BOARD OF ELECTIONS BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS OF COOK COUNTY FINANCE COMMITTEE

Transcription

1 0 BOARD OF ELECTIONS BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS OF COOK COUNTY FINANCE COMMITTEE Taken Monday, October 0, 0 at :0 p.m. Cook County Board Room County Building North Clark Street Room Chicago, Illinois 00 PRESENT: CHAIRMAN: VICE-CHAIR: COMMISSIONERS: MR. JOHN P. DALEY MS. DEBORAH SIMS MR. JERRY BUTLER MS. EARLEAN COLLINS MR. JOHN A. FRITCHEY MS. BRIDGET GAINER MR. JESUS G. GARCIA MS. ELIZABETH ANN DOODY GORMAN MR. GREGG GOSLIN MR. STANLEY MOORE MS. JOAN PATRICIA MURPHY MR. EDWIN REYES MR. TIMOTHY O. SCHNEIDER MR. PETER N. SILVESTRI MR. ROBERT B. STEELE MR. LARRY SUFFREDIN MR. JEFFREY R. TOBOLSKI ALSO PRESENT: MR. MATTHEW B. DeLEON, Secretary MR. ANTHONY W. LISANTI, Court Reporter

2 0 0 BOARD OF ELECTIONS CHAIRMAN DALEY: We will now have the Board of Elections, Langdon Neal. MR. NEAL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Commissioners -- good afternoon. CHAIRMAN DALEY: Good afternoon. MR. NEAL: I have passed out our remarks. I thought Daley (David??) really summarized the first half of my remarks, so unless you all would like to hear them again, I will proceed to maybe to just the relevant parts. I will start by saying -- we successfully voted the President of the United States this morning, everything worked well. Early voting is underway. He voted without a problem. CHAIRMAN DALEY: No machines broke down? MR. NEAL: We will start off on a good note there. COMMISSIONER SILVESTRI: Who did he vote for? MR. NEAL: We are not privy to that, of course. Currently, the Chicago Election Board is managing the most hectic part of its four-year

3 0 0 election cycle. We are essentially managing two elections at once right now, even before absentee ballots again going out for the November general election. We have campaigns in our office gearing up for the February, 0, municipal elections, which is one of our largest at the Chicago Board of Elections. However, because most of the fiscal responsibilities shift to the City in the coming year, our county budget for 0 is greatly reduced relative to the previous year. Even so, we want you to be aware that we are performing the following now and in the coming year, the following tasks. Specifically, the preparations for the 0 municipal election, including what we believe will be a large number of candidates filing objection hearings. We anticipate it may be the largest number of candidate filings and objection hearings for a municipal election that we have seen. Number two, administering the 0 municipal elections in all fifty wards. The preparation for the 0 Presidential primary and the Presidential election. Filing for the 0 election cycle during which the

4 0 0 Chicago Election Board will be responsible again for electoral board hearings related to the candidates for State Representatives, the State Senate, and members of Congress whose districts touch any part of the City, and are contained within suburban Cook County. Over the longer term, we want you to be aware of in addition to adding the electronic poll books we are examining options for the next generation of voting equipment. I thought David did a great job summarizing where we are in the election environment of new equipment. The City, much like David said, the County has an aging inventory of ballot scanners, touchscreens, and the hats which consolidate and transmit the results. These tools were developed with HAVA funding back in 00, and delivered in 00. So next year will be ten years with the equipment. Like any other computer equipment that is more than a decade old, these devices are at the end of their useful life, both physically and from a technology standpoint. You can imagine ten-year-old technology is old, very old.

5 0 0 More importantly, newer generations of ballot equipment provide the possibility of moving to one balloting system that can service voters of all physical abilities. The next generation of ballot scanners allow for producing ballots on demand in any ballot style or language. David talked about that. Ballot marking systems for people of different physical abilities and with the component to check the ballot through an audio reader before casting the ballots, and reducing the tech support role of our Judges of elections so that we may focus instead on voter registrar capacity, given the likelihood of Election Day registration. The Cook County portion of the Election Board's 0 budget includes only funding for the salaries of the Election Commissioner and the Executive Director, and for the mail canvass that is in anticipation of the 0 elections. Throughout the coming year, we will do our utmost to minimize the costs, even as we work to adapt to the growing list of State and Federal mandates, and even as we stay true to our mission of administering transparent, impartial, and accurate

6 0 0 elections for the City of Chicago. Thank you so much. CHAIRMAN DALEY: Vice-Chair Sims. COMMISSIONER SIMS: Thank you. Are you guys going to get new voting machines? MR. NEAL: No. Not certainly for 0. We are now looking and monitoring the technology and equipment that is available. As David said accurately, it is not an easy task right now. There really hasn't been a development in election technology so that I can say to you today there is a technology out there today that is available that is superior to ours. There really isn't. In fact, I really think the election vendors have taken a step back and really not invested in the new technology for election equipment, for a lot of different reasons. COMMISSIONER SIMS: Part of the reasons is because they had so much problems with the touchscreens? MR. NEAL: I think the product development costs and the rollout of its products on Election

7 0 0 Day throughout the country has been a very expensive proposition, and a lot of the companies didn't survive. There are fewer vendors who are willing to take fewer risks. As a result, you haven't seen the amount of resources spent on development. As a result, I think you won't see them until the customer is in the marketplace (??). David and I will look at our ability to leverage our buying power to make sure that we get the best technology. COMMISSIONER SIMS: Thank you for all of your hard work. I have been here twenty years. You two don't look any older. I got grey hair since I have been here. Is that because you guys don't have any stress? MR. NEAL: Oh, no. No stress. COMMISSIONER SIMS: You guys have not changed. MR. NEAL: Thank you, Commissioner. Maybe a little work in the makeup room before we got out here helped; but I appreciate that. Thank you. COMMISSIONER GAINER: Where is that makeup room? COMMISSIONER SIMS: Twenty years ago they

8 looked the same. CHAIRMAN DALEY: Commissioner Silvestri. COMMISSIONER SILVESTRI: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't know how to follow up on that, so I am just going to move on. 0 The precinct numbers on the tapes. don't think the City has them? MR. NEAL: Yes. We do have precinct numbers on the tapes, yes. COMMISSIONER SILVESTRI: Then I have no I 0 questions. Thank you. Thank you for protecting the integrity of the voting process. MR. NEAL: Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. CHAIRMAN DALEY: Commissioner Gorman. COMMISSIONER GORMAN: I am curious, and this is kind of along the same lines. It is always good when a budget goes down. There is no County election in 0, but there is a City election. It is actually down with your election fees, the Judges' fees. How is that attributed or budgeted? MR. NEAL: I'm sorry. What are you asking? COMMISSIONER GORMAN: Actually the budget

9 0 0 is down $ million. MR. NEAL: Yes. It is set up by the Election Code, which determines between the County and the City, because we are a hybrid of both, which jurisdiction pays and what percentage each election cycle. In 0 it almost exclusively falls ninetynine percent on the City of Chicago. So this budget, the salaries, which statutorily is prescribed that the County pap, then our postage for the canvass which we conduct in 0. That is why you see a budget that is so low for 0. COMMISSIONER GORMAN: Despite the City election? MR. NEAL: Despite the City election. Our budget for the City is up, way up. COMMISSIONER GORMAN: So it is reflected over there? MR. NEAL: It is reflected in the City. COMMISSIONER GORMAN: Thank you. MR. NEAL: You're welcome. CHAIRMAN DALEY: Commissioner Moore. COMMISSIONER MOORE: Good afternoon, Director and Chairman.

10 0 0 MR. NEAL: Good afternoon, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER MOORE: I just want to thank both of you for doing a great job. Your office does a phenomenal job of running the election cycle each and every year. MR. NEAL: Thank you. COMMISSIONER MOORE: Especially Director Gough. I want to thank you for the outreach that you have done working with my community. You always tend to avail yourself to us. You respond at lightning speed. I just want to make sure I thank you and your staff for that. My question is: How is decided what method is going to be used inside of the polling place? There are times I remember where I think we were connecting arrows, and sometimes we had electronic voting and things of that nature. Who decides that? And how is that decided? MR. GOUGH: Every one of our polling places that we use we have a touchscreen and optical scan ballots. The voter can take any one they want. They can either vote on touchscreen or paper. COMMISSIONER MOORE: When you go in, you make that choice?

11 0 0 0 MR. GOUGH: Yes. MR. NEAL: As far as the design of the ballot, whether you connect an arrow that is broken in the middle, or any other type, we constantly work on making the ballot design voter-friendly. We are doing samples with our voters and talking to them, and doing what we can to make the actual voting experience as easy as possible. COMMISSIONER MOORE: Thank you so much. CHAIRMAN DALEY: Any other questions? Thank you very much. Have a good day. MR. NEAL: Thank you. CHAIRMAN DALEY: Commissioners, tomorrow we have the Bureau of Economic Development at nine o'clock, followed by Asset Management, Capital, then the Land Bank is at :0, and then in the afternoon will be the Chief Judge. The Board of Commissioners will be sometime before the Land Bank or the Bureau of Assets, if it moves along. We are attempting to move the State's Attorney and the Public Defender to Wednesday. So far, we have not had any success -- Wednesday, as of now, the only office we have is the Bureau of Technology at nine o'clock. If it is the

12 0 wish of the Board, if that doesn't work, we will put Technology on Thursday. COMMISSIONER GAINER: Do it on Thursday and we will have Wednesday clear. CHAIRMAN DALEY: Unless we can move the State's Attorney and the Public Defender to Wednesday, then Thursday will be off. We will make sure it is one of those days. COMMISSIONER GAINER: I think it's six of one -- if it is possible to have one whole day, that is great. CHAIRMAN DALEY: This Committee will stand in recess to the hour of :00 a.m. tomorrow morning. Thank you. I certify that the foregoing is a correct transcript of the original shorthand notes of proceedings in the above-entitled matter. Anthony W. Lisanti Court Reporter Date