Okay, I'm calling the meeting to order.

Commissioner Butter?

Here.

Here.

Commissioner Fam.

Here.

Commissioner Ramon.

Here.

Commissioner Seabrook.

Present.

Commissioner Barlick.

Here.

Commissioner Wagner.

Commissioner Whitehurst.

Commissioner or Vice President Dieter.

President Lindsay?

Here.

And present.

And there's Commissioner Wagner.

Okay.

Are there any modifications, suggested modifications to the agenda?

Hearing none, we'll move ahead.

If nobody objects.

Okay.

We need to approve the minutes of October 2025.

They're on pages four through seven.

I didn't notice anything, but I'm not exactly the world's greatest editor.

Did anybody else?

Did Irene send you anything?

Okay.

I Irene is our best editor.

I'll move to approve the minutes from October 2025.

Moved by Commissioner Ramon, seconded by Commissioner Seabrook to approve the minutes of October 2025.

If there's no objection, we'll have them approved.

Does anybody object?

Okay, it's approved by acclamation.

Announcements and communications.

Staff.

No announcements.

Commissioners.

Okay.

I've got four items.

Commissioners uh Dieter, Felcher, and Whitehurst are all out of town and told me they would be here today.

So there's only one person missing that I didn't know about.

Just want to let everybody know that or remind commissioners that there's no December meeting.

Uh we just go with the way that uh Alameda County does it for the Board of Supervisors, uh, which is no meetings in August or December.

Um, and so the next meeting will be January 15th, 2026.

Um in January 2026, we will be electing new officers and our rules have term limits, so I'm termed out.

Um so we'll be electing a president and a vice president.

Um, and um maybe I can't remember offhand, uh like uh appointing somebody to be the liaison for new commissioners.

It can be a quite a quite a jolt to come on to a new commission and not know how to get anything on the agenda or you know how to do it, you know, what you can do and can't do.

So um so just think just letting you know you can think about if you're willing to do any of those things.

And the last one is that Zarbre's term uh ended, and um she has chosen not to continue.

So uh we're now at 11 members.

Uh the open seats that we have at the moment are the uh seat six, the impacted community seat, uh, that the um nominations committee has been working on, and now seat 13, which is the voting rights organization seat.

Um we will offer to the board of supervisors to help with the um uh voting rights organization seat, um, but that's not under under the ordinance, it's not.

We we don't officially uh nominate one from from the uh from the commission.

Um, so but we'll ask them if they'd like some hope.

My guess is they'll say yes, please, uh, because they all have it's very hard for them to fill all the seats they have to fill.

Um, okay, so that's all my announcements.

Is there any are there any clarifying questions on those ones or no?

Okay.

Um, so we're now on to public comment.

If you would like to make a public comment on agendized items, please raise your hand now.

None.

Okay.

Um item seven on the agenda is a monthly update from the Registrar Voters' Office.

Uh, there is an attachment on page eight.

Uh for this month, uh, as you you all are aware, we've been focused on the November 4th uh statewide special election, uh, and the uh Washington Township uh health care district election.

Uh these elections were conducted.

Uh we had uh 20 vote centers open starting on October 25th, and an additional 18 vote centers were opened by Saturday, November 1st.

Uh we had all of our drop boxes open uh by Monday, October 6th.

Uh the day after the election, we start the uh official canvas, uh, and uh uh we continue that uh into the first week of December.

Um the state uh uh has given us uh some dates we need to consider in December uh for certification.

Uh the first plus mail was plus mail being mail that we've received after the election uh that is uh has a postmark of uh election day or earlier.

Uh we started receiving that on Wednesday, November 5th, and continued until November 12th.

Uh that was due to uh a holiday.

So we had the holiday in there and that extended to November 12th, the uh receiving a plus mail.

Uh yesterday, I'm losing track of time a little bit, but yesterday uh we conducted the uh one percent manual tally.

Uh that's where we hand count 1% of the votes received, and we were able to complete it yesterday.

Uh and we now are in this period where uh the only votes remaining uh to be processed are any votes that are cured.

Uh meaning uh that we have uh envelopes, uh we have ballots in envelopes that uh the signature wasn't done properly, and those voters have been notified uh that they need to cure their ballots.

Believe we're around three thousand, at least that's I'm sure we've had some that are cured, but if you take a look at the unprocessed ballot report on the secretary of state's website, you'll see that after the last unofficial posting, uh uh we were at around a little over 3,000 votes remaining to be cured.

So uh that's where we are on the election.

Uh we we really are still in this election until it's certified, although uh in general the public has moved on.

Um but uh in the state, all of the election officials are still working on this election.

Um something else to note, uh we are already uh working on the June election.

Uh so that there's really no rest in our office.

Uh the uh and that's not written here, but uh we will be uh receiving.

Do you know the date when we'll be receiving the first candidates?

No, I said early.

December 19th is uh when we are open to start the onboarding of any candidates that we'll be running in the June election.

So you do have two weeks out of the fifty-two weeks where you're not immediately.

Yeah, yeah, just so a very, very, very small joke.

Um, yeah, I was gonna ask when is uh certification due?

Uh the state has given us a date that we can not certify any earlier than December 2nd.

Okay, so it has to be December 2nd or later.

Well, that's that's what we're still discussing.

Oh, I see.

Okay.

But I mean, the there's a 30 days we have to certify, right?

Right.

So um, so in the state, you know, no earlier than the second.

Um, and you say everybody's still, I mean, basically everybody's curing ballots, is that the I'm assuming everybody is gotten to the stage we're at.

And the last question I had is just how many votes did you get this time?

Uh we were at 52 percent uh turnout, and I don't have the website up, but I think statewide the last time I looked, the uh statewide average was running around forty-eight percent.

Oh wow.

So somewhat above, but just the raw number.

Do you have any idea what the raw number is?

I can give you the raw number if you give me a second.

I'm just curious, and that was my last question.

Okay.

If you want to get a number for us, good chance Sante can answer if he's not available.

So I was wondering, um, does the register of voters know anything about the Department of Justice asking for unredacted voter registration records?

Um, from our secretary of state.

If that happened, I read about it, and if so, does that trickle down to the register of voters happening to give over information?

Do you know the answer?

Well, um, we are aware of the Department of Justice seeking voter registration data.

Um, we have not received an official request from the Department of Justice ourselves.

And in my next what my next question was about the curing.

Um sorry, how do you determine that the signature isn't good enough?

Um, so be able to be counted, and then what methods do you use to have form the voter?

Uh in this period now for curing of signatures, it's basically um a voter who has not signed their return envelope, or the signal is a signature is a mismatch, and what we typically see are um imagine um a household voting and they mix up their envelopes.

So each return envelope is specific to a voter.

Um the voter information is within a barcode and intelligent barcode on the return envelope.

So when we bring up the information, we see who that voter should be and we verify the signature.

Um so by law, we have to contact those voters and tell them that their signature needs to be cured within a time frame in order for their vote to be counted.

And we um send out letters more.

I think we're on our third letter now.

Um if there's a phone number on file, we call them multiple times.

Uh if there's an email, we email them multiple times.

Um, so they're aware that their signature needs to be cured in terms of verifying the signatures.

Um the secretary of state provides a comprehensive signature verification training that all of our team members um go through and get certified.

Thank you.

All right, Jim, for the numbers.

Uh so statewide, we're now up to 50 percent.

Um, but here in Alameda County, we are at 52.5 percent.

Our total registered voters are 966,534.

Uh, and our total ballots cast are 507,873.

Uh, in terms of our last posting to the state uh for ballots to be cured, uh we posted 3,366 to be cured.

And that was on December 2nd.

I'm sorry.

No, it couldn't be.

It's November 14th, sorry.

My personal reaction is that seems like a hydrocount special question.

That was a high turnout.

Yes, that was a high turnout for a special election.

Yeah, I had just a general uh question.

I assume that after each election, you kind of do a debriefing about what worked well and what didn't work.

And um I can't remember if that's something that we see or if that's something excuse me, you can summarize now.

Um I know you're still in the middle, so it probably is premature.

It's not something that we have done yet, uh, but we do after the election.

Uh, and that's in it's in generally internal.

Uh we don't create a report that comes to you.

Um is there a reason not to?

Well, I can because I've done this sort of thing, not not in an election, but uh well, sometimes an election, not a public election.

Um, sometimes it's Joe screwed up badly in this situation, like really badly, and we had to scramble and we fixed it in this way.

You ain't making that public.

You know, you can't really.

Or sometimes it's something that had no end effect, um, and you just don't want to um get the haters ammunition.

I don't know what else to say.

Um, and it's internal, it had no effect on anything.

We do need to fix it, but you know, we don't particularly want to, you know, publicize it.

So that would be my take on why they would might be might be choosing to keep it internal.

Uh but you know, you guys may have a a different answer, you know.

I think that's a fair answer.

If there was anything egregious uh that uh happened, uh in the in the way that we conducted the election, we would have to report that to the state and the remedies.

So uh, you know, those those things uh certainly are made public or to the state.

Um, but as you said, a lot of what we're talking about is internal processes that uh, you know, we we couldn't improve on.

Uh and again, it's it's probably fairly personal.

I guess I was looking for kind of a higher level, not getting down into the real nitty-gritty, but you know higher level um analysis of um what worked well and what you might um look to improve going forward.

I mean, there might be some way to do that.

It hasn't been done in the past, but you know, I can I mean we are an oversight body, people do want to know it.

Anything they give to us though is going to be public.

Um so um if there's some way to do something public from the ROV's office, it wouldn't be comprehensive, right?

But uh at least some things that um they they felt like went well and some things that they're they're internally, but and don't mind sharing that they're worth planning on um improving.

I think that would be appreciated.

Um, but I don't know how viable that is.

Um, you know, but but I do see I mean I would really I'd love to see something like that.

I just don't know if it's viable.

Um there folk questions or comments.

Okay.

Um so we're done with item seven.

So item eight uh is uh actionable items.

All of these um, you know, we can have motions and vote on them and stuff.

We don't they can they're for discussion, but they're also for action.

Uh so we're gonna do first uh the uh committees.

So 8A is the voting participation committee.

Ty, I'm trying to check you pretty regularly, but you may have to say something if you've got something to contribute, and I didn't notice.

So, um anyway, voting participation committee, um commissioners Moore, Whitehurst, Seabrook, and Lindsay.

Um there's a mistake in the agenda.

It's it's our fault, uh not staff's fault.

Uh Commissioner Seabrook is now the uh the leader of this um committee.

So can you give give people an update on what's happening with the committee?

Yeah, so the the general update is we will be kind of re-redefining the group.

We're going to start working on a an omission statement that kind of help us guide us through moving forward, keep us kind of keep a focus.

So our next step, which our next meeting, which would probably take place in January, we will be working on a mission statement to bring back to you guys so that we have a better focus and a better definition of what we're aiming for as we move forward.

Questions, comments.

Okay, go ahead, Karen.

Yeah.

Um Carl, do you see that there would be any recommendations that might affect the June election?

It it it would depend on how we define our mission statement.

Um right now just that the the group itself and the task at hand is it's just it's huge.

And it's not an Alameda County issue, it's everywhere.

So we kind of need to narrow down the focus of the group so we can be effective and kind of have some direction and meetings.

I don't I don't really have a good answer for you right now.

I think if there's something that's viable um for June, we'd like to suggest that to um to the ROV's office, but more this is a long-term project as opposed to a short-term project for the reasons that Carl said.

Um, this is a tough problem.

Really important one, it's worth working on, but boy, is it tough.

You know, so and is um and is part of your investigation to look at what other counties um are doing as well in this regard.

Uh that will be because part of what we're doing.

We want to try and avoid reinventing the wheel, so to speak.

So there's a lot that we can leverage from other groups, so and as we move forward, we will do so.

Yeah, even nationally, there might be something that's going on that could be useful.

Yeah.

Um, so that's the uh voting participation committee.

Uh next is nominations.

Uh I guess Alex, you're the leader of that group, right?

Uh yes.

Uh and I work on that uh with uh Carl as well.

Um so here's our our update.

We've uh received four additional applications, one of which stuck out to us, and I had the opportunity to speak to this candidate, Alexandra Ritzy Hernandez.

She goes by Sasha, um, and she stands out for a number of reasons.

Um she has experience uh advising people in the community and working polls.

Uh she was a candidate herself for school board uh for the Oakland School Board.

Um and uh she was uh uh part of the Alameda County Language Advisory Committee and actually still is, and she's been doing that work since 2020.

She's the executive director of Somos Familia.

Um she is invested in this process and brings, I believe, to the table a wealth of experience to which I have certainly no insight, which is what are the struggles and needs for people who uh approach the voting process but have a language barrier.

She gets that.

Um, and I think she would be a great candidate to have and uh a great commissioner to add to our commission.

So Carl and I spoke about uh about uh Sasha after I had an opportunity to interview her.

Uh we think uh we should put her up for a vote to present her to the board of uh supervisors to become a member of this commission.

Okay.

Uh Carl?

No, I was gonna say after question, I would like to make a nominee, make a recommendation that we vote on on her subject.

Okay.

Uh clarifying questions questions in general.

I did have one question Alex you said that she's on a committee on language is that a county committee that's not the election um committee the the language committee that the ROV has is that correct that's right it's the Alameda County Language Advisory.

Wait that's not one of the ROV's committees that is the ROB committee.

Okay so that is the ROV committee yes I mean that's where she came from because I mean that's how we found out about it because Cynthia knew her.

Good.

Um the commission asked that maybe we could reach out to our lack members.

And so each of our language coordinators did make a few announcements and um I guess one did follow through.

I mean she sounds really good yeah and she is um she was impressive to speak to um it was clear to me within five minutes of speaking room so I move to I move to bring vote well I see all right so motion by remote and seconded by Seabrook um that we recommend to the board of supervisors uh Sasha Hernandez um for seats uh let's see hang on one second community uh seat six okay uh to fill seat six uh that's motion has been made and seconded uh is there discussion uh hearing none will you call the role please commissioner butter commissioner butter yes commissioner henderson yes commissioner ramon yes commissioner seabrook yes commissioner varlick yes commissioner wagner yes vice president lindsey or present sorry um yes so motion passes seven zero unanimously um and I'll work with Alex to get that to the board of supervisors um all right um okay that's great thank you so much great work you guys um I don't ad hoc committees are really supposed to not not not keep going forever but we now have another open seat um and so I need to check with the county to see if they would welcome um assistance if they say no then we should close down the the committee on principle the Brown Act is very clear you're not supposed to have standing committees um and um and then we can reopen it you know if we if we need to uh restart the committee if we need to but if the board of supervisors says yes please then there's still work to do and um okay um and then number three is the youth participation uh the new youth participation committee that just got founded last month thank you uh president so we did not get a chance to meet yet we have a tentative meeting scheduled for December 1st um but the goals of the youth participation committee as we discussed at our last meeting is to work with the ROV to build out the internal program that you have already started to get youth participation and my hope is to also partner with local leaders as well as school districts to find out where the youth are and how to get them signed up to vote.

And also to take a look at um potentially reaching out to people in the juvenile justice system and maybe even the foster system so they can also get educated on their rights.

And um Commissioner Butter, I don't know if you wanted to add anything.

No, that sounds pretty comprehensive.

I just want to make sure that we are going to work with um the organizations in the school districts that are are already doing uh work um we can learn something and and um partner with them as well uh other commissioners anything to add or any questions to ask um I will say I work a little bit with foster youth and I if you don't already have connections I might be able to connect you with with some people okay yeah um all right um so we're done with uh 8A which is the ad hoc committees so then we're into new business uh 8b1 is um uh is a note that uh we're required by law by the ordinance uh to do uh assessments for each election uh the last one was uh a one pager um and it worked well i think it was one pager one or two pages uh was was quite brief um and that seems appropriate especially for a special election um you know something like that we're not talking about a 25 page analysis um so um possible action listed here is to establish an ad hoc committee or appoint one commissioner to bring back a draft assessment at the January meeting and it says uh see attachment that's on page eight uh page nine excuse me um on page nine for those who are looking at it um Irene just did some brainstorming on our on our own and to start us off as to um what might be um some possible improvements some possible um process or what improvements have been enacted uh and what what might be some potential process improvements uh going forward um but it's not anything we need to discuss now it's just for what it's just kind of a starting point for the uh sub the the the committee or the individual that's working on this can use this as they wish or not um so is anybody uh willing to be uh either to do it solo or uh to be on this committee um I will do a draft of the report um uh I think it would be useful as a start to hear from the commissioners um on their observation right now of the election um that you know we could start so all right and I saw David I saw your hand twitch so maybe the two of you I think two people is a good number for this committee so that they can just knock it out you know if you get too big a committee it can be hard to get stuff done but if anybody's really eager we won't turn you away all right so it looks like uh it's it's um David and Karen unless somebody else uh indicates they want to do it later and Karen has asked can we um can can people give some feedback and so tie uh I would uh it it's it's okay for me not to be on the ad hoc but I'm more than happy to provide Irene um with the ad hoc committee with additional information on the city clerk perspective on how we saw that from our end.

You're welcome to be on it if you want uh as long as as we're underneath quorum then I'm okay with it.

All right.

Okay.

So um so right now we're looking at Karen and David and Ty.

Um and now uh Karen has requested uh that and actually I think Irene mentioned it last month too and maybe even via an email um if people can just think about what they've heard from the community and about their own experiences with the election.

Um you know what what maybe you know something that stood out to you that was good and something that stood out to you that wasn't so good.

If you have either of those or both of those that would be great.

Carl?

Yeah I have a couple things one thing a couple of things stood out to me is good.

First that was much earlier the the voter turnout was exceeded my expectation and then um throughout prior to the election prior to the actual uh November voting there was a lot of advertising vote now and encouraging people to vote early so I thought that was also done well.

Excuse me I might just go down the line at some point here um so and you can you can just say pass if I put you on the spot and you got nothing um so uh why don't we continue from Carl and go this way Susan you would be last this time all right um Alex any what were your just off the top of your head thoughts uh just the the publicity that I saw around the election um and getting everyone on the same page in the community I saw it in Pleasanton everywhere uh and I think that was a big driver for good what I consider a pretty good turnout for a special election David I'll pass.

Um the one comment I had and I don't remember where I saw it and who put it out but there was a big announcement about thank you for voting which I thought was was that Alameda County yeah I thought that was fantastic um and I where did I see it?

Billboards yeah my experience was a little different than what I'm used to because I I love to vote in person and I live in Hayward and recently moved so I used to vote at the department of education it was literally next to my house I would walk in and it was just always a beautiful experience painless like no line wonderful we had our own little stylist plan it was just a great experience but this was my first year voting by mail and I did it early because I think I too got the message to vote early so I said you know what let me just go ahead and put this in the mail.

So I'm counted and yeah it was good.

For me I also I also was triggered a bit in a good way um to just you know I tend to be a bit of a last minute procrastinator type but what was the reason for procrastinating this time there was really no reason and it was sitting there and then all the all the vote you know every time I went out somewhere I saw it and I'm like all right what the hell and I so I voted earlier than I ever have in my life which isn't saying much since usually it's the day before the day um but you know this time it was a couple weeks before um so um and my experience was it just seemed really smooth I got I got my voter information guide plenty early um and um which I appreciate although there was one thing you know but and I knew I was going to vote anyway but it was just nice to get that voter information guide early um the materials came I was just it just seemed very very smooth and very fast um so uh I I will say that I heard some complaint from somebody um and I sorry I don't have more but that that they got their voter information guides late um and so I don't have much data for you on that one I apologize for that but I remember hearing about that on I don't know if it was face you know Facebook or something like that.

That's the only negative thing that I heard the only complaint I heard.

I'm gonna go to Ty and then Susan uh Ty.

Uh overall uh positive experience uh the busiest day on was my November 5th when actual folks actually came in to actually figure out where to drop off their ballots and unfortunately for City Hall the ballot drop-off box is actually at the bottom end of for uh the parking area instead of at city hall itself so I had to unfortunately direct them back to go down the stairs to drop it off their ballots so uh but which is not an issue, a major issue per se, but overall uh after we left after I left at 6 p.m.

from work, yeah, there was still a continuous flow of folks dropping off ballots.

Uh as if they were going through a drive-thru.

So yeah, it was an overall positive experience for me, and seeing that in action was made me happy.

Susan.

Yeah, everything I lots of you know media about voting early.

Um I thought it would have been interesting to see the vote early because if you vote early, it gets counted before the election day.

So that's what I put on Facebook.

This is why you should vote early, so you're you don't have to wait for the results for so long.

Um so that that's a yeah, a thing.

And but otherwise, I unlike Diega, I almost always vote in person, but because of all that all that, you know, the constant media about it, I voted by mail or voted in a drop box.

So good job.

Susan, you you represent disability rights organization.

Um did you hear anything from that community?

Um nope, I haven't heard anything.

Okay.

All right.

Um any other feedback?

Uh this is feedback.

I mean, in indirectly to staff, but directly to for the for the committee.

Karen?

It's not exactly feedback, but when I'm watching the election results come in on the television, some states seem to be able to report um votes before the polls have closed.

Is that correct?

Or I know in California you can't report anything until eight o'clock, but can other states report early?

So no, it's not.

Uh the the press, I believe, are using exit polls to decide uh the races, and we have no control over that.

Uh and that's national.

Uh well, yeah, what we saw here in California is that they were calling it before we had the first votes even posted.

So I I don't know how they did that, but uh I'm assuming it's exit polls.

I'd just like to add one thing.

I did pay attention to I watched when Alameda County posted their first numbers, and when San Francisco County voted posted their first numbers, and you're way ahead.

Yeah, I I know for a fact that that that what he said is what's happening.

Um they're under enormous pressure, uh, enormous business pressure to beat each other to making a call.

They to the point where sometimes they make a call and then they have to back off.

Um and um that's not common because it puts serious egg on their face when they have to do that.

But I've seen it.

I've been I've I've I've literally been watching, you know, a show where they said, Oh, we said this one was called but we were too fast, you know.

Now we're putting it back in the doubtful area.

You know, so the way that the media gets the data is the same that we do.

We they look at the Alameda County ROV website to see the numbers coming in, is that's correct.

Um what the news is getting at the same time you get it.

Um we do uh oftentimes have press at our office.

Uh uh this the associated press always sends somebody uh to be there, but uh it all that information is online for at the same time everybody else gets it.

Yeah, it's exit polling.

You know, they're just you know that they pay outfits to do that.

Uh they ask enough people, and 70% say, you know, they voted yes on Prop 50, and they're like, okay, that thing won.

You know, it's just like this, you know.

Um, but it's not but you know, before anything's posted, they know.

Um, Commissioner Lindsay, do we actually vote on creating the ad hoc committee here?

So we should probably do that.

Oh, yes.

Um, we're not done with this item yet.

So so um, can we get a motion?

To create to create the committee, and that the committee consists of uh Karen, uh Karen Butter, David Wagner, and Tyfam.

Sure.

I moved that we create a ad hoc committee to uh provide a report on a post-election assessment to be staffed by Commissioner Butter, Commissioner Wagner, and um Commissioner Tyne and Fan.

I second.

Okay, so moved by Varlock and seconded by Henderson.

Is there any further discussion?

Commissioner Butter.

Aye.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Motion passes 7 0 unanimously.

All right.

Thank you very much to those three commissioners.

Okay, the next item is item 8B 2, recruitment for RV position.

There's some notes on pages 10 and 11.

But I'm afraid that this is a little bit confusing because we were gonna go in one direction and then we went in another.

But this is what the agenda says.

So at some point the county will publicize the job opening for the ROV and hold interviews to fill the ROV position.

Commissioners are encouraged to spread the word to your network of contacts to help increase the pool of candidates applying for the job.

The commission could inform the supervisors that commissioners are reaching out and offer further assistance to the Board of Supervisors if called upon them to do so.

So that part's pretty solid.

But some of the stuff that's uh in the attachment, that was uh uh our error on the commission side, that is myself and Irene, because we're not actually proposing some of the stuff that's there.

So I think we could kind of safely ignore that for now.

The attachments are not current.

Um there might be some part of that that we use, but it would be possible action.

Uh one is um offering assistance to the board of supervisors, uh and the um, like I say, this is a little bit in error, um, and the second would be uh letting you know encouraging commissioners and the community um to spread the word um so that uh they get uh uh.

I don't know how many people are gonna apply to be their RV of Alameda County.

I don't very many people can do that.

So um but it would you know see see what we can do at least spread the word that it is it is open um but I think um the second part there uh form an ad hoc committee I don't think that's necessary I don't think it would be helpful and so I actually do not recommend that just that we uh we ask the board of supervisors um we let them know that we're here for them if there's something we can do um but they know how to hire department heads they've been doing it a long time um so uh but if they have something for us to do however I do think we should spread the word so that's um that's a little bit a little bit messy but that's the background and possible action uh for this item so let's open it up for discussion.

Yes, thank you.

Um do we have I'm relatively new to the commission, so please forgive me if I should know this.

Do we have our own website for the commission explaining what we do and giving announcements for certain items that we're working on in conjunction with our report to the ROV as well as the Board of Supervisors?

Because I think that might be a good place to say the job is being opened up.

Not exactly.

Um the the way Alameda County works, we've asked for that, but the way Alameda County works is not conducive to that.

Um it's not part of the Alameda County culture that each of the hundred plus commissions has its own web page.

Um we do not have that, but what we do have is a document that people can ask for that has a whole bunch of links on it.

And anybody from the anybody from the public that's available to anybody.

I think I've sent it to all commissioners.

It's the helpful links document.

And you know, but but there's really no there's there's really no website uh that we can publish this on.

The county will publish it somewhere on their website when there's an opening.

I don't know where they publish it at, right?

We have a whole section uh for job openings, and it'll be in that section.

Yeah, and I assume that there are national organizations and state organizations for ROV.

Do they kind of find out about this?

And I don't know, I don't know how they're going to do the recruiting, but uh certainly there's the association that we're part of uh C A CEO, C A CEO.

Uh there's the National Association of Counties, there's the California uh association uh of counties as well.

Um so uh there's there's a number of venues, formal venues that they can certainly put the word out.

Um there's the national body that we talked about before, uh the election uh center.

Yeah, the election center.

So there's a number of ways to get the word out.

Okay.

Um but again the the the county had it uh has had this as a discussion item for the board uh and uh I I'm not uh privy to what they have decided, but um, as you said, the board does know and like the county doesn't know how to recruit for these positions, these executive positions, Susan?

Um so I'm wondering the in uh other kinds of positions like superintendent of schools, there's always like a people know when there's gonna be a vacancy or they've heard of vacancies, and so superintendents from you know Southern California apply for jobs in Northern California and other states.

Is it like that for ROV?

Uh yes, it is um one of the most recent uh ROVs in the Bay Area over in Marin came from Nevada County.

Uh so it it it gets socialized in the profession.

Okay, other discussion.

All right.

Um so I don't think that we need to take any official action on this.

Um I don't think official action is necessary for me to write the board and say that we're willing to help in any way possible, right?

And we you know, but but if but if we want to make it official that this is what the commission says, uh Karen, I see you're thinking about you could make a motion.

Um, no, I'm just trying to to understand what you said.

So you said you will send a letter.

Uh yeah, I'll send a letter saying that that we're encouraging um our commission and the public for what it's worth that's here or finds out about this, um, to just spread the word that the opening is happening, and um uh and also uh to let the board of supervisors know that if there's anything we can do to be helpful in the process, that we will do it.

I don't think a motion, I don't think that requires a motion, but if somebody wants to make the motion, we can.

All right, okay.

Um so I'll go ahead and do that.

Um all right, and then uh so we're done with 8b2 recruitment for ROV position, and we're on to 8B3 youth voting, which is certainly connected to to your committee, but we've been uh dealing with some stuff before that.

So the background here is 16 and 17-year-old youth can now vote in the Oakland Berkeley elections.

The ROV's office implemented this for the November 2024 election.

However, one piece of this implementation is outstanding, allowing youth to pre-register and vote in vote centers.

The listed possible action is the commissioner that the commission vote to encourage the ROV's office to work with its vendor to develop a technological solution that would allow youth to pre-register and vote in vote centers by the June 2026 election.

And one clarification there is that if you're 16 years old, you can't register to vote legally, but you can pre-register to vote, and then the ordinances say that youth that are 16 and 17 and have pre-registered to vote can vote in those two jurisdictions, Berkeley and Oakland.

So that's why it says pre-registered vote.

Right.

Um discussion, and maybe we can start with the youth folk.

I don't mind throwing my hat in the ring, but I noted that was something that had already started with the ROV internally, and I wasn't sure if the um voting participation committee had anything to do with it since this is also kind of an underdeveloped job genre of voters.

Um but I'm open to hearing what's possible.

I think that it would be amazing to be able to hit the ground running to help the ROV get as many youth pre-registered as possible.

Um, but I don't really know the status of of where things stand with respect to the technology we would need to accomplish the task.

Yeah, I guess I'd like to hear from the ROV about the technology.

Um is the vendor able to do that and are they doing it in other communities in um the in California?

So there are no other communities in California that are doing this.

Um as you may remember, uh, we were able to advance the technology to the point for the November 2024 election that it was a vote by mail vote for the use.

Uh and uh we we were not able to get it to the point that it was integrated uh so that they could come to the vote centers and in person vote.

Uh now the question is whether or not uh we're working with the vendor.

We have been talking to the vendor about uh what it takes to go to the next steps.

I don't know if you're prepared to say where we are on that.

We'll start up conversations again with the vendor, which is waiting for this election to be certified and done, and we can talk to the stakeholders, which is Berkeley and Oakland unified school districts, and then the vendors involved with this to um ensure that this is something that we can do for the November 2026 election.

So the primary is just there's no way because it's so close.

Well, the two jurisdictions don't conduct elections in June.

So it doesn't even apply.

Okay.

It's only for Oakland Unified and Berkeley Unified at this point, and they conduct their elections in November of even numbered years.

Okay, that's good.

Um in this case.

So you say you're talking to vendors plural?

Well, we have to talk to our um election management system vendor.

Who's that again?

DIMS.

All right, okay.

That's one back.

And which is run back, sorry, and um then also speak with our poll pad vendor, which is no ink.

Okay.

Um, yeah.

So the new vendor, the Dominion is now what, Liberty or something like that?

Liberty vote?

Um, so that they're not involved in this process at all.

No.

Okay.

And I had another question if that was okay.

So my understanding is that it's two-step process.

If you live in all the no, if you live in Berkeley or Oakland, you must pre-register and then you can vote for the Board of Education if you live in one of those two cities.

However, everyone else in the state of California can also pre-register.

They just don't have the right to vote early.

Did I get that right?

So is there a way, I guess, in Alameda County outside of just Oakland and Berkeley to expand, I guess, and maybe this is something we could work on in a subcommittee to expand our efforts to educate the children that they can pre-register.

Yes, I we would welcome the subcommittee to provide us with more ideas and maybe more connections.

We are already have established relationships with the uh school districts within Alameda County.

We do outreach events throughout the year while they're in session, um, to pre-register students in all school districts within the county.

There are um high school voter education participation weeks that are sponsored by the Secretary of State that we are active in as well.

I have a question.

Do um so a lot of 16 and 17-year-olds are getting their driver's licenses, and when you go to get your driver's license, you get a register to vote thing.

Do they get a pre-registered vote thing?

There is a question there too that they can pre-register to vote as well.

Um so just to clarify, there's uh two sort of things here.

One is getting young folk to pre-register, that'll be a big part of your committee.

Um, well, so high school teacher actually made it worth points.

They're all pre-registered pretty much, right?

You know, if you can get teachers to make it worth points, oh boy.

You know, that's like money to kids.

Um, but um, um, and then if they couldn't they had an alternate assignment, to be fair.

Um, but uh in terms of them actually voting for their school board, that has to be passed by the other cities, so union city or something.

Uh if the kids pre-registered, they couldn't vote in Union City, unless Union City passes a law saying that that they can.

So that's yeah, just wanted to just wanted to point out that as a general law city, we're not even allowed to do that because we're bounded by government uh California code, and California code doesn't allow us to go into that.

So, oh so it's only the other cities that could do that.

Correct, yeah.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, but um, yeah.

Uh but I understand that in Alameda City, the school board can make that decision.

And it's not not part of the the city, but it's part of the school board, the district, the school district.

Well, he's not Alameda, but uh so it gets a little messy.

Um so so some some school districts are in the charter.

Some school districts are not in the charter.

So um the school districts are not in a charter are separate agencies completely.

And so if they want to put something on the ballot, they have to pass the motion, they've got to pay the registrar's office, you know, et cetera.

Um other ones are in the charter, and so the city council, you know, can do that.

And so it it gets pretty complicated pretty fast.

But just the point is just if kids re-register pre-register, that doesn't mean outside of Berkeley and Oakland without some law changing.

Um, that they can vote in their cities, but it does mean that they'll be good to go as soon as they turn 18.

Um, so it's a it's really good thing.

I think the one thing uh Jim, if I had anything is that uh that we had a discussion at the our new law conferences, but uh if they still can't vote, at the very least they can uh participate in being in uh in working in the poll uh the uh voting booths, for example, and that's something that actually is uh our the experience that people have were telling me about it has been very positive where they actually feel like they're part of democracy in action.

And they don't have to pre-register for that, but probably anyone that's doing that is probably pre-registered, right?

Correct.

Okay, yeah.

Well, that's it, that's a good one too.

We could help help the uh registrar's office by encouraging more kids to work at the polls, right?

So um, so we do have an existing program that um we uh partner with the school districts and we partner with the administrators of the schools of the high schools and go out.

Our outreach team goes out, and um, along with pre-registering, we also have them apply to be a student poll worker.

Case in point, my grandson, student poll worker, my daughter, student poll worker, so it it works, it really does.

And do they get paid?

They didn't.

But they'd miss school, right?

They do, but not only do they get paid the stipend, they also get credit for serving as volunteer hours.

A lot of them do, um, to their credit of whatever they're you know, yeah, and it's like, you know, uh since I used to teach high school, if a kid's gonna be out of town or they're in a program like that, you know, they get their work and they have to do it on their own, and they have to catch up, you know.

So that they gotta be able to deal with that.

But um I I hope that this does this does happen because knowing young people like I feel like I do, um, that they're they're pretty last minute thinkers.

Um, and it would be really helpful if they decided last minute that they wanted to vote that they could they could go pre-register at a vote center and vote.

Just they could decide it, you know, after school on voting day, and they could still vote.

Um, and I think that that might help with the numbers.

The numbers were pretty low uh this last time, but it was the first time ever.

Um, but we all know that getting young people out to vote is not a trivial thing.

Um it's hard.

Um, but but I do hope that you're able to pull this off.

Um I do think it would increase the number of youth that are voting, uh, especially if it's if the vote if there's a vote center somewhere in their vicinity, you know.

Um we're on this item 8b3.

Um, and the possible action is the commission vote to encourage the ROV's office to work with its vendor to develop a technological solution that would allow youth to pre-register and vote in vote centers by the June 2026 election.

Uh is there any further discussion or is anybody willing to make that motion?

Um just a clarification.

I thought that um the ROV office said that um there was oh I'm I'm confused.

Okay.

Jim, just uh clarifying.

Uh did you mean November 2026 or June?

Oh yeah, let's make that November 2026 because yeah, that's a good point.

So let's change that to November 2026 election.

Wait, what was the motion?

Because I thought they said they were already working on that.

They are working on it, but it would be helpful if we're on it sometimes helps staff if the commission says we're in support of something, right?

So that's you know what we're thinking here.

And I have a point of clarification.

So my understanding is that although the youth can't vote in June, if the technology was able to catch up, they could pre-register in a June election, right?

Yeah, the pre-registration and the voting are connected but different.

So it's I don't know, 20 years or 40 years or God knows when they've been able to pre-register in California.

Um and they could only vote once the once they were 18 by the time election date came around.

The difference here is that in Berkeley and Oakland right now in Alameda County, uh, because the school boards are the city, I don't know who a law was passed saying that they could they have and that they have the right to do it.

It's an extra right for pre-registered youth uh in those two cities only.

Did that answer the question?

It did.

I was just I guess I kind of wrote the motion up.

So I was looking at the motion as by Jill pre-registration technology for everybody.

It's not the pre-registration technology, it's the ability to go into a vote center and vote on that day.

Okay, I understand.

Pre-register and vote, or just if you're already pre-registered, you could just vote.

Right.

Because they can only vote on November.

Okay, I understand now.

Cool.

I still had a clarification.

So if they turn eight, excuse me, if they turn 18 before June, they can vote in the election, but only they can vote anywhere.

Yeah.

They're 18, they're an adult.

Yeah, so it's only those that are younger than that that can, okay.

16 and 17-year-olds who have pre-registered.

That's the law in Oakland and Berkeley, and nowhere else.

But uh there may be somebody else in another state, but I'm not sure about that even.

Okay.

Um, all right.

Any further discussion or questions?

Uh, does anybody want to make this motion?

If not, I will.

Okay.

So I'll make this motion.

The one the it's in the um, you know, it's it's in the agenda, except change the word from June to November.

You got that, Shahir?

Um, do I need to repeat it again?

Or I don't think so.

Is there a second?

Second it.

Okay.

Uh, so motion made by Lindsay seconded by Varlock.

It's uh I'll just repeat it.

That the commission vote to encourage the ROV's office to work with its vendors.

Actually, there should be a S there.

With its vendors to develop a technical solution that will allow youth to pre-register and vote in vote centers by the November 2026 election.

If there's no further discussion, we'll call the roll.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Motion passes 7-0 unanimously.

All right.

We're done with all the um all the new business.

And the last two things we have on the agenda are, oh, actually, we're doing no special reports this month because they're kind of busy.

Um so we don't usually do special reports from the RV's office.

It they have to take some a while to put together put together a presentation and make sure it's all right and practice it and stuff, and it's just they're running an election.

So we don't usually do special uh reports in months where there's an election happening.

Um so there's no special report this month.

So we're just on to public comment.

Okay.

We can be patient.

If you would like to make a public comment, please raise your hand now.

We have one, okay.

Uh three minutes.

John Guerrero, you have three minutes.

Hi.

Um the uh the past election uh I do appreciate that the uh cash vote records were uh supplied uh with each update, and um, so we were able to do or we collect a lot of data because of that.

That was a very nice um and uh and also a change.

So we do appreciate that.

Um thing I observed uh this time is that in past elections about 40% of the the vote was uh uh vote by mail ballots were were counted uh by election night and 60 percent were counted after election night.

This time it was it was closer to 50 50.

So the uh, you know, get get the the the ballots in early did have an effect, so I think that you know gives the ROV more time to you know to process those now.

Switching subjects to the uh youth voting.

I I do realize that that's you know that's a city pro uh issue.

Um however, and we I've our group here has uh expressed this a number of times with the board of supervisors is that to intermix the uh the functions of the youth voting with the rest of the county is something that we really would like not to happen and when I hear that you're going to you want to be able to put you know the youth voting onto the vote centers well the vote centers are any anywhere in the county which means that the you know the the no ink which is the poll pads have to be able to uh um you know know these uh 16 year olds 17 year olds whether they can vote or not even if they're outside their school district trying to do it and and I just uh I just cringe that you know we're gonna be you're gonna ask the vendors to implement software that is not really you know allowed in in the rest of the county um and and that you know I've I've worked on software systems it's as many of as you guys have and there's there is such a thing as called a bug or bugs things don't always work right the first time even when you run a bunch of tests and stuff say oh yeah it's gonna be okay and then when you turn it on live oops and so I'd rather that we don't uh try intermex the systems I'd really like to keep it separate uh I I don't want to uh either jeopardize certification or certainly jeopardize you know the certainly the you know November 2026 elections so I I would appreciate it actually if you did not put pressure on the vendors to implement that and keep it separate thank you very much that concludes public comment can you now sound your mic please the meeting is adjourned at 5 15 p.m