Special Report 5/24

SPECIAL REPORT
OF THE
CITIZENS' ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON ELECTIONS (CACE)

Adopted by vote of the Committee on May 24, 2000

MEMBERS: Kathy Grogan, Chair of Committee; Christopher Bowman; Ed Canapary; Susan Horsfall; Marcel Kapulica; Joan Lewis; Anne Politeo; Laura Brainin-Rodriguez; Samson Wong, and Albert Reen (in memoriam). Jill Lerner of the City Administrator's Office served as an ex-officio member and Secretary of the CACE's ad hoc committee. Tom Owen of the City Attorney's Office provided the committee with legal advice. Former Acting Director Naomi Nishioka attended a few of the early hearings and newly appointed Director Patricia Fado and her assistants Jennifer Novak and Chris Hayashi attended its last meeting preceding this Report.

I. Introduction

On December 14, 1999, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed Resolution 1083-99 urging the Registrar of Voters and the Department of Elections to use every effort to protect the voting rights of all San Francisco voters and the CACE to review the accessibility and customer service for all San Francisco voters. The Board requested that the CACE provide a report on increasing the efficiency of the Department of Elections to the Board of Supervisors. (See Appendix)

Pursuant to that resolution, the CACE formed an ad hoc committee of its members to hold public hearings, both at City Hall and in the neighborhoods, to deliberate, and to make recommendations to the Board of Supervisors.

Hearings were held on January 19, January 26, February 16, February 27, March 9 and April 26, 2000. The February 27 meeting was held at the West Bay Community Center in the Western Addition at the invitation of the San Francisco NAACP, and was attended by nearly 50 members of the public. The March 9 meeting was held at the Moscone Recreation Center on Chestnut Street, and no members of the public attended.

Members of the public who testified before and/or provided written comments to the Ad Hoc Committee included: James Bryant, President and members of the A. Phillip Randolph Institute (APRI); Ed Canapary, pollster; Doug Comstock, Fair and Independent Reform of Elections; Eddy Dobbins, LGADDA; Otto Duffy, Poll Worker; Henry Evers, Common Cause; Tom Hsieh, Jr., political consultant; Ken Kong, API Vote 2000; David Lee, Chinese American Voter Education Committee; Norberto Martinez, CARECEN; Nathaniel Mason, President, SF NAACP and members; Richard Ow, candidate for Democratic County Central Committee; David Pilpel, political consultant; Bob Planthold, advocate for the Disabled Community; Alonzo Reese, President, LGADDA; Patricia Rodriguez, Mission Neighborhood Center; Verna Tam, Former Poll Worker; Holli Thier, Co-President, San Francisco Chapter, League of Women Voters; Frank Tsei, Asian Law Caucus, Chinese for Affirmative Action; Ron Vincent, APRI; John Paul Zenger, Poll Worker.

This report represents the findings and recommendations of the CACE.

II. Issues and Recommendations

A. Staffing/Funding.

Underlying many of the recommendations to follow in this Report is the need for adequate staffing and funding of the Department of Elections (Department). In the past year, the Department has experienced the greatest amount of turnover of managers and staff members that it has experienced in any 12 month period in the past decade. The Committee received testimony by David Pilpel that some of the people who staff the office on a day-to-day basis are filling temporary positions, and are not getting wages/benefits comparable to the expertise that they have developed in the Department or commensurate with wages/benefits received by their counterparts in the eight other Bay Area Counties. Overall staffing conditions have resulted in a lower degree of expertise, efficiency, morale, and accurate and timely services provided to the public.

Recommendations:

To assist in the recruitment and retention of Departmental personnel and provide for greater expertise, efficiency, morale, and accurate and timely services provided to the public, the CACE recommends:

1. Salaries/benefits for Department staff to be upgraded to be competitive with salaries for comparable positions in the Registrar's Offices of the eight other Bay Area Counties.

2. Staffing needs that have been filled on an ongoing basis through the use of temporary positions be converted to permanent positions, to increase morale and productivity of staff.

3. Staffing and funding be increased as noted elsewhere in this report with respect to specific identified needs.

B. Dedicated Full Time Technical Expertise.

The Department currently receives technical support from a part-time MIS person on loan from the Department of Telecommunications & Information Services. The MIS person has the dual responsibility of providing services to the Department and the public. The workload at this position is sufficient to require a full-time staffperson.

The primary MIS services provided to the Department are the maintenance of appropriate security and accessibility of the voter files kept by the Department. This function is the pre-eminent task of this staff position. This person would also handle the production of precinct lists and voter rosters for use on election day by poll workers, and ensuring that the processing of votes be accurate and efficient. In addition, the MIS services include the ongoing responsibility of maintaining the Department staff's hardware, software and internal network.

Beyond providing services to the Department, this MIS person has the responsibility of providing responsive and timely services to the voting public and campaign professionals. Such services include files of voters who have voted in previous elections master voter file, voters who have applied for an absentee ballot or have voted by absentee ballot, newly registered voters, and other specialized reports in a format that is user-friendly.

In 1999, sometimes these services to the public were neither responsive nor timely. Testimony received from David Pilpel and Committee member Ed Canapary (who is also a professional pollster) indicated that certain voter files sometimes were not provided by the Department in less than sixty days following a request, and that time-sensitive files on absentee voters took several days to produce. Furthermore, because the format used by the Department in providing the data that had been changed without notice, campaigns had to spend additional needless hours reformatting the information into a usable format.

In the past, under the old Sunshine Ordinance, the Department had provided such specialized services to the public and campaign professionals in return for a fee commensurate with the fair market value for such reports. It is unclear that the Department is authorized to provide such services under the provisions of the new Sunshine Ordinance, which provide only for retrieval of duplication, not labor costs.

In the future, as the Department enters the new technological age, there will be a need for the MIS person to monitor the progress of internet voting in other jurisdictions and electoral technical innovations and developments. This person would report regularly to the Director of Elections (Director) and the CACE on technology options.

Recommendations:

To ensure on-going technical support to the Department and timely services to the public, the CACE recommends:

1. A full-time position of MIS staff person be adequately funded, and filled.

2. The Department work with campaign professionals on providing data compatible with industry needs on a timely basis.

3. Legislation be passed to amend the new Sunshine Ordinance to allow the Department to provide specialized services to the public and campaigns at fair market value.

San Francisco's voters are diverse linguistically and socio-economically. Voters vary between the most sophisticated internet users to those who don't know how to read. Although most voters are fluent in English, many are fluent primarily in a language other than English and some are functionally illiterate in any language, particularly seniors and newly naturalized citizens.

Currently, the Federal Voting Rights Act requires that San Francisco translate its election materials into Chinese, and the Department has elected to provide similar translations in Spanish. Following the 2000 Census, the need for translation into additional languages (possibly Tagalog, Vietnamese, and Russian) may be identified.

For the last year, the Department has had one outreach person fluent in English, Cantonese, and Mandarin who works with new Chinese American and English-as-a-Second-Language voters.

The Committee received testimony from members of the A. Phillip Randolph Institute (APRI) which works to register and increase voter participation in the African American community and among the homeless. The organization leader, discussing a 1999 voter registration drive, alleged that the Department did not provide procedural materials for obtaining voter registrations when requested. APRI asserted that they had asked the Department to inform them of any problems with their registrations. No notification was forthcoming. The Department instead referred problem registrations from APRI directly to the District Attorney for investigation. The D.A.'s Office later found some voter registration forms to be invalid.

Additionally, David Lee and Holli Thier testified that the Department's outreach educational programs should be extended to other groups, beyond Chinese Americans for whom English is second language. Patricia Rodriguez and Norberto Martinez suggested that the Department provide educational programs for Spanish-speaking seniors in the Mission District and for Spanish-speaking immigrants going through the naturalization process on how to register to vote and to re-register to vote (which is critical for keeping the voter rolls clean and reducing the possibility of voter fraud), how to apply for absentee ballots, and the mechanics of voting.

It is our belief that the quality and extent of the Department's outreach policy will determine not only how well election information gets to the voting public, but also how well the Department is able to monitor and respond to the public experience in the electoral process. Special attention must be paid to voter registration of citizens who speak English as a second language. Some minority citizens groups may be able to assist the Department in its education efforts.

Committee member Susan Horsfall noted that beyond the Department's ongoing outreach requirements, there are two additional challenges for the November 2000 election - namely the Department's adoption of new optical scanning equipment for voting, and the institution of the new district elections system. The new optical scanning system needs to be explained not only to poll workers and the general public, but particularly to voters not fluent in English, the disabled community, seniors, and new voters. Additionally, according to an exit poll of the Chinese American Voters Education Committee (CAVEC) the vast majority of voters are currently unaware of the change to district elections. Over 90% of voters don't know which district they live. The Department currently has inadequate staff to meet these two critical needs.

Recommendations:

To expand and coordinate outreach services to voters for which English is not their primary language and to citizens who do not fully participate in the electoral system, the CACE recommends the following:

1. Two new full-time positions for community outreach staff persons be created, adequately

funded, and filled. One position should be fluent in English and Spanish. The second position should be fluent in English and either Tagalog, Vietnamese, or Russian. Additional staff should be hired as needed where the Federal Voting Rights Act requires coverage of new languages based on the 2000 Census. All outreach personnel, including the current position, would focus on segments of the electorate less likely to participate in the electoral process (by not registering to vote or exercising their right to vote), such as students and young adults, new citizens, seniors, residents of public housing, the homeless, and other special populations.

2. The Department contract with a public relations/media specialist for a full-time

person to educate voters about the new optical scan voting system. The position is needed from July, 2000 until the end of the year. Hands-on demonstrations of the new voting system should be conducted in each Supervisorial district of the City. Additionally, any group requesting that the Department provide a demonstration of the new system should receive a presentation.

3. The Department contract with a public/relations/media specialist to educate eligible voters on district elections of Supervisors. Presentations should be made in all eleven supervisoral districts of the City. The position is needed from July, 2000 until the end of the year. The position should be filled by an individual with specific familiarity with San Francisco's neighborhoods and past experience with district elections.

4. The Department develop a coordinated outreach strategy, incorporating all the current voter registration information and election material appropriate to disseminate among eligible voters of San Francisco. Included will be complete documentation for each of the eleven supervisoral districts regarding district election procedures as well as the new optical scan voting technology. Absentee ballot procedures and a voter motivational message may be combined with this document. The outreach effort may employ public service announcements in local media outlets and civic organizations to disseminate information from the Department.

The regulations and procedures governing the conduct of an election are complex and change from year to year. There are federal, state, and local laws governing every stage of the process.

The Department has made prior requests for customer service training for staff that were not funded. There is a need for educational outreach on election procedures to campaign, petition drive, and voter registration organizations. David Pilpel testified about the need for the Department to develop comprehensive written procedure manuals for institutional memory and employee reference and training. The Elections Task Force, headed by the City Administrator of San Francisco, recommended in 1996 that the Department hire a training officer for Department staff. However, because of subsequent priorities of the Department and subsequent budgetary constraints, this position was never created or filled.

Recommendations:

To preserve the Department's institutional memory and to ensure full training of staff and educational outreach to campaign, petition drive, and voter registration organizations, the CACE recommends the following:

1. The Department create and maintain manuals setting out standard operating procedures and customer service procedures, with guidance from the City Attorney and the Ethics Commission staff (relative to local campaign finance disclosure).

2. A new full-time position of training officer be created, adequately funded, and filled to be responsible for:

Due to understaffing, the Department currently engages in crisis management for processes such as inputting and purging voters from the rolls, checking signatures on initiatives, in-lieu petitions, nomination papers, absentee ballot applications and absentee and provisional ballots, and updating the voter/voted file with the most recent election information. In cases where the electoral cycle has overlapped, such as the November/December Mayoral elections of 1999 and the March primary of 2000, the staff gets diverted from year-round duties to fill the immediate needs of processing elections. When staff gets diverted from routine clerical duties, huge backlogs of clerical work develop, such that affidavits, applications, databases and files are not updated or available to the public on a timely basis.

Specific concerns have also been raised before the Committee about the process of requesting and returning absentee ballots. Voters who cannot remember if they requested the application have called the Department and were not able to get an update on the status of their request.

Additionally, David Lee expressed concern that the Department did not have an adequate tracking system to determine whether absentee ballot requests came through the initiative of the voters, campaigns, or independent expenditure committees. As a result, the Department is inundated by duplicate applications. NOTE: The Department periodically provides reports on the number of applications coming from specific sources, but these are not prepared daily, since applications received are not always processed within 24 hours of receipt.

Representatives of the APRI testified that the Department's hours of operation for Early Voting are not well known, and that the Department has at times closed before the posted hours, especially during the early voting period. This has complicated APRI's operations as they went through the effort of transporting voters to City Hall only to find the polls closed.

It is particularly important that the front desk staff, which disseminates information to and has contact with the public on a day-to-day basis, be adequately trained. The expectation should be for the Department to reasonably provide correct information the public can rely on.

Recommendations:

I. To improve customer service the Committee recommends the following:

II. To ensure continuous clerical operations in the Department so that backlogs don't develop and to address other customer service concerns, the CACE recommends the following:

F. Purge of Voter Rolls.

San Francisco's voter registration rolls have not been reviewed and purged on a regular basis over the past twenty-five years. As a result, there is a lot of deadwood on the voter rolls, understating voter turnout, contributing to the large number of provisional ballots cast in San Francisco elections, increasing printing and mailing costs for the Department for each election, which slows down the voter count, and increasing printing and mailing costs for campaigns. The maintenance of the voter rolls is one of the foundations of the efficient operation of the Department. Holli Thier expressed to the Committee the concerns of the League of Women Voters that the rolls be purged.

Recommendation:

The Department develop an on-going procedure for regularly maintaining the integrity of the voter registration lists. The success of the plan will depend on annual allocations of funding the resources necessary to address this program.

G. Multilingual and Multimedia Services.

Currently, the Department provides voting materials (ballots and voter information pamphlets) in Chinese and Spanish on request. It was pointed out to the Committee by Holly Thier, David Lee, Tom Hsieh, Jr., and others that other materials provided by the Department, such as instructions to candidates and campaign forms, are only in English. Tom Hsieh, Jr., Frank Tsei, and Richard Ow also testified that in previous elections, the absentee ballot envelope's instructions were not translated into Chinese. This resulted in some absentee ballots being mailed by voters without the required signature, thereby negating their votes.

In the March, 2000 election, 16,709 Chinese-American and 3,376 Hispanic-American voters requested bilingual materials. According to the Chinese American Voters Education Committee and other groups providing services to new citizens and voters for whom English-is-a-second-language, these numbers represent less than half of the actual populations of voters in San Francisco for whom Chinese or Spanish is their primary language. There are approximately 54,000 Chinese American and 33,000 Hispanic American registered voters in the City. Additionally, there are other substantial populations of native speakers of languages other than English, such as Tagalog, Vietnamese, and Russian for whom election materials of any kind are not available in their native languages.

Additionally there is a significant population of voters among all language groups who are functionally illiterate, for whom printed materials in any language are of limited or no use. Patricia Rodriguez expressed her concern about the seniors at the Mission Neighborhood Center who had difficulty reading complex voting materials - the forms are too long and seniors cannot understand everything. Norberto Martinez suggested that the Department produce audio-visual educational materials for people going through the naturalization process.

With respect to language issues that appear on the ballot, the trilingual optical scan ballots that were used in the pilot project for the new voting system had the Chinese language characters printed in a smaller font that was difficult to read.

Finally, in some past races, Richard Ow and others testified that candidates' names were not transliterated according to the candidates' preference.

Recommendations:

To improve multilingual and multimedia services, the CACE recommends the following:

1. The Department increase the catalog of materials that are being translated into Chinese and Spanish to include every document routinely provided the public produced in English.

2. The Department take active measures to ensure that all Chinese American and Hispanic American voters for whom English is not their primary language apply for and receive voter materials in their native languages.

3. The Department provide audio-visual educational materials in English, Mandarin, Cantonese, and Spanish for functionally illiterate voters.

4. The Department conduct an evaluation of whether there is an under-served need for bilingual or audio-visual materials and, to the extent a need is identified, develop a plan and funding to provide those materials to under-served voters. Such a plan should take into account the 2000 Census results.

5. The Department develop mono-lingual ballots in English, Chinese, and Spanish under the new optical scan system for the November 2000 election. Should additional languages be required under the Federal Voting Rights Act by the 2000 Census, such mono-lingual ballots in addition to English, Chinese, and Spanish be prepared for subsequent elections.

6. The Department develop forms and procedures to solicit and ensure candidates' preference of transliteration or translation of their name into other languages are printed on the ballot.

The Department has the task of identifying and maintaining a list of nearly 650 polling places throughout the City for every election, and staffing each site with at least 3 people who are willing to work a 16 hour day for nominal pay in sometimes spartan conditions.

Committee member Ed Canapary, clerk and Inspector, Elizabeth Canapary, , who have staffed polling places for years, testified that the pay for poll workers is barely minimum wage and that to recruit and retain trained poll workers, the pay would have to be significantly increased.

The need for reliable poll workers has been evidenced in the past when there were complaints about polling places not opening on time or not opening at all. Several residents from Bayview/Hunters Point testified that this was a chronic problem in their neighborhood.

Additionally, some poll workers lack knowledge about the voting processes, such as when to use provisional ballots and proper ballot security procedures. Doug Comstock testified that many ballot boxes were not properly sealed in recent elections. NOTE: Naomi Nishioka replied that the problem was that some of the seals were too small and that larger seals had been ordered for the March, 2000 primary. The Committee also takes notice of the fact that the new optical scan voting equipment will no longer require the use of the old ballot boxes with required seals

In the upcoming election, poll workers will also require training on the new optical scan voting system.

David Lee and Frank Tsei testified there are not always sufficient bilingual poll workers available to staff every polling place requiring their services.

Bob Planthold testified that some polling places lack adequate light, heat, or handicap accessibility. In some cases, polling places were difficult to reach for some voters, such as when they were located on a hill or required stairs to gain access.

Recommendations:

To ensure that election-day activities of the Department occur efficiently and do not inconvenience voters, the CACE recommends the following:

1. The Department's budget incorporate pay increases for poll workers with experience or who are bilingual in English/Mandarin, English/Cantonese, and English/Spanish (as a minimum).Compensation for experienced poll workers might be tied to a future living wage.

2. The Department improve its poll worker training. As the Department will be instituting its new optical scan voting system, every poll worker (inspector and clerks) should be required to attend poll worker training for the November, 2000 election, including hands-on training on the new optical scan voting system. Additionally, information about the voting process should be made available at all polling places to which poll workers may refer.

3. The Department conduct a comprehensive, walk-through inventory of polling places prior to the November election to include surveys for accessibility and maintain a photographic record of polling locations.

4. The Department make vigorous affirmative hiring efforts, including increased compensation, to increase bilingual poll worker recruitment and retention.

It is fundamental to the mission of the Department that the public, media and campaigns have confidence in the integrity of the vote counting process. The Committee received testimony from Doug Comstock and from APRI that the Department changed its policies with respect to election day observers and that these changes impeded their efforts to monitor the vote count after the polls closed. In the past, the Department allowed observers, escorted by Department staff, to see all stages of the canvassing in progress. In recent elections, since the return of the Department to City Hall, observers' movements have been restricted (due, in part, to the layout of the basement of City Hall).

The Department has not developed written standard operating procedures (in consultation with the media and campaigns) to provide adequate monitoring of the vote counting process while preserving the integrity of the process and minimizing interference with the canvassing duties of the Department.

Committee member Susan Horsfall testified that the presence of a media person with the Department helped to ameliorate concerns of media and the campaigns about the vote counting process, for the November, 1999 election. The use of video monitor screens todisplay citywide and precinct results on specific races also helped educate the public. The Department did not have a media spokesperson for the December, 1999 and March, 2000 elections, nor did it display results in the March, 2000 election. Horsfall added that the use of the portal next to the computers (which count the vote) was inadequate to provide the public, media and campaigns with access to observe the process.

Recommendations:

To improve confidence in the integrity of the vote counting process by the public, media and campaigns, the CACE recommends the following:

The Department develop election day policies and procedures (in consultation with the media and campaigns) and review them with stakeholder community groups prior to the election. The plan should include consideration of:

c. Upon request, conducting pre-arranged tours for a predetermined number ofstaff from each interested campaign, members of the media, and the public (as possible) for regular and orderly tours of Department facilities on election night; and

Committee member Christopher Bowman testified that voter turnout is substantially below the City-wide average among tens of thousands of San Francisco voters including students and younger voters, the poor (renters, those living in public housing and Single Room Occupancy hotel rooms, and the homeless), and new citizens and voters with limited English skills. The Committee received inconclusive testimony on the causes of lower voter turnout. The disparity may be caused by a need to clean outdated voter files from the voter rolls, or a preoccupation by some potential voters to meet the basic necessities of life or with one's career. Additionally, there may be problems with the current (as well as future) voting systems among voters less technologically inclined or functionally illiterate.

Until more studies have been conducted, targeted efforts to increase voter turnout among some voter constituencies will not be fully effective.

Recommendations:

To increase voter turnout, the CACE recommends the following:

1. The Department take all possible and legal measures to clean up the voter rolls, and develop comprehensive, ongoing procedures to maintain and update the voter rolls.

2. The Department contract with a research firm to survey registered San Francisco voters who have participated in less than half of the elections in the past years, as well as students and younger voters, the poor, and new citizens and voters with limited English skills to determine the causes for low voter turnout and make recommendations to the Department, Board of Supervisors, and the Mayor on how to increase voter turnout.

3. Identify those communities and precincts that have low registration and turnout rates and target resources to increase registration and turnout rates in such communities.

4. Provide information about these below rates registration and turnout rate communities and precincts to organizations that can work with the Department of Elections to increase their rates of registration and turnout.

5. The Department's budget include funds to purchase promotional items, such as "I voted today" buttons/stickers, and other motivational tools to inform voters of upcoming elections and increase voter participation.

6. The broadcast of a public service announcement on local radio and television stations prior to the twenty-nine day close and election day reminding the public to register to vote, and to vote respectably, may be a valuable tool in stimulating greater turn out.