Elections Commission Regular Meeting

through there we go commissioner burnol can you hear us okay we're going to have to run

through that again unfortunately um I can run through I'll run through it we'll run through it very

quickly apologies for the technical difficulty we are now ready to begin the meeting welcome everyone um I have

passed these on to president Stone already I just wanted to call out um a

couple of more substantives notes um and that is under the

commissioner's report I just uh clarifi the requirement of why

we are meeting on Valentine's Day of that 15-day difference uh with vek

meeting and then I added a line um about

um uh vice president jonic had indicated he was going to complete the um annual

report with revisions before uh leaving the commission and then also I had given

a brief update on the redistricting initiative report which uh at the time was almost complete we were just

incorporating the legal review from DCA Flores um those

are uh the main subst of comments uh I did think it was a good idea I had a

couple of items under um item eight agenda items for future meetings I think

it's good when we actually have those discussions to note in our minutes just for our own accountability and we had

talked about uh discussing the implementation of um ballot labels uh AB

1416 at a future meeting uh since the Board of Supervisors waiver had is only

for one year and also about sending a letter to appointing authorities since uh the last

meeting was when commissioner Hayden Crowley had uh resigned and uh

we were hopeful that we were going to get a new commissioner which we we have uh commissioner Wong from the Board of

Supervisors thank you commissioner D any other feedback on the meeting

minutes and if you wouldn't mind one your yes thank

you okay uh do I have General consensus that

we can accept commissioner D's uh feedback to the minutes it's wonderful

uh we will move forward with uh the proposed changes and move to public

comment excuse me public comment on agenda item number three approval of previous meeting minutes specifically uh

pertaining to the Wednesday January 17th 2024 regular meeting of the elections

Commission no public

commenters thank you secretary Davis um that will close out agenda item

number three we'll now move to agenda item number four the director's report discussion possible action regarding the

director's report for February 14 2024 that I will hand it to director arms thank you president Stone I can take

questions on the um report but a few items so right now the turnout for this election we've received 15,000 vote by

mail ballots and which means that the turnout is is light uh when you're in

relation to we have 500,000 registered or so voters in San Francisco but at the

same time this turnout is tracking the nove the March 2020 uh turnout and the

the overall turnout for that election was around 63% so even though it's light

now this is the trend is is matching what we see in primaries generally where

the activity happens more towards election day than in the beginning of the cycle so things will be picking up

in the in the weeks to come then on the director's report I think uh one topic to bring up would be the proposed

amendments to the Municipal elections code that I'll will put forward and I

mentioned this at the last meeting I think and essentially the proposed

amendments are in response to the board's resolution essentially setting a policy for the Department to uh

incorporate a state law that uh candidates demonstrate a use of a

Chinese character-based name for two years prior to to filing nomination papers so the Amendments that I've put

in here uh match that uh policy that the board put forward and then I've inserted

the subsection from California elections code section 13

21.7 subsection B into uh municipal election code section 401 and I made the

subsection B in 13 21.7 subsection B and section 401 of the

Mec then also the Amendments I included uh the two declarations that we the

department uh uh developed during the uh nomination process for the March for

this upcoming March primary election and uh there there was concern that

people who were given a Chinese character-based name at Birth uh but who were unable to provide

documentation substantiating the the use of that name or that they were given that name would be able unable to have

their Chinese uh character-based names appear on the ballot so we created two

declarations uh we did pass these by the city attorney's office the one declaration provided someone in a family

member to attest that the candidate was given a character based name Chinese character based name and the second

declaration allowed the candidate to assest that they had no family member that could sign the Declaration and the

the candidate had no uh documentation to substantiate the the do the candidate

being given the name at Birth uh so this has not been provided to the board at

this point but this is the proposed amendments that uh I'll be putting forward and also the city's office has

not yet had commented on this language I drafted this language uh so there might be some changes but as far as the intent

of the the Amendments this is what the intent will show in the document that we provide to the board supervisors and

reason I'm providing this information to the commission now prior to uh submitting to the board as I indicated

uh in in my conversations with President stone that when the department uh submitted any sort of amendments to the

NBC or proposed a new law that we would the department would provide notice to the to the commission at least the

meeting prior at least before we submitted such Amendment so that's the

purpose of of providing this text in my direct support for this meeting and um

from there I can take any questions so thank you director ARS let's also um

make sure that we oh no the next agenda item will be on the budget I apologize we can take any I will start start

looking for hands and start calling on folks in order yes commissioner bernh

holes thank you president Stone and thank you director

AR a couple of questions about the uh section 3C where you go into uh the

Department's efforts to mitigate Ai and misinformation um can you just tell me

uh what the source of these approaches was did you uh draw

these from some recommendation somewhere or did the department generate these um

proposed actions to mitigate the effects of AI on

misinformation all the above so the uh supervisor Preston uh

uh has called for a hearing on February 29th for the Department of Elections and the ethics commission to

report on artificial intelligence in the upcoming March election and uh so there

wasn't really a like a broad ask but for us to report so we basically considered

the question of of artificial intelligence in relation to the conduct

of Elections because that's our area and we did look to other sources other agencies uh also the Secretary of

State's office uh the recommendations and guidelines uh and then we we we

conjoined those recommendations and guidelines with our current practices around election security and voting

system security and so we were just really building out on what we have

around election security to include uh being cognizant and potentially

responsive to any sort of artificial intelligence effects of artificial intelligence in the local election uh

process and a lot of what we would do would be in response to any sort of

impacts on registration and the actual conduct of the election we wouldn't we really don't monitor or uh track any

sort of campaign speech that's not something that we're authorized to do or capable of doing or enforcing but if

there was any sort of messaging that happened around uh registration and the

conduct of the election like actually voting that we would we thinking like what what sort of response what sort of

um measures preventive measures and also responsive measures could be put in place as we go through this process but

and then also certainly as we go into the November election

cycle and it's the way um these responses are uh set out here

um is it focuses on AI and

information is was uh supervisor Preston's uh

request focused on social media and misinformation as AI is at the primary

area where he sees it being potentially disruptive or are you omitting from this

public record other um uh protect measures about Ai and

attacks on um Internet connected systems or uh

things that aren't just about the information but about the actual functioning of the equipment or even the

organizing and location of uh well that's obviously information but other

aspects of your responsibilities is that just buried in this link to election

security or is this really um the misinformation is where the primary

focus is going to be and there isn't a focus elsewhere well as far as the hearing is

concerned my understanding is uh supervisor Preston wanted the department

to indicate uh how how it would respond to

any sort of uh impacts AR by Artificial Intelligence on the elections process

and uh we indicated that you again that we don't really track campaign speech

we're not that's not what we do we're not authorized to do that so any sort of misinformation tracking we would do

would be again around registration and voting uh in the elections process like you know you your like votes being

counted things like that and as far as the impact of potential impacts of artificial intelligence

on the any the systems internet or whatever that is it's not buried it's

it's a it's a part of our uh election security measures that we've Mo we've really

already implemented and and used uh and we're ALS but now we're also bringing in

any aspects of artificial intelligence that you know potentially have new threats in

relation to other threats that have existed prior to um to

today and are you getting um support from is the Secretary of State providing

ongoing support to the jurisdictions about potential threats and and types of

concerns and is part one of my final question part two is are there other

resour would you be interested in receiving other resources since I'm surrounded by the research Community

that's uh quite hard at work on um identifying potential implications

here yes uh yes to both questions so the Secretary of State's office does provide updates and guidelines to the counties

and the Secretary of State's office has a has a new Department the cyber security office that uh was is I think

newly formed prior to the 2022 elections maybe the 2020 I don't remember and so

that office actually uh is uh is uh directed to monitor any potential harms

to the elections process and voting uh via cyber mechanisms cyber related

mechanisms and that office issues updates like

every every week I think it is any any sort of news any sort of happenings or any sort of concerns that are that are

occurring in in the elections world uh we also get information from other

agencies as well there cisa uh that we receive information the FBI Homeland

Security so but if you have other sources uh certainly I mean we're

interested which you could send to us um okay I'd be happy to take that on and

provide it directly to you as well as to the commission uh thank you director

you're welcome thank you commissioner thank you commissioner burol and I do want to add um uh

director AR that in the commissioner reports we've also added an article from

that commissioner burnol uh requested to have added to the packet and uh that is

less so I mean it does touch a little bit on cyber security but it's also on

physical security and uh physical infrastructure equipment people security

and so um I know we'll be talking also a little bit more about that in questions

uh perhaps around threats that would be more tangentially related uh less so

around AI so just to Prime everyone about that conversation as well um any

other commissioners would like to take a swing at the director's

report commissioner D thank you for your report uh director

Arts um I uh particularly enjoy the social media videos um decent response

so I think that's fabulous um thanks again for uh moving

ahead on the um amendments to the municipal election code I did have a

question about one of the forms uh it required traditional Chinese characters

only and I was just wondering why so all of our materials are in

traditional Chinese characters and uh and that's matches more the the how the

more people in San Francisco consume information versus simplified characters

okay so it's not an issue of not being able to accept it in our systems or or

anything correct okay thank

you thank you commissioner D any other

comments okay uh I just had one comment pertaining to

information uh around I I don't I guess

AI is a concern deep fakes are a concern uh and I hear you on not uh monitoring

what campaigns are saying one thing that has come up I believe either in our commission meetings or in conversations

privately uh is my concern around the public education of the length of time

that it takes to re report on the election and the results uh and we've

talked about this as a result of the um how the results are actually uh listed

on the website but also in the context of how maybe the public won't recognize

that it takes time to fully process these ballots and in the conversation that we had in our last meeting

pertaining to potentially getting to a sixc card ballot that takes time particularly when the majority of our

voters are voting by mail and so I'm wondering if there if there is and I'm

sure you've already kind of thought about this but uh if perhaps also you could talk about it

down the line I'm thinking more about November not so much March but making sure folks are preemptively aware that

it is going to take you know that election day is not a day anymore it is a week it will take time to process off

the ballots and making sure the public is aware of that and I think the earlier that the public is primed about concerns

with not making decisions about elections being called too early before

the department has made those calls uh is valuable um and so I would love to

hear doesn't have to be today but down the line if there is a plan for that

preemptive public education around the length of time for results reporting um

so that the public is primed and aware and ready and isn't uh going to be as

susceptible to being influenced by um uh misinformation or even dis

information every election we we provide information we issue press releases I'm available to the media readily after

election day and it's clear in our messaging that the the the canvasing of

the election will occur for several weeks after election day uh if if we go to and I we've been through it before

it's not this is not anything new to us if we go to a six card or more ballot uh

it's a presidential turnout that just increases the the length of time time and we'll put more messaging around it

and um so but we do every election and

uh we will already on our website we have information on the on the on the process

on the time frame as we go into election day we'll issue press releases and then

we can do social media as well and I don't think well it might be because the Central Committee contest or might be

some some close counts but um but yeah November if it if it's even if it's a

card ballot I mean we we've experienced Five Card ballots in presidential Cycles before uh and you have supervisors

contests as well so certainly we we do messaging we'll do more messaging and

we're well aware of it so we'll continue yes thank you and that is not that wasn't to say that there was an absence

of it in the past it's just um the notion that there are already deep fakes

out there and folks um and the fears around perhaps maybe not in San

Francisco but can always happen in San Francisco um people not conceding and things of that kind just making sure

people are patient with the uh or as patient as they can be with the outcome

of the um of the results so uh thank you for that I also just want to say thank you for all the efforts around

registration I was excited to see some of the uh I I was excited to see the

uptick in registrations I thought that was actually a pretty phenomenal number

so uh thank you and um also to see it spread across the district so really

thank you for that it's a huge um clearly a huge effort from the department and also uh aligning with the

commission's priorities which we I I think needs to be addressed so I thank you and I look forward to hearing about

the the uh February 29th meeting is it a meeting is it a hearing is it a report

that you have to provide or so something to hearing I guess okay well it sounds

very flashy so I will be um interested to to hear about it and kind of see um

see what comes out of that and also like I said I would like to talk a little bit more about the physical threats uh in

the commissioner's reports as well but curious to hear about the AI on the

29th any other questions for the director

okay let's move to public comment we are now on public comment for

agenda item number four the director's report for February 14

2024 No Hands raised okay thank you secretary Davis

that closes out 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 and observation activities longrange planning for commission activities in

areas of study proposed legislations which affect elections and others I will'll open it

up yes commissioner D and then commissioner bernh hols

so I just wanted to update the commission that um all finally our um

redistricting initiative report is complete and ready to go to the Board of Supervisors so president stone is going

to take care of that after this meeting uh and then we will post the final version of the report on the website on

the fierce page is that where we'll do it potentially or even closer to the

homepage we will find we will it will be on the website easily and readily available we will find an appropriate

place for it um it will probably take us about a week to to get it up on the website but it is done and uh has

included all of uh uh DCA flores's legal review and all of the comments from

Commissioners at our December meeting thank you commissioner D commissioner

burnol uh thank you president Stone um congratulations commissioner D that's

that's a milestone um I wanted to just speak briefly to the

article that I had included in the package today I think it's incomp upon this commission to make sure that we are

um able to assure the public that uh steps are being taken to make sure that

they can vote safely um I know that discussing the Department's

protective uh preventive actions is slightly problematic

um but I do think we will want to be prepared over the course of uh the year

to be able to speak uh confidently about uh security measures that are in place

um I will just jumping ahead a little bit was believ to see that there was not

a significant budget decrease for security um physical security for the

elections uh even though the budget uh has to go down

um and I hope we can work with the Department to figure out how we can uh help them uh reassure the public that

they will be able to cast their vote safely

um uh one other thing uh which I should have said up front I do want to just comment that um commissioner jeronic in

what I thought was uh did speak to my class at uh Stanford I thought he had

his term had ended before he took on that engagement it may not have and so

there may be floating around some um back channel uh information about

whether or not that was a a legitimate uh undertaking on his part um he was a

very impressive speaker to the class the students loved him um he spoke about open source software uh and I hope that

that is not a problematic I hope I didn't put him into a difficult position but I bu piece now transitioned off so

that's not a hopefully that's not an issue any thank you thank you commissioner

burnol and I appreciate you raising the The Washington Post article and just the

fiscal threats I will add to that my concern for the employees of the

department as well pole workers uh the uh full-time employees the warehouse

staff um and also the security of the facilities themselves elves um the Integrity of the also the the ballots so

all of the above um there are a few points that I wanted to add on top of that that I just wanted to call out

because uh I I have spoken with the director about this at numerous times

actually um and I shared this with commissioner burnol as well that uh

actually back in 2022 ahead of the midterm election following the attack on

Paul Pelosi uh I personally had pretty significant concerns about uh the safety

of not just voters but the folks working in the department and trying to

facilitate and administer the midterm election in 22 and so I actually spoke

with the director about what the plans were and to No Surprise of No One the director had actually already

coordinated uh pretty great effort with the mayor's office and um I believe the

FBI and sheriff and some other coordinated I think the District Attorney's office um though I won't go

deeper into all of that want to ask the director to in public setting but uh the

idea to say that there's a lot of work that is done with the department and through the support of other elected

offices in the city to um protect the vote protect Pro protect co workers and

the staff and protect voters um one of the other things that the uh I was

really excited to see in 22 that the department implemented through some of those discussions was deescalation

training as well um so pole workers were I believe are continued to be trained in

deescalation training so uh that we can continue to have um you know safe

environments for all different types of folks to show up um and vote without

fear uh or threat um and I really appreciated the director's openness to

that idea I think must yeah it must have been right ahead of the midterms um a couple other things I just

wanted to mention because I had I had raised those concerns again leading up to November is um the director had

mentioned in uh I guess that was December or November about uh an issue

that was happening in in jurisdictions not I don't believe in California I think it was mostly in Oregon maybe

Oregon and Washington um where fenol was sent in the mail to elections offices uh and um I had asked

the and it it was pretty actually uh scary uh for those offices if you've

read a little bit about it you know like full hazmat suits team showing up to elections offices where you know

election people uh staff were just trying to do their jobs and had to be concerned about mysterious mail and so I

had actually raised this with the director as well and um unsurprisingly

again the department is already well prepared has worked with the Department of Public Health I believe um and has

signage up in the uh offices pertaining to uh suspicious mail there's a plan

with the post office I believe about how to deal with that and then also I believe uh folks in the department are

trained on Narcan as well um and so uh there is so much work that goes on

behind the scenes that I wanted to shout out uh the department for doing uh and two other points I wanted to make before

I'll hand it over also to the director to see if there other uh things a that I got wrong or B that um he wants to add

um one folks may have mention that uh or may have noticed that in a previous uh

director's report there was also a mention of Hava security grants uh so I specifically asked the director about

that I believe a few weeks ago in the same conversation around fentol I believe I don't know if we received that

grant funding but I do know that that was a preemptive measure that the department was taking to try and have

our the warehouse and our the physical infrastructure protected ahead of um

March and November and then the other thing that we might consider discussing at some point if if it's of interest to

the department and the commission is there is this organization called the committee for safe and secure elections

um and they are a joint effort a Munch a bunch of kind of pro-democracy national

organizations that work with local elections officials across the country to do training and preparedness planning

and scenario planning for free around threats to physical safety so moving away from cyber and um anything like

that but uh you know how to coordinate um how to coordinate with the

appropriate departments uh in the chance of a threat so that might be something

I've actually I know a couple of folks there who are excellent um and so if that is of interest um to do some just

free scenario planning that's also um a resource that I would like to extend so I just I appreciate everyone listening

through my remarks and director AR handed to you did I get anything wrong You' like to correct or add to um what I

shared or and also what commissioner burnol has shared uh no good memory

tried and uh no you hit it and the uh I

did submit the uh the legislation to for the board to approve the grants I got it

back I have to make some some changes I have to fill some forms out I haven't done that yet uh but we still have

continued with the work uh installing uh key card locks in the department uh

mechanisms that indicate if if a door has been opened uh in the department uh

that we can track and then also at the warehouse we've been installing some extra measures as well so that that's

ongoing so right now I think the fentanyl uh issues fentanyl

related issues uh show this as much as there's concern about the cyber security

there has been for a while I mean and you know in the voting system security really I I appreciate you bringing this

up president St it's the phys the physical security that's that's a of primary concern I think gets too little

attention until until uh it becomes an issue for other jurisdiction

so I appreciate you bringing this up um and we've been certainly taking uh steps ourselves for our own security and we'll

continue to do so I'm interested in this information you have from this group certainly um yeah and then we'll just go

from there thank you uh director arms and then also one thing I wanted to mention

to the new commissioner Kelly uh excuse me commissioner Wong um that one of the

one of the post elction reports that the director Prov provides our incident reports as well so we there's a lot of

transparency into anything that also happens in our poll sites so that um we can also be evaluating you know if

anything came up that was uh particularly of concern but what is amazing is that the department is so

well planned for these types of incidents that the incidents tend to be like a pen broke or you know like you

know something very minimal which is the ideal right the that is the ideal if things don't go wrong that is you know

if there isn't a headline about it that means things are going well um that's uh

so I wanted to add that thank you director Arns thank you commissioner Burnes um I think we should continue to

talk about these issues um and I also think it will become a n continue to be

a national conversation um I've seen a ton of a ton of uh um press on this in the last two

weeks alone so um I probably will also want to continue to raise it any other

commissioner reports to

share okay let's move to public

comment we are moving to public comment on agenda item number five Commissioners

reports there are no public commenters thank you secretary Davis

that closes out agenda item number five we'll now move to agenda item number six Department of Elections FY

2425 and FY 25-26 budget review discussion and possible action on the

Department of Elections annual budget as prepared by the director of Elections John ARS the elections commission is

required to conduct two reviews of the Department's budget no less than 15 days apart this is the second review the

commission standing budget and oversight committee conducted its initial budget review on Monday January 29th 201

24 with that I will um hand IT director Arns did you have anything you wanted to

mention before we go into the discussion about the

budget um it's okay yeah not really okay the memo is pretty thorough okay right

okay um I will open it up to Commissioners

then commissioner D yeah I was wondering if um there was anything that you wanted

to provide as a summary from the boek

meeting myself um no I don't think so we

reviewed the budget uh we yeah no I don't think I have a summary to share I

don't think I was prepared for a summary so apologies I can just just for this me so

the the mayor's office is requesting that all departments cut by 10% which going into presidential cycle

potentially the most cards in the city's history it's impossible for us to cut to cut really cut our budget uh to 10% so

we did look for efficiencies in the budget and we did uh find I think it's

$283,000 of reductions and it's not necessarily Cuts it's it's it's Reliance

on the general fund and so it's so when people when you read it in the media it's always they got to cut their budget

was not necessarily a cut of the budget it's a reduction of the Reliance from the general fund to to administer the

the department uh so we've reduced our Reliance on the general fund by 588 58

83 I think it is for the next fiscal year and the $300,000 of that is from

revenue that will be coming in from the district elections that we that will conduct mostly for the school district

and Community College then for fiscal year plus one in in

26 uh our reduction is what 513 I think it is I don't and we have

less Revenue coming in and uh we will continue to have the same we'll have

ongoing uh general fund reductions into 26 that we had in in for the 2425 budget

um and so and also what with changed for the 26 budget if I'm get that right is

the uh the the the June primary and 26 will require less Staffing than will the

November 2024 presidential election so we're we're showing that as a as a

reduction on our Reliance on the general fund so overall we're showing a reduction of Reliance of 580 658 for uh

2425 and then 513685 for 2526 and uh

um and you look at the forms I think it's uh on page three of the forms we provided

the commission form 1B just like a highlevel indication of our budget

submission relation to our base budget our base budget is what our budget was last for the current fiscal year the

mayor's office this or the the budget system just moves the base budget forward in time and that's always the

marker that the on the future fiscal years are compared against and you'll see down at the bottom of the page red

the target not met uh the Target that was set by the mayor's office for the Department of Elections which by the way

was less than 10% I want to say that uh we're we're short for the next fiscal year by 90 is it 99 and then uh

following fiscal year by by 166 uh since the bo BC meeting we've

we've the mayor's office has not requested that we uh uh find additional

reductions in our general fund reliance and uh so next week after this if

hopefully the commission approves this budget proposal the next week we'll enter this into the city's budget system

and then potentially then there'll be further discussion with the mayor's office on the budget uh and then the next step would be that the the the

board's legislative analysts office will review our our budget along with all

other Department's budgets and they'll see Cuts likely as well

um for various reasons uh so this the mayor's office has not touched the

budget since BC uh potentially they could come back and ask from more reductions but they've not signaled that

yet and after we enter this into the budget system then the board's uh

legislative analyst office potentially will ask for receipt cuts from this budget um so this is

Department's uh budget that we think we need for the next two fiscal years and uh we'll stand by it and we'll kind of

take the conversations as they come in the next two points of conversation with the mayor's office potentially and then

certainly with the the bl's office so thank you director ARs and also

commissioner Dy um I went back and looked at my notes so I can feel like I've lived nine lives in these two weeks

so um I honestly I couldn't even remember where I sat um so I had to go

back and look at my notes there were two things that we did talk about in addition to um what the uh what director

AR said also I'm glad to hear that the mayor's office has maintained the budget uh I think that's excellent um and

necessary our elections need to be funded fully um and uh the two things

that we did specifically spend a fair amount of time on was around ballot labeling ab1

1416 um and I can share a little bit more insight into that uh there is no update at this point um I haven't I have

haven't uh spoken with the director about this offline a few other things he's probably working on as well um

namely an election um uh but the specific concern around moving to a sixc

card ballot um what that would mean for the Department is obviously in his memo

um and so making sure that one of the concerns I had around the memo was uh

the the move between fi what would happen at five cards versus six cards versus seven cards

and offline um I had the director and I had collaborated

around how we could possibly stay opted into ab1

1416 uh so that uh somehow we could include those ballot labels uh and uh

where we landed was really if the if they depart already six cards is too

many uh but beyond six is just not possible and so

uh the discussion was is there a way to get creative where uh there is we are

remain opted in for the November for ab1 1416 and for November uh but potentially

have some sort of and correct me if I'm using the wrong term here trailing legislation or not trailing not trailing

legislation that would allow the director to potentially at the last minute if we are reaching that seven

card ballot threshold um opt out of ab1 1416 um and if we are to reach that

point uh how do we make sure that the public is informed and that the commission has an opportunity to weigh in on that and so uh we actually worked

backwards from when the information when he might have the knowledge of how many

cards we'd be reaching on the ballot um and uh when it would need to go to print

Etc and so the proposal is uh that around August 21st the commission uh

basically e88 e70 the com the director would notify the commission about the number of cards he anticipate that we be

reaching to and if he needs to trigger an opt out of ab1

1416 um and then it would give the commission uh basically what two weeks a

week I don't I don't know where it is very short amount of time a week to discuss um and and if they choose if we

choose um and so uh that is where we landed there is no update but I did want

to share that that was talked about quite extensively you also can watch the conversation on it is up on YouTube um

if folks want to to uh know more uh and then uh commissioner jonic was on the uh

was on the was on BC prior to um the

transition off his transition off the commission and he specifically asked

questions around um uh the translation services that we offer they purchase

order versus sole source and um I believe there may have even been a

conversation about um uh yeah no that's

it uh so just wanted to give a quick recap and I can also answer more questions about ab1 1416 but there

really isn't much more to to share at this point and uh I know that this is a

a followup that needs to happen as well so yeah commissioner D I'll hand it back

to you I feel like you didn't have a chance to ask questions yeah I wanted to hear the summary first um so I had uh a

a couple of questions so you have a section on possible solutions and you mentioned going to um uh a monolingual

ballot format um have have have you considered having

kind of like a reference card in English I know we have many versions of the ballot and that's part of the challenge

but like you know a bunch of reference cards that are laminated that you know

voters can have their monolingual ballot and then take an English reference card if they want to

compare we haven't got that far and really a minor lingual

ballot I don't know if we can do it uh because I mentioned that BC I think it

was in the I think in the 990s when the city entered a consent decree with the

doj and that's when the city was uh first began uh uh developing electric

materials in Chinese in addition to English uh and I think probably Spanish

at that time too but I know for a fact Chinese and uh

one of the requirements of the the consent decree of course the consent decree is expired at this point it's not it's not really effective but I think

that the SP the consent decree continues because we we met with doj really for

many years even after the the consent decree wasn't really uh in place in my

opinion and uh we still had to provide information regarding our bilingual

assistance at the polling places materials that were creating in in languages other than English so I I

don't I don't think that having a monolingual ballot really that that's

not an option and if it if it were to become an option because because physical

realities of the number of of cards or whatever then yeah that's where we have to think about the the you know any sort

of um mitigations and and support we could provide to voters in relation

but we put that in there really I wouldn't say for shock value but just to show what the alternatives are that but

having a monolingual ballot is is not something that we're actively planning for or expecting to

happen um uh I this is presid Stone if you don't mind I also would like to add

um what the discussion of bpc was in that as well which was a because that

did come up I believe commissioner jonic also proposed that and I will speak uh

candidly that I strongly disagree with a monolingual B ballot um and I think

partially there are a couple pieces of that some of what the director had spoken to but also you know we're

basically trading off that we're exchanging the idea of the ballot the

transparency around who's financing the ballot measures for language access um

and I don't think that is an appropriate trade-off when particularly knowing that we have the larish for just Chinese

speaking Community outside of China in the city so um I that I just wanted to

add that as well that we did have that pretty strong debate um on the commission and I think landed in the

same place excuse me on vek the other thing we did mention uh again I wasn't prepared to make these comments so now

it's uh free flowing here the other thing I wanted to mention was um the alternative discussed was uh shrinking

the font size of the um yeah of the uh

of the labels and in fact I believe another County it may have been Contra Costa and I mentioned this during BC did

a mockup of that um and they ultimately it was so terrible that they it wasn't a

good alternative so I did also want to add that I I apologize for interrupting but I thought it was necessary to

clarify thank you president Stone um the other question I had is

uh you know there there um has been a lot of coverage recently about the

attorne the letter that the sfusd got uh about moving from at large elections

to potentially to to District elections and I I know that they've um are

exploring Alternatives right now which of course rank Choice voting is one of them and I'm curious if

um whatever they end up deciding will that impact how it will impact the the

elections Department I don't know really at this point and and not I'm not being flip I

uh they voted yesterday not to move to District elections for or to partition

the district into smaller districts I guess I don't know how you else you'd say it uh or November and I don't know

but but that's something that the department really isn't a part of those conversations we're not a part of that

process uh our role at this point is to answer any questions that come our way

and so and provide information where we can the one bit of information that we

provided uh is that you know if they were to to draw

districts uh there's unlikely that we could receive districts uh in uh time to make the

changes on our side if the school district didn't follow current Precinct boundaries so if if they essentially did

Drew their own lines and we had to repr Precinct the city essentially there there probably would not be enough time

for us to create those districts to to run their election in November and uh

there actually is a a code section in the state elections code that would allow us to sidestep running their

election if it came down to if we couldn't run their election because the precincts weren't the same so no one wants that I did see the article in the

chronicle today about the potentially using rank Choice voting it's a multi-seat contest

so our rank Choice voting uh determines the a a one C candidate who received the

most votes so you know that's that's something that we've not done before and it's not

anything I can really answer at at this time or even I don't even want I don't want to speculate because then I'm talking about a system that we haven't

used in that way and I don't want to provide that information so right now it's just to summarize well we're

answering questions providing information where we can we don't we're not a participant in their their steps

towards responding to the situation uh but there certainly is a very uh small amount of time for any

changes in dist in the both the school the the Board of Education district and

also the Community College District if the Department of Elections will consolidate their election in our November planning so okay yeah I mean

really my question was about whether our current software vendors rank Choice

voting is flexible enough to handle essentially multi-member situations because rank Choice

voting can solve the problem that the Califoria Voting Rights Act is trying to

address uh without having to have districts and we have plenty of experience with rank Choice voting in in

San Francisco it would just be implemented with you know multiple members instead um and so that's that's

a question is whether the the Dominion software can handle that or not um

because if it can that would certainly be easier than trying to draw new

District and figure that out so this is um you know this was a comment that we

made in the redistricting initiative report that that was something that we did not look at um we did not look at

anything but single member district elections because that's what we have right now and we didn't want

to you know get crazy in our scope um but that's why we had a section in our

final report indicating that there are other kinds of uh voting method and it's

something that the original elections task force you know looked at 30 years ago um that proportional rank Choice

voting was was a solution rather than going to districts and multi-member districts is another solution so um so

yeah I I'm just curious and it might be something to to ask um the

representatives at dominium whether the our implementation of rank Choice voting

uh our implementation of the software would allow for these other versions of rank Choice voting that we just happen

to have not used before in San Francisco but uh I wonder if they've you know implemented and it's possible we just

have to reconfigure it I think it's a good thing to prepare for because that might be the direction they're going in

because it would certainly simplify a lot of things uh and then thank you for answering the question on the precincts

because the other thing I was just concerned about is once they make their decision they hand stuff over to the

elections Department then you guys have to actually make sure you can accommodate the request and I was worried about that

time frame and it sounds like it would be difficult unless they align to certain

constraints uh and then uh I guess the other just

other comments you know as usual um

um we can see that they're there a lot of not a lot of things we can move in

this budget um you can understand why elections commission's been focused on

open source for so many years because our you know voting system is a big

chunk of the budget uh and as you noted we don't have

a choice right now there are no Alternatives that are open source and then the other chunk that um you know

that we don't have a lot of control over is printing and so uh just for the public

uh who's trying to interpret this budget uh and then many of the Soul Source contracts if we discussed last year

during the same budget process uh limited choices again that that based on

the systems that we've chosen that they're limited choices and who can support those systems uh and so that is

the reason for uh a lot of these Soul Source contracts

so thank you commissioner D do other Commission have questions or

comments about the

budget nice long silence just making

sure okay I would like to make a motion

that we approve the Department of Elections FY 2425 25 26

budgets second thank you commissioner D before uh we move to a vote let's move

to public comment on agenda item number six Department of Elections fy2 2425 FY

2526 budget review no public commenters

okay there any last comments from commissioners before we move to a roll call

vote okay secretary Davis will you please uh do the roll

call President Stone yes vice president Parker not here commissioner burn holes

yes commissioner d i commissioner loli yes commissioner Wong

yes okay with these members present and accounted for

um this motion is passed thank you secretary Davis um and thank you

director ARS for your work and um hope it is a smooth process with the mayor's

office going forward um all right that closes agenda

item number six we'll now move to agenda item number seven agenda items for future meetings discussion and possible

action regarding items for future

agendas any Commissioners nothing commissioner

D there's way I saw your finger like inching okay well um you know I don't I

don't know uh where the uh sfusd is going to go with this but I mean it might be

something that we we're we should monitor and I think by the next meeting

we'll have some information from that to like understand what the implications

are I know that you and um commiss vice president Parker probably want to be rid

of redistricting however knowing that this is kind of your passion area and also as the appointee of the school

board uh perhaps you both can stay on it and keep us surprised of all of

that yes um great uh there are a couple things I

just wanted to mention uh that is might do also to follow up the director about ab1 1416 but then one thing that

secretary Davis made me aware of um is that we may need to adjust our meeting schedule already for the summer so um um

I believe that we're on a one of our meetings on a a holiday so um just want

to give everyone a heads up that we will need to be discussing that um at some point um that the June and July I

remember um commissioner Hayden Crowley was always pushing me to get ahead of

these things as far and ahead as possible and so uh though it may be February these things people do plan

their schedules and I want to be respectful of that so just keep an eye out so if you're thinking of traveling during June July um just take note that

we may need to adjust the meeting and we'll we'll work to discuss that in an

upcoming uh meeting uh but that's it for me anything

else let's move to public comment on agenda item number seven agenda items for future

meetings no public commenters thank you secretary Davis

that closes out agenda item number seven and uh we are the time is now 7:13 p.m.

and this meeting is