don't I don't speak to everyone of course but I I
speak to the the media Personnel who you would be accustomed to to reading and seeing and uh
probably looking at their social media accounts and so uh and if there's questions about the
results or the election they're contacting me directly they're not contacting the the department generally they're contacting me and so I I having those conversations if someone
is new to San Francisco potentially they don't understand the process or they didn't contact me or they didn't speak to someone else in their organization um but for the most part uh
the media contacts directly and I speak to them every cycle and I will even more so going into
November have more conversations with the media Personnel so any sort of messaging that needs to
get out about results we can certainly do that as we go through the the process thank you for
talking through that and I think one one point of clarification that I have on my mind is less
it's more proactive in terms of just making sure they understand that the landscape has shifted
from previous presidential elections in terms of how people vote and the impact that has on
the department um and the process to make sure that the longer it takes to count doesn't mean
that the results are any less accurate um which is a problem I know facing elections offices all
over the country so uh this wouldn't be so much as like in the days leading up to or in the midst of
the election it would be really really just an educational process for the the media um which
might be completely unusual um but it was just an idea um that I'd love to hear if you have a
perspective on that i' welcome that director Arn otherwise also Commissioners as well yeah we've already included that into our Outreach presentations uh so we've already started
messaging around the fact that the processing of ballots will require more time in November
than it did for March in comparison and we'll build that out we've already been thinking
about building that out uh more uh not just in our presentations but also within City Hall uh
to the to the media and we've done that we've done this before this is not the first time that we've we've made these efforts to explain the process and and uh and the time involved in
process going into an cycle
so they're doing like do you mind just explaining what that is without me jumping to our standard
Outreach presentations so what what are they like are they what are standard Outreach like are you
is the department proactively sending these to news outlets or is this folks who are at are
they inbound requests from media what are what is the form with which Outreach present ations are
being delivered listen to to like to the to the public so if we go to an organization if we do a
tabling if we give a presentation got it yeah at the events at Outreach events right right yeah we
haven't we we just finished March so we haven't really started the the campaigning for November
yet so but but we'll pick that up here rather quickly uh yeah and we'll be we'll be issuing
information to the media and City Hall um and and not just once but continually as we go through we
come into the cycle as we go through the cycle so that's awesome that you're already including the
present the this as a part of the presentation and Outreach events um which seems should have
been obvious to me but um that so because it means when you're interacting with voters you're
actively and directly explaining it to them um I think it's great that you're also going to
incorporate the timeline for ballot processing like how that's continuing to reinforce the
length of time that takes um and yeah if there's anything we can do to help with our appointing
authorities or others to get that message even broader and wider uh so that I mean I'm sure
this is not the first election I know this is not the first election where the you know the media
might
and
How would
useful or not because you're basically repeating all that information to everyone anyway we have we didn't think about doing this again um
certainly I'm hearing that this or I'm reading that the sound is a little wonky I'm wondering
if it's because we don't have those things on the microphones do you know where those might be oh the wind the wind things a baffle or something we're going to just take a quick
second to I think it's it could be the wifi commissioner burnol is having trouble hearing
and seeing us and I was having trouble with the Wi-Fi not much we can do about
that yeah they normally do do you know what happened to
them on just bear with
me so apparently the video is bad too yeah it's a city hall system issue then
probably okay like like we can call okay it's no it's well because the public we
also need to make sure it's no it's our Wi-Fi that's causing the issue not hers
right but I was wondering if at least like she could call in in here I know burnol can you hear us now will you just wave if you can
okay okay looks like we're okay for right now um apologies for that brief
Interruption vice president Parker did you have
other comments that you wanted to make I feel like I cut you off okay anyone else have comments or thoughts or ideas that they want to POS about this
topic commissioner D I'll pass it to you to walk through yours and then we can also you know leave
the floor open after thank you president Stone um so uh like vice president Parker I love
the improvements made to the uh elections result reporting page uh just had a couple of additional
suggestions as I was checking it every day myself uh and uh hopefully you had time to look at my
memo now I'd love to hear your reactions to some of these suggestions and I did look at some other
counties and I provided in the memo an example from LA County which also has these bars uh and
part of it is just to acknowledge that people absorb information in different ways and visual
there are a lot of people who can see things a picture's worth a thousand words right and it's a lot easier to see a proportion visually uh and so uh many of my comments here are just
about improving the context so that people can kind of at a glance really see what's going on
um I was happy to see that unlike in the past uh people did not misreport on the U voter turnout um
but it still took a couple of different places you had to kind of look to figure out what the turnout was so I really liked how La did it that you you can just see turnout right away
that's like really easy to figure out um I didn't think their ballot party distribution was a very
useful chart that was like very hard to read and understand but the basic bar charts I think it's
really helpful you know we have people who are color blind that may not be able to distinguish color so having an additional you know physical visual thing to see I think is is also helpful
that La does which is nice uh in my example here I just use a simple the same dut charts that the
department uses in its report because then you can see all of it in context and actually
provide the same information the department already provides but in the context of turnout
and uh as I'm suggesting given our um commission priority about voter registration also pointing
out how many people you know didn't register right so we can look at it from the entire electorate so
uh yeah I'd love to hear your reactions thoughts the feasibility these are just some suggestions
I'm sure if you share it with your staff they might have even better ideas but these are just
a c yeah I I haven't studied this yet so I don't have any specific responses uh we haven't really
we we're just now starting our conversations around November so we haven't picked up really
what changes potentially we would be making for the website for November uh but certainly we we
appreciate the input we can we can review it uh I mean many of the suggestions that from from
the previous round we incorporated those in our website and we we increased those in that input
when we did the redesign when we went to uh the the new Drupal SF go site uh so certainly we'll
use this input and our conversations I don't I don't know what we'll incorporate at this point
and I I really don't have specific uh responses to the to the information you provided so I I can
do so in in April so great and I'd love if any fellow Commissioners have thoughts or different
ideas a forum for everyone to share vice president
Parker um well first just to um both of you I really appreciate you taking the time to
put all of these together and um you know you president stone with all of the screenshots you know from the different things that you're observing I observed some of the similar things
and then also all of the Gathering that you did um commissioner D of other things I completely
agree with the comments on visual aids it's it's such a um I think many people process information
that way um a little more quickly you know and jump to fewer conclusions if we have of course
done the charts right you know because then they might jump to the wrong conclusions if we don't do it that way um and I particularly like the idea of the voter turnout bar and so you know
and I already commented I really liked the bar that we had already on the site and so I think adding like a voter turnout bar would be really useful and I was glad to see the example from LA
and agree with your other comments about that um the other thing that I agreed with from your um
your report there was um the idea of historical turnout for similar elections as opposed to
every election CU it is really different and so you know again that like aiding the media
and the public in drawing reasonable conclusions right because if you're comparing a a midterm um
primary against a you know a presidential it's just yeah it's just um so helping people along
um I think in interpreting with reasonable conclusions um is useful so I I like that
suggestion as well um there was one note on um the turnout circle graph that you had where I
had to do a bit of a double check cuz my brain was taking a minute with some of the language and I know this was just sample this is not like it must be this way but the um was you
know saying perhaps instead of unregistered citizens is like eligible but unregistered
because there was something about it that I just I had to read it a few times to think oh okay I know what she means um and so um but I think I also think that people want to know actual or
perhaps projected voter turnout once the ballot numbers the number of ballots are in um I also
think that they'd like to see the percent of that that's counted like a thermometer you know like so we have a projected total that's the top of the thermometer then how many have
we actually counted as we get along that bar um the other thing I actually really appreciated from this was all of the visual accessibility um notes you know I hadn't personally thought
about those things I have in other ways when we've talked about our website in general but um the comments on the visual contrast or the dark bars or the bolded I I really appreciated
those um so so generally I appreciate um you know the suggestions that both of you um are bringing
here commissioner loli I just I don't want to repeat um what commissioner Parker said you said a lot of
things that I was um um thinking about I really appreciate both of you doing this
this is really um great to look at and I would just like to second that the voter
turnout bar is really an excellent idea um and the different colors and it's just easy
to to see I would like to make one comment um about unregistered citizens um I think to me
the I would ree unregistered eligible voters or unregistered voters but you know given the
fact that in our jurisdiction non-citizens in certain circumstances can vote having the
citizen there to me contradicts th those terms um but thank you very much this is extremely
helpful thank you commissioner aosi
coup comment
um
so
on turnout figures and in fact there was um and that isn't to knock on you but to knock on those who misreported that um and so I do
think
there I just wanted to
add that that was
also extremely of how much especially if we're going to focus on education about
vote by mail people understanding how much vote by mail is left you know I think just people understanding how people voted and how
many
average turnout for the past three years instead of many ballots I'm not sure bless you bless you
um no no um I I actually thought that was commissioner Wong and you guys were just
you know having a duet of sneezes um so you were sneezing and then no um anyways uh I oh
yes the average turnout for the past three years instead of many ballots because I do think that if we start putting those numbers in Pro actively in the reports page it might
uh how did I write this my notes about this that it could have the unintended consequence of giving the public a sense of something in the past that doesn't necessarily inform the
present um and that's that's the only piece that I didn't think I thought would could potentially
be misleading not necessarily intentionally but that people might run with another predetermined
idea or assumption um and my last comment was just the notion that there was a lot of feedback
in here and you know that there could be room perhaps for the Department to not necessarily
do everything um but uh but I think there are some really great suggestions so thank you um
but knowing we have a lot of time I I just want to call that out um sounds like my mic
is bad well hopefully hopefully we C captured it on the recording uh vice president Parker
um thank you just just to resurface the thing I brought up earlier um in director 's report um
around maybe there is some room within the reporting to talk about why it takes so long
when you get past those first few days you know and that and maybe that's in the press releases
um you know once we get past the first few days is that you might notice that it takes longer here's why you know just a couple of sentences um or or something you know just just wanted
to slot it back in here since this is the topic now so it didn't get lost in even in my notes um
with this part thank you vice president Parker commissioner D yeah um a couple of thoughts uh
so the reason I I indicated average turnout for the past three whatever type of election it is
um is that I thought going back further might you know there might be different it might be too far
in the past that it might not be relevant like for example director ARS included in his report that the average turnout since 1972 was about 50% in this type of election um maybe that's
held pretty steady I don't know that's something I'd love the department to to assess like what is
the reasonable number to go back that the trends have been pretty stable um because you know I I
think we're painfully aware that um that the pandemic really affected things and so maybe there's a blip there that you know should be averaged out so that was that was why I kind
of suggested three years but I would leave that to the discretion of the department um just like
director AR has provided that information to us I think that it's really helpful for the public to absorb uh what what is normal right I mean as essentially we're trying to put it in context for
them um and so even though for example president Stone mentioned that we were among the highest
among all large counties for turnout this time for us apparently it's a little bit slightly
below what is normal because Normal was 50% right so we're just a little shy of what's normal even
though compared to others our turnout maybe higher in general so so I think that context is is very
helpful because we really want to compare us to ourselves I think um and then the other thought
was um back to vice president Parker's comment about understanding you know how many ballots
have been counted and what the pace is so one suggestion I had was to include a stat that
said n% of balance were counted by election night and I calculated that was 43% of ballots had been
counted by election night and I don't know how if that's pretty stable over time that it's about 43%
or it's about half whatever the number is um but I think that's really helpful for people to know
wow there are a lot of outstanding ballots right and you could actually do a a little graph that
shows you know n% over say for the seven days right what what the percentage typically looks
like before you hit 100% And that I think would be a great way for people to compare like track
track progress against what the normal count is so I just wanted to jump in on that I a couple
things um I will say though I I I would um I don't know that I would agree with the idea of
of um comparing the counting process to previous years specifically because it has changed so much
right like in the presidential the 2020 is really the first election where everyone was receiving a
bot in the mail and so I think as you know kind of it's kind of the exact thing that I'm getting
at here that like things have actually changed because more and more folks are voting by mail
um I'm going to talk into this a little louder just to make sure the sound is picking up sorry
um more and more people are voting by mail and that's kind of the point is that if we start comparing ourselves in terms of the speed of counting I think actually that could open up
more questions of if the process is problematic so I I would actually I would push back a little
bit on that one um and then the comparing us to ourselves is interesting my first instinct is
to say that's a you know yeah I would agree but I also it's so challenging with this media narrative
because there was so much focus on the low turnout the low turnout the low turnout but relatively
speaking actually it wasn't low turnout um it may have been low turnout in terms of you know
previous Cycles but compared with the rest of this to compared with voter behavior in other counties
with the rest of the electorate of California um so I guess it's all a matter of perspective but
I I'm coming from the lens of what is the public understanding um and what is the media circulating
to the public about the process and voter turnout so those are just two points of clarification two
points of response and then I want I wanted to just clarify about the past three years um
uh that I was referring very specifically to page the page that um has turned out among all eligible
citizens uh that the second paragraph underneath it another helpful fact to include is instead of
just saying many ballots would still need to be counted might be an average of conducting the past three years so it wasn't necessarily responding to the to the point about 3 years but more just
saying I don't think we should mention previous like of all I don't think we should even mention
past years um I think we should stick with with many with many ballots um so just that was a point
of clarification it wasn't about the previous paragraph Oh I thought someone had their hand
up did you have anything else um I uh I actually I was going to say that the first thing that you said president Stone was
I also wanted to just uplift is that how we are voting has changed so significantly that there is
and it's actually something that I even you know observed as I was reading the media coverage of this election is that there were there were a lot of um members of the media who were trying
to draw conclusions that are impossible to draw um because the way that we vote has shifted so
dramatically and even what happened in you know 2020 or 2022 it it is still shifted I'll give
myself as an example um I've always been an in a day of voter I like going to the polling place I
really like it it feels like a Civic act it is uh I like getting my sticker there and when I did in
2020 had to vote by mail and then um and then I did it one more time in 2022 and um and I was done
with that like it just it made it feel just not the event that I want it to feel like and so I'm
back to in person and I'm not going to do vote by mail unless I happen to be out of town on Election Day and so I think that we can't I want the media to not draw um unreasonable conclusions on Trends
um and I also anyway so I just wanted to um just agree with what you you were saying there thank
you does anyone have any thoughts about and we can continue to talk about this but thoughts
about what we could do to support the department in engaging with communities engaging with the
media to make sure they understand the process is one thing that I think is so remarkable about the
results reporting page that the department provides is the reporting schedule page is
extremely clear I mean is extremely clear I mean even the line about about uh about when about the
canvas period reporting um that you know when when people can expect the next update what
what the process looks like so how can we make how can we bring more media to understand that
perhaps the messages things have changed let's make sure that the story like that things reflect
this it's just because we're not you know at the height of a pandemic in 2020 doesn't mean that that same concept of election week has gone away we should continue to it was a good practice and
we should continue to push for that so if folks have ideas I would I would welcome that um and
like I said it doesn't have to be today we can keep talking about it um I think I had brought
up our appointing authorities but I think that might be a good uh option as well yes commissioner
ly would it be appropriate for the commission and members of this commission to be a part of
any educating the public about the disinformation that comes out um and letting them know what the
process is with that help to to take some of the burden off of the department which has which is
already doing this work which is already informing the public educating the public could we be an
additional piece to that in some form of of really as you were saying uh president Stone the voting
habits have changed um I think on this commission we vote I mean I've been voting by mail for yeah a
long time um so is that something that could be helpful if we were to take part in that process
of educating and informing the public of what the process is and why um the outcomes are as they are
and why there's still um time before we have the official results would that be appropriate or is
that not something that's in our I'm this is a question I know we're going to be talking about
this more but that's the idea that came to mind for me thanks commissioner VY I I mean I I think
it's appropriate um I mean I definitely think you've raised some good questions of whether
the department would want us to do that um and I won't I won't put director AR on the spot asking
him that right now um in a public forum but I I mean those are two those are two questions
that are raised but I think we could all have that conversation of how we could jump in I definitely definitely um thank you commissioner D yeah I was going to say it's not just election
week it's election month yeah sure right and um I wonder if yeah but we have early voting right so
um so um I don't remember if you did this director AR did you do any kind of a press conference at
the beginning of election month no so that would be an idea especially before November it's a big
election we're gonna have a probably an eight card ballot right so there are like a bunch of big things that I think are announcement worthy and invite the press and let's indoctrinate them
all then at the start of ction month right pick off key things um and then to accompany it um I
think it would be great to put together an FAQ um and put it on the website so during election month
you know you can kind of highlight it kind of goes in line with the MythBusters theme right it's like
kind of highlight a new question and you know just like the question that vice president Parker asked
you know why does it slow down so things and I'm sure that this commission would be happy to kind of brainstorm some questions and plus uh you guys are answering the phones all the time right so
you know what kinds of questions you're getting from the public so just distilling that down into
really clear FAQ so that members of the public can just look it up themselves I think that would be great thanks commissioner D um I have a thought on that but I'll go to commissioner W first and
then I'll jump in thank you president Stow um I think there are two pieces one is uh media
engagement and another one is public education um and for media engagement you know I second
the idea of Hosting um a press conference this is something that we can discuss with director Arns
moving forward and one comment is um you know I not this among Chinese immigrants communities
for example they've heavily rely on CH chines ethnic media to look at all this results which
is similar to what um president Stone's report showcased lots of disinformation lots of jumping
to conclusion maybe even to a larger extent in Chinese Ethnic media from my observation um so
I think when we talk about media engagement we have to be mindful of the language aspect also and how to engage with e media meaning not englishspeaking ones because you know I can only
speak for Chinese IMM communities as a Chinese immigrant myself that this information is even
more even worse in in a way um among uh Chinese social media like we chat so I am still working
on some solution I don't have one so not to like I understand why things has been like this because
it's really hard right looking at this U media landscape right now so this is something we we
should keep brainstorming and and talk about and with the public education piece that you
know brought up um I think one suggestions once again just bring storming is you know
as Commissioners we can also hold um special hearing engaging with know cbos that do voter
Outreach directly and I think these stuff that we just talked about um I'm not sure if like local
cpos actually is aware of all those information because it's number one it's pretty complicated
in terms of number and from my understanding cpos do photo Outreach and also depending on
all these like numbers but it's really hard for front ey workers um to determine like which data
to look at and how to then reach out to their own communities to present right so I think you know
to your point I think doing public education in a way of like hey this is what we know right about
this data and information about a folder turnout that is actually not that bad you know compared to
what the media has been reporting these things are not circulated I think among grass organizations
and then if we were to do something engaging with cbos I think hosting um a special hearing I don't
know in what form since I'm pretty new here I'm just throwing my idea of engaging with them maybe hear them out like what is the difficulties of engaging with communities what is the things
that you're not sure about that maybe perhaps we can hopefully answer the questions or relate
a message to the department right because department has a lot going on already it's really hard right to get another another task and I think if we can help director ARS for a
little bit of like collecting those feedback and relay those message to the department so when they're doing Outreach you know themselves um they can improve on some of the contents or just
simply FAQ right that would be really helpful in multiple languages too um to solve off some of the
issues with media reporting um so yeah that's just like my two cents thank you commissioner
Wong um so I'll just jump in on the comment I was going to make and then I had one other comment I
wanted to or one other couple points I want to make in response to commissioner Wong um which
actually I think can kind of go hand inand uh so I I think the FAQ would probably be a good
idea I will say I part of I see the challenge is actually less about the CL Clarity of information
but more about the fact that the media isn't using the information that's already there like I think
the department has a lot on its website um not that I think that an FAQ would be bad I think but
I think what ends up happening is the department is doing so much to make it clear but yet it's not
getting taken up by the right people to be able to distribute that properly because when people go to
look up election results they're not actually their first stop isn't always necessarily the department the first stop might be the chronicle or some of these other outlets um Chinese um
media Outlets as well so uh I think personally I actually think it's less of a department issue
than it is the media issue um and then the second piece second thing I wanted and like I said that's
not to say that neq wouldn't be helpful that's just to say I think there's so much there that
they're already not using um uh that could be better better used the other thing was about uh
public education um and uh uh yeah about public education because I think actually commissioner
Wong to speak to some of what you mention I actually think that's like a much bigger conversation um that isn't that is relevant uh but maybe a little bit bigger than this specific
issue that doesn't mean we couldn't talk about it as a body but I think uh as it pertains to
making sure the public trusts the results of the election and Trust the Integrity of the process
I personally think um that would be a different a different process and I do know that the dep
Department actually does does a fair amount with like the grants that they offer uh with nonprofit
um I don't know if it's the specific organizations that are on your mind but I do know there is some
work and also the office of Civic engagement does a lot um so I think that's something the public
educa education piece is something and getting feedback is something we should definitely keep talking about even if not necessarily pertaining to this issue I do have some reservations about
special hearings because I think that can draw a lot of attention to us um when ultimately I think
we want to I personally believe that we should stay in the background um and uh be able and try
to help in the way that we can by not centering or drawing too much public scrutiny or media
attention to the Department of Elections um so I'm a less excited about the idea of that uh but
whether it's a press conference or a Roundtable or uh I think that we're all seemingly on the
same page that getting the media and in addition to you know only English language speaking media
but also the Chinese press in the city to engage more proactively with the Department to make sure
it's empowered to understand why it's election month and not election week or night um I think
we're all kind of on the same same page so I'm I'm I appreciate everyone's input commissioner
VY excuse me I just had um one last comment I I think it's in I agree with you about staying
in the background and not and that's why I mentioned is it appropriate for us to be
doing this and from my perspective this would be to inform the public as a countermeasure to
the media and prior to the election but I think at the same time we we should concern ourselves
a little less about the media because we don't have control there and so we understand what the
narrative is going to be we know that this is an upcoming election that might be contentious for many reasons and so for me the goal is not to circumvent what the media is doing Bic they're
going to do what they do but to be proactive in educating the public about the fact that our
department and our department head is doing everything to make sure and has always done
everything to make sure that these elections are trustworthy so that's more of where I was coming
from and if we can be a support to the department in informing the public that that is the case and
here are the examples of how that is the case is more of what I was speaking for so I just wanted
to clarify that thank you commissioner ly vice president Parker um thank you yeah I like the
idea of us looking for opportunities like that and I'm recalling something else that um director AR
said a little earlier which is that um in the Outreach presentations they've already from
my right I think director Arn you all also have already put a lot of this kind of information in those presentations and so right some detail so so some you know so that's a good is just just wanted
to remind ourselves that he did say that there is at least some there and you know and perhaps there will be adjustments as I'm sure there are every year to what those presentations look like
so that's one place where any organization that the department is already doing Outreach that
they are hearing that but yeah I mean I support any way we can continue doing that thank you
any other comments okay well I appreciate the
discussion