After every election, the Committee of Seventy
issues a report to our volunteers, the general public and to the three City Commissioners, who run Philadelphia elections. After the May 18, 2010 primary, Seventy published a different type of report. Rather than present a compilation of problems that occurred on Election Day, as we have done in the past, we made five recommendations to enhance the voting experience in Philadelphia. We, and our readers, found this approach more meaningful in advancing our mission to fight for fair elections: The report was called
“Five Easy Ways to Improve Local Elections.”This report on the November 2, 2010 general election is divided into two sections.
Section I updates our five recommendations with selected examples of problems that occurred on November 2. Our overall conclusion is that, while the City Commissioners have made some small improvements since the May primary, the level of customer service for Philadelphia voters does not compare to elections offices in other cities and requires major upgrades.
Section II outlines several additional areas of concern.
“Five Easy Ways to Improve Local Elections” focused primarily on reforms that can be enacted by the City Commissioners. This report goes a step further by also referencing reforms that can only be implemented by state government.
We have a special reason to add this extra dimension to this report. Over the last year, the Committee of Seventy has conducted extensive research on voting reforms around the country. As it turns out, Pennsylvania ranks among the most backward states when it comes to making it easy for citizens to cast their ballot. Seventy, along with numerous organizations across the state, will continue to promote statewide election reforms to improve the voting experience and, as a result, drive greater interest in, and turnout for, elections.
The information in this report related to November 2 was gathered by Seventy through its
non-partisan Voter Protection Program, which Seventy operates during every primary and general election. Citizen volunteers recruited and trained by Seventy answer voters’ questions and help resolve problems at polling places in Philadelphia and, in recent elections, throughout the region. On November 2, approximately 600 volunteers participated.
Through the national toll-free 1-866-OUR-VOTE hotline, voters and volunteers report concerns and alleged improprieties they observe. Seventy partners with national and local organizations, and with law enforcement agencies, to ensure that all eligible voters are able to cast a ballot.
We welcome feedback on our Volunteer Protection Program, as well as on the voting process in general, particularly with the very critical 2011 municipal elections about to get underway. You may email us as
Info@seventy.org.
WHAT HAS IMPROVED SINCE MAY 2010?
1. BRING THE WEBSITE INTO THE 21ST CENTURY
The Committee of Seventy continues to urge the City Commissioners to substantially improve their website. Their goal should not be to provide the minimal information necessary for Philadelphia voters, but to raise the bar significantly higher, as their counterparts in other cities have done. For three examples, see the websites of the New York City Board of Elections at
http://www.vote.nyc.ny.us/, the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners at
http://www.chicagoelections.com/ and the District of Columbia’s Board of Elections & Ethics at
http://www.dcboee.org/home.asp.
We also recommend providing a direct link from the
City of Philadelphia’s website to the City Commissioners’ website
(www.phillyelection.com), as it does for the Sheriff, another independently elected row office. Clicking on
“City Commissioners” on the list of city departments takes you to a single page with only the Commissioners’ names and contact information.
At the very least, the Commissioners should make better use of their website for important voter alerts. To take a specific issue from the November 2 election: As a result of a post office scanning error, an undetermined number of Philadelphians had their voted absentee ballots returned to their home addresses, rather than delivered to the Board of Elections. Although Seventy was told that at least seven voters had either called or come to City Hall to report this problem, it was only after prodding from Seventy that the Commissioners issued a news release asking any affected voter to call their office and indicating that every effort would be made to ensure that all voters who followed the proper procedure would be afforded the right to vote. The release was not posted on the Commissioners’ website and, to our knowledge, the office did not do anything to alert potentially affected voters. (These names were known since all Pennsylvania voters must file an absentee ballot application before receiving an actual ballot.)
By contrast, in Chicago, the Board of Elections issued a
Press Release and a Special Advisory on October 28, both of which were posted on its website, for voters whose absentee ballot applications were not received in time to return voted ballots by the required deadline.
The Commissioners have claimed that obtaining the resources to expand the information on their website must await the completion of their voting system infrastructure upgrade, which they say has been in the works since 2008.
However, we are confident that, for relatively little cost, the website can be made more useful and informative – and certainly can become more aesthetically appealing and inviting. If the Commissioners have no one on their staff of 101 full-time employees or insufficient funds in their $16.4 million current fiscal year budget to make even simple upgrades, they should seek help from the city’s Division of Technology. (Seventy confirmed with this office that no request has ever been made.) Alternatively, the Commissioners should request pro bono help from a local college or university or pursue grants for technological improvements.
With the 2011 municipal elections approaching, there is no more opportune moment.
Bob Lee, the city’s Voter Registration Administrator, has challenged Seventy’s recommendation regarding the Commissioners’ website. Mr. Lee’s response to Seventy is
posted on our website.
2. CLAMP DOWN ON ELECTIONEERING
In “Five Easy Ways to Improve Local Elections,” Seventy urged the City Commissioners to take aggressive steps to reduce “electioneering,” which generally refers to activities designed to persuade voters to support particular candidates or political parties. Within the context of an Election Day, however, the term is often used to describe behavior at polling places that causes voters to feel besieged or even intimidated (e.g., thrusting literature at them or trying to engage them in a conversation).
The Pennsylvania Election Code prohibits “electioneering” within a minimum of 10 feet of a polling place. No electioneering is permitted inside where voting takes place. The penalty for violating this boundary (or any other general provision of the Election Code) is up to a year in jail and up to $1,000 in fines.
Complaints about electioneering are common every Election Day, particularly in areas of hotly contested races. A sampling received by Seventy on November 2 included:
• A Minority Inspector reported that the Judge of Elections was openly advising voters to back Democrats. (The Minority Inspector and Judge of Elections are two of five polling place officials at each voting division.)
• A poll watcher (someone who is appointed by a candidate or a political party, and has a certificate issued by a county Board of Elections, to observe Election Day procedures inside polling places) objected to polling place officials allowing campaign literature to be stacked on the table where voters were signing in.
• A poll watcher was reported to be handing out partisan literature both inside and outside the polling place.
• A poll worker observed that campaign workers were making themselves comfortable near the voting booths, passing out literature, and instructing voters to back Republican candidates.
• A voter observed Democratic campaign workers telling senior citizens that they were required to have assistance in voting and then only helped those who agreed to vote for Democratic candidates.
• A Seventy volunteer reported that a group calling itself “Philadelphia Neighborhood” entered a polling place with a video camera and voice recorder (before being ushered out).
Can the City Commissioners stop all electioneering at city polling places? Probably not. However, it is reasonable to hold the office responsible for operating local elections accountable for protecting voters from illegal electioneering to the greatest extent possible.
In its “Five Easy Ways to Improve Local Elections” report, the Committee of Seventy recommended several steps to the City Commissioners that we believe would help diminish electioneering. We again urge their enactment for the 2011 municipal elections.
• Create a significantly larger campaign-free buffer zone. The City Commissioners strictly interpret the Elections Code’s 10-foot campaign-free barrier, saying it is an inflexible legal limit. However, ten feet is only a minimal requirement. Expanding it would better insulate voters from aggressive campaigners.
• Enforce prohibitions against electioneering, particularly when polling place officials are involved or the activity takes place inside polling places. Any polling place official who engages in improper electioneering should immediately be removed from the premises and prohibited from serving on an Election Board in the future. This directive can only come from the top: the City Commissioners.
• Underscore the prohibition against improper electioneering – and the consequences for violations – by featuring them prominently in the Commissioners’ “Guide for Election Officers in Philadelphia County” that is distributed to all polling place officials. While the 10-foot rule is mentioned briefly on the dense and legalistic wall poster of rules posted at each polling place, the Guide has no reference to electioneering whatsoever. Omitting it sends a strong message that improper behavior towards voters is not of great significance.
3. TAKE CHARGE OF FINDING POLLING PLACE OFFICIALS
Every election district in Pennsylvania must have an Election Board. Every Election Board is made up of five members, three elected (Judge of Elections, Majority Inspector, Minority Inspector) and two appointed (Clerk, who is appointed by the Minority Inspector, and Machine Inspector, appointed by the county Board of Elections).
This is an enormous task, made even more difficult by the Election Code’s requirement that, with limited exceptions, all members of an Election Board must be qualified registered electors of the district in which they are elected or appointed. While this requirement may make sense in small counties, it is often problematic in Philadelphia where 8,435 people are needed to cover Philadelphia’s 1,687 divisions: 5,061 elected and 3,374 appointed.
The elective positions were last on the ballot in 2009. However, since there are six Democrats for every Republican in Philadelphia, bi-partisan Election Boards are hard to come by. In many divisions, no Republican seeks an elected position on an Election Board. When the Judge of Elections (typically a Democrat) needs someone to serve as the Minority Inspector, he or she often taps another Democrat to help out. Sometimes, close to an election, the Republican party seeks a court-appointed Minority Inspector. Conflicts can, and do, arise.
Last summer, after the release of Seventy’s Primary Election report, the Commissioners held a hearing to investigate various incidents involving minority inspectors not being allowed to be “seated” on an Election Board, despite court appointments. Afterwards, a representative from Seventy was told by two officials in the Commissioners’ office that steps would be taken for the November 2 general election (e.g., through trainings and in personal outreach to Judges of Election where problems had occurred) to ensure that Minority Inspectors with the proper credentials were not turned away at the polls.
On November 2, Seventy received reports of disputes involving the status of Minority Inspectors in 10 different polling divisions. Seventy’s recap of the Commissioners’ November 10, 2010 meeting reported that the Commissioners once again indicated they would encourage Judges of Elections to contact them in future elections if problems occur on Election Day, rather than allowing problems to fester on-site and possibly disrupt the voting process.
In its “Five Easy Ways to Improve Local Elections” report, the Committee of Seventy urged the City Commissioners to assume responsibility for recruiting poll workers, rather than deferring to political ward leaders and committeepeople. We recommended several options for depoliticizing the process of filling seats on Election Boards, including recruiting exemplary high school students to serve as clerks or machine inspectors, as permitted by the Pennsylvania Election Code, or selecting individuals who indicate on new voter registration forms that they are interested in Election Board positions. The Commissioners, however, consistently throw up their hands, claiming no responsibility for poll worker recruitment.
Other county Election Boards take the opposite approach.
The website of the
Allegheny County Division of Elections, for example, advertises the need for “civic minded volunteers to serve on Election Day [who are] comfortable with new technology and the ever changing election environment.” The site has an online application form for volunteer poll workers. Interested citizens who sign up are contacted by a representative of the Elections Division.
A promising way to enlist a younger generation of poll workers would be for the City Commissioners to partner with a local college or university, as the
Berks County Elections Board has done with Pennsylvania’s Kutztown University. Through a $58,868 grant awarded by the United States Election Assistance Commission, Kutztown is recruiting and training 75 college students, including 25 who are bilingual in Spanish, to address the county’s need for interpreter assistance. Students will also produce an updated poll worker recruitment and training video.
4. MANDATE REGULAR TRAINING FOR POLLING PLACE OFFICIALS
In its “Five Easy Ways to Improve Local Elections” report, the Committee of Seventy recommended that the City Commissioners require training for all members of Election Boards before every Election Day.
Pennsylvania’s Election Code states that “[n]o judge or inspector shall serve at any primary or election ... unless he shall have been found qualified to perform his duties ..." The City Commissioners are authorized by the Code to call a meeting of elected polling place officials and, if they do, attendance is required. “Each judge, inspector and machine inspector shall, upon notice, attend such meeting or meetings called for his instruction and receive such instruction as shall be necessary for the proper conduct of the primary or election with voting machines.”
As it stands in Philadelphia County, however, only new polling place officials are required to attend a training session. This “requirement,” however, is loosely enforced at best, with no consequences meted out to polling place officials who fail to attend. As a result, many officials serve for the first time without training. Polling place officials who have served in the past are invited to attend – and many do because they get paid – but it is not mandatory and there are no consequences for not participating.
As in the May 2010 primary, there were numerous complaints about polling place officials not understanding election rules and procedures on November 2 (e.g., confusion about the difference between the primary and general election, and the requirements for using provisional ballots). Another example, which Voter Registration Administrator Bob Lee indicated would be addressed in future poll worker trainings, involved uncertainty about the proper use of the Bible.
This is not to suggest that mandatory training will eliminate all problems related to ill-informed polling place officials. However, the absence of mandatory training inevitably increases the potential for conveying misinformation. While training is preferable before every election, Seventy urges the City Commissioners to adopt and enforce reasonable training requirements (which could include requiring members of the Election Board to view their training video, as long as a reliable method for confirming compliance is also put in place).
As Seventy recommended in “Five Easy Ways to Improve Local Elections,” the City Commissioners can take a step in the right direction by replacing their densely worded and difficult-to-read “Guide for Election Officers in Philadelphia County” with an easy-to-use and indexed manual, which contains real-life examples of problems Election Boards are likely to experience at polling places.
New York City’s 2010 Poll Worker’s Manual is an excellent model.
5. INVITE PUBLIC FEEDBACK -- AND TAKE IT SERIOUSLY
In its “Five Easy Ways to Improve Local Elections,” the Committee of Seventy urged the City Commissioners to develop a more “customer-service orientation” by publicizing its meetings, holding meetings at more convenient times and in more easily accessible locations and, most importantly, treating individuals who come before them with civility and respect.
Although meeting dates and locations are now posted on the Commissioners’ website, only by reading
Seventy’s informal meeting recaps can citizens learn what occurred during those meetings.
The Commissioners’ meetings are open to visitors, but the only regular attendees are representatives from the state Republican party and the Committee of Seventy, whose suggestions or criticisms are routinely ignored. With rare exceptions, the Commissioners’ staff members are uniformly happy to answer questions, and quite helpful. However, a typical response is that nothing about the system can be changed.
To their credit, after Seventy issued its “Five Easy Ways to Improve Local Elections” report, the Commissioners held a series of public hearings to look into improprieties alleged by Jonathan Ramos in his hotly contested primary race with incumbent Angel Cruz for the 180th state House seat. The Commissioners and their staff were polite in questioning poll workers subpoenaed to testify.
However, the City Commissioners do not routinely invite feedback on Election Day (or on any election-related issues) from polling place officials or from voters in an effort to improve future elections. Reaching out to the public, coupled with a genuine interest in implementing reforms, could help diminish the commonly held perception that elections in the city of Philadelphia today are no different than they have been for decades.
By contrast, the home page of the
Allegheny County Division of Elections’ website informs voters about the procedures for filing a complaint if they believe their voting rights have been violated or misinformation given. No such notice appears on the Commissioners’ website.
The Committee of Seventy maintains a database of all issues called into its 1-866-OUR-VOTE hotline, as well as other problems communicated by e-mail, social media, in office visits and in telephone calls on, before and after Election Day.
The City Commissioners also receive many complaints although, to Seventy’s knowledge, they have never communicated them publicly either during an Election Day or in any post-election report.
Interestingly, New York City takes a different approach, at least on Election Day. On November 2, New York City’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg released a list of complaints called into the city’s 311 line as of 2:30 p.m.: Voting Ballot or Machine (365), Poll Site (337) and Poll Workers (80). There were also 2,386 calls by people looking to find a poll site and 939 calls requesting election information and voter registration information.
Seventy strongly urges the City Commissioners to provide better service to their “customers:” the voters of Philadelphia. Several ways to do this are identified in Section I of this report. However, in reviewing specific examples of issues reported to Seventy on November 2, it is clear that another effective way to help voters is by providing information about Election Day issues, both as they happen and also in a post-election recap. Resolving Election Day problems, particularly any occurring more than once at the same polling place locations, begins with exposing them in the first place.
Specific issues from November 2, some of which could have been avoided, included:
• Late Poll Openings. Seventy received at least 23 reports of polls opening late for a variety of reasons, including difficulties starting the machines, accessing the polling room and late arriving poll workers. In one case, the key sheared off in the lock of a security door and poll workers reportedly used a sledgehammer to enter. In another instance, poll workers did not have the proper keys to all doors, so the entrance way kept slipping shut and locking.
• Broken Voting Machines. Seventy received at least 34 reports of machines broken down at some point during the day, including 24 reports by 9 a.m. In some areas, such as the Chestnut Hill Branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia and the Shawmont Elementary School, both machines were inoperable during the early morning rush hours. (All calls related to machine malfunctions are reported to the Board of Elections.)
• Poor Signage. Seventy received at least 24 reports of inadequate signage at polling places to alert voters to changed locations or to direct voters to the proper door where voting was taking place.
• Language Barriers. Seventy received at least four reports of language-related problems, including complaints that Spanish language materials were riddled with errors.
With municipal elections in 2011, the Committee of Seventy believes more than ever that the voters of Philadelphia deserve more comprehensive elections-related services.
The three City Commissioner positions will be on the 2011 ballot. Seventy will seek pledges for specific reforms from all the candidates and invite them to help us expand our set of ideas. Their answers – or the lack of them – will be published on
Seventy’s website (www.seventy.org).