If AssemblymemberFuller’s bill, AB 306 (Fuller), is passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor, it will give the Secretary of State the ability to let voters opt out of receiving a paper copy of the state sample ballot pamphlet in the mail and instead allow voters to get their sample ballot materials online.

This has the potential to save the state a bundle of money!  And, we need them to save money! IOUs won’t do.

We have asked Assemblymember Fuller to take the bill a step further and make it applicable to counties as well. And to conform county standards to the state standard.  These are the specifics of our request:

1. Allow counties to send one (1) copy of the county’s Official Sample Ballot & Voter Information Guide per household.  Right now, counties are required to send every voter his/her own copy. The state is only required to send one copy per household. Seems like the standard should be one and the same.

2. Allow county voters to opt out of receiving the county’s publication – the Official Sample Ballot & Voter Information Guide – online. We already provide this information online.  Why not give people the chance to get their materials online if they want to? 

3. And lastly, to get on the stick.  Let’s do this with urgency!  The savings are needed now. The coming election would be the perfect time to reap some savings and set things up for the gubernatorial in June 2010.

And, it should be mentioned, in any opt out scenario, voters could opt back in at any time. period.

Do us a favor – send a email to Assemblymember Fuller – tell her you think this is a great idea and ask her to add the San Mateo County amendments. Thanks!

Happy Fourth of July!

One of the signs of a vital democracy is not only the registration levels of existing parties, it’s also when people decide

Political Party Beginnings

 to start their own party!

According to Melinda Dubroff, one of our Election Specialists in charge of the voter registration and vote by mail units, “It’s remarkably easy in California to attempt to became a qualified party.”  Occasionally she even receives hand-written “Formal Notice” documents (documents required to propose a new political party and start the membership recruitment and qualification process). Dontcha just love the democratic process!

“It’s easy to start the process, but it’s not that easy to qualify,” Melinda explained. “There are several ways to qualify, however, when starting a party,  two ways are generally followed:   1) collecting signatures that equal 10% of the number of voters that participated in the preceding California gubernatorial election (889,910) or  2) registering 1% of the entire vote of the preceding California gubernatorial election into the newly proposed party (88,991).

That’s why most people have never heard of the Superhappy Evolution & NeuroScience Party, the More Money for Women Party, or the Anarchy & Poverty Party that are currently in circulation along with 61 other wannabe political parties.”

As our Chief Elections Officer Warren Slocum said this week, “One of the things that the recent Iranian Presidential election and the controversy surrounding the vote totals proves is something he’s been saying for a long time – we need more real data in the field of elections.”  To that end, he met with Professor Melissa Michelson of CSU-East Bay and Professor Neil Malhotra of Stanford to talk about possible academic studies related to elections.

For starters, the three agreed to apply for a grant from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission under the 2009 Help America Vote Act Mock Election section (CFDA #90.402) to encourage voting among young people, and, specifically to see if participating in a mock election will inspire youth to participate more regularly at a younger age. Young people have historically and consistently voted in smaller proportion than any other demographic section of the population. Even in the November 2008 Presidential Election when more young people voted than ever before, their participation was significantly less than other age groups. 

Ages 18-29           51%                                     
Ages 30-44           62%
Ages 45-64           69%
Ages 65 & older     70%

*(statistics from the Kirby and Kawashima-Ginsburg 2009 The Youth Vote study)

If funded, this study will test whether students participate in greater numbers:  1) if they are comfortable using the voting equipment, 2) if they understand the issues, 3) if they understand the mechanics of voting as well as the issues, or 4)  if neither have any impact on voting behavior.

Students will learn how to use the voting device, use it for voting in a mock election that will be held the week before the regularly scheduled elections in November 2009 and November 2009.  The results of the student vote will be compared with the results of the countywide vote and shared with all participants. Hopefully it will be funded and in the field this fall.

You’ve probably read that one of the Governor’s budget cutting proposals is to cut the funding  that the state provides to counties in the form of a reimbursement for mailing out the Vote by Mail ballots to voters. 

State officials contend that they can save more than $28 million a year by suspending state absentee ballot requirements.

Chris Carson, the Government director for the League of Women Voters of California, said that, “For a county to stop providing ballots for everyone, it would have to conduct the time-consuming and expensive task of determining which voters would remain entitled to them under federal law because they are in the military, live overseas, or are physically unable get to the polling place.”

Dean Logan, the Los Angeles County registrar/recorder called it “odd” for the governor to suggest suspending a program that was so popular. And his county has the lowest percentage enrollment of Vote by Mail voters in the state. Los Angeles County billed the state $3.2 million for absentee ballots in the last fiscal year.

“It almost feels like it’s cornering local government into picking up the tab for something the state has previously agreed to pay for,” Logan said.

Our own elections official, Warren Slocum, called the proposed vote by mail budget cut, a “policy disaster.” “What we should be doing in California is moving to all mail elections – not debating the wisdom of eliminating state funding for county vote by mail programs,” Slocum said.

We’re looking for relief from election costs in the form of vote my mail initiatives, resizing of precincts to subtract out the vote by mail voters, and consolidation of precincts. The Governor’s remedy exacerbates the problem on a local level without providing any counter balance of local relief.

 The MAJORITY of voters who participate in elections in California do so by MAIL. The evidence continues to grow.  

In the June 2 Redwood City Elementary School District Election, 68% of the voters voted by mail. In the May 19 Consolidated Special Statewide Election, 64.8% of the voters voted by mail.

In California, 64.5% of the voters cast their ballot by mail in the May 19th special election.

It’s time for change. Registrars should be given the flexibility to conduct elections by mail if their local Board of Supervisors approves the approach.

San Mateo County would save about 30% in election costs. And elections are costly to conduct. At a time when the state is slashing programs, shutting parks and according to the Controller, will be out of money by July 29, this idea is a no-brainer.

Let counties save real money by choosing opting to conduct elections by mail – as long as the locals support it.

It was lonely at the polls on May 19

While the results aren’t completely tallied, most of them are. By a two to one margin the turnout came from voters who voted by mail – 62% of them and that number is still climbing.

In San Mateo County, we have 360,782 registered voters – and not quite 25 30.67% of them voted in the May 19th Consolidated Special Statewide Election (just updated results at 4:30 p.m.). When you look hard at the polling place turnout, you must remember, we consolidated precincts – so some precincts were designed to serve as many as 1,400 voters, not just the usual 1,000 voters.  That means that our precinct boards served about 82  92 voters at each precinct over the course of a 13-hour day. That’s a little over 6  7 voters per hour. That’s tedium. Even with a slightly higher turnout.  The two-to-one margin didn’t move with this update.

A few years ago, I worked in a San Carlos Special Election as an election official. Warren Slocum, our Chief Elections Officer, thought it would be a good thing for me to experience working at the polls firsthand. I loved it, but I wanted more action. We had a total of 99 voters that day in our precinct—and it was painfully slow.

According to the Secretary of State’s preliminary county by county data – there are 33 counties that had 50% or more of their voter roll voting by mail in this election. With the state budget in shambles, tons of money could be saved if counties were given permission to decide locally if they wanted to conduct elections by mail.  It’s not unheard of –counties decide in the state of Washington.

Our Chief – Warren Slocum –  has always maintained that the most important, least understood, part of any election is the audit of that election, otherwise known as the Canvass. This is the part of the election that is “proof of the pudding” an expression my mother used to use that to this day I don’t quite understand.  Unlike that expression, the Canvass provides that transparent look at the election results that gives election administrators, candidates, voters and anyone who cares to take a close look, the confidence to know that every vote that was cast in an election was, in fact, counted and counted as it was intended. 

The Canvass technically begins when the polls close on Election Night. But the majority of the work of the Canvass begins the following morning. And that’s a good thing.  We all need sleep. It continues for the next 28 days. The warehouse will be humming with activity.  (nevermind that we’re also preparing for the June 2 Special Election for the Redwood City Elementary School District).

So, what’s the first order of business?  The retrieval of all of the eSlates that were locked together at the precincts Election Night and picked up the following day, the verification of signatures on the vote by mail ballots that were dropped off at the polls on Election Day (turns out there were 12,000+) ballots cast this way, the research that goes into verifying the signatures and registration status of everyone who cast a provisional ballot at the polls, and the inventory and return of all supplies in the red supply suitcases.  That’s just the beginning.

Think of it this way–there’s the rest of the ballots that have to be validated before they can be counted, there’s the whole warehouse that has to be put back in order (voting equipment, supplies, etc.), and then there’s the counting of those ballots that passed the signature verification check.  All that has to go on before the 1% manual audit can be conducted. With 407 precincts – there’s lots of stuff.  And it’s a surprisingly manual process if you were to visit the warehouse to see for yourself. This brings me to my next point!

All of this is open to public view – observers are welcome. We do ask that you call the Elections Office, specifically Narda Garcia, the Elections Supervisor at (650) 312-5365 and let her know you’ll be coming. She’ll issue you a visitors badge, give you an overview of what you’re seeing and answer any questions you have.

The polls just opened at 7 a.m.  and if you haven’t already done so, make sure and vote today.  Stop by and make your poll worker’s day. They’ve been hard at work since 6 a.m. and will be there until about 9:30 p.m. tonight.

The polls will be open until 8 p.m. so you have plenty of time, but why wait?  Do yourself a favor – double check the location of your polling place before you go vote – every election there are a few that change locations. Use the “Find My Polling Place link” on the homepage of www.shapethefuture.org – it’s on the left side– scroll down to the Voter Tool Kit and click the link and fill in the 3 required bits of information about yourself.  It will present the name and location of your precinct. Double-checking will save you time and aggravation–both good things to avoid.

Yesterday’s statistics showed that the turnout of San Mateo County Vote by Mail voters (so far) had reached 14.43%.  Just got new information…the percentage has edged up to 16.64 percent with addition of the morning mail. Even more reason to make sure and vote today…with the record-breaking LOW turnout that’s expected, it may seem like you’re vote represents not only you, but the vote of your neighbor, friend and co-worker that didn’t bother to vote.  It really does matter.

Tonight, you can find all the results online here at www.shapethefuture.org. Look for the Results Link at the top of the homepage.

The first returns will be reported at 8:05 p.m. and will represent those ballots cast by the Vote by Mail voters who returned them to our office prior to Election Day.  Ballots from this group that are received today or dropped off at the polls will be counted during the Canvass that technically (under law) begins as soon as the polls close.  We won’t start counting these ballots until the day after. Remember, we still have to signature verify before we can add these votes to the vote totals.

The 8:30 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. returns represent votes counted from  the Vote by Mail precinct voters and the Early Voters (those who came in person and voted in one of our offices in the 29 days prior to the election).

At 9:30 p.m. we’ll post live returns from ballots cast by precinct voters and continue to issue these every half-hour until all the precinct votes are counted.

Join us at the Rotunda at 555 County Center in Redwood City. between 7:30 p.m.  and 10:30 p.m. We’ll be issuing the returns, visiting with voters and others interested in this election and serving light refreshments. All are welcome!

Prior to every election, we conduct our version of a dress rehearsal. Everyone has a critical role, everyone’s effort is sequenced and timed, and every time we do it we learn from it.  Tonight there were about 60 people participating in “The Mock.” It’s held at night to simulate conditions—driving, checking things under portable lights at receiving stations and relaying the movement of equipment and ballots, and giving staff practice at directing traffic.

We test everything. (Everything except the equipment that is—it’s already been tested, secured and locked down in preparation for the election). Here’s just a few of the things that were tested:

• the time it takes to deliver the JBCs,
• security protocols – (did everyone scan the barcodes on each piece of equipment that travels on Election night?),
• traffic patterns as drivers deliver ballots and equipment on Election night to the warehouse at Tower Road,
• the extraction of the electronic memory cards and the reading of test ballots in the Secure Tally Room,
• even the timed delivery of election results to the Secretary of State’s Office and our websites applications that report results to the public is tested!

We look for weaknesses. We determine if the training was clear and prepared our election workers for their tasks. We ask ourselves if our planning and improvements were on target.  If something doesn’t work, it’s analyzed and changed so that on Election Night, things work more smoothly.

And, I’ve noted that in almost every Mock Election, the Elections Manager, David Tom, will intentionally create a problem that others have to notice, troubleshoot and resolve.

All of this keeps everyone on their toes—poised for service—and ready for success.

The May 5 Special School District election had striking similarities and wildly different results. All contests on the ballot were sponsored by school districts. All three school districts chose to conduct their election by mail. All three school districts were seeking approval for a parcel tax to support their schools. And, because of that, all three ballot measures required a 2/3rds vote for passage.

Two-thirds is a hurdle for any ballot measure; that’s why contests that ask voters to tax themselves voluntarily have such a high threshold. Ordinarily a simple majority is all that’s required for passage.

All three school districts received well over the 50 percent voter threshold. According to the semi-official election results posted election night, two districts, San Carlos and Woodside, were successful in passing their parcel tax measures. Only Jefferson Elementary School District’s Measure A did not meet the 2/3rd requirement for passage; yet Measure A did receive 57.89 percent voter support. So take a look at the results for each measure:

Measure A, the Jefferson Elementary School District measure received 57.89 percent voter support.

Measure B, the Woodside Elementary School District measure received 74.76 percent voter support.

Measure C, the San Carlos School District measure received 71.20 percent voter support.

What was the difference? The difference was the turnout.

Turnout for Measure A          21.25 percent

Turnout for Measure B          46.69 percent

Turnout for Measure C          47.46 percent

Turns out…turnout matters.