Dear Marge,

I was reading a Marcia Gelbart story about a PICA report on elections, and I couldn't help noticing this comparison between City Commissioners and your peers in the burbs:

Among other points, (PICA board member William) Leonard focused on a chart that compared the 15 counties' number of registered voters and the annual spending by their election administrators.

In Philadelphia, where the city commissioners and a staff of 97 oversee everything related to elections, including training poll workers and preparing ballots and voting material, that figure is $9.18 per voter.

That amount is nearly twice as much as the median spending in the other counties, $4.68, and nearly three times the $3.26 per voter spent in Montgomery County, which has half as many residents as Philadelphia.

So I was thinking: Couldn't the School District and City Health Centers use that extra $6 per Philly voter that your office wastes on dozens of patronage "workers" aimlessly hanging out on Spring Garden Street spends on elections?

Apparently the idea that City Commissioners might waste precious Philly tax dollars so shocked the Nutter Administration, they were struck speechless:

That prompted Leonard, an appointee of Democratic state House Speaker Keith McCall, to question Philadelphia's efficiency and suggest the creation of a five-county regional authority to run elections.

"The mayor has always talked about regional efficiencies," Leonard said.

Then, turning to Philadelphia Finance Director Rob Dubow, an ex-officio PICA board member, he added: "Rob, I think we ought to do that, I really do."

Dubow did not respond.

Huh. Good thing the mayor's not protecting patronage. He's always saying he wants to promote regional cooperation too.

Oh, and understandably, you were similarly dumbstruck:

A spokeswoman for Margaret Tartaglione, the city commissioners' chairwoman, said she had no comment since she had not seen the report.

Hmmm.

I guess those of us who've started noticing that extra cent we're paying on every dollar we spend in town should probably just suck it up and not read that PICA report that's scheduled to be released in a few weeks.

That might lead us to return to that Committee of Seventy report called "Needless Jobs" that recommends

City Council should pass a proposed amendment to the Philadelphia Home Rule Charter to eliminate elected City Commissioners, and submit the amendment to the voters for approval.

But then we'd have to go somewhere else to find those jaw-dropping examples of stereotypical patronage waste that we bloggers love to go on about (like, for example, the offices of the Clerk of Quarter Sessions, the Register of Wills or the Sheriff).

And whatever office replaces yours might forego those cool secret passwords that you gave Dan and just make election results available to the general public.

Ugh. Where's the fun in that?

If the political class stops owning elections, who will own them? The people? In Democracy's Hometown?

Already missing the easy targets,

Sam

On Friday afternoon, the City committed to produce electronic election results for all to see. In her interview with Mike Dunn of KYW, City Solicitor Shelley Smith already said they were going to do this, but, it sure is nice to see it in writing:

The City is currently developing a system to allow the public access to a hosted website where election results will be provided. The plan for the next election in November is to provide near real time summary results and the ability to drill down into election details (ward-by-ward, division-by-division, etc) on this hosted website. Polling data and returns should be updated approximately every 10 to 15 minutes as the returns are verified by the City Commissioners. Furthermore, there will be a link on both the City of Philadelphia's main homepage and the City Commissioner's homepage directing interested users to this hosted website.

And, those treasured passwords will become largely useless for the average person, and will now be strictly restricted:

The system for which you request access to is only equipped to handle 150-200 users at one time. Going forward, access will be strictly limited to employees of the City Commissioners and the personnel from the Department of State. These employees will use the internal system to provide needed returns and data to both the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the new hosted site (explained in detail below). No passwords for this internal system will be provided to anyone outside of this group.

That makes sense, especially from a security perspective.

So, given what they have committed to doing, and the new role passwords will have, the City has en masse denied all the requests for passwords. If you want to appeal, instructions are in the letter. My unsolicited advice though, is to let it be, because this is clearly happening. Yes, there is always a chance something could get screwed up. But, I feel pretty confident that this will all happen. (Next push from an interested party who wants to make a difference: Historical results.)

There are some people in this whole thing who have been really helpful. First, thanks to Jim Kenney, the only Councilperson to quickly respond when this whole saga began, for his help behind the scenes. Having the Mayor jump in was A-OK, too. And, Shelley Smith, the City Solicitor, came out on the side of open government, and forced the hand of the Commissioners, by granting my original appeal. They could have made this harder on us than they did. So, to our friends in the City Solicitor’s Office, sorry for being collective pains in the ass. I wish I could say this is the last you will have to deal with us. But, somehow, I doubt it.

And, of course, a lot of credit for this has to go to Ed Goppelt of Hallwatch. Ed was opening up Philly government before it was cool.

But, most of all, to the 400 or so people who requested passwords, pat yourselves on the back. Publishing election returns will not end poverty in Philadelphia. It will not fix the schools. Hey, for that matter, it won’t bring our troops home from Iraq, either. But it is a basic function of government that should be provided, yet hasn’t been. By November, it appears that will change.