Hello everyone, welcome to the elections commission meeting of June 18, 2026.

Could we get a roll call, please?

Commissioner Belcher.

Here.

Commissioner Butter.

Here.

Commissioner Henderson.

Commissioner Lindsay.

Here.

Commissioner Moore.

Commissioner Fan.

Here.

Commissioner Lizzie Hernandez.

Commissioner Seabrook.

Commissioner Barley.

Here.

Commissioner Wagner.

Here.

Commissioner Whitehurst.

Vice President Ramone.

President Dieter.

Here.

Okay.

A quorum is present, so we will start the meeting.

Are there any changes to the agenda?

Hearing none, we'll move on to the approval of the meeting minutes.

Does anyone have any changes to the meeting?

Could I get a motion?

Yes.

Commissioner Lindsay.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, I was just going to ask for um for a motion to approve the meeting in it.

Just second.

So Commissioner Lindsay made the motion and it was seconded by Commissioner Butter.

Okay.

We're on to announcements and communications.

Um we at least need to vote.

Well, we could do a vote or you could just as the chair because I'm sorry.

Nobody's absent.

You could just say by the way.

I just got so excited that I could you could say it's by acclamation if nobody objects.

I don't think we can do any votes by acclimation when someone was on the line, correct?

Yeah.

Oh, even it's another voting member, not a voting member, so it's it's probably okay.

Only when there's a like a voting member that read through.

Well, then approval of the agenda by acclamation by the commission.

Okay, now we have um announcements and communications on items from that are not on the agenda, starting with staff.

We have no one else, no announcements.

Any announcements from Commissioner?

We have a few starting with Commissioner Butter, and then we'll go to Commissioner Barlick.

And then Commissioner Lindsay.

Oh, you mean Velcher?

I meant what did I say?

You said, Oh, sorry.

I could be a butter.

Sorry.

You know, I just have a question, you know, reading in the news about the um administration asking if California for voter roles and voting information, and the state of California has refused to send that so far.

I was wondering how it affects the uh county.

Probably none because it's the state, but still, you know, um, it might affect the county somewhat and then uh, yeah.

Commissioner Belcher, if you'd like to agendize that, you can email me with the topic and we can do this next time.

Right.

Oh, just email me with the agenda topic.

Okay, I'll do that.

Okay.

Unless the registrar wants to comment.

She can because it's not an agenda.

Okay, but it could be that that uh also that we get it as a special report or part of the update or something like that.

But they'll work it out.

Okay, Commissioner Barland.

Yes, my announcement was that I know we had some discussion last time about the two ballots for my district, which includes the special election and a general.

I'm happy to report.

I did not put the ballot in the one.

After we met the second envelope came in.

So hopefully I wasn't wrong, as someone who didn't have directions.

Okay, Commissioner Lindsay.

Um I noticed that um in these minutes, they actually put the video time on the minutes.

If you look at the minutes, which I don't know what page they're on, it's a small agenda.

So you'll actually see the um Shahir or one of his staff.

I don't know who did it uh exactly, but they actually put what time here it is, like 8C voter information guides video time 134.

That's incredibly helpful.

Um and uh just wants to say we noticed and thank you very much.

Okay, well, guys, been a lot of credit.

Yeah, that would be done.

Well, um I'm glad you noticed, Commissioner Lindsay.

Um those were added as the minutes were being reviewed.

I've been doing it for several months and nobody mentioned it, so I appreciate the kudos.

You've been doing this for months, putting the minutes on there for putting the time.

Well, I just I just noticed.

Yeah, yeah, okay, but thank you.

Yeah, all of you.

Okay, and I have um a couple uh communications myself because I know our staff member Shahir will not um toot his own horn.

But um, if you also notice on the agenda packets, if you click on the attachment, the page number, it will automatically take you to the attachment.

So there is a live link that takes you to that page.

So we thank staff for that too.

Um, and the other thing is that it's a mistake on the agenda about speaking times.

Um, it probably should have had speaking times for the entire agenda packet.

Um, I had just left it there under public comments.

So I just want to inform everybody that we're gonna take not on the uh items not on the agenda first, and then we will call on public comments on each agenda item thereafter.

And we will try uh since it says three minutes, we'll try that today.

And if we decide to change it to two, we can do that uh later.

So those are my two announcements.

Anyone else?

Okay, with that, let's open it up for public comments on non-agenda items.

If anyone would like to make a public comment on non-agenda items, please raise your hands.

No, no, okay, um, and then we're going to get a monthly update from the registrar of voters.

So I will give a um an update on the two elections that we're in right now.

Um, so the June 2nd um is winding down.

Um, we're sitting at about a 42% turnout right now, which is actually very good.

It seems like uh for a midterm, it's a good percentage.

Um, we have been in the lead for one of the larger counties with the highest percentage of turnout of a large county, which we should be very proud of.

I think a lot of effort went out to engage voters and um make sure that voters knew to vote early, even though they may not have done that, but they did turn out.

And I was in a Bay Area coalition.

I'm part of the Bay Area of Coalition for Election Officials, and seems like most of the counties, even small or large or medium, had a higher turnout than expected.

So that was a very, very good um accomplishment for all the election officials for the June 2nd primary.

Um ballots left to process is very few.

We're just in our cured ballots, and those are the ballots that for some reason a voter did not sign their envelope or the signature did not match.

So by law, we have to send the voter a um letter letting them know that and letting them know how they can cure that.

So they call it cured ballots.

So we um are in the winding down phases of that for voters to be able to submit their statements um to us, letting us know that they would like to cure their ballot.

It's basically a signature is what we're looking for, and then once we get that back, we can compare it and then their ballot will count.

So um our next update, I believe, for the um June 2nd.

Sorry, I get my days in order, is the 25th next week.

Um, and we're looking very good.

I have you know on our website, you can see our reports.

We pretty much finished all or the majority of all the vote by mail ballots we have received that first week, um, other than the plus mail we were waiting for.

And um, so we had a really successful election in terms of processing.

Very proud of the team, honestly, and being able to get everything processed and done and accounted for the June 16th election.

So that one also we didn't update today at um four o'clock.

That's why I was a little late.

Sorry.

Um, and we actually were going to update tomorrow, but since we decided to update today.

Um, we did post an update today um at 4 p.m.

on our website, and um, we're happy to say we've processed everything to date.

We still have uh plus mail that will go through Tuesday of next week, seven days, and then ballots to be cured by voters for their signatures.

Um we will post the next update for June 16th on the 24th of next week and certify the election on the 25th.

It's an expedited timeline, um, but we are definitely on track.

That's my update.

Yes, Commissioner Butter and then Commissioner Lindsay.

I just wanted to congratulate um uh the uh ROV on an outstanding job.

I was following the the ballots and the unprocessed ballots, and it seemed like it was going very, very smoothly, and it's really great to see um the uh that we have uh many of the ballots already processed, and we can declare the winners uh of the race.

So thank you to you and certainly to all the staff who worked really hard, and I know very long hours.

So they will appreciate that.

Congratulations I also want to um congratulate you and and the the office on all of the PR that went out.

Irene and I noticed and I've seen it before the signs and um BART stations reminding people about the elections and on the freeways, um, and also um there's uh signage about thank you for voting, which I think is really fantastic.

So thank you.

We'll pass that on definitely.

We've made a few adjustments even on our envelopes.

I don't know if you all noticed um on your return identification envelope on the flat.

It says uh AC vote thanks you for voting.

We wanted to do something like that just to engage the you know the public, and a lot of outreach did go out in terms of from grassroots um uh, you know, advertising and what I mean by that is the buses and BART stations because it's just not those who ride those, it's those who can see them from the streets, you know, and get engaged, be aware that there is an election.

So we're always trying to dig as deep as we can.

We know there's still room for you know growth in that, and so we're open to any suggestions, honestly.

But thank you, team will appreciate that.

That's great, um, because we will be talking about the election on the agenda tonight, after the post-election assessment.

Yes, I had another question.

Um, I know you've talked you've told us this before.

How much of a ballot can you process before polls close?

So the law allows us soon as ballots start being returned after 29 days when the ballots go out for us to process, which means um capture the image of the envelope when it comes back, um, signature check that to make sure that it is verified, and if not, we have to send out a letter to be cured.

We can extract the ballot.

Um, we can do all of that, and then they get housed in a library here in this room.

Pretty much a lot of it goes on in this room, and they sit until election night.

Not until election night can we actually go through and process and then tabule it.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

So I was gonna ask about uh the speed of the count, but would you prefer that I do that under HC or do it now?

Um I don't care.

If it's going to go into the assessment, we should probably talk about it at that time.

Yeah, okay, let's do it in eight season.

So I'll withdraw my okay.

Yes, Commissioner Belcher.

Um, excuse me if I missed that you said this, but was there a change in the date that ballots can be um counted after uh election day?

Was there a change in the laws because of the president?

No, the same time frame, you cannot start counting tabulating until election day after 18.

But then when they the ballot can be accepted, we still accept ballots after 29 days once they've been mailed.

That has not changed.

29 days, 29 days they go out, and then we can start receiving them directly after that.

Is that your question?

I thought I think she might mean how many days after the election day.

Oh, the plus mail?

Yeah.

The mail and ballot can be accepted.

Okay, after they did seven days.

What?

Seven days.

Okay, and as long as they're postmarked on or before election, but that hasn't changed.

No.

Oh, I mean, so an executive order doesn't necessarily mean that registers all over the country do anything different.

They need direction from the state.

Um, and they don't have direction from the state, so they're just doing the same thing they have until they can.

That's the ballot.

That's what I hope.

Yeah.

So my question for you is um on Sunday was looking at the observation um online, and they were opening ballots.

Now, um, I didn't know.

Is the June 2nd and the June 16th?

Um, is it all part of the same feed?

Yes, but they have one.

So you could still be just opening the envelope from the June 6th.

Yeah, so okay.

Okay, any other questions for the ROV's office?

Thank you, Ms.

Pornejo.

And for the record, Commissioner Whitehurst just arrived.

Um so let's move on to the ad hoc committee reports.

And starting with the voting participation uh committee.

So from getting the new one.

We don't we didn't have a whole lot of progress from from the last meeting.

We are still um in the process of collecting data um for uh demographics outside of we collected data for African American now.

We're we're out we're we're looking to get data for Hispanics and other demographics that we have yet to do.

So we need to we we met this month, but we didn't get a lot of progress.

So our next step part to meet with uh what's the what's that group?

Uh what do they call the session?

Or something like that?

Or so anyway, they they they have access to all the data, so we have put in request to um for them to pull data and for data force in the same format they're data for the African American data.

And so once they do that, then we'll have a better picture overall and and you better directions to move forward as of now.

We're still in with the and and this this last month schedule didn't match up, so we didn't have a whole lot of reading time to discuss.

So hopefully that's what we'll do better.

Any questions for Commissioner Seabrook?

Okay, open for public comment on voting participation.

If you would like to make a public comment on voting participation, uh please raise your hand.

No, okay.

Um, closing public comment, we'll move on to the next uh committee, which is youth participation in Commissioner Barlick will report.

Thank you so much, Chair Dieter.

Um just want to say I will start giving you written reports.

We were I'm pleased to announce that we finally did get back on track with our subcommittee meetings.

So my fellow um Commissioner Whitehurst and Commissioner Butter didn't met yesterday to go over the items we'd like to bring to the commission.

Um the first is that um Albany is having some problems getting their youth voting off of the ground.

Um there's a delay because they're waiting for a cost estimate from the ROV, and there the city council is requiring a formal breakdown from ROV before proceeding with allowing for the youth vote.

As we know, Oakland and Berkeley have already implemented their youth voting in their different stages and timelines.

So we're hoping we can help ROV in some way, which we're open for suggestions of how to formally make a chart, I guess, of costs that we can share with our county cities who are interested in this.

And we'd like to also work with Commissioner Ritzy Hernandez, who isn't here right now to share data with or data that voting participation already gathered on 18 to 24-year-olds.

So we can also try to make a pitch um with the help of ROV to the cities to say why it's important if we allow you to vote that we can you know segue that into adult youth or younger adults um continuing to vote.

And so I'd be interested in just getting those numbers to see of, for example, the 42% that did the primary, how many were 18 or 24-year-olds.

So we are going to continue to meet now.

Our next meeting will be July 3rd.

And I also wanted to bring to the commission's attention that I heard from my supervisor that Fremont, um, their council considered um voting on allowing youth to vote in the same way that Albany, not Albany, excuse me, that Berkeley and Oakland are doing, but they said it wasn't a new jurisdiction.

That's all I know.

This was a report, and so now the Democrats of Alameda County have passed a resolution um calling for the youth vote to be um allowed.

So that would be another city that we would like to help um implement youth voting.

So now we have our marching orders, and hopefully as we move forward, we'll have better reports about how we can help, but we are asking for the ROV to assist us and kind of getting some focus to what we can do to assist you.

Just really quickly on the Albany issue.

Um, so I sent the youth voting MOU to Albany USD's council a couple of months ago, and they only reached back about the joining the MOU within the last couple of weeks, and they only actually requested the cost for uh information earlier this week while there was an election going.

So I won't speak for the ROV and how quickly they're going to turn that around, but just to sort of make sure everybody's clear on the timing of that request, it was very recent.

Okay, Commissioner Butter.

Yeah, I just had a couple follow-up.

Thank you for that because on the conference call with the youth voting, you know what group?

I don't know what the name of the group is, Cynthia.

Um, but um it was not clear that they had actually requested it.

So it's good to hear that you have it.

Is it possible that we can look at the MOU?

Is there any reason that the commission couldn't see?

Could not see it.

I think that's going to come up in the next agenda item coming up on MOUs.

But to answer your question, it's a public document.

I'd be happy to share it.

Yeah, that's what I um, so yeah, that would be.

So you guys could send that out to the commission.

Sure.

Okay.

Yeah.

And I guess we might as well send it out to the order list.

Why not?

It's a public document that we would take.

And the other uh item that came up in that meeting, and I don't know whether this is true or not, based upon you know what you just reported.

Um, they said that um the the costs that were quoted for Berkeley and Oakland um were um high, and that they thought that it would be less for Albany and for the other uh cities as well.

So I don't I don't know whether that's correct or not.

I know what I could speak on is that when the request came in for the cost estimate on reimbursing Oakland and Berkeley for the startup of the development of the software.

Um, we had already provided an estimate when it was when we were asked unofficially.

So we asked for an official request, and then we do have it now.

So we're working on that now, and we'll provide that to them.

And then, in terms of the cost for the initial youth voting, in the initial stakeholder meetings that we were having with Berkeley and Oakland and all of the organizations that were helping, you know, to get the participation up and running, um, we knew that the initial cost would be higher than the ongoing costs because the initial cost um included the development of that software, but um going moving forward, it will be less um than it was initially, and so just so I understand the the software that you that you use for youth voting is different than the software for the general population, correct?

It has to be, yeah.

And basically allowing um youth voters to be um treated like any other voter that's that's currently eligible under law, um, being able to track their ballots coming in, being able to credit them for voting because it has to be outside of the statewide database because it's you know, it's not part of the state law to be eligible to vote at 16 and 7, and that's what was developed, so it has to be a totally separate software, it's a it's a separate database, correct?

Correct.

Yes, Commissioner Lindsay.

I think it's the same database because you're using the pre-registered voters, but you're using it in a different way.

It's a different thing.

And when uh when a young person, a 16 or 17 year old gets uh gets their ballot, it's gonna be one ballot, their school board, nothing else.

That's what we did.

So that's something that's pretty different, right?

You know, um, so I think where the disconnect is on Albany's frustration is that they had asked informally a long time ago, but they just asked formal, not a long time ago.

Well, that was only a couple weeks ago.

It wasn't by anybody.

From their point of view, I can tell you they think they asked a long time ago, but informal, not formal, but well, okay.

So there's just a disconnect there.

You know, people believe.

I'm glad that's not what they're right.

That's what's important.

So uh, the request didn't even come from Albany.

Okay, yeah.

Okay.

I know that they don't think they're lying.

Yeah, but but you know, so there's that there's just a misunderstanding here.

But but I think we're on track.

Yes, that's important.

We're on track now, we're good to go.

Um so I did have a couple things.

Okay, um, so it's great to hear the estimate is coming.

One question I have is um that I was asked by uh city council member from Albany because that is you know the district that I'm kind of representing through Boz, um, is um what deadline?

What is the deadline by which the Albany City Council needs to notify they actually want to do youth voting if they make that decision?

For the city council or the or the unified school district, oh right.

I don't know which is.

So we're we basically were asking that um we have everything together by the end of June.

At June?

Yeah.

They have to decide by June 30th or that.

Yes, for the for the November election.

Correct.

Correct.

Is that a hard date?

It's a hard date.

So in order for them to, I think the Albany Council has one meeting left.

Could a range could a range estimate be got to the voting?

I think there's a difference between the Albany Albany City Council and Albany Unified.

Is it the school board that makes the difference?

So the city Albany, Albany, and I can't speak for Albany or their butt their ballot measure differed from Oakland and Berkeley's in that Oakland and Berkeley's were explicitly limited to um school board elections.

Albany's had two parts school board elections and city municipal elections.

Now for school board elections, Albany Unified has reached out.

And that's what we've been dealing with to credit add to the MOU.

The city of Albany hasn't reached out.

There have been no discussions with the city of Albany at this point about adding them to the youth voting MOU or having youth voting for City of Albany elections.

So, yeah.

So, you need both of those.

Well, both of those governing bodies to say that to tell the ROV by June 30th that they want to do it.

So I guess the answer is yes and no, and here's what I mean.

Okay.

The decision doesn't have to be for both.

So Albany Unified can act separately.

And youth voting can start for Albany unified just for school board election.

Correct.

Oh, but that would mean that that youth would not be voting for Albany City election.

Got it.

The system is not set up at this point for anything other than school director.

And that's what was identified to the city of Albany earlier.

So if the city of Albany asked for it, you might not be able to do it this year.

Okay.

But you could definitely do it for the um school board elections.

Yes, absolutely.

Um and I don't know, I used to be on the school board, but it was a long time ago.

And I don't know when they're currently meeting, but I think they probably have one meeting left, also would be my guess.

Um, do you think you can get them an estimate range?

Uh before that meeting so that they can make an informed decision.

Yes, we will get them the estimate before the next quarter.

Before the end of this week.

Oh, greatly.

That's fantastic.

Commissioner Harley.

And yeah, so that would my question, not to put more pressure on you all for something that didn't happen at long ago.

But just we just wanted to stay in the loop because we do want to try to start making some type of chart of the youth voting um efforts that we're working on.

And so I guess I was just kind of picking back on what Commissioner Lindsay said.

I don't understand enough yet, but from what I was reported, Fremont Council said this isn't in our jurisdiction.

And so now the Democrats have basically passed a resolution, which again is just saying you should do this.

So is that once of the board of supervisors, or do you all have any insight on where that resolution is headed?

I actually could make a guess as to what's going on.

So some school boards are in the city charters and some aren't.

So if they're so if the council was asked, um, then they might say that's not in our jurisdiction because um the school board is not in their charter.

Um that could have been what happened.

I am not an attorney, I don't know the Fremont Charter.

They said it wasn't in our jurisdiction.

So that's my best guess.

Yeah, right.

Um, so in that case, it would really be the school board that would need to make that decision, not the council.

So the resolution probably will go to the school board.

Well, if they're not in the charter, somebody needs to look at the Fremont Charter to tell the answer to that.

And and I I don't know, and I again can't speak for Fremont, but another potential wrinkle is that I'm not sure whether Fremont is a charter city or a general law city, and if they are a general law city, they don't have a charter, and they may not have the same flexibility when it comes to their their local municipal elections, they may have to just follow state law.

So the home rule for cities requires that they uh requires a too strong order, but having being a charter city having a charter as opposed to being a general city affords more flexibility for for local jurisdictions to define their own elections and make some of their own rules.

So that may be another complicating factor here, but I'm not sure.

Well, this I just wanted to go online, and again this is just online, it's in the in kind of opinion.

It says they are not yet a charter city, but they are in a process of transitioning.

The city council is moving forward with a plan to blank the proposed city charter on a November third, 2025 ballot for voter approval.

That's good to know, yeah.

So the general city that's becoming a charter city, and we don't know whether the school board is in the charter or not, my goodness.

Right, that maybe has a lot of work to do in an example of the commissioner, but we're moving beyond this a little bit.

So if another city say Fremont resolves all this or Alameda figures it out, um the MOU that you already have would apply to the other cities coming on board correctly.

Does the MOU is the MOU only for school boards?

Yes, yes, that's what I assume.

So for if anybody wants to do what Albany wants to do and allow them to vote for city council, I guess.

Um we don't have any elected uh we don't have any elected.

And if nobody's elected at the city level, other than the city council.

Um that would require a new MOU or a modification of the MAU or something like that, right?

So any change the MOUR adding, even all that unified would require at a minimum an amendment.

So the scope of the amendment would depend on exactly what's needed by the jurisdiction.

So for Albany unified looking to add youth voting just for um just for the school board elections, they can.

Um that scope is gonna be defined that way.

If Albany City of Albany wants to add youth voting for their city elections, we'd have to look at it both the operational issues, but then making sure the amendment addresses that specific issue for it.

And will the software that you have for um school board voting also apply for the city council, for example, and that's what we would have to work with the vendor, okay.

So there would be additional programming that are already required, yeah.

Any other questions?

Is there any, I don't know, but I'm sorry, I'm not I'm not gonna put up with anything else after that.

I have a question.

Um, I don't know the answer, but like I know that there was some law that said that if you want to send the thing, you can vote and start the cities and stuff.

Does that apply to youth voting?

There are cities um in California that allow um voters to vote on school director.

I think it's school director, if I'm not mistaken, yes.

Um, if you are not a citizen, I think San Francisco was one that passed that and they do that.

So I guess we can add to our list of things to do, also look at our so see if they would let people do it here.

In case it's open, the only city that I'm aware of that allows undocumented uh voting on school board elections is San Francisco, and um Oakland doesn't yet, I don't think.

I think they they passed it by the voters, but I think it still has to go to the council for it to the last time we met with them was after it passed.

The other reason I brought up San Francisco is I I may be misremembering the name of the case, but I think it's like Lacey, the city and county of San Francisco, uh court of appeal case, somebody challenged the undocumented voting uh and it went up to the court of appeal and it was it was upheld there.

Um, I'm pretty sure it's lacey, but uh I could be mistaken.

Okay, so I don't even want to have that might face a legal challenge is what probably not because of the case law.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

I thought he was saying a challenge with a vote.

No, no, I'm sorry.

Um, not the challenge upheld.

The law was upheld at the court of appeal, the trial court uh went in favor of challengers that was reversed on appeal.

Um, and then that sometimes stops people from suing, sometimes not.

When we started actually before we implemented youth voting, uh somebody sued the county to try to stop youth voting here, and so we relied on the lacey precedent to responding to that.

So could you have put that in common language?

So they're the person vote or not vote.

They can vote.

Okay, that's all I think.

So just so um I may or may not have this correct, but so just to make clear, so Oakland did vote so that undocumented parents could vote in the school district elections, correct?

But in order to implement that, it has to go before the city council.

I believe so.

That was part of our discussions.

But you haven't heard anything, not since that first initial discussion.

Is that accurate?

I can't.

A voter approved measure.

I think it there was something in the I mean ordinance, and so I think I'll answer it to it.

One, we're always reluctant, is even though I've been saying this uh even though I can speak, we don't think about the cities, right?

Like we're always reluctant to talk about what's passed in other cities and how they need to handle their elections and their resolutions, but since Cynthia is exactly right, it it depends on what's in what the voters passed.

So for example, in both uh Oakland and Berkeley, when it came to youth voting, um, they passed those, those the voters passed amendments to this respective city charters years before youth voting happened.

And a big reason for the delay was that the respective cities didn't move the process forward.

But it went to the courts rather than the council.

City council is not in the Oakland.

It would go to the courts.

No it goes to the council.

So there are two different things here.

Okay.

Right.

So the voters passed something and then the council at least in the case of youth voting the council had to take action to move it forward.

But if somebody wants to challenge I mean anytime they want to challenge something that's enacted by the voters somebody would challenge it in court as opposed to at the council level I mean they may come and raise a challenge of the council but in order to actually make a legal challenge you would do that in court.

Yes Commissioner Lindsay um there's a couple of ways that these kind of delays can happen one of them is um because it may be an advisory uh giving the council uh encouragement to do it or it could be an enabling measure where council is enabled to do it um it could be something in which council is directed to do it but um has the right either by majority vote or by turn vote to delay it for some reason um I'm working with the city of California right now on an RCV measure there's concerns about costs and so we put into the um recommended language that the council can say this cost too much and we're delaying it until the costs come down because what happens if the ROD says it's going to be 10 29 dollars you know to use RCV in that city that's I'm giving a ridiculous case just to show why the section is in there that the city council could say yeah we'll we'll we'll wait a couple years thank you very much and see what the price is next time.

Are they saying that no in that particular jurisdiction the ROV is says they don't have time to do this right now they're busy so they haven't given a cost to the to that city uh but I'm just saying uh so council has rights a lot of times city clerks have rights uh to make adjustments when something new is done uh you have to kind of give council some flexibility because you know yeah sure yeah so I don't know what happened it was prompt 21 or 71 or something like that a magic measure city council measure a few years ago and I don't know the details of it but I don't I do know that the advocates of it are quite eager to see it happen.

Any other questions opening that in public comment if you have public comment on agenda item 782 please raise your hand we have one.

Okay.

Hello commission Hello Commission and staff this is uh Preston Jordan I'm an Albany city council member uh certainly fascinating to hear the the conversation um thank you all for your service and to the registrar and crew for the efficient computation and calculation of the results of the two previous elections um just to clarify and kind of goes off of what uh commissioner lindsey just said in Albany it's charter amendment that allows the board of education and the city council each separately for their agencies respective elections to lower the voting age to 16 requires each of those bodies for their respective elections to make a finding of cost effectiveness and feasibility um and for this purpose um and I checked with our city clerk today here in Albany regarding the city side um she sent me an email saying the most recent time I mean the city clerk asked the registrar specifically for youth voting costs was in January 2026 regarding setup cost and continuous cost.

They did not respond back.

So we're well beyond the 14-day clock for the city's request um I, as a council member, have not been able to bring this item before the city council without that information.

And our next meeting is not until after the end of the month.

So we have effectively been from what I'm hearing today um stymied by a lack of response to be able to proceed with lowering the voting age for 16 to 10 and 17 year olds in the city for our city council election.

And we are also likely to have six measures on the ballot, which we would also be able to vote for.

So I'm experiencing some frustration at this time with what I'm hearing, given how many times our city clerk has asked for this information.

I'm in the email, she also said that she asked in March, May, and June, and has not received the information.

So I'm not sure what if anything can be done at this point or if we're just out of luck here for our 16 and 17-year-olds.

Um, whatever we do.

It's unusual, and we can only go so far.

Jim, could you please hold it?

We're not responding to public comment right now.

Okay.

Well, if you don't have to be you still have more time.

Sorry.

Um, so commission, whatever you could do to help out with the situation would be greatly appreciated.

Um, we would like the opportunity to consider as a city lowering the voting age and have it in effect for this collection as we've been trying to do for months and months.

Thank you for your service.

Thank you.

Just a very quick clarification.

My comments earlier about the timing were specific to Albany Unified.

So I've been in touch with Albany Unified's attorneys, uh, not the city.

That's true.

Okay.

Are there any other speakers on that?

That was what, right?

Okay, so um I will close public comment.

Any more comments to be made on this item?

I think you had something.

I I was I mean, just you know, edgy, but uh just as a point of information and a response, which you're allowed to do, or you can refer to staff.

I don't see the point of referring to staff in this particular situation.

Uh we've got all the information we would have asked for.

Um, but um, you know, it would be at least theoretically possible for council to call a special meeting uh to meet the June 30th deadline, or would be theoretically possible for the ROV to give them a couple days after they do a special meeting or something like that.

Um, so if there's some give and some flexibility here, it probably could still could happen if the city wants to do it.

Um, so just a point of information here.

Okay, Commissioner Butter, I just had a point of clarification.

Is there confusion on who the city or the school district sends the request to?

Is the request getting lost?

Excuse me, somewhere along the way.

No, I don't think there's any confusion on who they would send it to.

I know that Albany Unified has been council or make sure has reached out to our county council, and they have been going over MOU and have now asked for the cost, and that's what we'll provide.

I think in terms of the city of Albany, I have had conversations with the city clerk on this, and I did get a request for the cost, the actual cost for the November 2020 board youth voting, which I did provide.

So maybe I I'll reach out to the city clerk again and see if I can get this clarified.

Okay.

Correct.

Yeah, Commissioner Wagner.

Um, I'm wondering if you might want to say anything more about the plan for working with the uh Albany City Council and the city clerk.

Um, I think from what I heard from the public comment, it sounds like there may be an outstanding request for um cost estimate for future elections.

Not just what was the past cost for November 2024.

And I wondered if you wanted to share anything about your plans for uh moving forward.

Will you do you plan to provide a cost estimate?

Is there any timeline?

So we are going to provide um in terms of our billing in general.

We've been working on that, and I don't want to go too much into the agenda item that's coming on, but I I can go into it here.

We have been looking at our billing methods, which includes the general billing, the RCB billing, and the youth voting billing.

I have talked to stakeholders, um, to interested jurisdictions, and a member who is part of the stakeholders, um, and given estimates in terms of future youth voting, which is basically it will be lower cost.

Um, what drives cost also is uh the amount of registered voters.

So we anticipate that the number of registered voters will go up for youth voting because they were low the first time out, and all the stakeholders expected that.

Um it was a shortened process to engage the youth.

We did our best to do that, all of us who were involved in that effort.

Um, and we were proud of what we were able to do.

Um, but we anticipate moving forward to the November 2026.

Yes, the cost will be lower and hopefully the participation will be higher.

So we will be providing um as best of a cost estimate as we can.

Okay, any other comments?

Questions.

Okay, well, thank you for the report.

That was very interesting.

It's nice to hear the progress that's being made, you guys.

So look forward to the next update.

Okay, the next ad hoc committee is budgeting for elections, and that's Commissioner Wagner, point person.

I have nothing to report at this point.

Okay.

Anyone else from the committee that wanted to say anything?

No.

I mean, we just weren't able to meet this last month.

Um, so I think that we're planning on meeting soon and looking to move forward.

We need to dive down kind of deeper to truly understand what's going on.

Um it's pretty complex process.

Okay.

Um and the the algorithm is pretty complex.

And I've dealt with some complex budgets and some complex algorithms, and I don't understand this yet.

Um, so um, but I think we can, and I'm sort of having the idea, I haven't told you David about this or Ty, of our committee producing a document.

The documents sort of in language working well, obviously, department, but where would we our responsibility?

We take the responsibility for trying to put in plain English how this stuff is happening.

Um, and uh that may be easier for us to do than for the finance department because finance people they just think in a different way.

Um, so you know, we may try something like that.

Fantastic.

Okay, any public comments for the budgeting for elections committee.

If you would like to make a public comment on agenda item 783, please raise your hand.

No, okay.

Moving right along to the next committee, which is rules and procedures, and um, I will speak on that.

And I forgot to say that Commissioner Henderson did let me know that she was not going to make it today.

Um, so it is um pretty let's say what page is it on?

It is on page six okay.

Um so this is separated into the um the accomplishments, the the um enhancements that oh wait a second, I'm on the wrong one.

Sorry, which is rules and procedures, okay.

For this, um it's these are additions that the ad hoc committee is thinking about adding, and I'm sure that everybody has read them.

They're scattered about in the entire uh rules.

I've put down what category they're actually from.

So if anybody wanted to go look, so I think at this point, um, any uh questions about the approach here?

Any clarifying questions?

These are only additions, no, these are only additions.

Are you planning on doing any rewrites or amendments or or deletions?

Well, when we'll right now sure when when we um after public comment we will open it up for additional changes yes and of course we will also invite uh commissioners to add any of their ideas um so and I want you to know that the member responsibilities at the bottom that was a last minute thought I'm not sure if it's corny or not um so I didn't really write that myself I copied it from somebody else's um rules so I didn't in put a lot of time into it um so with that let's open it up for public comment if you would like to make a public comment on agenda item 784 please raise your hand okay let's open it up for discussion commissioner varling I would just say for number seven if there's going to be a back and then a nominating authority I would just say supervisor if that we got nominated by we were each nominated by a different authority some people were nominated by a supervisor and some of us have been nominated by an organization.

Oh there okay when it's been nominated by the commission okay well that right with that understanding I will withdraw that suggestion any other comments about the additions well I like the additions um numbers well there's this there's a little numbering thing that went from four to six um and uh number six uh attend at least one board of supervisors meeting here if possible I think I'm gonna find it impossible as long as they're doing 14 hour meetings you know three times a week or something um but um you know we can put that in there but my goodness uh they are the most brutal meetings I've ever seen in my life um so that's that's a tall order but the rest of them I went down well of course there's there's no suggestion to attend the entire meeting but they are but the thing is um they changed then the agenda items are going to come up they might say it's gonna be at one o'clock and they change it to 10 o'clock they change them constantly sometimes with no notice and sometimes with notice unbelievable stuff okay and also no logical order you know it would just be all of a sudden they went into executive session and you don't know yeah you have no idea whereas um if when the public attends these meetings you pretty much know when your your item is going to come up so but not with the board supervisors which makes it difficult to um watch.

So the reason why that was included is that I know that the cast vote record ad hoc committee actually attended a couple supervisors meetings to speak and um it was an eye opener and illuminating for somebody who is totally clueless on how the board of supervisors works so it's kind of just an idea to encourage people once a year to kind of chime in for 45 minutes or an hour whatever and to see how it is because you never know when your ad hoc committee may have to go before the board of supervisors um so that's what the thought pattern was no I'm not saying we should pull it I'm just saying as things probably said I ain't doing it.

You know but uh the other thing is that if there is um you know, when I was president and trying to get stuff agendized in some cases like that, you can request something get a time certain um and they will sometimes do that, specifically so that people don't have to wait 10 hours um and um so there's there are things that they try to do, and they're doing the best they can.

God bless them.

I just can't, I just, you know, what a life to you know uh be either staff or I think one time the ROV told me he had to go to all the all of them and sit there for 12 14 hours or whatever, you know.

Like really, you know, anyway, no, but I do think it's a good suggestion.

It's just like it's it's a tall ask, is all I'm saying.

Well, I mean, with that thought, um, because this was listed under member responsibilities.

Maybe it shouldn't be in there, that it's a responsibility because it was uh where I do think all the other things tend to be uh, you know, yeah.

I mean, you know, you could say, you know, it's recommended or something.

You already say if possible, yeah.

Um I I like it in there.

Do you know okay with it?

I just give an honest feedback with it.

Any other questions about the additions?

Does anyone have any further additions that they'd like to add to the rules and procedures?

Yes, Commissioner Lindsay.

If nobody else has any because I got a few.

Okay.

Um, and it could be that I just would take so long that it doesn't make sense.

So maybe there's approval for me to send something to you in writing or attend one of your meetings or something.

Um, yeah, you know, I don't have to be on the committee to attend a meeting.

Um, they would put me in a de facto brown act group, but that's okay too.

There's plenty of room for it.

Uh, but the areas are um under A1, it says that the location of the meetings make it gives a location, so we should say something different, like it's determined by staff or you know, and then people would be notified.

Um there's um under um, you already talked about that one, um, it's gonna cross okay.

Um, so under A2, the last paragraph of A2 of the current one, people probably don't have it in front of them.

So it's short, just says commissioners want to participate remotely in meetings without just cause or emergency circumstances, may do so from a public place that's accessible to members of the public, including people with disabilities.

Location must be listed in the posted agenda for any would like to participate, meeting from the location.

We should put something in there saying that you're probably not going to be able to be part of a quorum, and you need to understand that, but then under certain circumstances you can be, and you need to talk to the president, and you know, something we need something in there about the quorum problem, uh, because I think people didn't realize that if they attended remotely, that they're usually not going to be part of the quorum.

Um, they're out of the county, yeah.

If they're out of the county, if they haven't filed the proper stuff, if you know, if this, that, or the other thing, you know.

Um, and then on page seven, subscribing to notifications, uh, it has my email address in there.

Um, and so we now have staff has taken over it.

Uh, so that you know, the new method needs to be in there.

Um, uh okay, page 11 under section B7, there's just a space needed.

Yeah, we need to check the titles for spaces, uh, just so it looks more professional.

Um, there's several of those actually.

Um page 13 C3 talks about uh section C3 talks about regular reports to the Board of Supervisors.

And in it, it says that we have decided to report back twice a year in April and October.

You know, we kind of haven't been doing that.

It kind of seems to be okay with them by the fact that nobody has said a word.

I've had my supervisors' staff is pretty involved, actually.

Actually, sends me questions and stuff.

Yeah, you never complained, but um, and where are we're already reporting back?

Basically, this is something we need to think about a deal with.

That's not that you know, it's too much now.

Um, I don't think it's a real big problem, uh, but uh because mainly they they kind of want to hear about you know our evaluation of of elections, is what they mainly I think kind of want.

Not how many times we met or what was on the agenda.

I just can't believe the boards of supervisors are losing any sleep over that.

Um I thought it might be adds nice to add an appendix two, but maybe you've already dealt with it with the member responsibilities, um, but just sort of best practices or um for commissioners.

There's something this, I think that might be helpful.

Um, if if we just said these are best practices that we recommend.

That one is a little more ambiguous, and there's kind of stuff in there, and there's kind of this piece too, but maybe just put that on the list of.

Okay, I'll talk to you about that.

Yeah, and it's you know, um, and that's it.

It's short shorter than it could have been.

That's fine.

Yeah, yeah.

I want you to know that we already did catch some of those things.

So thank you.

Great.

Um, because there is a little things throughout that are little typos or there's some updates, the address, and we've learned that sometimes you're better off just to leave it out of the rules and um so that you don't have to update like or put something sort of a little more vague or something, a little more vague.

So I appreciate that.

Anyone else?

Okay.

I will close that agenda item and we'll move to regular agenda items.

Uh the next two are about the memorandum of understanding.

Um when I put this on the agenda, I didn't realize that memorandum of understandings was going to be a national issue.

But we've been talking about it a lot.

Um, so I'm sure everybody has learned what a memorandum of understanding is.

If you didn't, um if not, feel free to ask.

Um, but the very first one is the ranked choice voting memorandum of understanding.

It came before the commission in October of 2025.

Um, and there was talk at that time that it was going to be updated.

And so we are just following up on that to find out where that stands.

So we can hear from the ROB's office to find out uh the status of that, and after we hear we might provide some recommendations um to the ROV, or we may even decide to refer this matter to the commission's budgeting for elections ad hoc committee if they think that's under their umbrella.

So of course we'll want to hear from them.

So I think with that, I'll turn it over to Ms.

Cornejo.

So an update on the RCB MOU, which is to include uh the city of Albany.

Uh it now stands with the cities of Berkeley, Oakland, and San Leandro that were the original jurisdictions that were included in the um ranked choice voting MOU.

We actually worked with uh all the stakeholders, including the city of Albany.

Um we have an MOU with amendments to include the city of Albany.

Um, if I'm not mistaken, we actually went through to the signing process.

We were that far um of having the jurisdictions uh signed the amended MOU, and then there were questions that came about from some of the jurisdictions about the amendments, and so we will get back to working on those questions by the other two jurisdictions, um, and then have the hopefully final signing of the RCB MOU.

Okay, any clarifying questions?

Oh, Commissioner Lindsay and then Commissioner uh Butter.

I talk so much, you go first.

Uh uh well if it's really related to Albany.

So is Albany doing ranked choice voting now?

Oh yeah.

Okay.

Well, we're doing proportional ranked choice voting.

Um, and um Alameda County is the first one uh in California to do that.

This proportion at large rank choice voting or proportional.

At large rank choice voting, also called proportional rank choice voting, and it has several other names, but there's no districts in this voting.

It was the alternative to districts, right?

Um so um my question, what's up the there's a legal question here, uh, counselor?

Um, which is um I don't know I know that MOUs are sort of like in the space of contracts.

Um, you know, everybody's signing off on a document, right?

You know, um, and so they're very similar to documents to contracts.

I don't know if they're legally considered contracts or whatever, but um, so I would be curious to know what the jurisdictions uh uh requested amendments are, if that's public knowledge or can be public knowledge, or if it's protected because it's contract negotiation.

So on the first question, it's the definite maybe.

So MOUs are usually not binding, usually not contracts, but sometimes they are binding, and they are only binding when they satisfy all the requirements of a contract if there's a general rule.

Um in terms of like the particular questions and then the negotiations, I think it's those are probably better left for the negotiations for now.

Okay, I'm okay with that.

I mean, a lot of times if you put stuff in the public eye, it can actually mess up negotiations.

Um, so let's see if you guys can work it out first.

That was my question.

Right.

And um from what I know is the memorandum of understanding, it just lays out um the expectations of each party.

It's kind of uh of a more informal way of spelling out um each other's obligations in a transaction, is that correct?

Often, yeah.

Yeah, and some sometimes just for example, you know, you'll have an MOU before you have a final contract.

So it's a way of setting out these are these are sort of the broad terms that we think we're gonna agree on, but we still need to negotiate the actual contract.

They can serve different search different purposes and different contexts.

Okay.

I mean, I could say as a mediator of the every case I remediated, they had not written down the agreement.

100% of the case I meeting, they had not written down any ring.

So an MOU is an agreement in writing, you know, and so you know that helps a lot in avoiding misunderstandings.

Uh but I've seen them use this contracts, that's why I was confused about it.

Again, that's why the answer was a little squishy as well.

Yeah, any other clarifying questions?

Okay, let's open it up for public comment.

If you would like to make a public comment on agenda item 8A, please raise your hand.

Okay, I have one other point of discussion.

Um is there any kind of uh timing?

Like, you know, what is have the parties got an idea when they might wrap this up?

Uh can you tell us how often you're meeting without telling us the particulars of of what the requests are?

Well what kind of timing can we look at like this?

Is it are we talking a month or we're talking 10 years later, we're gonna still be in the somewhere in between a month and 10 years.

Just like a software engineer.

No, I was I mean, of course, we want to have an MOU.

Definitely.

So it's it's something that definitely we are working on.

I can say to say that, yeah.

I was curious also about the timeline on issues and whether or not this will be brought up when you meet with the city clerks.

Well, I think it'll be brought up when we have separate meetings with the RCB cities before an election.

We always do that as well.

So I'm sure it's a topic of conversation.

Well, I personally would like to recommend that that you know at least be addressed.

Absolutely.

Um so now on this issue.

We can anybody can say what they think about the issue of uh, you know, the current ranked choice voting memoranda while we're standing.

Um I will do that.

Um, and that is just the I think the biggest issue.

I think the um at this point, the I've I have a connection with the ranked choice voting program.

Um, and so I can say that that community is pretty happy at this point with Alameda County.

Um the current um the current uh ballot format and structural materials are actually state of the art.

Uh when other city clerks or registrars ask us, uh we recommend out maybe to count.

Um so it's pretty impressive, and thank you for that.

Um the big issue, of course, is is the cost and the confusion about the cost.

Um and the increases in the cost seem very steep from one to the next, and people are just kind of throwing their hands up.

Like, what we don't understand what's going on, you know, this is affecting our city budgets, you know, and frustration like that.

Um, our committee is looking into that from our point of view, and we'll probably continue to do that.

Um, one of three members, but I think we're going to continue doing that uh at the same time as negotiate other negotiations are happening, and at some point they may, there may be some confluence or one thing might be dropped or something, who knows?

Um you know, an agreement is reached and everybody's happy, and we just drop it as a committee, for example, could be one thing to happen.

Um, so I don't know.

Thoughts about that, David?

About the uh RCV.

Um that's currently existing.

I do I do have a comment, but maybe it's not exactly what you're doing.

So I'm glad to wait for you.

Yeah, I'm done, I'm done.

Okay, yes, Commissioner Wagner.

Um, I wanted to put out a um solicitation for help for help with me understanding the cost allocation.

I'm still struggling to understand the details, but we've gotten a lot of information from the ROV, and so I just thought I would share with this committee and this group an impression I have and uh and a request for uh you know, people have greater clarity on this than I do for you to share with me so that I can educate myself.

My impression is that um uh in non-RCB cities, cities that are not using ranked choice voting, the county pays a share of the cost election, but in RCB cities, cities that are using ranked choice voting, the county does not pay a share.

Not even a share of what the election would have cost if they hadn't been using RCP.

So that stood out to me as like interesting and unexpected, and um, and I'm wondering, and so this is my call for you know, if any of you know any more about this and you're able to tell me whether I have the right impression or the wrong impression, and educate me more.

I welcome and put that.

Thank you.

That's that's all I want to do.

Okay, I think I can.

All right, in the billing of general of the general billing is what we call it, non-RCB, non-use voting.

Um, the actual cost of the election is portioned out, the actual cost is portioned out by jurisdiction.

Each jurisdiction could be a city, uh school district, a special district, the county, and the county also pays the portion for state contests.

So there's two line items in the detail that I believe we put when we when we spoke, and they were the two first line items on that detail that shows the state contest or the state as it would be portion, it would be and the county's portion, and it's by the number of registered voters.

So the county pays for both, it's not that we subsidize any of the jurisdictions because each jurisdiction pays their own allocated costs of the total cost of the election.

And so for RCV, there's there's no county races, there's no state races, and all of the cost for ranked choice voting for the MOU go to those RCB cities.

Oh, I don't have to follow me.

Oh, no, no.

I've been seeing you in so long, I can't remember your name.

I got that right.

So um in an election where in a city that didn't have RCD, the county would pay for um the council, the school board elections.

No, no, no, they don't, okay.

They don't pay, and no, so the counties without the board.

Any county what?

Any county races.

Counties uh uh supervisorial district, if there was a countywide measure, if there was a county wide office that was on the ballot, the county pays that portion of those contests for county races.

And RCB is only in cities, yeah, this client cities forward to someday.

You are correct.

Yeah, so yeah, RCB is only in cities, and the county normally does not pay for city election costs.

Correct.

There's in the elections code, it's clear where it says that if a jurisdiction is consolidated or or has an election, they would pay for the cost of their election, and that's that's covered.

So they are paying for the cost of their portion based off of the number of registered voters, and it's allocated per jurisdiction, which includes a line item for the county and a line item for state contests.

Is that answered?

Is that how let me know?

Okay.

So what's she saying?

When you're having a city election, you have to pay for everything that you're going to do.

And if you're going to do rank fourth voting, that's an extra line item that your jurisdiction has agreed to pay for.

The county doesn't have to get involved in that because it's not a county process.

Is that right?

The county does not conduct rank choice voting elections.

Right.

So therefore, let's say you go to a buffet and it's pay by our county.

Okay, here's my here's my salary, and then you decide that's about rank choice voting, you put it on tax, you gotta pay for it.

See what I mean?

So the county shouldn't, it's my direct question, but please stop me from getting this wrong.

So the county shouldn't be tasked with picking up the tab because the city decided to put an extra practice on the correct.

The county doesn't conduct ranked choice voting, but I think it's more so, um, Commissioner Widener, if I can make sure, is that the thought is that with the general billing, that somehow the county um subsidizes their costs of conducting their elections, and it doesn't, it's just that the county is paying their portion for county races, which would include county measures, supervisorial district races, or um district attorney that's all allocated for county costs, and they take their portion, and that's what they're built, and that portion is built to the county, as is the statewide races first.

Okay, I think commissioner Belcher and then Commissioner Butter.

Um, it's come up with this before a conversation about the cost of the printing and the RCV ballot, and somehow the county gets involved in that uh reimbursing the cost of printing the RCV ballots that it's more expensive than um printing a regular, because we've talked about that here about the cost of the ballots being more expensive for RCV.

That is one of the questions that we were working with the subcommittee to try and address in another meeting, okay.

So did you address it?

No, we haven't met for a second.

Okay, we're going to, okay.

We will do get involved in that particular we get involved in being able to provide an actual cost for the printing or the conduction of the portion that um is with RCB, yes, and that's allocated to just those jurisdictions that conduct ranked choice voting.

So the county pays for the printing of the ballot, the RCV that the cities have to reimburse them.

Correct.

They're paying for their portion.

Okay.

Yeah, Commissioner Butter.

Yeah.

So you said that the um the fees are based upon the number of registered voters.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

I mean, and that's I mean, there's a lot of registered voters, but the actual voters uh is much less.

But I guess that's the mark that you need to use in order to um charge, um, I guess without getting too much into the weeds, um, when a jurisdiction, let's say a city um has districts, they're billed the number of registered voters for that district, council district three, council district five, council district seven, because it's a separate ballot base, ballots, um, voter guide material.

It's all separate.

So they're being billed for that um ballot design, everything that goes into that district.

If they have um let's see, a measure, there's costs for that as well.

So um it's all about eligibility and what ballot types they have without going too much into the weeds, or what ballot bases that we have to design for those jurisdictions, and that's where the number of registered voters comes in.

And so that would be true for a county offices, so for the county attorney that's based upon registered voters.

Right, so a uh district attorney is county wide, so that would appear on everyone in the county ballot, right?

For that, but maybe a supervisorial district only is for those number of registered voters that are in that supervisorial district.

So that's a different ballot face than other voters in the county, and the same goes with jurisdiction.

And and the the price that you charge for all of the services are the same across all of um for November 2024.

I hope I'm right, it was four dollars and sixty-three cents a voter that across the board, that's what all the jurisdictions were charged.

Commissioner Lindsay.

Yeah, I think just to clarify, um, so I have clarification and then a thought.

Um the clarification is San Leandro uses rank choice voting.

Um San Lorenzo may not be a city, but uh Fremont doesn't.

Okay, so San Leandro and Fremont, none of those votings, none of those cities, rather.

So their city councils do not have to pay anything for county or for the county supervisor election or for the state election, right?

The county is paying that, not the city.

Correct.

I mean the voter is paying taxes to the county too, but whatever.

Um but but the but cities are not paying a cent for county or state elections across the board.

Correct, because the county is paying their portion for the register.

Um so just to clarify that.

Um I think maybe where the rub here might be in a really complex um thing that we need to look into deeper, but which is how that 463 was calculated.

Um, and where in there are the um because it's really complicated when you're saying, well, here's how much it costs per voter, but then we have these special allocations like for ranked choice voting or uh youth voting or cities that have more than four ballot measures.

Um, and maybe occasionally something else that we don't know about.

So it exists.

Um, but then you know how does that affect that number, right?

Um, and so I just think that's something we need to work.

We would something we need to learn about, and there might be something there, there might not be something there, uh, but that might be where the difference is here is my gut um because the rest of it seems really clean you know we'll written it down and when we meet the next time that's one of the things we'll add to it definitely yeah that you understand it that'd be great um is this there was a question that came up uh president um which is uh Albany is thinking of doing six measures I'm just asking where does this fit into the agenda now or later uh Albany is thinking of doing six measures and they're wondering if they're gonna they know they're gonna have to pay more but are they gonna pay like triple charges or quadruple because they have a six or is it anything more than four that is with what's the rule of that well this is strictly about having MOUs.

This well maybe we could do it under a B general MOU or something.

Well as long as it's about an MOU in terms of what a city is doing I think you know it what you're asking about is really legending that they haven't seen anything in writing yet for how much they're going to be charged which is part of what your committee's working on correct yes but it's also getting in the language it's certainly not part of eight A.

I'll try to bring it up under 8 B and we'll see okay I don't I don't think it's going to work Jim but we will this or we'll just bring it up separately.

Yeah but the city court can just ask it maybe that's the way it needs to happen.

Right.

So yes I just had a quick question does the state pay anything for elections they pay some but it's very little it's costs for sending out state pamphlets it's some postage it's for vote by mail um but state a while ago suspended SB 90 claims that reimbursed more to the county election officials for the county for conducting elections.

Okay yes Commissioner Barlock is someone uh whitehurst yes I can't see I have a problem they actually have a bill that outline all of the stuff that we're talking about like for example if they're paying for uh rank for I mean what does the bill look like oh okay the the invoice to the jurisdiction yes um the invoice to the jurisdictions gives them a total cost the cost per voter for uh general elections and then it also give them a cost detail sheet which breaks down printing translating postage uh um uh services that the ROV conducts for vote centers all of that is put together in a detailed uh billing that they get to for each jurisdiction a great question information oh yeah you're provided okay so we need to wrap this up um we have I need to entertain a motion um and the ad hoc committee I've got the impression that you were open to following up on uh having MOUs part of your your work product or not I mean should it David you want to address it or you want me to address it tie is here right it's just been quiet but I mean we originally weren't thinking this uh thinking of this in terms of mo use um we were thinking of it in terms of looking at the entire um uh not just ranked choice voting but you know billing and you know in general um and rank choice voting just happens to be a pain point you know but it's not but really we had never even said said the word if it's a word mo you um at all but uh and that's a separate process that seems to be ongoing right now um so i think that we're working at a different level which is saying trying to work collaboratively if we can and try to see you know what some options are um and make recommendations not at the level of legally drawing up a pseudo contract um i i don't feel comfortable drawing up a pseudo contract um i think that needs to be the you know city lawyers and the county lawyers and stuff doing that um so um you could recommend what would be again i think yes yes we could certainly recommend things that might be covered by the mo you um you know what absolutely so i'll make a motion okay this i know the um the um uh budget and elections commission um entertaining uh the status of updating the rcv mou and provide um recommendations to the r o v um just with suggestions about what should be in the r city and on me that's my motion so i remember okay we have the motion was made by commissioner belcher and seconded by varlett yes commissioner wagner i have uh two comments maybe it's an opportunity for clarification from you one is i regarding that charge the first item was about i'm not sure if i heard you correctly i thought i heard you say entertain the status and i don't think i understand are you talking to me yes oh i don't think i understand what action the subcommittee was being asked to do regarding the status so my apologies that's the first comment is i don't understand the first half of that charge would be the uh make suggestions about um updating the r c mo you and possible recommendations you would make suggestions about updating the rcb so am i correct that your motion is for this matter to be referred to the ad hoc committee on budgeting and that they make a recommendation or suggestions recommendations suggestions whatever to the rov on what should be in the mo you yes my second comment is uh this may be a procedural point i don't believe the well this is a question for you does the subcommittee have the authority to make recommendations to the ROV my impression my assumption would be no the subcommittee can bring recommendations to this commission for this commission to adopt or not adopt so I feel a little bit wary about blurring that line we'll write that I rec I agree with you if this is recommendation but if it's suggestions items it's a little different than a recommendation okay um I would like a substitute make a substitute motion that that this commission refer this to the ad hoc committee to um to create some um suggestions recommendations to the ROV to bring it back here for approval by the full commission which which is what we would have done anyway that's what all but what's what's always done is to is to bring it back to the commission.

I'm a little concerned though because they seem to expand the scope of the ad hoc committee the ad hoc committee was sort of created to focus on finance issues.

Yeah and certainly there are finance issues wrapped up in ranked choice voting, but the MOU obviously is broader than that.

And so this changes the scope of the ad hoc committee and then starts to to raise other issues.

So I'm I'm a little concerned about that.

I want to be, I hope that the commission will be really careful about um that issue as well, because because it's an ad hoc committee, we have to be.

Right.

And and I know that ad hoc committees can are fluid and they can change.

I think that our voting rights committee changed their scope that after they got into it, they decided to focus a little bit differently.

But Commissioner Wagner.

Thank you so much.

So I think your proposed substitute amendment would address my concerns about clarity and the like the formal procedure.

So that's great.

I've just accepted.

Okay.

And so are you making a second?

No, I'm not.

So then I wanted to bring up a substantive comment, which is a question for this commission.

Well, let me first of all see if I have yet a second.

I might not have said it totally accurately.

Okay, so Commissioner Lindsay seconded.

Yes.

Okay, so my substantive uh comment now about this proposal is I'm asking, is this helpful?

I'm a little, I have a little bit of concern, but maybe I'm off place here, that if there's a current negotiation happening between the county and the um the city councils about this MOU, and if that is happening rapidly, that if now that our subcommittee is gonna make a recommendation to the commission, which is gonna make recommendations, it could slow down a process and like I don't know, throw kind of a spanner in the works of the timeline, or that we'd be making recommendations after the negotiation that's already underway is completed.

So I'm kind of wondering in my mind, is is this gonna actually be helpful or is it gonna be harmful by you could you can withdraw you can withdraw your recommendations if they've already made a decision?

Okay, I withdraw my motion.

Oh no, what I'll just hold on, just hold on.

Um I mean, I actually have the same thought, right?

There's two parties negotiating, right?

Well, more than two parties, but let's just say the city's a party of that, you know, and then another party who's not privy to the actual words that are gonna be saying that are being said in closed meetings that are under confidentiality, is saying you should do this, it's a little bit funny, but fairly harmless, I think.

You know, the the the subcommittee would possibly, I think we would just go ahead and go about our work, but also look at I think we should restrict it to finance only.

Okay, um, but um, but other than that, uh maybe we come up with a useful idea.

You know, who knows?

Um, and we can always drop it as it was said if if a you know yeah, you know, if they reach an agreement.

We just should we just shouldn't, but we definitely we definitely shouldn't think that we're in charge of the MoU process, my god.

You know, so there's an amendment to a motion and I I have um withdrawn okay my motion.

Um I'm going to try another motion.

And I move that this commission make a recommendation that the mous come up in the July meeting for with the city clerks, um, to find out if it is uh something they're even wanting.

If the city clerks want a recommendation from the if they want an MOU, but they're negotiations right now, they have to have an MOU.

Okay, therefore, it has to have one.

Okay, we could withdraw that one.

Okay, I'll withdraw that one.

I will open up the floor.

Do I hear a motion?

I have a motion.

Yeah, she had a motion that we never there's an original motion from her, but you dropped out when I made mine.

You said on the no, no, no, I said I I agree with your substitute motion, and then he withdrew it.

So that goes back to my motion that it's still there, okay.

Did this whole issue go to that committee?

The issue of the MOU um updating the MOU being uh discussed in the budget um submittee.

Do I have a set?

Do I hear a second?

It was already second, or like, okay.

Oh, so I just want to offer an amendment.

Um the to the degree that we're the to the degree that we're looking at this, Judy, I'm offering an amendment.

Oh okay.

Um, should we agree that we're looking at this um that it'd be restricted to finance?

I agree I definitely okay okay all right let's take a vote I'm sorry I said that can you guys just quickly repeat the motion sorry motion the motion of um updating the RTV uh MOU in regards to financing the um referred to the elections commission budgeting for elections ad hoc committee I'm just good thank you and there was a friendly amendments yeah she did she said finance regarding finance and okay let's take a vote commissioner belcher yes by butter no question yes direction of C Rover yes commissioner barley yes no commissioner whitehurst i've seen either yeah quarter to what I'm saying 42 so it carries with one of the mention okay moving on to the next the general memorandum of understanding this will be a lot easier um so this just has to do with all the jurisdictions that are lacking mous the same issue uh so we need to decide how we are going to handle this too this is the same considerations are there any clarifying questions I was just wondering because this is a general mo you and it doesn't have to necessarily do ours with um yeah RPV elections why wouldn't it go to voter participation because the suggestion that was agenda go back to budget and elections but because I think the mo you is going to talk about the expectations of reimbursements and costs and everything like that that makes sense I just wanted to get clarification yes um these are clarifying questions yeah so um commissioner belcher um it says um that this mo you could be useful well don't they already have this going on with the ROV and the uh isn't this already happening and like we're gonna say oh yeah that's a good process thank you for doing that is that what this is saying I'm I'm not quite sure it's like are we just validating the ROVs process um because it's already happening right we currently and there's an elections code section that speaks to um the reimbursement of conduction of elections for jurisdictions and that's what ourselves and from what I understand most uh election officials uh use in terms of being reimbursed and do you do you include an does it document the expectations of each party including the structure charges and the number of ballot measures that have all that already the elections code isn't that granular um but within resolution the resolutions from the jurisdictions they do put in the section or the language that talks about the reimbursement of the conduction of elections and some of them go to the extent of saying printing of ballots type setting uh translation and so on.

It differed by each resolution, but the um the meaning is the same.

I don't have a clarification, but i have a comment.

I don't have clarifying comments to them on that um my question is there are many cities who are jurisdictions uh that do not have MOUs right now, correct?

The only MOUs that we have right now is for RCB cities or jurisdiction cities and for use voting.

Okay, jurisdictions.

Okay, yeah.

So that's that's what I had heard, which is why it's agendized.

Okay, so um another clarifying question.

Yeah, sure.

They don't have those, but you're in the process of doing MOU for just a programming or RCB.

No, no general memorandums.

We're no.

We're not in your process of that.

They're in the process of doing it with RCV.

CB cities, we already have an MOU, but it's including Albany, the city of Albany to finalize that.

Okay, yeah.

Whatever.

So that's why, yeah, it's agendized.

So do we have any public comments?

We do, but an agenda item isn't right.

Uh what?

Say that again.

The agenda item isn't written.

Did you want to hear non-agendized items?

Oh, we've already closed non-agenda items, so we're not taking any more of a just on the this agenda item.

Yes, Commissioner Wagner.

Sorry, I don't I I didn't get my comment in that.

I wanted to ask comment question on this.

Should that come before or after the public comment?

After public comment, we will open it up for deliberation.

Thank you.

Uh we have one version of comment.

Okay, we do have one comment.

Mark Newmanville, do you have three minutes?

Hi, uh my name is Mark Newmanville, I'm a city clerk for the city of Berkeley, and I would support the creation of a of an MOU between the registrar voters in the cities uh for general election services.

Um, I just think that'd be helpful um to have the that sort of business relationship going forward and uh shared common expectations.

So um hopefully look forward to seeing how the the committee uh looks into that and develops that um and interested to know what the committee learns about the structure of charges for for ballot measures, as some of you may know.

Berkeley is a has a high volume of ballot measures in most elections, so that's something that's of interest to us as well.

Um thank you.

That's that's my comment.

Thank you.

Any other comments?

No, no, okay.

Well, close uh public comments and open it up for deliberation.

Yes, Commissioner Wagner.

Could someone make the case for me why this would be useful to have an MOU with every jurisdiction?

All I know is that I have heard from city clerks who are interested in having an MOU.

So I didn't, so that's where it is on them is from, and it was discussed back in October.

Yes, that's why this is on here because of the clerks.

Yeah, and um that it's an outstanding issue that we said we would follow up on in October, and so we're just now bringing it back.

So, Commissioner Butter.

Um I have two comments.

One, I have uh I can't put my head around the title, general memorandum of understanding.

I mean that is just so broad that and I've done a lot of MOUs for my work life.

So I think it needs to be much more specific in the the uh Berkeley City Clerk said uh MOU for election services.

I mean, that at least narrows it a little bit.

So I I think we need to uh address that.

Um the other thing, this is really with city clerks, so why aren't city clerks part of this discussion i think i mean they're the ones that really are affected by this MOU.

So how are we going to involve city clerks in the discussion if this moves forward commissioner linds and um before I comment on it we have the city clerk on this commission to speak for the city clerks so Ty can you please speak yes uh thank you uh uh Commissioner Lindsay uh this is something that the uh city clerks uh throughout Alameda County do want to have and it we did bring this attention to the um Alameda County uh registrar voters back in February of 2025 and uh uh when we address when we provided a correspondence and when this was back again address in October 2025 uh with the elections commission we there was um uh to suffice to say um um some movement but uh not uh movement that would uh would be sufficient enough to for the clerks to be uh satisfied so at the very least we do like to have a memorandum of understanding with regards to election services uh to understand what are the expectations that the ROV will provide of course we do provide like we will be reimbursing um the ROV per resolution all the printing costs and whatnot but for example like there is something in that we get a separate bill from consolidated printers for example um something that can just be put into the MOU that we should be expecting you know that the cities will be responsible paying the uh consolidated printer for the printing cost for um the pamphlet and whatnot with regards to that and that would be helpful for the city clerks to understand that this is something here and out of rather than it not coming out of the blue um on top of that it's something of a fee schedule within the memorandum I understand it could be helpful to understand how the breakdown of the costs are for uh for the cost of the election and something in terms of the fact that uh when we have something a detailed explanation of how these costs came to be is something very helpful for the city clerks so that way when we bring this up back to our finance director to pay for this they're now coming back to us like we need more documentation and whatnot even though we did say that we will be paying for this per resolution they still feel comfortable that they're okay paying for it when we the time comes to pay uh when we issue that check to the ROV.

Thank you Ty.

Yeah, the city clerks are asking for something in writing regarding a few issues doesn't sound to me right there's a whole lot of them.

And um I I would hope that the registrar's office would would be willing to you know sit down with them and talk if if they want to do that.

So I would ask the registrar or acting registrar um you know what is your what are your thoughts on this?

Well the first thing I'm going to say is anything that's long term because we're still um the county's still deciding on a position a full-time position for this I'm interim so I really can't make a long-term decision but um I do know that we will be speaking with the city clerks um as we have before each election and if this is a topic of conversation which it seems like it has we can start the conversation most definitely so start start the process of of an MOU process.

In understanding what it is that they would like clarity on and I think it's best as you said to or I'm sorry Commissioner Butter with the with the cities and also other jurisdictions.

Yeah oh right so it's not just cities it's not it's all the special districts school boards that do they city clerk well they don't have city no they have um we work with the superintendents and then their administration and their finance what about special districts?

Same thing.

We have district secretaries or district administrators that we work with.

That are serve the role in this context of what the city clerk would.

Correct.

Commissioner Belcher, um, am I clear?

The ROV is talking about starting conversations with the city clerks.

Whereas this, they're asking for MOU, which actually puts it in writing the expectations rather than the conversations.

So I can MOU might be the uh in product of the conversation so that they have it concrete in writing what their expectations.

So I think this is a little bit different than what the ROV is talking about, sir.

Because they are about to start conversations, but sounds like the city clerks would like an MOU in writing that might come after the conversations and after the budget committee made recommendations.

I'm I would like to know whether the budget committee wants to have this on here.

No, this is not us.

Okay, so I mean, David, oh I mean, there could there could be a new subcommittee forum, we could make a motion today, we could drop it.

Yeah, there's various ways we could go with this.

Um, somebody wanted to go on there.

Well, I don't we haven't even made a motion to do that.

I'm just saying there's there's options here we can do, but I don't think there's any standing, there's any part of standing committee, any current committee um that this would fit under, you know.

Yeah, I I am um in favor of honoring the city clerks in class because um in the past there's been a lot of clock mirror and confusion and um an effort to be heard in the past.

So this might elevate their position to be heard or what the expectations are, but not refer to them, and I don't think that one of the but um I in some ways you know I don't know if we need a subcommittee for this, but we could just vote to support this idea, you know, let them pass it out, let the ROV and the city clerk have to add an MOU rather in this committee or a subcommittee from the commission hashing it out and creating a lot more work.

We could just support the idea that if there be an MOU after the discussions, Commissioner Barley.

I agree with Commissioner Meltra.

I think if it's above what we've kind of even been able to part out today, and we'd only have part from TIE as well as the excuse me, the part from Berkeley.

So I think maybe if they come back to you for the need or I say we need your help, great, but today it feels like we don't have enough information as so should we move forward with helping them.

Uh, yeah, if I may.

Uh if anything, uh I wanted to also add in the following is like uh it's not just with the ROV, it's also the expectation with the what the city clerks have to do to provide this to the uh to the ROV as well.

So this keeps us both on check to make sure that we're doing the elections on you know on behalf of the voters, essentially.

This is basically making sure that we're making sure that we're providing the best uh service to the voters and to also to our taxpayers as well.

The other thing I was suggesting.

If anything, I since I can't make any motions, the one thing I could say is that uh the RO um that the elections commission checks up on the status of this MOU so that way at least it's guinea on track.

Thank you, Commissioner Pam.

Yes, Commissioner Lynn.

So, I'm 100% in favor of us passing a resolution or something like that.

Uh, that we recommend um that the uh ROV's office enter into formal uh MOU process the city clerks.

Um, the utmost respect for both the ROV and the city clerks, um, and it seems like when somebody says, can we put something down in writing that you find a way to put something down in writing?

And you avoid misunderstandings when city clerks change or when staff changes or something like that.

Um there's uh there are already lots of things in writing and a lot of like uh institutional memory, but some of the stuff that's been in writing it's so long ago, the material's been lost, right?

You know, technology changes and someone was on it or just somewhere and now it's gone, right?

Um, and so I think kind of refreshing that uh would make sense.

Uh the clerks are asking for it, and they're your partners, and and I would hope that that would happen.

One thing that really complicates this though in my head, I haven't I don't know the answer to this.

There's so many other jurisdictions there must be 30 jurisdictions or something like that you've got 14 cities but then you've got the special districts and the school boards and Lord only knows what else I don't know about.

So how are they supposed to enter into negotiations with 30 jurisdictions separately that's I mean they would all be in a room I suppose but that you don't want to have a committee of 30.

You just don't like saying that I know no but that that's literally the number of jurisdictions that they can at their discretion they can decide with city clerks they are in conversation with I don't know if they or maybe a representative from the city clerks and a representation it's getting into the weeds but a representative from the special districts and a representative from school boards something like that might be a way but that's a tricky issue.

I have a clarifying question for commissioner fan yes I think you had suggested that it would be helpful for the commission to follow up what was what you thought would be helpful.

Just to make sure that there's a status that basically is going uh that the process of creating an MOU is uh being done on both parties making sure that the status of you know um both parties are actually working on it together and actively making sure that it is getting done and hopefully be um ratify uh signed by both by all cities and the ROV uh sometime in the near future uh I know that it is going to be difficult because uh there we do have an interim um uh registrar voters um but hopefully the discussion can begin because we did request this back in February of 2025 when there was still a um our uh registrar voters with 10 depuis um of course when after his uh uh retirement uh that actually you know was uh paused but at the same time we still want this process to go through one way or another can I ask the question sure commissioner Ty.

Yes so one thing is that you could suggest a motion and then somebody could say so move you can't make a motion you could suggest one.

Yes but but but before you do that um my question is do you think the special district should be part of this or that at least the first cut of this I'm gleaning towards the first cut of it being only with the 14 city clerks uh and with some subcommittee of the city clerks so that they're not negotiating with 14 people for God's sakes um that and and of course we can't order them to do anything we can only recommend uh but what would you do about special districts and school boards in this case since school boards and special districts have uh I'm not too familiar with their requirements regarding the elections code uh I can only speak for whatever the cities do because even if you're a charter city uh you are still bound by the state law with regards to the elections code itself so even then I I would still feel comfortable that we take a first step at least with this with the cities and and if anything that this is a this will help with all cities and number two if once one is created for the cities it can be a template for the special districts and uh another jurisdictions within Alameda County.

Can you um propose a motion that you would like somebody to make yes uh I I can't make the motion myself but I suggest that there's someone to please make a motion to that um um that the elections uh commission um just uh check on the status on the RO the MOU between regarding election services for cities uh uh on a bi-monthly uh meeting.

I mean basically every two months or so uh until uh the the uh mo you has been created and signed by both parties.

I'm willing to make a motion.

Okay, but let's yeah, so um RLP has said that they uh pay they're willing to meet with the city clerks.

My thoughts is that we we allow them to meet and then we start making decisions.

I think we're kind of getting ahead of ourselves.

Okay, you had a motion.

Um I will make the motion that the that we recommend because we do not order, we can only recommend um we the commission recommend um that the ROV enter into MOU discussions with the city clerks and give us an update uh every two months moving forward.

Do I hear a second?

I'll send it to that.

Okay.

So you want to take a while before we go to background.

Oh, but we discuss it.

Is it a discussion?

No, we've just had a motion and a second.

Does anybody have any comment or can we take a just the point of order?

There were two more public comments on agenda item A B after you had called for public comment, but after you closed it.

Oh okay.

So um I think what I will do is I have closed public comment on this item already.

Um I am willing to what is the um consensus of the commission?

Would you like me to reopen public comment?

I would yeah, yeah, okay.

So this time we will reopen public comment, and we have how many speakers?

Uh one virtual one in first.

Okay, could you call those speakers?

Preston Jordan, you have three minutes.

Thank you very much, uh, commission for this discussion.

Um, I can provide maybe a little texture and background from my perspective as a city council member to the utility of having a mo you between the cities um and the ROV for uh general election services or services regarding the general election, meaning non-R not the RCB part, not the voting part.

Um in 2024, Albany had six measures on the ballot, and in prior elections, the threshold for doubling of the general election charge was a number of measures that was over six, and so it was to Albany's surprise that it received a double charge after the 2024 election for having six measures.

Um the ROV said that the threshold had been lowered to four measures, but was not able to provide any written documentation of um that can be communicated to the city clerks, and so as a city council member, I was not aware that the decisions I was making as of that time were going to have that cost implication, which obviously complicates our budget and complicates my fiduciary role as an elected official.

Um I would also note that if the city clerks have requested this as of February 2025.

Um I think they could probably use your support in getting this over the line or getting this process started and then over the line because it's almost a year and a half later now.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Uh Zach, you have the last.

Yeah, I got a couple of things.

Um, so I've been going through all IG stuff on uh and a couple of things.

Uh Kevin, um uh text check in Mississippi.

Um 1783 uh two is the UN order um zero instead of um regeneration uh doctors agenda items on the election, yeah.

And we do the gubernatorial uh debate a couple years back.

Um yeah uh Alma.

Um I do wish to press against it in Illinois um and ask it via gross malice and blank negligence.

Um the issue is the UN order that challenged Ruth and Rebe for the North Atlantic Treaty Command.

This gives me an UN Order 7132, um the ability to request and set the vote and Fernandez V.

United States, uh, augment domestic uh acts of leadership, via a harboring.

Um how we see questions and blasting games.

Uh we have a little bit of um application.

Humphreys executors are real thing.

Um, the 6040 rule in the Senate, the five uh aides rule in the House, um congressional metal freedom's supposed to happen every year um in view of elected official.

Um that's uh called Federalist 26 and Federalist 30.

Uh the differences of it um based on procedure, how that's under the finances.

Um the hanter virus was created based on this research for an airborne pathogen for biological weapons research.

Um the community has denied it that in view of um expression.

Um that's the ability to run for governor um based on day-to-day management.

Uh uh saying the impeachment uh agent of uh the 47th president, Hans Alexander Goring Luttenberg von Riddentrum, um how we see applications.

This is the 23 Nobel known as John Jumper, and as is a question in view of elected models that isn't a expressional viewpoint, um, or what you call a capable um understanding and group think elected application.

Um in the view of a model assessment, um I do wish uh to move against that in the view of uh MOU, a interim of opposition, matrix operation view on, which is the difference between um superior court compared to appellate court vinyling America uh mecross grease.

This is going to be a starry decisive.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, so we've got a motion on the floor.

Would you mind repeating your motion?

The Albina County Elections Commission represents the uh recommends that the uh register of voters office enter into MOU discussions with the city clerks regarding the general election services uh and report back to the commission every two months on progress.

And we had a second made the second, okay.

Commissioner Belcher, thank the second.

Okay, let's take a vote.

Commissioner Belcher.

Yes.

Commissioner Blair.

Yes, yeah.

Commissioner Lindsay, yes, commissioner Seabrook.

No.

Commissioner Barley.

Yes.

Commissioner Weiker.

Chief Method stepped out of the room.

Commissioner Wagner, Steve.

And president here.

Yes.

Okay, the motion carries.

All right, moving on to the next agenda item is um the June post-election assessment.

And in the agenda packet, um, I got the commission started with some ideas that I that I came up with that I think should be in the um assessment.

Now, of course, some of this is a little too detailed, and the items that they might get reworded, um, so that it's a little bit more summary.

I just wanted to make sure that the commission knew um these were just my very detailed uh notes.

Um, so I think what I would like to do is um first ask if anybody has any other enhancements that they would like to add to the assessment.

Yes, Commissioner Linton.

Um I think we should take a look at the speed of counting, which is something that um the community cares a lot about.

I don't have to agree that it's even an issue, but the community does.

So you're you're into possible future enhancements.

Well, no, I'm actually curious about this time because um uh registrar, maybe you can um let us know.

I know that you were working on um a bottleneck issue.

I think it had to do with uh not curing ballots, but there's another term for an adjudicating ballots.

We do adjudicate.

Right, and then you were um like reorganizing a room or something to try to get that to process quicker and that sort of thing.

So um if if this is in order, I'd like to know.

Did you do that?

Did it help?

And also were there any other things that you did to increase speed, or was the rest of it just sort of normal?

So, in terms of adjudication, um, that's for the November election.

Oh, I see.

Um, what we did do this time for the June primary was to um process through election day, which I think really uh assisted with having more of the returns processed um election day.

So the work the following day, which is probably the majority of what we would see to process, um, is at least somewhat um assisted with a lesser low workload, although it is still great.

For clarification, I'm sorry.

So you process through the election day.

So we probably would I be right to say that in prior elections, you only took the ones that you had received before election day.

So no, meaning election day typically we wouldn't go through the whole process of um uh signature checking and extracting because there wasn't enough time for it.

We made some revisions this time to try out.

We did.

So we were able to ballots that we received, let's say um the night before that we would process the next day.

Um we did on election day.

We went through the whole process.

If you were online, you saw us using the machine to scan ballot images of the envelopes.

And I'm sorry, what was different between this year and last time?

I don't get it.

Well, what used to happen, what happened now?

This year we processed on election day, whereas in the past we had not.

Oh so on election day, typically you wouldn't go full processing of ballots at a time because it's election day, it would be a limited time frame that you could do that.

We didn't.

We kept going on election till election night with processing returns that we received.

I see.

So you could until 8 p.m.

You couldn't run them through a machine, but you could do everything short of it.

You do everything short of not, and we used to stop earlier, or we didn't have time to do that.

So we did this time.

Oh, and and did that yes out in terms of it did, and then we also changed where we would not um process the day after it was a cleanup day, it was a organizing day.

We changed that this time around where we did process on Wednesday the day after the election, which very much so assisted us in our um returns and um in being able to process more for the first update on Friday.

I think that's great.

If we could get some numbers that we could put into the, you know, in any metrics or whatever you could do uh that we can put in here, that's very exciting actually.

I also wanted to say I was really excited about number two.

Um elections code through 165.

You you got that done?

I did.

That's really great so um that would help with the returns as well that would help with the returns as well um so I was thrilled to see that item um uh so these are both really exciting uh to me anyway I don't know normal people might not get excited and still so Jim am I clear that in terms of the returns that you you view that in terms of uh speed it's it's been a it's been a thing you know complaints for years and years and years that Alameda County is so I just needed to know how yeah yeah yeah it's it's that issue um and um point of order yeah yes we're talking about um counting as opposed to reporting yeah we're getting into a detail of an item yeah go ahead sorry it's a it's a good point just point of order is what we're talking about we're talking about counting which is the great you know but the complaints were about the timing and reporting which is everything day in other words there were there was a different complaint there were there was more than one complaint there was complaints about but I just the speed of the differentiate what we're talking about here we're talking about counting we're not talking about recording well what we're actually talking about is I drafted five um items that right there improvements have been made right and Jim just added a new one so regarding the speed that we actually were processing ballots on election day um but as far as um so we're gonna yeah yeah so talking about reporting we can add that in well I think the reporting is in as an enhancement do you think yeah it needed and needed okay so that's gonna come up we're gonna do improvements that are needed next okay what I'd like to do is first get feedback on counting on um anything that you think the registrar voters should get kudos for recognition for so yes commissioner varley social media because I started following you on and I thought it was really nice the different posts that you were putting at when different things happened during the process so I want to give you kudos for your social media post I guess it would file on your publicity but I just read it and didn't see that in there so okay just wanted to specifically shout you out great.

Oh yes Commissioner Tam.

Thank you I want to give kudos to the ROV team uh especially specifically on the um the election day itself when my ballot box in front of City Hall was stuffed to the brim at around 10 45 a.m.

I contacted them immediately and they brought someone within an hour and that was greatly appreciated.

I actually had to have PD stay in front of the uh ballot uh ballot box only because of the fact that there were so many people trying to put their ballot into a stuffed ballot box which was literally impossible so we directed south uh directed the other members of the public to go to the nearest ballot uh voting locations which was uh across the street from us just to put their ballots there um but kudos to have them come in within an hour great so ballot pickups we're good well i would say that he's talking about responsiveness to immediate city concerns is the broader item that might want to cover yeah thank you yes commissioner butter yeah I want to follow up on commissioner Pham we had that problem in Alameda we had it several times where the ballot box got too full and um our city clerk actually did the same thing standing out um uh to make sure that uh the the ballots were um secure and um on election night it was really overflowing and I think um the ROV sent somebody in but it took a while to get it in and I think we're gonna get a bigger ballot box that's what we're looking at getting you guys a bigger ballot box that we have to do which is really good news unfortunately though it was really um anxiety our city clerk had a lot of anxiety in trying to protect those ballots uh until the sheriff came to pick them up yeah what we ended up doing if I can say is I actually sent an outreach team to the box so they could collect as well because the box was full yeah no that's what I mean like a human being was there that could take we're we had two members of our outreach team go and we've done that before to the Alameda box because it does um it's used quite widely by the public I've been there in past elections where I'll get the call from the city clerk and she calls me directly Cynthia the box you need to go and I will go drive there I have a couple of times and been there collecting ballots for voters.

Oh I think it's it's overdue to get them a bigger box.

So is it a double size?

It's pretty big we did it for Berkeley and ever since we gave Berkeley a bigger box we have not had that issue with the city of Berkeley and the city needs one too well we'll look into C because we're going to do an analysis of the returns and um see which boxes warrant maybe a bigger box and if they have the capability of having that because some of them are limited and what's the pickup frequency on election so the um we partner with the sheriff's office which I will have to say has been the a very rewarding process not just for um ROV and logistically but also for voters because voters know that they're being picked up um they're secure and um it's each team has a route let's say of four boxes and all they do all day is go to those boxes and drop off at central so they'll do their route then they go back again and they do the route and they go back again.

So some of the boxes in between that route um were filling up and you know it worked.

We were getting the message out very early to use those drop boxes and the voters listened they they really listen.

I know we had a problem in the beginning with the sheriff not properly identified with the camera or we we went and we uh I met with um the lieutenant who is the coordinator who's wonderful Lieutenant Liskey if I can give him some kudos um responded right away I said can we get a sign out we designed the sign we provided it to the sheriff's office and they pushed it on their vehicles.

So again that's another announcement yes very good enhancement had a problem but okay we're gonna have to but the the fact that um the people who are picking it up are noticeable how would you phrase that well sorry we don't go ahead no I mean I mean that's that's for the committee to do but I mean it was it was I mean the kudos are are the really quick response quick response uh you know is or kudos they're just all over it um and then the problem is that it happened at all and they're working on solving it but we should list that and we should say you know that you know the registrar's office is is on it and right yeah but you were saying something else that you thought was nice you had said they identified themselves right so what happened was I received a call from the mayor who I actually one time was responding to a call from Laura the city clerk saying Cynthia helped me the ballot box again so I said I'm closest I'll go right now and I was actually it was the day before election day which we try and get out early but we know we don't so we're like some of us are the last ones out of the office the day before election day because we have to come so early the next day but as a matter we're there waiting just in case something happens and I got the call from Laura I immediately went and I had a team let's get the ballots from the voters and um the mayor happened to come up and we she introduced herself to me and I said hello she was so grateful.

So she called Laura called said the mayor is there, and I'm like, okay, so I can talk to the mayor, and she identified her concerns, and immediately we went into action to place signs on the vehicles, and so there are signs on the vehicles, not just for um the you know, the sheriff's office teams that help us, but also our own team members.

Now we went ahead and there they stick on the vehicles.

So they say ballot retrieval, official ballot retrieval with the county seal.

It's pretty impressive.

So I think it's it's uh rapid response to um problems with ballot pickups, okay, and identifying on vehicles, and that's something new.

We that's new the sign, it's a new yeah, because we we usually have a little sign that says, but now we have something that's very apparent on the size of the vehicles.

Okay, all righty.

Any other kudos?

Enhancements, okay.

Let's talk about areas that we may see that could use some improvements.

I put down that I thought the voter guide couldn't what we've talked about at the last meeting.

I just put it in writing.

It's not that we would have to put all these little details for the board of supervisors, but I just wrote through down what was said at the last meeting.

So number two, the hotline, it sounds like that's not needed that people can get.

I didn't know if um city clerks and people at voting centers.

I know there was at my voting center there was um a conflict with some petition gatherers.

Um that they had to, you know, the election workers had to tell them to go away.

Um, but is there they can just they have a number to reach the ROV immediately?

So they're yes, okay.

Um election workers who work at their vote centers, um, have a direct line to what we call the help desk.

Okay.

And um we have trained team members there that can respond to equipment issues, to um issues with maybe the media or other voters or just questions in general that they need assistance with.

So we ticket an issue that comes in, we provide a ticket number and it goes into um our uh list of tickets in the database, and we track those, and then we also um provide voters, it's by law.

There's a card at the vote center at the check-in table.

That if you have any questions or you have concerns, here's a telephone number, and they can um have that as well.

City clerks a lot of times have direct lines they've been using, which I think is fabulous.

Teams, much more, and that's a direct connect to us.

A lot of them have my phone number and they call me, which is so I'm going to delete number two.

Okay, okay, that's that's the bottom line.

I do have a question, maybe for Noah, even since he's the expert on opening ballots.

Um, I watched a few people follow the directions for how to fold their ballot and to mail it in, and each of them did it the exact same way is they folded their cards, and then the next to put it in their envelope, and then the next direction says to separate the cards.

So then they went, Oh, I gotta separate the so they unfolded it and separated the cards.

So I had just thought maybe it would make more sense to have that say fold your cards separately at the beginning, and then have to how to do it because I my little um mock watching people follow the directions, just an idea.

So I I wrote that down and I wanted to make sure that I explained what I was talking about.

Um, and the one thing I think is it's kind of an ongoing problem is with the website results.

We've talked about this since the 2024 election that it says 100% reporting.

Um rather than partially report reporting, um so I wrote that down as an ongoing issue.

I don't know if you know anyone has any feedback on that.

Yes, Commissioner Belcher.

Um yeah, I think it is an ongoing problem, and I'm really really appreciated the state, you know, their website which has the uh partially reporting.

And so it's right there, it's right next to the you don't even have to look for it, it's right there.

100% reported and then have the thing partially.

I really appreciated that, it's so um clear, you know, with right prominent.

So um wasn't you didn't have to go someplace but find it out of the voters, you know.

They're not used to these websites, you know, and they go on there.

Oh, maybe they are, right?

Um, I'm correcting my I'm doing it my own point of order.

I forgot to ask for public comments before we started to deliberate.

Are there any public comments on this item?

If you would like to make a public comment on agenda item 8C, please raise your hand now.

Okay, thank you.

Public comment closed.

So um I appreciate it.

Yeah, I appreciate it.

If uh the county website would be a little more clear, you know, just be it right there.

Right.

Yes, Commissioner.

Um I know that you intended to remove that because it causes confusion.

So it probably just didn't get tied to you or who the heck knows knows what happened, but um, I do think that that just I mean that's from 20 years ago stuff, you know, or I don't know when okay, maybe I'm being too harsh.

Uh, when did when did we start being uh VC to county?

It was before that because we used to report.

That's what I mean.

Only for patients, we would also read right now.

And so really I think what people care about and what they need to know um is an estimate of the percent of ballots counted.

Now, of course, you know, until the seventh day, you don't know exactly how many ballots you gotta get in.

Um, but uh best estimate of ballots counted, uh, or it could be percent of ballots counted that have been received or something like that.

Uh, we could work on it with you, but just from the from the point of view of a miscellaneous member of the public wants to they can see the the preliminary results.

You're giving them that, but they don't really know is 10% of the election counted, or is it 90%, or is it 33.5?

You know, they got no idea.

Um, and when they can see that number going down, you know, they know there's progress being made at a certain point, you know, the the people that call elections, AP seems to call it for the whole world.

I can't really tell.

Um, but they could say, okay, we got 80% in and they're doing their mathematical stuff in, and they say, okay, the press is calling elections.

Obviously, we don't call elections, but the press does, um, so you don't call it until they're certified.

But um, I do think that this is uh, I do think it's a problem.

I think it's a solvable problem, and it would be great if it could be solved by November, you know.

And I just wanted to piggyback on that.

Um, the next item there that actually has the election results.

Um, I know that that is on the home page of the Secretary of State's office.

And to me, when you go there and it gives you a really clear picture that it's preliminary results, and this is the estimated unprocessed ballots.

So that's kind of very clarifying.

Very clarifying rather than um having to click two more times to find out that information.

Um, and it then it becomes really obvious that it's not 100% also, also it's partially reporting.

Um, so that would be my recommendation is just to have that on the discussion.

They just copy what they have.

I mean, there may be technical reasons why that's a problem, but we should, I think we should aim towards that.

Yeah, yeah.

Just think about the typical person who goes in and looks at that, um, and try to give them what they need that makes sense to them.

Because this is on the county's website, it's just buried a little bit.

You have to you have to click on click here for the results update schedule, then you click on that, and then after you click on that, then you have to scroll all the way down to find it.

So yeah, I mean, from user interface of theory, um, that means it's uh virtually invisible to the typical user if they have to uh click two or three times and then scroll down.

Um so it's just something that's just feedback, you know.

Um yes, Commissioner Belcher, can we move the agenda to recording?

To reporting.

Oh, you want to add reporting on the list of possible future enhancements?

Exactly.

Okay.

Would you please clarify?

Oh, the timing, uh, if the timing of the reporting is the reporting of the results as everything days, then uh nationally that's been has been weaponized the political weapon, you know, the slow counting was low reporting and only accounting has only reports over three days, and um it has been politicized and weaponize that slow reporting, not just the slow county, but there's reasons for slow county because a lot of reasons are they're publicized, which is terrific.

Um the reporting is admission somehow.

Um I mean, I'm sure there's lots of reasons why why they only do it every few days, but and I I sort of remember we've talked about this before, but right.

If as I recall, um, we this was on our original um assessment, and through time we understood that um it was not the registrar voters told us why they only wanted to do it so many days, but they do put on their website that we will our next update is on this day.

So it's really clear it's like twice a week or something, right?

Yeah, and we we wanted to make sure this time around that we made it more clear to voters.

Um, some of the other things that we did.

I will just tell you, we did not get any that I know of, and I would have received it calls or complaints about updates being swapped, and I think it's because we did make it more clear to the public, you know.

Um, I will say, you know, we can look at the unprocessed report being higher up.

There are some limitations on space with the website because we've looked at that before.

Um, so we can look to see what we can do, but I will say that having the updated you know, update schedule out there right away.

We provided a toolkit to the media, um, and they seem to be very happy with that because they knew exactly when we were updating.

One of the other things that we did is part of our social media and also on our website because the video there that says directly to that subject, the next update was coming while you're waiting for processing and we're showing videos of that.

So I think that helped as well.

So is the status that's still the same as a couple of years ago.

Sorry, Jerry, a couple of years ago, uh, that you can't report more often.

What we're doing is website, a lot of cities that I know Alameda County, a lot of counties report more often, but Almeda County is a little huge, I know.

So yeah, but is that still the case that I think what the case is we did try it, I don't know if you guys remember in 2024 to give uh an earlier update, and it wasn't enough, and so we were a little hammered by that because people wanted more, and there's only so much that you can process in an amount of time end to end.

So that's part of the reason of waiting till that Friday after election day is to give us time to process as much as we can, and I will tell you we are working overtime, yeah.

Yeah I know through the night, I mean we work a lot of overtime, we work that weekend, and you know, just to get as many processes we can, but the goal, and I think we attained it this time around was to get as much in for that Friday update and then the next week we update it and updated.

Okay, so we're kind of running a little short on time, so I want to push the um agenda here um to stay focused on any possible um additions to improvements and then I'm gonna uh entertain a motion yes commissioner uh we might want to have a section um which is a category that's kind of like uh neither an enhancement nor a needed uh fix or enhancement or whatever and I would put this there comment um I I comment what whatever okay a third section that does that whatever you call it um and to me uh the speed of reporting results would would be there uh this time they already improved it they went from once a week to twice a week that was a big deal I think that helped a lot um and um it's kind of and they got burned bad when they tried to go faster before so they're human beings but aren't you've been burned they don't want to go back there um so you know uh to me and I haven't heard any complaints this time not I haven't noticed any in the press I haven't noticed any community or on social media nobody complain this time um so uh in my personal experience in my in my personal experience but yeah okay but but at any rate um so I would I would personally put that in in sort of a neutral category or a comment category or something like that just so they know that we talked about it and decided it was not right now in commissioner butter yeah I think that the ROV has done a fantastic job in trying to improve the reporting and um I I think that it really uh um shows in the work they've done and in the results that have been coming out so I really congratulate the ROB there have been a lot of I've seen several uh major papers saying California is so slow right um but the problem is that's the way our election system works I mean the the mail ballot you know causes the delay and so it's a question of you do want to do you want to be really fast or do you want to be accurate and we want to be accurate.

So um I I think that um the ROV has is you know implementing some steps to really move it forward and um to do as much as possible to try to get the reporting out faster and I think this time around it showed we got you know what were two weeks I don't know how how two weeks out and you know you're almost done right yeah so fortunately the national media was helpful too with the speed in this past election because they were going out of their way to talk about how California does it so a lot of people got educated so in and outside of our state so that was really helpful to have all that media I have two items to add to the possible future enhancements and then I have a motion.

Okay it's getting late um one is um to add in um the ballot box issue that happened should be covered there we could say you know they're working on it but we should we should say that that needs to be done about that um and then another issue might I think we should have in there is sort of like long term issues that still need improvements such as clarity of cost or jurisdictions uh response times to certain classes of emails those sorts of things should just be on a little list where we're noting them so they're not forgotten.

Um and I would so just those two things and then um uh I was gonna make a motion that a subcommittee be formed to draw this up and bring it back to the next election okay before you make your motion um the cost to jurisdiction, is that part of a post-election assessment?

Those are part of long-term issues that still need improved.

But it's but it's not part of a post-election assessment.

I would put it in it.

That would be a report to the board of Supervisors or something, but okay.

No, I mean I think it's a it's something that's still happening in elections.

It happens every election.

Okay.

Right.

So that's what I would do, but I'm not gonna die on that helping yeah, I was just curious.

I'm just questioning.

Yeah.

Okay.

So I heard you say you want to make a motion.

Yeah.

Motion is to form a committee.

Uh of whatever to draw this up and bring it back to us next meeting.

Do I hear a second?

Second.

And if people are willing, we can include that in the motion.

Right.

So who would like to be on the committee to do this?

You can have a committee of one, or we could just authorize you to draw it up.

Oh, no, no.

Okay.

I could be an editor.

I don't want to be on the I don't want to be on the subcommittee, but I could well you can certainly if you can certainly when I bring it back, Judy, you could make any edits at that point.

Okay.

Sounds good.

It'll be in the agenda packet.

Yes.

So nobody else wants to be on it.

So I'd like to change my motion that this committee authorizes the uh president of the commission to draw up the uh draft if you're okay with this room.

Okay, thank you.

Um post-election assessment and bring it back to the commission uh for the next meeting.

Second it.

And I am willing to do this because I think I had a um I owe it to the commission after the last post-election assessment where I did two heady heavy edits.

I took a couple things out, so um I I don't mind doing it, and I got it started.

Um actually we do have a vice president who wasn't able to make it today, and it might make sense to uh assign this to the president and vice president.

Um, um remote uh Alex.

Um yeah, good idea.

Yeah, is it are people okay with that?

Yeah, um, so that that's my amended motion with and we haven't.

Is that okay with the second?

Yeah, yeah, okay.

So I know that's a different question.

Right, I mean, then then you're doing it for yourself anyway.

So that might be okay.

So we're now can we take a vote, please?

Yes, Commissioner Butler, yes, sir Lindsay, yes, Commissioner Seabrook, yes, commissioner varley, yes, commissioner Wagner, yes, Commissioner Whitehurst, doesn't it?

Yes, okay, everybody.

There is no special report from the ROV tonight, so this meeting is adjourned at 6 41.

Thank you.

Thank you for the virtual audience.