As most people know, we elect three people- the City Commissioners- that are supposed to oversee our elections. Many agree that it is a little odd that we need to elect three people, each with their respective staffs to oversee our electoral process. But, voting is sacred, and the idea of three elected officials to make sure that as many people vote as possible- and that our elections our fair and transparent- isn't such a bad one.
So, I would like to cite all the important reforms the Commissioners have made over the past few years to help as many Philadelphians vote as possible:
OK, OK, so they haven't actually done much on the whole voter thing. But, maybe I am being unfair. After all, at least they have a website where you can see election returns. I thought, for example, it would be interesting to see the results for my ward. So, straight from Phillyelection.com are the available results:
Yeah, that is right: nada. The election returns, compiled by elected officials who are paid a lot of money to run those elections, can't actually be seen, because the Commissioners keep their results password protected. Only in Philly could this happen.
Despite the absurdity of password protected election results, my YPP co-editor, Rapping Ray Murphy, actually called up the Commissioner's office and asked if he could have a password so that he could actually view results. Rambling Ray can tell you more, but, he was basically asked who he was calling with. And when he said he was a citizen, was basically scoffed at, and told he needed to put a request in writing, which would then take 20 days to respond to.
Open government is so pesky. Politicians like to talk about it, but when they are actually in office, people requesting information from them can be a real annoyance. But... election returns, in a City that pays three elected officials to oversee all of this? How much more basic can you get?
Commish vs. Committee of 70
Thanks Dan. There's not much more to say on the above. There is a lot to talk about with the City Commissioner's office some of which had been said before.
One new observation: it's great that so many people volunteer for the Committee of 70 on Eday. However, it kind of annoys me that a non-profit, which has to raises its own funds, is expected to carry so much of the water for the Commissioner's office. Think about what 70 does:
In other states, hell in other counties in this state, this work is all done so well by munincipal election officials, that there'd be no need for a private group.
Nope, instead we have at least one City Commissioner who is a committeewoman. Which means even if she did implement procedural changes in her office so that her staff took on more of an election oversight role, she wouldn't even be around to oversee them since she'd be working her own poll.
We need Charter Change bad. The current three have had plenty of chances to make change, they haven't, and it's hard to imagine that they ever will. I'd theorize that their own political agenda gets in the way.
The City Commissioner's office needs to be replaced with an independent admin position, kind of like Seth Williams wanted to do with the OIG office.
This probably wouldn't even mean a reduction in staff except for the top three. A competent professional could be hired instead, who could actually fulfill the mission laid out for the current office in the current charter, especially the parts in bold:
two notes
1. I spent a good amount of time in the City Commissioners' office at Delaware and Spring Garden this winter. I would not describe it as an intense, forward-thinking workplace, though the individuals with whom I worked were immensely helpful.
2. Seventy was fantastic on E-Day. They responded rapidly to complaints and questions, and handled their nonpartisan duties extremely well.
second note: so what?
I am not saying 70 is not good, but it's embarrassing that we need to have them in the city to help our elections be run fairly.
Well, there's a lot at stake
And without Seventy, there'd be a lot more going-to-court on Election Day. Also, as you may have read, most Judges of Elections did their jobs properly:
Still don't understand Adam
Adam, I am very aware of the things that go on Election Day that need to be monitored, reported, and stopped in order to maintain fair and accessible elections.
My only point is that we're not new to democracy here, we don't need a third party to maintain that order in every single election.
If we need roving bands of elections monitors in addition to judges of election at each polling place, then the City should hire, train and supervise them.
We have three--count 'em three--full-time paid and elected commissioners and that is silly. We should follow the lead of other counties in this state and other municipalities and states all around the country, and create an appointed elections official who monitors elections, instead of allowing the three vestigial Commissioners to continue to exist.
It's possible that there will be some overwhelming situations--like a Presidential election--where a 70 type group or the ACLU needs to step in, but we should not cede all of the duties of city elections officials to maintain fair elections to private groups.
That may not be possible now (obviously) and 70 plays a valuable role, which I am glad for. But they and we should make it our goal to put them out of business by forcing municipal government to serve us better (and in a manner residents in many other places take for granted as normal).
I pretty much agree
Having elected officials running elections can lead to problems. Remember Katharine Harris?
Even with Committee of 70 . . .
It is becoming more and more common for campaigns to have lawyer programs and/or lawyers on the ground for election day.
On election day, I coordinated the Farnese lawyer program, which included 10-11 lawyer-volunteers protecting the interests of the campaign in securing a fair election. Our numbers included two lawyers stationed at central elections court in case the need arose for an injunction. In addition, our program coordinated with the DOJ, District Attorney's office, the Committee of 70 and the Philadelphia Police Department. We were quite busy for parts of the day and in parts of the district.
It is easy in the heat of battle to grow frustrated with the Committee of 70 and what I call a very passive approach, but without the Committee of 70, I would imagine we would need at least 3Xs as many lawyers. That is a burden no campaign should have to bear.
The Committee of 70's value as a deterent and election monitor is vitally important for campaigns, particularly those with limited resources.
I am working to elect Larry Farnese to the General Assembly. Unless otherwise expressly stated, this and every comment or blog I post on YPP and any action I take hereon is solely attributable to me and not Farnese or Friends of Farnese
It's not about 70
70 is useful. But it's not useful to rely on 70 when a failure of government is so evident.
In terms of election day
In terms of election day enforcement of the Election Code, I'm not sure the City Commissioners are able or have the resources to police these issues. I'm not aware of an enforcement mechanism relative to the City Commissioners. Like other agencies, they likely rely on the enforcement arms of government.
As for your statement, I think it is just the opposite. If a failure of government (assuming that is the case) is the issue, then one has to rely on 70.
These things aside:
I think election returns should be public. Period. Anyone should be able to go to that site right now and pull that important information. By way of example, the Montgomery County Recorder of Deeds has a public login. Same with the Philadelphia Department of Records and the BRT.
Maybe it is time for another YPP-led lobbying campaign to make that happen. We've been successful before, i.e. the campaign finance issue of last year was great fun.
I am working to elect Larry Farnese to the General Assembly. Unless otherwise expressly stated, this and every comment or blog I post on YPP and any action I take hereon is solely attributable to me and not Farnese or Friends of Farnese
Reliance now-reliance forever
70's role is not just on Election Day. If you read the papers, blogs, or even listen to politicians, when it comes to finding polling places, ward maps, and election results, most Philadelphians turn to 70. 70 also provides sample ballots and info on charter questions.
That is a failure of the Commissioner's. Do a Google search of other municipal election authorities and you will see that may offer these services.
And perhaps the City Commissioner's can't police elections themselves (though they do hire judge of elections and train them right? Their training and supervision is not exactly even or always effective if we need 70 to come in and tell Judges not to go into voting booths with voters and tell them who to vote for, as happened in the 1st, or not wear partisan hats or pins, or not report broken machines or not make sure that Guy Lewis staffers don't block the door to polls...), it's their job to ask for help from the entities that can like the police or the sheriffs.
How can they effectively do that when I know that at least one commissioner, Tartaglione, is at her own polling place every Eday handing out palm cards?
I'm glad 70 is around, but our reliance on them as a city is apparently blinding some folks to the urgent need for charter reform to make our municipally funded elections work more effective.
I'm not disagreeing with you.
Except to say that there is reliance because there needs to be. If folks need the information, and 70 has it, that is where we go.
As for Judges of Election, most are very good at what they do, take the role seriously and are very fair. Oftentimes going to court of election day, however, occurs because a JOE fails to do something properly or allows (or causes) shennanigans to occur inside the polling place.
Let's do something about it. I'd suggest starting with that website and public access.
I am working to elect Larry Farnese to the General Assembly. Unless otherwise expressly stated, this and every comment or blog I post on YPP and any action I take hereon is solely attributable to me and not Farnese or Friends of Farnese
My only experience with the
My only experience with the staff at their offices has been positive. The problem in my mind is the leadership at the top.
I have never had a problem
I have never had a problem with the City Commissioners office, I have gone there several times in the past to get street lists and see results, and they have been courteous to me, As with any public information like court records for example you have to have a written request for a paper copy, I don't know if they have the technology to show a screen of the results.
But in reality between the inquirer, daily news, public record and other neighborhood newspapers and television,I am not seeing the need to go to the commissioners office to begin with.
Also in the beginning of the post was for some reason a slight at Commissioner Tartaglione, the other two commissioners are ward leaders as well and would not be in the office either. They have plenty of information on voters rights and guides as well as the training on the voting machines, voting is a community project sort of speak and everyone should be out there taking part in encouraging more people to vote.
On the same premise that not just the police can solve crime, there are plenty of non profits out working to prevent crime as well.
What the city needs to do is finding a way to increase the rates for people to be a judge of elections and poll positions to make it more worthwhile for people to monitor what is going on and willing to give up their entire day.
The City Commissioners office seems to be doing an adequate job, just like any other agency or entity there could always theoretically be more they can do, but we need to support what they do right and work together to accomplish everything else.
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter".
Dr Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
if they are online...
and passwords are granted to anyone who makes a written request...why password it at all?
David, I appreciate your perspective, and it may not be illegal to password the site, but it's not necessary. it's certainly not in the spirit of open government to artificially limit access to something that is easily made available. and the inky and dn do not print division by division results for each race. the commissioners still only release the city voter file on video tape: they won't email it or give away cds.
and i will call you next time i need the data, because i have called and asked for results and not been given them.
on this point:
If you are saying this to justify the obscene amount of City Commissioner work farmed out to 70, i guess I just disagree.
Public Online Access to Public Data
It is ridiculous that election results that are available online are not made available to the public. Information is power and clearly the Commissioners office is using their power to limit knowledge. If there was some legitimate concern, such as the information had personal information that could be used for credit fraud, than some limits on public access or omission of parts of the data would be understandable. To actually make the information password protected took a little bit more work than not making it password protected, so I guess in that regard the Commissioners office was ironically doing more work than was needed.
To agree with the argument that non-profits need to do work that government should do, but government does not do due to laziness, lack of interest, or due to a conscious decision not to do the work is to accept the status quo of government performance. This issue in this case is not one of asking government to do something that is pragmatically not possible due to a lack of time, skill, resources or technology, but of having government do something that would take a web programmer about 15 minutes to do, including rewriting the code, uploading it and testing it.
Online public information (that is not password protected) is valuable in that it saves people a trip down to a government office and is available 24/7.
So off topic slightly
Does anyone have ward by ward results for the First Senate race and any of the contested state rep races they can publish here by anychance (since the City Commissioner's website is not doing it).
-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.
First District Senate Results
First District Senate Race Results (Unofficial)
Ward | Farnese (D) | Dougherty (D) | Dicker (D) | Morley (R)
1 | 1518 | 2359 | 770 | 148
2 | 2803 | 1696 | 2465 | 208
5 | 4823 | 1674 | 2745 | 322
8 | 5527 | 1455 | 2447 | 385
14 | 764 | 987 | 151 | 21
15 | 2451 | 1481 | 1839 | 160
18 | 637 | 1211 | 448 | 114
25 | 904 | 1716 | 343 | 349
26 | 2235 | 2515 | 237 | 387
29 | 62 | 126 | 39 | 5
30 | 1371 | 428 | 439 | 39
31 | 80 | 187 | 29 | 28
36 | 1929 | 2541 | 535 | 40
38 | 98 | 130 | 22 | 6
39 | 3909 | 6536 | 726 | 313
40 | 289 | 712 | 61 | 6
48 | 708 | 646 | 149 | 48
TOTAL | 30088 | 26400 | 13245 | 2579
(Dan, is there any way for those that have the ability to do so to use html here? At one point this site allowed for it, but now it does not. I could have used a table if html was an option. Thanks.)
working on it
we'll get you that HTML back. there have been so many upgrades, i didn't even know users lost that ability.
meanwhile elp, where did you get your results? do you have em for any other race--like delegate? and do you have division by division results (which is what i want most)?
Election Results Are From Committee of 70
Ray, thanks for the HTML functionality return. The election results are available at http://www.seventy.org/ftpgetfile.php?id=324 . They are by ward, not division. They appear to be for all the races, including delegate.
Cool.
They weren't up (or i missed them) the last time I checked. Thanks.
-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.
Paging Chris Sheridan and Zack
I'd assume that 70 is one of the groups that has a username and password to access returns on city site.
Hey 70 folks: why don't you post the username and password here so we can all get in to the system?
Ray: You have to pay for Web access to the city's vote totals
on Election Night. The official count, when certified days later, is available to the general public. I'm sure Seventy paid for their results just as the DN and Inquirer did. BTW, none of the suburban counties charge for this.
pay for it?
hey gar, thanks for that tip. it's a shame no one told me that when i called the commissioners. do you have a service agreement you could email me? one wonders how that is legal.
gar, to be clear
this is the commissioners' practice, but is not in the city code anywhere that I am aware of. they only charge media outlets, and give out passwords to campaigns and elected officials and other insiders for free. and while the official count is available to the public after its certified, its not posted online anywhere.
Councilmen, help us out!
a couple points:
* The election returns on phillyelection.com must be made available to the public. City Council could introduce a bill making it happen (Councilman Goode or Kenney??), the Committee of Seventy should be demanding it loudly with letters and op-eds and protests, and the Commissioners should do the right thing.
the taxpayers pay for that info and should be able to see how their neighbors voted. for those that havent actually been granted a password, you can see how every division in the city voted on the whole ballot, or divisional and ward results for every office and question etc. Its pretty useful software for election geeks. The Commissioners just don't want to give up charging the media $5k (or something, I forget) to have access on E-Day, but they don't mention that the favored campaigns can get access just by asking. Which leaves the little guy out, again.
By the way, the contract the voting machine software provider signed with the city provided for the city to be able to handle public access to the site. (as an aside, its not very helpful for 70 to just pdf the ward returns, for those that want to manipulate the data).
* Committtee of 70's election day efforts are overrated. The volunteers all mean well, and are helpful with the relatively trivial conflicts involving electioneering (is that poster 8 ft from the polling place or 12?) and assistance within the voting booth, and who's the right judge of elections, and where should stamps be handed out, etc. I don't mean to diminish that contribution, but larger issues are unadddressed as a result.
I would love to see 70 do a report on how many votes are cast before the polls open, for example (easy to do by examining the receipt tapes). In many neighborhoods this can be done as early as the night before - and no one would call them on it. its when the 70 volutneers arent around that the mischief happens.
Gaetano, Seventy claimed they were sending several hundred volunteers into the First Senate District. Do you feel that was an accurate represenation of their forces on EDay? if so, they would have been much better served just having one volunteer at each polling place with a watchers certificate there all day...
another issue, this time w state law
watcher certificates are only available to parties and candidate committees. not 70 or anyone else.
The Commissioners' is a County office ... we are preempted.
Unlike campaign finance reform, the actual election process and its reporting is a matter of State law, not local law.
I don't have a password either.
Hard copies are usually available ... but it SHOULD be readily accessible electronically.
WWGjr