person in their first choice and never had the over-vote shown in the numbers. vice chair avalos: in your findings, i'm not sure if you can say it or corey cook, either of you say that number of over-votes is statistically significant? >> it depends on your level -- do you consider 1% of the vote being statistically significant or not. vice chair avalos: comparing rank choice voting to other types of voting? >> if you're looking -- if you go back to the raw data of the average number of over-votes per race, you know, in the plurality local races you get .09% over-vote on average since 2008. in the statewide races, you get .12% and in the r.c.v. races you get 2.6%. so you're getting twice as many as your state races are getting so the question is, is that statistically relevant? that's coming into a determination, what level is statistically relevant or not? i personally don't want to make

that call right now saying that you could say twice as many and that's statistically relevant or you could say it's .14%, is that going to change any election in the system? a very small percentage could have had a major impact on how one of the supervisor's recent races went because it was a very close race all the way through but would .14% of the turnout made a difference in who came out and became the winner? chairperson campos: thank you. commissioner olague? commissioner olague: i was wondering if you could -- if you might analyze some of these findings against the measure that -- >> i looked at it a little bit but if you want me to go more deeply into the measure i'm happy to do that and report next month. commissioner olague: yeah, i would. because at the time i thought, well, some of these changes might be considered, i didn't have the advantage of having this information in front of me nor was i aware at the time that

there was the study that was in play or in progress, so i would like to, you know, to see -- >> i'm more than happy to do that. with the commission's permission, what i might suggest doing is having me go speak -- if the supervisors are available that co-sponsor, to get some understanding on what's in the measure and why they did it the way they did, go talk with them, share with them what i found so far and see if there's anything they might have questions on. chairperson campos: i think that would be helpful. commissioner olague: that would be useful, yeah. >> i did notice, the way the ballot measure is written, there is one issue that i don't think was an intended consequence that might occur if the ballot measure stays the way it is and that's, there are two elections for statewide office that are elected in even number years, the recorder and the public defender. the way the ballot measure, the way i read it right now, is that there would be a september, november election, in even

numbered years, you already have a june primary so we could potentially be seeing a june primary, a september primary for two offices and then a november election for to make the final decision on everything so i don't know if that was an unintended consequence where they were thinking we had 2011 and there was no primary earlier on in the year. that's one of the things i wanted -- a red flag that raised in my head, i don't think that the intent was to have three elections but obviously i will bring that up with the co-sponsors of that legislation if i get a chance to talk with them. chairperson campos: thank you very much. by the way, one note that i will make is that i don't think that the data that we have before us backs up the claims that have been made in terms of rank choice voting disenfranchising certain communities. that's why i think what commissioner avalos was saying is very true which is we have to be careful about how we use that

term because the fact is that over-voting and mistakes happen in just about any system you use and they happen more in some communities than others, and so i think we have to be very careful when we make those kinds of claims and that's why, you know, i think that i always felt that having an in-depth analysis of the data is the best way to deal with these kinds of assertions because i don't think in my view, i don't think the data supports that, but i do think that the further analysis would be helpful. >> ok. is there anything -- i mean, i get the wanting to look at the legislation and anything that might be in there and double checking that and seeing if there's anything but is there anything else off the top of your heads at least right now that comes that you would want to see me look at in more depths than what i've already done so i can incorporate that into the

stuff i'm already working on chairperson campos: i would leave it up to the commissioners. commissioner avalos? vice chair avalos: i'm not sure if it's possible but are you able to compare errors of voting on particular voters, maybe there's a pattern of particular voters that are prone to -- in terms of like a single voter repeatedly is doing something wrong, we could look at perhaps one person hasn't been explained the proper way of voting or how the system works and that could lead us to, you know, understanding of greater outreach and public education on how to vote would be more effective. >> in the 2011 election cycle and corey cook looks into this a little bit so some of his data provides this for us. prior to 2011, every individual office was not attached to any other individual office so if someone made an error in one race, you didn't know what other race they may have made an error in. in 2011, if are whatever reason, the way the date was a released, while we don't know the

individual that voted so we don't know, demographically speaking, who they are, although you can look at the precinct where is that's occurring and look at the demographics of that precinct and make a reference off of that but you can tell in the 2011 cycle how many people made an error anywhere on their ballot as far as the three races that occurred for sheriff because there's some way that the system attaches them together. prior to 2011, i don't believe that data actually exists. you can only look at the individual race and say there were x number of errors in x number of precincts but you don't know if they were made across across the board and cory cook's information gets into that a little bit so i can flesh that out for you. >> there are experts in this field we can have talk to you, like, corey is one or even personnel from the department of elections about the kind of data that they can produce and what kind of information you can statistically receive from that.

vice chair avalos: great. just getting to the point of, do we -- if we looking at remedies to make voting more accurate, are we able to understand what they could be in terms of proper education, what type of information people need, what type of explanation. >> if you want me to get into that, i'm happy to do so. my original instructions were to stay more on the statistical side than on the analytical side of the issue. >> and i would second that, that, really, in terms of his position here, the expertise -- that's what i'm talking about, expertise of someone that actually does that kind of work for a living, that's the kind of -- because other than bringing you the statistic, you're asking for a personal opinion. if you prefer to have somebody that actually deals with that for a living and can tell you what market research has shown or things, perhaps we can do that because i don't want to the put mr. fried in a position of trying to give you an opinion

about what the data is saying other than just providing the data to you. vice chair avalos: ok. i'll follow up with mr. fried about that, too. thank you. chairperson campos: and one suggestion is that depending on where the additional information that mr. fried collects gets us, it may be that, commissioners, that you decide we want to go and get an expert to come out and analyze the data and provide further comment. and mr. fried, one thing that i would say is that obviously the suggestions you're getting here, it may be that commissioners after the meeting think of additional points that they should always feel free to contact you. >> absolutely. i'm always available for anything else. chairperson campos: ok. thank you. why don't we open it up to public comment. thank you, mr. fried, for your good work on this. please come forward.

>> good afternoon, again, commissioners. eric brooks, representing san francisco green party and the local grass roots organization, our city. it's really, really exciting to see this preliminary report because it shows exactly what advocates of rank choice voting have always said, which is that voter participation is higher during rank choice elections and you can -- if you're part of any given political cadre that wants to downplay that and make look like that's not the case, you can do what happened over the last year and go to the media with cherry picked numbers and make it look like participation is lower during rank choice and higher during a runoff but we're seeing from actual numbers that have been crurched that that's not true, and that rank choice voting, as we've always said, increases participation.

and so that's really good to see. and i would say, as far as looking for more information, i think it would be good to compare where we can in rank choice elections where people did have more than three choices, compare the error rate between that and what we had. also, ballot styles could be very important. you know, what the ballot looks like and how easy it is for the voter to understand and i'd like to see that compared, like, what our ballot style was compared to other ballot styles that have been used for rank choice. commissioner olague: i think that would be interesting. >> i wanted to put in one note on the touch screen idea. sounds like it would be really effective. however, whenever that subject comes up, it's really important for voter clarity, hard-liners to get up and say that if we were to go to touch screens, it would be absolutely imperative that when a voter gets done

voting, a physical, printed out ballot comes out right in their hands that they look at and take to the voting machine to put a hard paper ballot that they have seen with their own eyes into the collection basket so that nobody can game the system electronically but it's really exciting to see that what we've been saying for years and years and years is exactly right which is that when you have rank choice, you get more participation, not less, and of course we save money which is a big deal. chairperson campos: thank you, mr. brooks. next speaker, please. >> hello, my name is david carey. i'd like to thank mr. fried for the information that he's putting together. i'd like to point out a few items about it. one is that when he's comparing san francisco's june primaries to november turnout and making some comparisons to that to some of the proposals that have been put further, it's important to keep in mind that those proposals actually proposed some

september primaries where turnout is likely to be much, much lower than it is in june primaries with other state ballot items on them and so if you had a september primary, even bumping things up to 80% to 90% isn't going to get you to 50% of the november turnout. the other thing that i'm glad mr. fried is showing is that san francisco has elections where the percentage of invalid over-voter ballots is highest and that's not rank choice voting. it's the plurality multicandidate elections for the school board and community college board so if san francisco really wanted to focus on how can you reduce the amount of invalid votes, we'd focus on what can we do for those elections, not rank choice

voting. the other point is, that it's not just the invalid votes, it's the exhausted votes, as well. for example, compared to the mayoral 2010 election, using rank choice voting, or, excuse me, the mayoral 2011 rank choice voting, and the 2010 school board election, the school board election had a higher rate of exhausted votes than the mayoral election did. so doing something about those plurality multicandidate elections could improve -- would be the place to start for improving both rates of invalid votes and exhausted votes. the other thing i'd point out is that the multicandidate plurality elections, when you mark those ballots, you mark three candidates all in a column. that's exactly the sort of voting that is invalid for rank choice voting and for a small number percentage of voters,

that's a source of confusion. so turning the school board and the college board elections into multicandidate rank choice voting would actually simplify things for voters and would help reduce the rates of over-voting in the rank choice voting elections we have already. thank you. chairperson campos: thank you very much. is there any other public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. again, mr. fried, thank you very much for your good work and we look forward to the additional information. madam clerk, please call the next item. madam clerk: item no. 5, consideration and final approval of sf lafco budget for fiscal year 2012/2013. chairperson campos: mr. fried? >> we presented the budget at last month's meeting for a first vote. this is the second vote. no changes have been made to what we're recommending. the staff is recommending that while we have the legal ability

to accept all the money that the city offers to us under state statute that we are actually recommending to return that money for this year but simply maintain our rights to the allocated amount in future years should we need it. chairperson campos: great. thank you very much. is there any public comment on item 5. seeing none, public comment is closed. colleagues, if we can get a motion, motion by commissioner avalos, seconded by commissioner olague, if we can take that without objection. without objection and the item finally passes. thank you. item 6, please? madam clerk: item no. 6, authorization to extend two lafco staff positions. chairperson campos: miss miller. >> as you will recall, we have board of supervisors by ordinance passed lafco with monitoring and advising the san francisco public utilities commission and implementation of the c.c.a. program. to further that task, we entered into an mou with sfpuc in 2009

which provided non-general fund funds to provide for those activities and subsequently this commission, through working with city and county staff, authorized the hiring of two staff -- or, actually, the setting up of two staff positions for that work. mr. fried was hired in our senior program officer position. the community development assistant, we did originally fill. that person left the job. i've not refilled it because that position is really for once we get into program launch, but those two positions are term positions and they were to be termed out as of august of 2012. so this item before you is to extend that, since we've had an extension of the launch of our c.c.a. program, is to extend that term another year. by that time, we believe the program will be launched.

if you've got other questions, i'd be happy to answer them. chairperson campos: thank you very much, miss miller. i think the extension makes sense. i think that at the time this happened, the expectation was that we wouldn't need the positions for a period longer than what was originally intended but clearly that's not the case so i think it makes sense to do that. and the extension is for how long? >> for one year. chairperson campos: for one year. >> one fiscal year. chairperson campos: great. any comments or questions? why don't we open it up to public comment? any member of the public would like to speak? seeing none, public comment is closed and colleagues can we get a motion to authorize that? a motion by commissioner avalos, seconded by commissioner olague, if we can take that without objection. item no. 7, madam clerk? madam clerk: approve the extension of the mou with the san francisco public utilities commission for the c.c.a. program. chairperson campos: thank you and before we turn it over to ms. miller, mr. fried,

congratulations i think are in order. ms. miller. >> this is similar to the previous item which is once again the mou. we thought the program would be launched by this time so the mou had a term date which we're beyond now so we want to extend it until june 2013. chairperson campos: great. thank you. another one-year extension. any public comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. motion by commissioner avalos, seconded by commissioner olague. if we can take that without objection? item 8. madam clerk: item no. 8 is public comment. chairperson campos: any member of the public who would like to speak on any item within the jurisdiction of lafco not otherwise on the agenda. seeing none, public comment is done. item 9. madam clerk: item no. 9 is future agenda items. chairperson campos: colleagues, any future agenda items? any member of the public would like to speak? seeing none, public comment is closed.

last item. madam clerk: last item isa, jowrnt. chairperson campos: meeting adjourned. thank you, everyone, and have a good weekend. thank you to staff and to the clerk for their good work.