COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC MEETING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON LAW AND GOVERNMENT - - - Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Wednesday, November 12, 1997 10:20 a.m. - - - RES. 960894 - A Resolution authorizing the Committee on Law and Government to hold public hearings to evaluate new voting machine technology, review the process for approving and purchasing new voting machine equipment, to assess the costs and benefits of new voting machines. - - - PRESENT: COUNCILMAN DAVID COHEN, Chair COUNCILMAN ANGEL L. ORTIZ, Vice-Chair COUNCILWOMAN JANNIE BLACKWELL COUNCILMAN W. THATCHER LONGSTRETH COUNCILMAN RICHARD T. MARIANO COUNCILMAN MICHAEL A. NUTTER COUNCILMAN FRANK RIZZO COUNCILWOMAN MARIAN B. TASCO - - - VINCENT VARALLO ASSOCIATES, INC. Registered Professional Reporters Eleven Penn Center Plaza, Suite 600 Philadelphia, PA 19103 (215) 561-2220 I N D E X RESOLUTION 960894 Frederick L. Voight, Executive Director, Committee of Seventy----------------------- Margaret Tartaglione, Chairwoman, Philadelphia City Commissioners------------------------ Alexander Z. Talmadge, Jr., City Commissioner------------------------------ Joseph J. Duda, City Commissioner------------ 37 Sherry A. Swirsky, Esq., Co-chair, Philadelphia Election Reform Task Force--- 41 Robert A. Brady, Chairman, Democratic City Committee--------------------------------- 86 Gregg Melinson, Associate Counsel, Republican City Committee---------------------------- 95 Barbara Dietrich, President, League of Women Voters of Philadelphia-------------------- 104 Cliff Wilson, Chairman, Democratic Party, Delaware County--------------------------- 109 Jerome Mondesire, President, Philadelphia Branch, NAACP----------------------------- 121 Joseh C. Vignola, Executive Director, PICA--- 141 John Estey, Deputy Chief of Staff, Mayor's Office---------------------------- 146 Dean Kaplan, Budget Director, City of Philadelphia------------------------------ 151 - - - Public Meeting------------------------------- 170 - - - 3 RESOLUTION 960894 CHAIRMAN COHEN: The Committee on Law and Government of the City Council is now in session for the purpose of conducting a hearing on Resolution No. 960894, introduced by Councilman Nutter. I am going to ask the clerk of the Committee to read the title of the resolution.
A Resolution authorizing the Committee on Law and Government to hold public hearings to evaluate new voting machine technology, to review the process for approving and purchasing new voting machine equipment, to assess the costs and benefits of new voting machines, and to work with City Commissioners and City Administration on the development of an implementation plan and timetable for the acquisition of new voting machines for the benefit of the voters in Philadelphia. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you. The author of the resolution is Councilman Nutter. I am going to ask him to proceed first.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning to the first panel. Just a very, very brief statement. 4 RESOLUTION 960894 First to say thank you to the Chairman for making the request for this public hearing. Many of us in Council and outside of Council believe this is a very serious and important matter involving public access to voting and, hopefully, throughout all of this, increasing the level of participation in the electorial process. As ward leader of the 52nd Ward and Councilman Cohen as ward leader in the 17th Ward in the city, and many other Council members having direct involvement with the voting process and being out on Election Day and before Election Day, we know much of what happens in this process. We recognize that the City Commissioners try to do the best they can with the equipment and the technology that they have. But some of us believe that, as we move into the Year 2000, we should try to take our election process in the same direction and get new voting machines. We recognize that there is a process. We know that there is a cost. But for anything serious and important, the road has to be traveled, and we must start somewhere. So we appreciate all of the 5 RESOLUTION 960894 participants in this public hearing this morning. And I believe the first panel now has us starting with the City Commissioners and a representative from the Committee of Seventy. Please identify yourselves for the record. CHAIRMAN COHEN: And may I say, so it will be fair across the board, we know people have strong feelings on the subject. If they have any feelings at all, they have to be very strong. And, therefore, there would be a tendency to want to expand at great length. But there are a large number of witnesses that are scheduled to appear. We are going to ask that everybody try to limit themselves to about five minutes. And we, as Committee members, will try to exercise some form of restraint. Thank you very much. Mr. Voight, do you want to proceed, or the Chair of the Commissioners? Mr. Voight, okay.
I am Fred Voight. I am the Executive Director of the 6 RESOLUTION 960894 Committee of Seventy. It is a pleasure to be here before you. But I must note that it is -- have you ever seen the movie Ground Hog Day, where things sort of repeat themselves? Well, this is sort of like that for me, and I think for at least the Commissioners, and certainly Commissioner Tartaglione. We have been discussing new technology for voting literally since 1977, with every single Administration, bar none, since that time. And we are here today again, like Ground Hog Day. The technology that we described and discussed and evaluated over that period of time has changed slightly, but it hasn't changed greatly. The costs have change slightly. But the need has increased exponentially, and that's what's different today from then. The primary driving force, in my opinion, is not necessarily the convenience to the voter between an electronic machine or the current machines that we have. 7 RESOLUTION 960894 The real distinction is the need for precision, absolute precision, in the recording of the votes. One of the things that we have observed is that the Election Boards themselves are older. In many cases we're losing them. We can't get people to do that tedious job. Even if we were to increase the salary, which we are urging the state legislature to do -- COMMISSIONER TARTAGLIONE: They did. It starts January 1.
Even that will not solve the problem, as you well know. After Election Day, when the official count begins -- and that official count is done from the return sheets, which were manually filled in pain-staking and, we hope, accurate detail. But sometimes that does not happen. The process of determining when a winner is a winner and who a winner is can sometimes take, literally, weeks or months after Election Day. We think that that is the most 8 RESOLUTION 960894 critical issue involved, and probably the most important issue, in terms of driving the new technology. One, it is accurate. Two, it is instantaneous. And, three, it is easy. And that easy part of it is what we think is most important. Because if we lose the ability to have return Boards serve, we lose the democratic process. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you very much. Madam Chair, do you want to proceed next, and then Commissioner Talmadge. COMMISSIONER MARGARET TARTAGLIONE: Thank you. Margaret Tartaglione, Chairwoman of the City Commissioners. Like Mr. Voight says, this is deja vu. Been here, tried it. Did not work. I hope, the last sentence, it will work, as the three Commissioners were in my office this morning. What we should do is invite every vendor, like we did in '77, like we did in '80, and let them demonstrate each of their wares with 9 RESOLUTION 960894 Council, the Commissioners, the press, and we could decide. Because all these hearings, we first have to pick a vendor before, or if, anything would be on the ballot. So I think right after this meeting, you get every vendor that is eligible, send them an invitation, have a demonstration, and we could proceed from there. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you. When was the last time it came before City Council, does anybody remember? I don't remember.
The last time it came up, when it was in the Capital Budget, it was maybe 15 years ago. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Maybe 15 years.
It hasn't formally come up that process since. But the one thing that I forgot to add to my testimony, it takes so long to procure any system in this city, that the lead time is mind-boggling. We have already been -- and I disagree with the Commissioners at least to this 10 RESOLUTION 960894 degree. We have been there and done it. We don't need to look at all of the technology currently available. There is a certain set of criteria that they have all agreed to, that we have done so with the task force. We have eliminated lots of things that we don't think are suitable, and others -- COMMISSIONER TARTAGLIONE: Excuse me, Mr. Voight. The task force has done that. But, but, we are three elected Commissioners. This is our department. Council wasn't -- some of them were -- on the task force. This is our department. And another department is going to take our duties away, you will hear my voice.
I am not suggesting for a moment that the appropriate powers of Council, nor the Commissioners, be usurped. I am suggesting a faster way to go. The fastest way to go, where you accomplish all the same ends, is to have the Procurement Department issue an RFP. 11 RESOLUTION 960894 And that includes all the technology, but sets up the criteria that you would want to establish and it fast-tracks the ability to get it done.
Well, I think as Councilman Cohen indicated -- and maybe we didn't realize that the majority of the passion would be on the other side of the witness table. Usually the passion and the fire is coming from this side. In this particular situation, we have the witnesses arguing amongst themselves. COMMISSIONER TARTAGLIONE: We are not arguing.
It is good discussion. I think that, in the most political sense, both of you are probably correct. But there is a process that we do have to go through. The Chairwoman is also right, though, that many members either did not participate in the task force or were not around. And, for them, this may not be deja vu all over again, some 20 years later. 12 RESOLUTION 960894 I think that we want to -- and I think we can all agree on -- we want to do it, certainly, as quickly, as expeditiously, but also properly, as possible and, through all that, have this move forward and get a time frame and a schedule. I mean, I would be intrigued -- and I know Commissioner Talmadge wants to speak and Commissioner Duda -- I am intrigued a little bit by this 20-year-long fight and battle through various administrations, and why has it happened and why has there never been a schedule and a commitment to schedule. And if the bottom line of all of this is just the financial argument, then I guess we will get to that before this day is over. And there are representatives from the Mayor's Office. But you have to make a commitment, and then you have to start. And it sounds like we have just never gotten to that point. Commissioner Talmadge. CHAIRMAN COHEN: I would just add one thing. If it appears desirable as a result 13 RESOLUTION 960894 of this hearing, then I think there has got to be a lot of activity. Because as of now, I am unaware of any mayoral feeling that this is at the top of the priority list. I think he has many other priorities. And that's always been the case, I assume, whenever this question has come up. To give this the right priority status, I think we have to build a public record, we have got to get enough Council members in here to hear the testimony, we have got to make sure they read it and that they begin to support it. And that's going to be needed. " And that's what we're trying to do, to get it in the next budget. The next year's budget, you know, the hearings begin in January. So it is a very timely effort on everybody's part. But we hope you are right, Fred. You know, you and I have battled many years over Charter amendments. We are used to long battles. And both 14 RESOLUTION 960894 of us seem to have a great deal of staying power. But we're hoping on this that all the forces will be united. You raised a very interesting point that I had not considered, the accuracy question. And I think that's an extremely important one. Because we have had a number of instances recently, haven't we, where there have been debates over periods of weeks, maybe months, as to who actually won the election. Commissioner Talmadge. COMMISSIONER ALEXANDER Z. TALMADGE: Good morning. , City Commissioner. The main question is, do we need new voting machines? The answer to that question is, yes. " Our voting machines are old. The newest one was purchased in 1948, the latest one was 15 RESOLUTION 960894 purchased in, approximately, 1973. We are decades behind the new wave of electronic voting machines. So that's the question. One, do we need voting machines, electronic or otherwise. The answer is yes. Two, what are the benefits of new voting machines? There are several benefits. And, three, how are we going to pay for them? Because, as Mr. Voight has already said, this has gone through approximately three mayors, and now we are here again. This is my first opportunity to address the issue of new voting machines. COMMISSIONER TARTAGLIONE: Four mayors. COMMISSIONER TALMADGE: Four mayors, as Commissioner Tartaglione has just stated. We have an opportunity now, years 20 or so after we purchased our last machines, four or five years or so after a task force was initiated stating that we need new voting machines. Myself and the other Commissioners have been talking very loosely for the last four years, and three years for Commissioner Duda, about 16 RESOLUTION 960894 purchasing new voting machines.
So we now see a window of opportunity in our efforts to push forward new voting machines. There is no doubt that we need them. The question is, how are we going to purchase them and which ones are we going to purchase. There are several that will suit our needs. There are some that will not suit our needs. I agree with Commissioner Tartaglione that the Commissioners ourselves need to be an integral part of that procurement process, or at least the process of looking at all of the technology that's out there. We are not asking to take months to do this; we are asking for an opportunity for our participation, since we will be the ones that will be running the apparatus. And if there is a mistake, they are not going to come to Mr. Voight; they are going to come to look at the City Commissioners. And they are going to look at the ward leaders, and you will come and look at the City Commissioners. So we must be an integral part of that process. 17 RESOLUTION 960894 New voting machines are here. The opportunity that the city has is now. We must, as we stated before, commit ourselves to the purchase and procurement of new electronic voting. There are several ways, as I think you will have testimony from other people, as I see your list. There are possibly several different ways of purchasing new electronic voting machines. The reason why the mayors don't want to do it, because it is an expense, an expense that may not necessarily benefit them. But it will benefit the citizens of Philadelphia and it will benefit the electorate here in Philadelphia, who has been asking for voting machines for the past 15 years.
Commissioner, if I can, let me just ask a couple of questions. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Before you do, may I just acknowledge the presence of two additional members of the Committee, Councilman Mariano and Councilman Rizzo. You now have, I think, a larger audience of Council members than you ever had at any stage during the 20-year campaign. 18 RESOLUTION 960894 Thank you. Councilman Nutter, please.
We are always looking for progress. Commissioner Talmadge, in the testimony that has been provided, I would like to go through a couple of the parts of it. On . Obviously we just had an election about a week ago, so I'm sure you are not necessarily prepared to talk about some of the things that may have taken place on Tuesday, November 4. COMMISSIONER TALMADGE: That's correct.
But your report does lay out some of the issues from the May 18 primary. 19 Your testimony is that there were 20 over 230 mechanic reports filed as a result of the May 20 primary for various reasons? And let me also say, certainly, any other Commissioner can respond to any of these questions. COMMISSIONER TALMADGE: If I may, 19 RESOLUTION 960894 that is the information that we have received from our mechanics and from Tom Mattei, who works at the warehouse. Now, 230 may appear to be a large number. But you have to remember, many of these, and most of these, problems can be taken care of immediately via a telephone call. It could be an election poll worker who made a mistake, the key jammed, they didn't know how to do the curtain, the machine moved, and things like that. So there are a number of these situations in the 230 that were very easily taken care of. There were some others, of course, that we had to send mechanics out to actually fix the machines.
What's the nature -- and both yourself and, certainly, the Chairwoman, who has been around for a good while -- share with us, I guess, some of the nature of the kinds of problems that voters and Election Day workers are faced with with these machines. And if you have any knowledge of the 20 RESOLUTION 960894 newer technology, what kinds of problems do we find either with those machines, or how are they more easily resolved? And we will get further into this issue when we have the task force testimony in the next panel. COMMISSIONER TARTAGLIONE: Most of the problems are early-morning problems, from 7 o'clock, I would say, until 8:00. And it is people having trouble opening the machines. That's on Election Day. And that's not why we need new machines. But you asked a question, Councilman, and I am responding to a question.
Right. COMMISSIONER TARTAGLIONE: Now, as far as the new mechanics, I don't know anything about the mechanics but what I read in the paper. Do you know anything?
Let me, very briefly, if you have ever looked inside a voting machine, it looks like a piano. It has got straps and wires and thing-a-ma-jigs that are designed to allow you to do what you are supposed to do. 21 RESOLUTION 960894
Mr. Voight, you will appreciate that most of us do our best to stay as far away from the insides of those machines as possible.
You are fortunate if you do. But the point I make is, once those things are set in a warehouse, they are fine. But then they have to go through a very arduous process of being transported to the polling places that we use in the city. We use barber shops. We use schools. We use everything under the sun so that, in accordance with the Election Code, voters are as conveniently served as possible. In that process, sometimes these machines have to be turned on their side. It is just crazy. It is that kind of jostling and shoving and bumping that causes some of the problems. Now, the new technology has none of those thing-a-ma-bobs. It is solid. It is light. It is easily transportable. So at least insofar as those kinds of mistakes or problems, they are eliminated. 22 RESOLUTION 960894 Insofar as the Commissioner's statement, she is absolutely correct. Most of the problems relate to opening problems, where somebody bends the key or doesn't know what they are doing. They are people problems. The other problems we have are also people related. Someone will go in and try and compel the machine to do something it can't do. CHAIRMAN COHEN: You are referring now to the voters, not the election workers; right?
That is correct. The voter, the prototypical voter, goes in, looks at this thing twice a year. So they don't have a clue. They are trying to do something, maybe vote for seven inside of five. Those are the kinds of things. The other big thing that has occurred, the biggest scandal occurred back in the Charter change of '78, when there were allegations that machines were breaking down all over the city, and that there was some kind of conspiracy to rig the machines. Well, what no one knew was that the machines were designed so that unless you voted -- 23 RESOLUTION 960894 if you only voted on the ballot question, and not on the candidate, you couldn't get out. COMMISSIONER TARTAGLIONE: That's the way it was designed.
Normally, a Judge of Elections knows how to talk you out of the machine if you get in trouble. Well, nobody knew that this was a problem. So what would happen would be, a voter would go in -- and this is one of those unique kind of elections, where you only voted on the question, you didn't care about the candidates, pro or against Frank Rizzo, the Charter change for the two-term limit. There were federal investigations that went on for months after that into whether the machines, the Commissioners rigged the machines, or whatever. And, finally, they determined that this was the problem: Someone would go in, vote on the question, leave the booth -- vote on the candidate, leave the booth. The next person would go in, vote only on the question, the machine was broken. That went on all day. 24 RESOLUTION 960894 So my final point is, really, it is not necessarily that the machines that we have are bad. They are not. They are in use in major jurisdictions, including New York City. Nonetheless, there are problems with the machines. With the most serious problem, again, in my judgment, is our inability to get fast, accurate, reliable returns with an Election Board -- with Election Boards that are aging, dying, or not applying. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Let me make one statement of a very special concern I had. I think as the voting takes place today in Philadelphia, twice a year we have a renewal of great community spirit. It is the communities, the neighborhoods take over the whole election process, and you have ordinary people running the elections. Often it is almost like a holiday in some neighborhoods. Because people get to know each other or see each other for the first time since the last election. I am concerned, and interested, how the new machines will affect that aspect. Because I 25 RESOLUTION 960894 think that's very important. Incidentally, on the machines, Commissioner, I have to congratulate the Election Commissioners, all three of them, for the results. We used the oldest machines, I think, in the city, the old Chute. I had a single complaint in one division during the whole last election. And it is just an outstanding record, considering, you know, all the problems that could develop. But I would appreciate it if some folks would talk about that need. It also gives employment to some people in the City of Philadelphia. It isn't much; it may be two days, four days a year, maybe only two days a year. And I think we would like to hear about the impact on that. I am glad to see the Democratic Chairman here. I hope that someone is here also for the Republican party, to speak from the point of view of the election as part of the political process. Because it isn't just machines alone RESOLUTION 960894 I think we are concerned about. COMMISSIONER TARTAGLIONE: Yes. Councilman Cohen, as you know, it would not affect the Board. That is a constitutional office. The Election Board is a constitutional office, that, in the courtroom, when the court cases were coming, proceeding, people didn't know this was a constitutional office, that these Election Board members are voted upon. They're voted upon. And that is why whatever result they give us, we are bound, bound to take that vote, unless they have other alternatives. So the Election Board, being a constitutional, the five spots, would not be changed. And, by the way, the Governor signed that bill, the Election Board, from January 19 -- as of January 1998, they will be getting their raises. CHAIRMAN COHEN: They will be very happy to hear that, I am sure. COMMISSIONER TALMADGE: If I may attempt to address your question, Councilman Cohen. I think you are talking about some of 27 RESOLUTION 960894 the nonfinancial benefits that the city would or that the electorate would take with the advent of the new voting machines. Sort of like a new car. Any time one person gets a new car, everyone wants to come by, look at it, and possibly drive it.
So I think the new voting machines, one, hopefully they will be smaller in size, they will be much lighter than the ones that we presently have, so they will be easier to move around for those people who are on Election Boards who are older. Disabled voters. At present, it is almost impossible for any disabled voter in a wheelchair to operate our election machinery. Let's be honest about that. Any type of new technology that we employ with new machines will have and will allow us, will allow those people who are disabled, to have access to the voting process. So we are increasing the voting process. As Mr. Voight said, time of tabulation. I believe electronic machines, if we purchase them, we need to be able to have pretty 28 RESOLUTION 960894 much an exact hundred percent accurate count two to three hours after the election. Not depending upon flash returns, which we all know, or which we all should know, are inaccurate and incomplete tallies, but pretty much on an accurate tally from the voting machines, from all the wards and divisions throughout the City of Philadelphia, definitely by that evening. And not depending, again, upon the flash returns. And I believe that, like we did this year, when we did the new -- and we will call them the computer binders. Many people were very happy about that. I received, I'm sure the other Commissioners received, positive comments about, "Listen, you have these new computer things. They are nice. We are learning how to do them. " So we are in the process now of 29 RESOLUTION 960894 trying to modernize the system. We started off slow. But I think with the advent of new machines, they are definitely going to help us to increase participation in the election process when we get new machines. Because more people are going to come out and want to see what are they doing, what are the Commissioners doing now, what's happening at the polling places. Let's come out and see. CHAIRMAN COHEN: The Chair would like to announce the presence of Councilwoman Blackwell, a member of the Committee. Councilwoman Blackwell.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Certainly let me greet our Commissioners. And we are glad Commissioner Tartaglione is well, and looks well. And our Chairman, Bob Brady. I am so glad that we had the good sense to have this hearing. Because we know for years nobody likes to lose a vote, and so all of us up here understand the importance of voting machines. And we have been talking about new machines for years. 30 RESOLUTION 960894 Notwithstanding, Mr. Chairman, I have the Head of the State Welfare Department downstairs. And I would like to leave for a few moments. And I request permission to leave and to return to complete the hearing. I am certainly totally supportive of this bill and all that it represents. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman Rizzo.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The question that I have is in reference to education, voter education. Mr. Voight, I think you suggested that some of the problems during the Charter reform was the fact that the voter didn't understand or properly use the machine; is that correct?
That's correct. But included in that, not just simply the voter, but the entire Election Board.
My question is, of the five top malfunctions, how many would you say are directly attributed to the voter not knowing 31 RESOLUTION 960894 what they're doing?
Either the voter or the Election Board, the overwhelming majority.
So the voter is the one, in many cases, that initiates the problem with the machine because they do not know what they are doing when they are inside the curtain?
You know, you are dealing with democracy at its finest. As Councilman Cohen pointed out, you have five people on that Board. It is democracy at the very grass-roots level. And you get people who get excited and make mistakes. They are trained by the Commissioners. There are sessions by the Commissioners. Even with all the sessions in the world, you still have people who make mistakes. And, in the end, our voters are human, as well. No matter how much a good committeeperson or Election Board explains the process before they go into the machine, they still make mistakes. But I would emphasize again, that's not really the biggest problem we have. The biggest 32 RESOLUTION 960894 problem we have is the count. And I can't emphasize that enough. And let me just make a point about the danger of close elections, where you have uncertainty. We have lived that in this city. I can remember the primary of '91. Your father was running, and there was a mistake on the return. Not on the return sheet, but on the flash return. And so the headlines in the Inquirer were like, World War III was about to begin. But we knew because the Commissioner, the Chairman and I, looked at the returns and knew that they were wrong. We knew it would get straightened out, but the rest of the world didn't. We have had other elections, Boswer/Greene, 1979, where for weeks the outcome of that election was in dispute, debate, and rampant. Now, those are the kinds of things that can rip the heart out of a city. And I would juxtapose 1999. We are not going to get there by 1999, even if we started buying machines today, which we can't. But the point I am making is, if you 33 RESOLUTION 960894 are doing a cross-benefit analysis and you are saying, hey, this is going to cost a lot of money, we don't have the money in this city, and you juxtapose that against what happens in the city that gets its heart ripped apart because there is contention, debate, and anger, and accusations over who won or who lost, that's major to me. I have lived through it. We all have in one fashion or another. And this city can't afford to have that kind of split, that kind of ranker, and that kind of anger, which naturally arises when you have an election where -- we can't tell you, none of us, neither the Commissioners in their official position, me in my unofficial position, or anyone else, we can't tell you on election night, we cannot, who won or who lost. That process takes weeks after Election Day. We went for the entire summer. We went from May until August, until the judge decided who won or who lost the race for Traffic Court. Now, imagine, if you will, it weren't Traffic Court, but it were the Mayor or a member of Council. 34 RESOLUTION 960894 I just leave that out there for you to think about.
The rest of my questions now will be directed to the Commissioners. When I am out and I am traveling, I talk to young people and parents that believe that no matter what technology, if we stay with the machines that we have or we move towards electronic machines, I would like to just hear briefly what we do to educate the young voter on how to vote, and why it is not in the curriculum. And I heard Commissioner Talmadge recently on an interview. And I believe some of the calls that you received had to do with educating our young people, and why aren't we partnering with the Board of Education and the Archdiocese. That somewhere in this educational process, that they are taught how to vote, especially if we are going towards a new technology. I mean, these young people are going to pick that up instantly. And possibly that should be taught in the schools, how to vote. 35 RESOLUTION 960894 COMMISSIONER TALMADGE: That's a very good question. I have gone around to the high schools, colleges, and grade schools, city organizations, bringing with me the miniature voting machines, a map of the City of Philadelphia, demonstrating to people how to operate the voting machine technology as we presently have. Because, like you said, some people are fearful because they walk up to a big machine and they do not know how to operate this machine, and they do not want to be either humiliated or embarrassed because of their lack of knowledge in the operation of these voting machines. So there has been a major effort going across various parts of the city to do this. I have worked very closely with several members of the Board and some of the school districts. I have not had an opportunity to work with the --
Archdiocese. COMMISSIONER TALMADGE: Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN COHEN: That's a Catholic 36 RESOLUTION 960894 thing, sir. COMMISSIONER TALMADGE: I have not had an opportunity, although I have broached the subject with them. I cannot go where I am not allowed to go, or not offered to go. I can only go to those places where they allow me to go. And not only do they allow me, I ask if I can go to certain places.
We will see if we can't get you the blessing. COMMISSIONER TALMADGE: Excellent. If I also may, one issue that I think is very important that we may be missing. When a machine breaks down at a polling place, and I am the first person there, and my only time to go to vote is 8 o'clock in the morning, and that machine is not working, and I cannot come back to vote, I am then -- not only am I disenfranchised, but I am also angry about the entire election system. Not only am I as a voter angry about the entire system, but that candidate or candidates that would have received my votes will not receive 37 RESOLUTION 960894 my votes because I am not coming back. And that's one issue that I think we have to address. When we do have problems with the machines, those are the types of problems. We have people that were not able to vote when the machines broke down. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Commissioner Duda, you haven't had an opportunity to make a general statement. Feel free to do so. COMMISSIONER JOSEPH J. DUDA: Joseph J. Duda, City Commissioner. My colleagues and I am in complete agreement with, and also the Committee of Seventy. And I have let them take the floor because they have been through the wars before me. I would just like to add one thing, and that's about the follow-through. The task force the city had in '95 did a thorough job. And it pointed out on of the report that the Election Code requires that the installation and completion of the citywide machines be done in 103 weeks after the ballot approval. My point is that, in the past, we 38 RESOLUTION 960894 have got it passed. And I am sure we are going to pass it again when the question comes up. But I need Council to really bear down on the Administration to follow through and get the machines in place with the proper time. Because if you don't have enough pre-setup, and approval, you might not be able to get it done in the 103 weeks. And the point is that, I don't want the timetable to eliminate us getting new machines because someone drags their feet on the other end and makes it impossible for us to meet that timetable. Because, as my colleagues have said, it is so crucial for us to get the cloud out from over the Commissioner's Office about the returns on election night, that I think it is paramount that we get this done this time.
Well, Commissioner, you raise a very good point. And I would say either to the Chairwoman or to Mr. Voight, at least in terms of their longer history with this, has there actually ever been a ballot vote on this question? 39 RESOLUTION 960894 COMMISSIONER TARTAGLIONE: Yes.
And what happened? COMMISSIONER TARTAGLIONE: Yes, it has. I think it was 1977, there was a ballot question. It passed overwhelmingly.
Was that the whole issue of the $5 million, and that then there was some mysticism about the $5 million going to the Eagles sky boxes?
What they did is, they stacked up a whole lot of capital improvements in one package, voting machines being one of them. Then they decided to spend the money for everything else except the voting machines.
I think it was voting machines, I think there were maybe rec centers, libraries, police stations, and the like. And that small amount of money, at least then, which maybe you could have bought it for 20 years ago, did subsequently, I believe, through the fiscal crisis, end up being taken somewhere else.
I thought that was the history. CHAIRMAN COHEN: All the money on that loan was spent? Was all the money spent?
Yes. It was only a very small amount of money, and it went out the door very quickly. CHAIRMAN COHEN: So we would need a brand new authorization? COMMISSIONER DUDA: Can I just add, the task force said $19 million, and a proposal before you says 18. The point is, I think, the longer we procrastinate, not only does it become more expensive, but we never get finished with the problem about the cloud over the elections. So I really feel, regardless of whether it is 18 or 19 or whatever, as long as we can get the most efficient amount for the machines, the point is, you get it done, you get it done now. And then once it is passed, to get it in that time frame, so where everybody is happy and we can work for the next years with the proper 25 results. 41 RESOLUTION 960894 Thank you. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Well, thank you very much for your participation. We are going to move on to the next panel. Let me just say, we are going to count on all of you being available to go throughout the city and spread the message in the event that the Council recommends that we move ahead on this. COMMISSIONER TALMADGE: That's easy. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Very good. Thank you. The next panel will be on the evaluation of new voting machine technology and experience of other jurisdictions. Miss Swirsky, who Co-chaired the Philadelphia Election Reform Task Force. If there is anyone that you would like to have with you, Miss Swirsky, you are free to invite them to join you at the table.
Unfortunately, Mr. Chairman -- CHAIRMAN COHEN: Please identify yourself for the record, first.
I am Sherry 42 RESOLUTION 960894 Swirsky. CHAIRMAN COHEN: And bring the microphone as close to you as possible.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to report on the comprehensive assessment of voting technology performed by the Election Reform Task Force, which I co-chaired along with the Honorable Bruce Kauffman, from October 1994 to September 1995. What I'd like to do today -- CHAIRMAN COHEN: Is he here?
No, he is not. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Because we would like to be among the first to congratulate him on his new Honorable position.
I believe he is in Florida today, sir. CHAIRMAN COHEN: I see. Enjoying the fruit of a victory. That's great.
What I would like to do is help you and all of the other city officials involved avoid having to reinvent the wheel here. 43 RESOLUTION 960894 CHAIRMAN COHEN: Miss Swirsky, may I just interrupt you for a moment to welcome Councilman Longstreth, also a member of the Committee. Thank you. Go ahead.
I hope when you consider our report, you will realize that we did all of the necessary groundwork. And all that remains is to update what we did and completed two years ago, and then to deliberate with all affected officials involved. Since we just passed the two-year anniversary of the issuance of our final report, I want to recap briefly the composition, mandate, and methodology of the task force. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Would we just ask you, please, to submit that in writing.
Certainly. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Because we will have it in the record. But we would like to spend whatever time we can in actual discussion of the immediate issue before us.
Certainly, 44 RESOLUTION 960894 Mr. Chairman. And I have submitted a written statement. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Very good.
Over a period of 6 months we did perform a comprehensive evaluation and 7 investigation, meeting approximately 30 times, and 8 produced what everyone here has, the lengthy report, 9 and rather voluminous appendices, that up until this 10 committee began this investigation functioned very 11 nicely as door stops. And I was beginning to despair that our hard work was nothing more than an academic exercise. So I am really delighted that our work is finally being put to good use. Our approach was really shaped by two very well publicized circumstances in the summer and fall of 1994, when we were appointed; namely, the increase in expected voter registration and participation resulting from the passage of the Motor Voter Law, and the ultimate implementation in Pennsylvania. And, second, is the almost microscopic public scrutiny that was given to virtually every aspect of the electoral process in 45 RESOLUTION 960894 Philadelphia in the wake of the now legendary Second Senatorial District race. Because of those twin circumstances, the task force resolved that we would work very hard to ensure that our recommendations would enhance voter confidence and participation, deter fraud and abuse, be fiscally responsible and realistic, and be appropriate for our unique voting population. Let me start with our recommendation, and then I will tell you how we got there. We recommended -- and I am quoting from the report -- that the city move as expeditiously as feasible to procure a Direct Recording Electronic system with full ballot face capability, paper audit trail printing, and a physically durable design. So that you can decide what weight to accord that recommendation, I think you should understand a little bit about the scope and manner of our inquiry. First, we obtained and reviewed in detail information from all vendors of voting technology. And there is a binder, heretofore the door stop, that contains the results of that 46 RESOLUTION 960894 investigation. Obviously it needs some updating in view of the two-year passage of time, but the basic work has been done. Next, we looked at alternative, or what are known as low-tech, methods of voting technology, or voting that does not require procuring new machines. And these are some things that we have all read being used in other states; namely, mail-in voting, telephone voting, and early voting such as they use in Texas, where they stagger the election over a period of weeks. We could dispense with the whole issue about procurement if we adopted one of those forms. The task force rejected those notions, however. First, because they would require major changes in the Pennsylvania Election Code, which we didn't think was very likely in the near term. Second, there are some real serious security concerns about mail voting, telephone voting. 47 RESOLUTION 960894 And, third, many members of the task force were concerned that those methods of voting really destroy the communal nature of the voting process. And you have had some questions today about that very sort of intangible part of the process. And, also, frankly, they thwart candidate's traditional methods of electioneering and the traditional electioneering schedule. So for that reason, although we gave it due consideration, we decided that those methods of voting were not appropriate and were not reasonably likely to be adopted by the Commonwealth, in any event. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Miss Swirsky, may I interrupt you for a moment to announce that Councilwoman Tasco is present, listening to the testimony. She is sitting there because she is technically not a member of the Committee. But it does show further the widespread interest in this question. And we welcome Councilwoman Tasco to be here for as long as she possibly can. 48 RESOLUTION 960894 Thank you. Go ahead, Miss Swirsky.
In addition, we asked the city's Office of Budget and Program Evaluation to look at all the costs of our current voting machines, and then also the costs of acquiring either of the two types of computerized technology that we ended up feeling were the most desirable forms. We also asked the city Budget Office to perform a cost benefit analysis of converting to those systems. And because I am not strong enough to carry it, just a portion of our other appendices, just the portion directed to that cost benefit analysis, is in this volume. So it shows you the kind of work that the city Budget Office devoted to this, and I commend them. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Does that include the operational costs?
Yes, it does, Mr. Chairman. Next, we also surveyed 18 of the 25 most populous counties in the United States to find 49 RESOLUTION 960894 out what they were doing in terms of voting technology. We found that only three cities, Boston, Baltimore, and New York, still used comparable mechanical machines like our system. Although, New York was then on the verge of converting to a direct recording electronic system. The vast majority of the other systems used either a punch card or mark sense or computerized form of voting technology, most of them acquired in the past 10 to 20 years. Finally, we identified and considered all the pertinent legal, financial, political, demographic, and historical considerations that also should be brought to bear when anyone is making a decision about this very important issue. We looked at and discovered that there were ultimately three different forms of technology. And I won't make your eyes glaze over by discussing them in any detail. I will just give you a brief summary of each, if you wish. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Well, we would rather go on to the more current discussions. And, again, if you include that in the record. 50 RESOLUTION 960894
Certainly. And I have done so, Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Okay.
At the end of our analysis, we decided that there were five features that we should look for in assessing any voting technology that the city would be procuring. And they are, one, the ability to tabulate votes at the precinct or division level. Two, user friendliness. And in that we included ease of operation, resemblance to our current machines so as to not intimidate voters, and full ballot face display. In other words, we wanted something where voters could readily look up and see the offices that were being voted on and make their selections accordingly. And that, by the way, is a feature that only one system we looked at offered. And that, of course, is the feature we have today with our mechanical machines. Third, we deemed very important preservation of voter intent in order to minimize the chance that voters would inadvertently 51 RESOLUTION 960894 invalidate all or part of their ballots. And let me just take a moment on that. The various punch card systems that are used in other jurisdictions are notorious for rejecting ballots if they have any stray marks on them. So although the voter is supposed to either punch out a little hole next or to his or her choice, or take a stylus and indicate the choice, there is an opportunity sometimes for the voter to make a stray mark along the side of the ballot. Those machine readers are particularly sensitive, and they can end up invalidating an entire ballot just because of a stray mark. We also looked at ability to produce a paper audit trail and generate printed tallies at each precinct. Most of the systems available today are geared to central tabulation. As all of you know, we don't have that in Pennsylvania. It is not permitted by Pennsylvania law. What we need is a system that can generate a tally at each precinct, and then have 52 RESOLUTION 960894 that converted to a citywide tally. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Are you saying that some systems don't permit any local tallying?
What they do is, feed into a central reader and tabulator, so that you can't generate a precinct tally. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Well, that has its advantages. Every ward leader can boast of what he has done, and no one could ever check it. But, really, it is not a very healthy system. We really have to know what the votes are in each area, because that helps to dictate to all of the folks who are engaged in this process where the needs are.
And, Mr. Chairman, as a practical matter, Pennsylvania law doesn't allow it in any event. We would have to get the legislature to change the Election Code. CHAIRMAN COHEN: And we wouldn't want to do that, in that --
We certainly made many 53 RESOLUTION 960894 recommendations in that regard, but I haven't heard anybody in Harrisburg tying up my phone line asking questions about it. Fiscal realities obviously dictate -- CHAIRMAN COHEN: You mean you made recommendations to eliminate the local tallies?
Yes, we did. We did make some recommendations in that regard. CHAIRMAN COHEN: That would trouble me.
Not to eliminate the local tallies, but to permit central tabulation, ultimately. CHAIRMAN COHEN: But would it permit local tallying?
Yes; both. After looking at all of those features that I just identified, we concluded that there was really only one form of voting technology that satisfied each one of those requirements, and that was what I will call the full-size DRE system, the Direct Recording Electronic system. It is most like the machines we have now in terms of physical appearance. So it would 54 RESOLUTION 960894 not be, by virtue of its appearance, inherently intimidating to our voters. It gives a full face of the ballot. And the voter uses it either by touching a button next to his or her choice or touching the screen itself, not unlike ATM machines that some of us are familiar with from banking today. It also provides the private voting booth, which some of the card voting systems that I mentioned don't. There people just stand next to each other at a table not unlike this one. And it sort of minimizes the chance for the true privacy of the casting of one's vote, which we are certainly all used to here from the curtain closing. But, as I noted, we also had to turn to the fiscal realities. Because to pick out a technology that we thought was optimal in terms of all of the features I mentioned would be a pie-in-the-sky exercise if the city couldn't afford it. The analysis that the Budget Office did for us, back in 1994 and 1995, was, to our knowledge, the most detailed analysis of our current 55 RESOLUTION 960894 stock of 3,655 mechanical machines that anyone has ever done. That analysis, among other things, actually detailed each cost allocable to maintaining and operating our current complement of machines. And what the Budget Office found was that the City Commissioners had, indeed, in recent years implemented fiscal controls on the various machine costs. And the budget office went on to project that such controls, if maintained and, indeed, strengthened, should keep the operating costs of our current machine level for about five years. Which, based on the time that we are doing our analysis, would take us to the Year 2000, which is a little closer today than it was several years ago when they were doing it. But the projections showed that after that point, namely, after the Year 2000, the escalating price of parts and other machine-associated costs would increase overall costs significantly and consistently from year to year thereafter. 56 RESOLUTION 960894 So what you had was, basically, a straight line from 1994 to 2000, you know, with a little upward trend. And then after 2000, a line sort of going off the charts. And the Budget Office concluded that after Fiscal Year 2000, we would essentially have a very compelling need to purchase new voting machines. They also concluded -- CHAIRMAN COHEN: Do you have any figures? I hear these conclusions, but I don't know.
It is all in the appendices to the final report, Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Could you tell us if the upkeep was going to be $3 million a year up to 2000, and after that it would be 10 million, 19 million, 30 million? 20
From FY '89 through '95, the costs ranged from 2.8 million to 3.4 million a year for operation. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Right.
It was a little bit difficult to predict exactly what the costs would be 57 RESOLUTION 960894 after, let's say, Year 2005. Because the prediction was that you couldn't hold most of the stock of the current machines together by then, that there is a point where they end their useful lives. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Miss Swirsky, I don't find that very persuasive. When I moved into my house in 1952, the owner told me probably within a year I would have to change the heating system. This is now 1997. The heating system has never been changed. Because predictions in advance, you know, sometimes prove true, sometimes don't.
Absolutely. CHAIRMAN COHEN: But I would like to hear, did they have any projections of the dollar costs for the years following 2000?
I believe they did. And I believe they were, if I remember correctly, well in excess of $5 million. But, again, after the Year 2005, there was a serious question as to whether we could continue to maintain those machines. 58 RESOLUTION 960894 Don't forget that the manufacturers are out of business. The parts are not readily available. And although one can use, you know, chewing gum and baling wire to hold a lot of things together, we reach a point where we simply can't come up with a sufficient number of machines to put them in each polling place. So could we hold an election if we ignored state law and put machines in different 12 locations in the city? Sure, we could probably get 13 20 machines to keep functioning by the Year 2005. 14 But we're not going to do that. It 15 would violate state law. It would drive the 16 voters -- instead of encouraging them to 17 participate, drive them to stay home. 18 CHAIRMAN COHEN: All right. 19
Miss Swirsky, if I can interject. In this appendices to the final report -- and I just want to at least get on this record -- there is Appendix D, as in David, 7, seems 59 RESOLUTION 960894 to be a chart showing the costs in FY '97 at slightly under $3 million, escalating to almost $5 million going out toward FY 2010, 2011. There are about charts in this 6 appendix -- 7
And I think you 12 are correct, that the Budget Office did exhaustively 13 examine this particular issue. 14 During the course of your testimony, 15 I will be sharing some of these various charts with 16 the Councilmen. 17 But I think that the Budget Office 18 did try to figure out, as best they can, not only 19 for this issue, but as they have done so well on 20 many other issues, trying to figure out what the 21 costs are of operating various systems in this 22 government. 23 I think your testimony, though, the 24 compelling part is that, at some point you just 25 don't have parts anymore. 60 RESOLUTION 960894
The machines are old, they will literally fall apart. And then what do we do? And I think part of our dilemma here is, do you just wait? And in Councilman Cohen's example, I mean, he has been very fortunate. Councilman Rizzo asked me did the Councilman have a parts and labor plan for his heater. And I am sure if the thing just falls apart, they will come out and do something to it. The question is, do we want to conduct our elections in such an environment that it is a wing and a prayer as to whether or not the polls will open and whether we will get accurate tallies at the end of the night. I don't think that in the United States, and certainly in Philadelphia, we want to operate under those circumstances.
And that's the only point I was trying to make. And as you can probably, not very visible, but that chart that Councilman Nutter is 61 RESOLUTION 960894 referring to doesn't go beyond a certain point. I mean, the city budget office itself, for reasons of, I guess, analytical reliability, said, after this point, we can't really tell you what the costs will be. And we may get lucky, like Mr. Chairman's heating system. Or we could be like me, who was told when I bought my house that I had ten more years in mine, and it broke the next week. The Budget Office assumed that the -- CHAIRMAN COHEN: How long are you going to be, Miss Swirsky? Councilman Rizzo has a series of questions he is --
I just have a few more points I wanted to make about the analysis. Because it is very detailed material, and I thought it would be helpful if I could summarize it for you in a less mind-numbing way than would be the case if you had to read all this stuff. For the full-face DRE system that the task force recommended, the Budget Office assumed that as of 1995, the acquisition cost would be $19 62 RESOLUTION 960894 million. The annual operating costs upon full implementation were projected to be less than 50 percent of our current annual operating costs. But because of the substantial acquisition cost, the Budget Office projected that the DRE system would not produce overall cost savings until Year of its use. 10 But by the 15th year of its use, the 11 Budget Office projected that the system would save us $15 million in 1995 dollars. They also did an analysis, I should add, of the smaller DRE system, which requires scrolling from screen to screen. You can't see the full ballot at once. And that system in 1995 would have cost approximately $15 million in capital acquisition costs. The Budget Office projected that the annual operating costs of using that system would average about $370,000 less annually than the operating costs for the full-sized DRE system. However, the Budget Office also concluded that the operating costs of the two DRE systems would be similar and would begin to converge 63 RESOLUTION 960894 once the capital purchase costs for the two systems were fully absorbed after the relative periods of time of their use. So in light of those findings, the Budget Office recommended, again, simply from a fiscal standpoint, that the city adopt a five-year timetable, five years from 1995, to plan and implement the procurement of new voting machines. And there were two assumptions that were underlying that conclusion. One was that enhanced and vigilant cost-containment measures with respect to the existing machines would be employed until the machines were brought on-line. And the second is that the cost savings from conversion to the computerized machine would not offset the substantial capital costs in the nearer term. That, again, it would take from 11 to 15 years before you started to see the cost savings. The task force, obviously, carefully considered that recommendation. If our goal was to decide or recommend only on the basis of cost, or if cost was even the most important consideration, we would have adopted the same five-year timetable. 64 RESOLUTION 960894 But the task force ultimately accorded great weight, as well, to the need to remedy the very condition that we believe gave rise to the Mayor appointing us; namely, the public perception of an electorial process lacking in reliability, efficiency, and integrity. We also had to look at the procurement schedule -- CHAIRMAN COHEN: Could you give us the conclusion, really what we are interested in, because of the time factor? What was the conclusion of the task force?
The conclusion was, as I said at the outset, Mr. Chairman, that the city move as expeditiously as fiscally possible. We didn't want to tie anyone's hands. But we also felt that the five-year timetable recommended by the city Budget Office, while certainly fiscally responsible, didn't take into account some of the intangibles that we have been discussing today. CHAIRMAN COHEN: So was your conclusion to look for a shorter or a longer time period? 65 RESOLUTION 960894
I think we were envisioning a somewhat shorter time period. And I just want to make a couple final comments about how you figure out that time period. The state law requires that before the county can enter into a contract with a vendor for an electronic voting machine, you must put a referendum to the voters. Before you have that referendum, however, the city's Procurement Department has to have selected a vendor. Because you can't hold the referendum, you can't put the question to the voters, until you have a sample of the machines you are proposing to buy. Because Pennsylvania law requires that they be available for advanced demonstration to voters for some period of time before the election where the ballot question will appear. And the Procurement Department told us that it would take approximately one year to select a vendor. I think that's a little bit optimistic, in view of the fact that New York went through its RFP process for ten years. 66 RESOLUTION 960894 But on a best-case basis, it is unlikely that we could put the necessary ballot question to Philadelphia's voters now, before the May 1999 primary. And that's assuming everything works on a best-case basis. And there are two other considerations that enter into the timetable. Vendors told us that it would take at least months to produce the necessary complement 11 of all the machines we would need for Philadelphia. 12 And all of the vendors, in addition, 13 recommended that there be a phase-in of machines. 14 So that you wouldn't have mass disruption and chaos 15 on Election Day, they thought it advisable to maybe do it in thirds. So that over the course of three years, the city would finally have the full complement of new machines. However, as previously noted, the Election Code says that you have 103 weeks, i.e., two years, essentially, after the ballot question has been approved, in order to fully implement the system. So we concluded, based on all of that, that it would take at least three years to 67 RESOLUTION 960894 procure and fully implement a new voting system in Philadelphia. And, again, we are giving that a best-case basis, that everything works in the most humanly impossible efficient way. CHAIRMAN COHEN: All right. Thank you very much. Let's go on to questions. Councilman Rizzo.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Miss Swirsky, moving towards, into the electronic era, when it comes to voting, when the engineers and technicians developed cell phones, they never thought that they would be cloned. We hear about computer hackers. We hear about ATM abuse. How secure is electronic voting? Because I think the public, when they hear that word computer and electronics, becomes very uneasy. What data do you have from other municipalities, other cities that have had electronic voting, how satisfied are they with the security of that process?
Councilman, that's an 68 RESOLUTION 960894 excellent question. Obviously that's one of the issues that we looked at. I think that question is best directed, in this case, to Montgomery County officials -- and I know they were unable to be here today -- because they have precisely the system that we recommended. We found that they were sufficiently reliable. Can I tell you beyond any shadow of a doubt that there isn't some way to screw around with them in the way that hackers can break into the Pentagon? I can't give you that assurance. And I'm not a vendor, so we would have to rely on vendors. But, clearly, getting a vendor to make the case for maximum security is something that is extremely important in the procurement process and, obviously, has to be one of the key requirements.
I agree with you. But at this point that subject hasn't been addressed.
No. No jurisdiction 69 RESOLUTION 960894 with computerized voting has had any serious problems, has had no one breaking into the system.
Well, I would hope that that would be a very, very high, if not the number one, priority in determining that.
I absolutely agree with you. And, again, as I said, our information is two years old now. Clearly it needs to be updated. Clearly people who are more computer literate than I certainly am would need to sit down and make sure that all the vendors with the appropriate products could make the case for maximum reliability and integrity.
Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Councilwoman Tasco, then Councilman Nutter.
I came down here because I am certainly interested in this issue, 70 RESOLUTION 960894 since I am a ward leader and responsible for the Election Day process in the 50th Ward. I will tell you that it is urgent that we begin to look at a new way to vote. Because I am running out of voting locations because of the size of these machines and the damage they cause to the polling locations. And, you know, these places where we vote, the owners are slowly declining because they don't want to be bothered with these large machines, the damage, or the time taken to wait to get a machine in a voting place. The Pennsylvania Code requires a referendum. Is that a new requirement? Has that always been a part of the Code?
Councilwoman, some years ago the Code was amended to have a whole set of provisions informally known as the Electronic Voting Machine Provisions. So they have been around, I think, for about 20 years now. And every county that has gone to a new technology has had to comply with that.
Since it was 20 years ago, we may or may not know the legislative 71 RESOLUTION 960894 intent. But the real feeling was to amend the Code around that issue. But we certainly have moved faster into the 21st Century with new technology. Would it be easier to amend the code, go back and redo the referendum? I mean, years ago new technology 9 was really not the thing. And I think there may 10 have been -- and I don't know what the testimony 11 called for or what the feeling was at that time 12 about electronic voting. There may have been some 13 feelings people had about it. 14 But now we are more familiar with 15 this whole technology, and computer technology, and 16 the feelings may not be the same. 17
Well, I will point out 18 that there is one benefit, in response to Councilman 19 Rizzo's question, about having those provisions. 20 And that is that the Commonwealth licenses vendors. There are only certain electronic voting machines that can be used here. So to the extent that you want the second opinion that Councilman Rizzo so correctly says is necessary to assess the integrity and 72 RESOLUTION 960894 reliability of the machine, our tax dollars that we send to Harrisburg are, presumably, paying somebody to do that. So the only real burden of the Code provision is the referendum and then the 103-week implementation period. But I will tell you -- not that I am counseling anyone to break the law -- the Code says nothing about penalties for if you don't implement within 103 weeks. I mean, what are they going to do, tell you you can't have an election in Philadelphia?
They will revoke your ward leadership. Let me go back to the security issue. Miss Swirsky, is it correct that these machines, similar to the current machines, are electronic in the sense that there is, I guess, a monitor or a screen in front of you? But unlike your PC, whether in your office or in your home, they are not connected to anything other than a source of electricity; is that 73 RESOLUTION 960894 correct?
So as the Councilman asked the question, I mean, for these other people out here who you call them hackers or you call them criminals, you can call them whatever you want to call them, there is nothing for that person to break into. I mean, they would have to do something physically to that machine at the polling place, which is the current circumstance. I mean, no one can break into our voting system today by electronic means because there is nothing to break into; is that right?
Well, I think where the security issue comes about is when you link up each polling place by modem, telephone, or otherwise, to a central computer, like in the city's Information Services Office.
But is there a distinction between those two types of systems? 74 RESOLUTION 960894 Is the task force recommending the linked system, or are you talking about a system that has a component, as I understand it, there is something that is detachable?
I am going to call it a car key, but it is not a car key. But a cartridge, rather, that is detachable from the system, that at the end of the night, it is now 8:01, 8:02, you press a button, tabulates the information, you take that cartridge out and it goes somewhere.
The current system -- I mean, MOIS obviously has to deal with the current case. A week or two before the election, they send us a little guide that says, if you want to access the system in your office, in the city's own computers, you can do that. You can watch the returns come in in any of our various offices, and 75 RESOLUTION 960894 you can tap into the city system. There is, obviously, a security mechanism to deal with that. And if we went to this kind of system, I'm sure MOIS, in conjunction with the City Commissioners, would have to deal with security issues. But I want the record to be clear for the moment that, minus the central tabulation type of system, if you are only talking about a monitor and a screen at the polling place, that is only plugged into the outlet in the wall, there is nothing for anyone to tap into or to manipulate, unless they do it pre-election or end of the night.
That, to the best of my knowledge, is correct. But, again, I am not sufficiently computer literate to tell you, you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt that no one could tamper with the cartridge.
Right. That's 76 RESOLUTION 960894 all right. You are a good lawyer.
I just need to make a statement. Because I feel like Tom Futuristic here listening to all of this. I am looking at Chairman Brady, and I know he is a union carpenter, and I am a union electrician. We vote in our elections -- and I'm sure the carpenters do -- by these electronic machines. We have been using them for about ten years. And there's three at the bottom of the union hall. And this company comes in with them. And you walk down, and the candidates are down. And it is much smaller, but it can be bigger. And you touch with your finger, and your body heat, or whatever you touch, lights that up. And I tried to vote for one candidate two or three times to see if it worked, and it doesn't work. So there is no cheating on it. It was an experiment; it was an official experiment. So it doesn't work. If it is me against Councilman Cohen, 77 RESOLUTION 960894 you can only vote for one of us, you can't do both. And if it says pick three, you can pick three, not four. Because the electricians are always trying to beat the machine, not the political process. But at the end of the day it is there. And it says Cohen, Mariano, how many votes we have. That could happen in every one of these districts. Now, when we start linking them up, as Councilman Nutter was just speaking about, there is a possibility that there would be a phone jack and everything would be sent over a phone line. Now, that could be a problem if there is going to be any computer hacking. But if we do it simply the way the carpenters and the electricians do it, there is not a problem, and the flash returns would be perfect. There would be no mistake. All the mistakes now that we just sat through, and we sat through years ago, is because of human error on the flash returns.
That's absolutely 78 RESOLUTION 960894 right. And I am glad you are pointing that out. Because I was using an ATM machine example. But, in fact, you are right. There are a number of different kinds of elections, aside from the elections we are talking about today, where people have, in fact, utilized that technology. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Could we discuss absentee voting? Do you have absentee voting? How do you record that in the returns?
Well, at the union hall what we do with absentee voting, it is almost like you do on Election Day. The envelopes come in and they are opened, and they are inside an envelope so you can't tell who is sending it in, so you can never see. Because you have counters. Before the count on the machine -- because there is nothing to that now, it is in the back -- they open them up. And first they make sure it is an eligible voter putting an absentee in. Then when they open it up, it's blank so they can never tell that that belongs to this person, and they open it up and count it by hand. 79 RESOLUTION 960894 CHAIRMAN COHEN: But do they put it on the machine?
No; they just do it by hand and add that on the tabulation. They could do it by machine, but then it would entering a machine that is already closed. CHAIRMAN COHEN: How would your equipment handle that?
I didn't get into it at all today. Because the scope of this hearing, we did extensive work on absentee and alternative ballots. Because we were anticipating that the change in federal law that permits citizens aged 65 and older and disabled citizens to vote by mail, and to do so under a schedule that's different than the state law absentee ballots. We thought there might be a fairly substantial rise in the number of those ballots, particularly as our population in Philadelphia gets older. People might want to avail themselves. CHAIRMAN COHEN: How would you handle it?
Well, how we would 80 RESOLUTION 960894 handle it is, there is a separate technology that we were looking into that would print all the absentee and alternative ballots. They would be handled the same, and then they would be scanned and tabulated in an electronic fashion. CHAIRMAN COHEN: And they would be added to the other totals?
Right. And one of the things that this body, and I think the City Commissioners, Procurement Department, et cetera, need to look into is whether it is possible to find an electronic voting machine system that has an adjunct counter of some sort, reader and counter, for absentee and alternative ballots. I mean, ideally you would want to have one technology that could embrace all of that. CHAIRMAN COHEN: If your purpose is to get a quick response. Because we have had elections, some of which Mr. Voight referred to, that have been held up because of the count of absentee ballots.
And you see what just 81 RESOLUTION 960894 happened in New York in the primary recently, you know, where there was literally a period of ten days when no one knew the outcome, and a lot of unnecessary litigation as a result. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you. Councilman Nutter, anything more on that panel?
Last thing for Miss Swirsky is, Miss Swirsky, you were appointed to this task force by the Mayor; is that correct?
And I believe in the beginning of your testimony you laid out what the parameters were of the task force work.
And reading from that, the Mayor indicated that he envisioned three separate assignments for the task force. One, to consider the advisability of replacing the city's antiquated, mechanical voting machines with modern, cost-effective, electronic voting devices. That was from the letter by the Mayor appointing both yourself and Justice Kauffman as 82 RESOLUTION 960894 Co-chairs of this task force. Did you take it from that statement in the letter that there was some expression of interest, if not concern, by the Mayor and the city Administration that we have new voting machines, or did you think that this was just an exercise in having something for you to do?
Well, my partners can tell you that they really couldn't afford to have me engage in an academic exercise for a year and to spend this much of their money on this thing. So we anticipated that there was really a desire to look into new machines. And I think, in all fairness, the only way to read the Mayor's choice of words, when he said, "antiquated, mechanical voting machines," that's kind of loaded terminology that suggests that our voting machines were regarded by the Mayor at that time as not the most desirable way to have our citizens cast their votes.
Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Did he respond when you sent him the results of the task force? 83 RESOLUTION 960894 When you sent him the report of the task force, did the Mayor respond in any way?
He thanked us and expressed his gratitude. And, in all fairness, Mr. Chairman -- and I had to refresh my recollection and go back to the newspaper articles, local newspaper articles, that followed in the wake of the issuance of our report -- and, really, the machine recommendations got very little attention. The other reforms that we recommended were really the focal point of all the public scrutiny. CHAIRMAN COHEN: But did the Mayor have any comment with respect to the findings?
Not specifically in regard to that, no. 18 CHAIRMAN COHEN: We may ask you at some time, or suggest, that you write to the Mayor to see whether he still supported the interpretation that you gave, that seemed very reasonable, of his original letter to you. Because if the Council decides to move forward, as I indicated before, we are going to have to get a very broad grouping of support to make 84 RESOLUTION 960894 it effective. Mayors have all kinds of pressures on them, and we would have to work our way through.
Oh, absolutely. And that's why we acknowledge that we wanted to make our recommendations without trying to tie anyone's hands. Because this body knows far better than I do all the competing demands on the city's budget. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you very much. And we want to thank the task force for the great job they very clearly did. And we would hope to be calling on you in the future for additional information.
Well, I would be delighted to help in any way possible. Thank you for the opportunity to appear here. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you. The next panel is a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of the old and the new voting machines. I would ask the following to come to the table: Robert Brady, Chairman of the Democratic 85 RESOLUTION 960894 City Committee; Vito Canuso, Chair of the Republican City Committee; Greg Melinson, Associate Counsel of the Republican City Committee; Jerome Mondesire, President, Philadelphia Chapter of the NAACP; and Barbara Dietrich, President of the League of Women Voters, Philadelphia Chapter.
Mr. Chairman, if I can make a brief statement as the panel is assembling and they are making their introductions. I wanted to recognize the presence of Mr. Leon Williams, who was a most recent candidate in the last election. He asked to have an opportunity to testify. I did share with him that we have a list and a schedule of witnesses. But if he is able to stay, we will certainly hear from him, or any other member of the public, that is here this morning. CHAIRMAN COHEN: We would be very happy to. Thank you. Who is not here of the group that I called?
Mr. Mondesire. We are trying to determine his whereabouts. 86 RESOLUTION 960894 CHAIRMAN COHEN: Mr. Brady, we are delighted, incidentally, that we have such a distinguished group together talking about politics. Because, to me, the whole essence of the Democratic system is the political system. And I think the attacks of the political system today are not designed to improve government, because I think they are going to work in the reverse way. We want to commend all of you for continuing to hang in there and carry out political activities. Without that, democracy would not be able to exist. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Brady, would you like to go ahead first.
Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Robert A. Brady. I am the Chairman of the Democratic City Committee, of the City and County of Philadelphia. First I would like to commend you, Councilman. Good morning, Councilmen and Councillady. I would like to commend you for having this hearing. Hopefully something can come of it. Not like we did in 1983, was the date when we had a 87 RESOLUTION 960894 referendum to change the voting machines. It was prior, right after the '83 primary, where we had people waiting in lines. And everybody was blaming every reason for that to be happening. And nothing happened since then, some 15, years ago. 8 I would also like to commend the City 9 Commissioners' Office for the job that they do. I 10 mean, it is astounding. 11 In my ward -- I happen to be one of 12 the largest wards in the City of Philadelphia. I 13 also happen to be a ward leader. The breakdowns are 14 so few. 15 And I think I had three breakdowns, 16 all caused by one of my committee persons, and two by voters. And that is amazing, given the age of the machines and the workmanship that you need to be doing, maintaining them all year round. When you maintain a piece of equipment that's sitting in a warehouse, a lot of things happen to that piece of equipment from the warehouse to the voting place. Wheels break, things happen, and moving them around in trucks. And it is amazing 88 RESOLUTION 960894 that they do such a good job, and I think they should be commended for that. In my opinion there are two issues here, convenience and financial. And I have to -- and I can't state enough, piggyback as much as I could possibly, on Councilwoman Tasco's comments. You know, we went through a pain-staking terrible court battle when we had to uniform all our divisions in the City of Philadelphia. And the reason for that at that particular time was for convenience of voters. " And the schools have no problems because they are mandated by law. A public building has to allow us to come in there. Libraries have to allow us to come in there. Recreations have to allow us to come in there. 89 RESOLUTION 960894 I don't have that many in my ward, as I am sure the Councillady and other people don't have that many. And the Councilmen and Councilmen ward leaders don't have that many in your districts, in your wards. And we have to knock on doors and we have to go to these people and we have to ask them to allow us to use their place of residence or place of business. And we then come in with this gigantic machine. Half the time they roll and they don't roll. No fault of the Commissioners. Something happens from that warehouse to the polling place. And they cause damage, they are cumbersome, they are big. I am a committeeman in the 34th Ward, 40th Division. I vote illegal. I vote in a garage, without handicapped access and without a bathroom. I have no resident -- no commercial piece of property at all in my district. I have to vote in a garage. If there is a western wind and it is raining, we all get soaking wet because half the table is in, half the table is out. 90 RESOLUTION 960894 But I am not going to inconvenience my voters. Hopefully we have a nice day. As you all know, we haven't had many in the last four or five years. I think it is a disgrace to inconvenience your voters, to have them go a mile or two miles away from where they live. We have senior citizens that can't get there. We have people that go to work who would like to just walk out the back and make it convenient for them to vote. And I think it is a disgrace we have to try to do that. I think that the convenience we could easily do by putting new voting machines out there that are smaller, that will tabulate quicker and more accurate. And I heard about the hackers, or whatever. But you need to realize that we have an Election Board that does other things, other than greet you.
It also writes down at the end of night those results, and it also has the tabulation of how many people did vote. So there is a type of check and balance that we can also go to for our Election 91 RESOLUTION 960894 Boards. And I wonder sometimes -- and I have to talk as a politician, because that's what I am -- I wonder sometimes, if our ward leaders don't go out there and knock on these doors and get the voting places where these people can come and vote, I wonder whether we don't go out and get our Election Boards and Judges of Elections, I wonder what happens when the newspaper guy comes in to vote, if he ever does vote, in his district, and go there and sees nobody there. Well, who is going to get that blame? We are going to get the blame. Because it is not our job to get the judge, technically. It is not our job to get the machine inspected, the majority inspected, the minority inspected, the clerks. We do that as democratic people who have an interest in our community, as the Councilman said. And we need to keep on keeping that interest by making it a lot easier for the people that we represent to come, make it convenient for them to vote, and make it convenient for them to know who won relatively soon. 92 RESOLUTION 960894 I heard testimony here that we have to wait until August and we have to wait until a month or two or three after an election to find out who won. That's not really disturbing to me because we don't need to know who won until they take office. It is nice for that person to know that. What is more disturbing to me is the convenience or nonconvenience of these people when they have to come out to vote every single election, and we have to have it easier for them to have a place to go. And what's more disturbing than that is not having a place for them to go, because you have these big, old, ugly, cumbersome machines. I can't fit a machine in four divisions, in the area of Overbrook Park, in my ward, because they don't fit through the door. And they can make it through the door sideways. If there is a washing machine there, they can't get through there. Now, I can't vote 15 people -- 15 divisions in one place. I vote four, and it is a 93 RESOLUTION 960894 pain in the neck because I know that I lose votes. I know that people that are running for office lose votes because it is inconvenient for those people to come four, five, six blocks, in some cases a mile, two miles, to come out and vote. And I think it is crazy that we even put that burden on people that we ask to come out and vote for us. The financial aspect, I am not a financial guy. But I know that if you take away the maintenance that the Commissioner's Office have to do to these machines when they get them back, the repairs, the maintenance to get them ready, the amount of money they pay for truckers to have to put -- I think they get on a big tractor-trailer 17 that they can move back and forth. 18 Not that many trucks have to be 19 there. You can cut that down drastically with the 20 smaller machines, making it easier for them to 21 deliver in, deliver out, and to be able to put more 22 on a truck and make it much easier to handle. And, like I said, I think that we should be in the business that we're in, of convenience, to make it a lot easier for the people 94 RESOLUTION 960894 that we represent in our wards, in the city, and in the Democratic and Republican parties, to make it a little bit more easier for them to get out and vote. And maybe we can then change the poor attendance that we have been having. I also brought with me today, and I would like to have the opportunity to introduce him, Cliff Wilson, who happens to have been the Chairman, Executive Director of New York State Commission on Election Voting Systems. He is the guy that did all of New York State. I sat down with him, listening to all of the testimony. He answered every single question that you have had.
He knows the voting machines and all the various voting machines inside and out. He knows the pros, the cons, and he can answer any, I'm sure, any technical questions that any of you may have. So I would like to introduce him and wait our turn for other people here to talk. And I know that -- and I thank you, Cliff, for taking time out of your day to come out here and to help our panel and help our Council hearing here to maybe 95 RESOLUTION 960894 come up with some kind of answers or give us some kind of answers to any questions you may have. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN COHEN: I will be calling on you. I would first like to call -- who is going to speak on behalf of the Republican City Committee?
Mr. Chairman, I will. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Would you bring the microphone up and identify yourself for the record.
Certainly, Mr. Chairman. My name is Gregg Melinson. I am here this morning on behalf of Vito Canuso, who could, unfortunately, not be here with us this morning. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Also Michael Mehan, I hope.
Absolutely. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Okay. I just want to make sure the party is fully represented.
I hope they will be. I hope you will think so after I am done. I am pleased to be here on one of those occasions when I think all the political 96 RESOLUTION 960894 parties are united in a desire to do something that is good for our city here. So it is a real pleasure to be here in that respect. I think that, having heard some of the compelling and persuasive testimony of Ms. Swirsky, who chaired the Mayor's Election Reform Task Force, which both Mr. Canuso and I were privileged to sit on, the level of detail that she got into will serve you folks well, as will, I think, Mr. Wilson's testimony that we will hear later. So if you will permit me, what I would like to do is offer just a few twists and read into the record some of Mr. Canuso's written testimony which will go to just certain broad-stroke ideals, if you will, about how we might best implement the system. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Go ahead.
And the reason for that, I think some of you may have noticed in yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer, in the context of remarks that were made in connection with campaign finance reform for judicial elections, somebody was quoted with a rather colorful analogy of, "That's 97 RESOLUTION 960894 sort of like putting lipstick on a pig. " And those were some fairly widely quoted remarks in that context which might have some bearing here. And what I mean by that is that, what we're talking about is putting some rather fancy electronic dressing on a system that itself may have room for some improvement. More particularly, I guess what I'm saying is that it pretty much goes without saying that everyone who is going to testify before you here today agrees that we need to begin the process of purchasing electronic voting machines as soon as possible. But before we get into that, we need to ask ourselves the initial question of whether the current system is working. And one respect in which it is not is one that I would like it talk about more particularly. In 1993, Congress passed the National Voter Registration Act, commonly referred to as the Motor Voter Law. And one of the purposes of that act was to bring as many voters as possible into the 98 RESOLUTION 960894 election process. I think everyone concedes that is a noble goal, and we have done pretty well on it. As a result, the voter registration rolls in Philadelphia are loaded with many more names than ever before. But another goal of the Motor Voter Law was to ensure the integrity of the electorial process and to ensure that accurate voter registration rolls are maintained. And I would like to suggest that in that latter goal, we have failed miserably. The validity of the information we have accumulated is questionable, at best. And I think Chairman Brady would probably agree with me that there is not a street list in the city that doesn't have dozens of inaccuracies due to restrictions, as well as due to the rather considerable burdens that are placed on the Bureau of Elections in trying to keep up with all of this. And the Motor Voter Law was intended, in part, to help with that burden. That law requires -- and I will quote from it -- that any state program to protect the integrity of the 99 RESOLUTION 960894 electorial process by ensuring the maintenance of an accurate voter registration roll shall be uniform and nondiscriminatory. The only way to really accomplish that is to adopt a centralized voter registry. And I think in a second I will be able to tell you why that's related to what we are talking about today. The central registry is meant to assist local Election Boards with the maintenance of registration rolls. And if we could get together and have our city and state leaders act upon the federal Motor Voter mandate and centralize the voter registration process in Harrisburg, we might go a long way toward not only ensuring the integrity of the electorial process, but perhaps helping us to provide a more accurate profile of our voters, reduce the risk of fraud, and, perhaps most importantly, reduce costs. Because I know that one of the issues that the Council will have with respect to the purchase of new voting machines is, how are we going to afford this. If it comes to -- some of the testimony it sounded like it was about a $19 million bill, and one that I think everyone agrees needs to 100 RESOLUTION 960894 be paid. But one way to get some of the savings that might help us achieve that goal would be to shift control of the voter registration records to the state. That could be an extreme economic benefit for the city and might help fund or at least defray the cost of the new electronic voting machines. The other points that Mr. Canuso had in his testimony that relate directly to the purchase of new machines is that, although we all agree it ought to be done, it ought to be done through a gradual phase-in, and in the context of educating our voters.
I think although the experience the folks in Montgomery County had was a very positive one, I think anyone you speak to in Montgomery County would likely tell you that they would have preferred to have educated their voters a little more before adopting it across the county. And perhaps one way for us to accomplish that would be to phase in the use of the new machines through a pilot program, either in a 101 RESOLUTION 960894 Senate district or a Congressional district. And, by the way, when I use the recommendation there to phase-in the process, please don't take that as a recommendation to wait. I don't think anybody believes we can wait any longer. The task force report, I think, makes pretty clear that even if a decision on new technology were made today, it is not likely that we would be using those machines until the turn of the century, based on all the procurement procedures and the need for the referendum, et cetera. And the other thing that is important is the education. Philadelphians have been casting their ballots in the same manner for many, many years. And teaching the electorate a new way to vote is going to require time, effort, and funding. But we need to do a number of things there, including educating the voters, but also elevating the status of our election workers, perhaps by offering them some more extensive training and even increasing their per diem pay. So to conclude, I think it is incumbent on all of us assembled here today to work 102 RESOLUTION 960894 toward change that will have the maximum long-term impact on the future of the voting process in the City of Philadelphia. And the bottom line is that that change means a central voter registry in Harrisburg and electronic voting machines for the City of Philadelphia. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Mr. Melinson, I don't understand about the central registration in Harrisburg.
Part of the Motor Voter Act in 1993 was, in addition to attempting to allow people to register to vote at the Department of Transportation, when they change their driver's license or change their address or go for welfare, is to allow them to register to vote there and to increase the number of voters on the rolls. But, by the same token, there is a mandate in there to ensure that the electoral process, the integrity of it, and the possibilities for fraud are reduced and protected against. And the Motor Voter Act requires that any system that's adopted by a state toward those ends needs to be uniform. 103 RESOLUTION 960894 Now, what happened in Harrisburg was that a bill was introduced in the General Assembly in an attempt to comply with the Motor Voter Law, where, with respect to the centralized voter registry, the General Assembly did not come out with a mandate and didn't adopt a centralized voter registry. What they did was, appointed a commission to study whether or not that registry was necessary. In our view, the studies of that commission are unnecessary. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Maybe we don't have to take the time of the hearing to go into it further. But, frankly, I am lost. I don't know how that would work, what would be intended. And I don't regard Harrisburg particularly as an improvement over Philadelphia. Maybe it is my political position. But it just seems to me we are talking --
Nor I. CHAIRMAN COHEN: -- of something away from a Democratic-controlled situation in Philadelphia, to a Republican controlled in 104 RESOLUTION 960894 Harrisburg. Putting my cynicism on the line --
I didn't mean to suggest that. I only meant that, from a funding standpoint, it might help us reach that $19 million goal if we could get them to do it. CHAIRMAN COHEN: If we could get the money from Harrisburg for the machines, it would be wonderful. But we don't get the money for our schools so we are not too optimistic we will get it for voting machines. But we can deal with that later.
I will be happy to stay around, too, and answer any questions along with -- CHAIRMAN COHEN: I would like if you would. Because we never know where the questions will come from. But I would like to welcome Miss Dietrich, President of the League of Women Voters. And we would be very happy to hear from you.
Thank you. I am Barbara Dietrich. Our organization is called the League of Women Voters of Philadelphia. We really 105 RESOLUTION 960894 don't have chapters, per se. So I would like to make that minor correction. The goal of the League is to promote active and informed citizen participation in the electorial process. And to help in achieving that goal, a year ago the League produced a video which showed voters what the whole electorial process was like, how you approach the voting booth, and there are people there campaigning outside of the polling place, going into the polling place, all the stepping stones up to the process of actual voting. And the reason for this was because we found that voters were not particularly staying away from the polls because they didn't care. It was simply that perhaps they had never voted before or had anyone in their immediate vicinity that had voted. And so by showing them the process, it would make it more possible for them to vote and feel comfortable. Obviously we had to show two voting machines. Because in the city, we don't have uniform voting machines. So that was another part 106 RESOLUTION 960894 of the process that makes it difficult for people to vote. Because if they move from one section 5 of the city to another, they may have a change in a voting machine because of the two, as we have been told, antiquated machines, which they certainly are. In addition, the League also, on general election day, staffs a phone bank for voters to call in for any questions that they may have about the process. And far and away the number of calls that we receive are about polling places. People do not know where to go to vote. And for the reasons that were already given, is that voting places change from year to year because they can't get polling places on a consistent basis. And I think that refers directly to the size of the machines and the fact that they just need a lot of space and do cause damage when they are put in and out of the polling places. So I think that that would eliminate a lot of calls there. Because perhaps we could get consistent polling places from year to year because 107 RESOLUTION 960894 of the size of the machines. And then, of course, it would be easier to recruit polling places because of that same situation. So I think that all of those things put together makes it important that we look at new voting machines for the City of Philadelphia. And, of course, the League would be eager to participate in the education of voters. We have gone to high schools, we have gone to some colleges and used our video in this last year. And found that it was very well received. And it was just amazing to potential voters how easy it would be to vote, once you know the details. How do you close the curtain behind you. And even such a minor thing as, when you pull down a lever, it is not recorded until you actually open the curtain, was astonishing to most people. They felt that once they pulled that lever, it was permanently recorded. So those kinds of information we try to share and make it easier for voters to participate in the electorial process. 108 RESOLUTION 960894 So we hope that certainly City Council will look at electronic voting machines that will make it even easier and more consistent for people to vote across our city. CHAIRMAN COHEN: You would be in favor of the new --
Yes, we certainly would be. CHAIRMAN COHEN: And you would undertake an important advocacy role?
Yes, we would be very eager to do that. Because we do certainly go out and register voters now on a regular basis. And the next step in the process that we are very concerned about is that they go to vote. And I think that the current system does not encourage people to vote because of the way -- CHAIRMAN COHEN: We think the support of your organization would be very important. Because in many circles you are recorded as kind of the Good Housekeeping seal of approval.
Thank you. CHAIRMAN COHEN: And instead of it 109 RESOLUTION 960894 being viewed merely as a political effort to get some other result, it would be seen as a result leading towards good government. So we thank you very much for coming and your promise of support in the future. Mr. Wilson. Please be good enough to identify yourself for the record and then proceed.
Yes, Councilman Cohen. My name is Cliff Wilson. I am here at the request of my friend Bob Brady. We are colleagues. I should tell you, and it has nothing to do with this hearing, that I am the Chairman of the Democratic Party of Delaware County. That is how we became colleagues and friends. But when Bob discovered my background in the voting machine field, both in the New York legislature, the New York State Commission that he referred to -- CHAIRMAN COHEN: Could you move the microphone.
The Commission which he referred to, which I ran for a year and a half and which wrote the laws, New York State laws, the first state statutes about Direct Recording Electronic 110 RESOLUTION 960894 machines, which is the kind that you are all talking about. Those laws then led to the most specific set of state regulations, which in turn led to the Federal Election Commission Standards, which all these machines have to meet. So that in terms of the security issues, you should be aware of that. These machines meet very stringent federal standards. After I did that, you should also know that for seven years I worked in the industry marketing one of these systems. I have not been involved in the industry for the past two years. I have no ties to the industry today. So anything I say has no industry agenda. But in doing that, both with the State of New York and within the industry, I got to participate in and see firsthand the procurement and installation of these systems in the major jurisdictions in the country that now use them; for example, Franklin County, Ohio, which has 2200 of these machines, which is about two-thirds of the number that the City of Philadelphia will use. Memphis and Knoxville and Nashville, 111 RESOLUTION 960894 Tennessee, which are smaller cities than Philadelphia, although if you put them all together, they would probably come close. And, also, the procurement plans that failed in New York City, where eight years ago they awarded and selected a vendor for 8,000 machines, and they still aren't using any. And the State of Hawaii, which had the money, as did New York City, and did not end up with a successful procurement. There is a tremendous amount that the city can learn from these jurisdictions that have been successful and unsuccessful, both in the processes to use and in the equipment to select. Montgomery County, you know, selected a system and had to scratch it for another one. There are lessons to be learned there. But one thing I must tell you, which I find most interesting, is, I think that while we have some strange provisions of state statute, because in Pennsylvania the Direct Electronic Machines were classified as electronic voting systems under a statute that was written before these machines were created, and was written for the punch card system; nevertheless, the Pennsylvania 112 RESOLUTION 960894 statutes, if followed, and if we follow the precedence in Berks County and Dauphin County, and even Montgomery County which has shifted to these systems, permit much more flexibility than you would think. I must tell you -- and I don't want to get into an argument with any attorneys, because I am not an attorney -- but, in my experience, there is no reason you could not have a referendum in -- CHAIRMAN COHEN: Excuse me just a minute. Mr. Mondesire, we would like very much if you would join the gentlemen at the table.
There is no reason under state statute, Mr. Cohen, that you couldn't have a referendum, if the Council and the City Commissioners wanted one, in May of '98. And I must tell you, from all my experience in the industry, I see no reason, regardless of what system, which vendor you purchased, you couldn't begin using machines in 1999. There is a belief, and it happens in every jurisdiction, that because this stuff is new, it is somehow so different that everybody from the 113 RESOLUTION 960894 Board of Elections down to the voters are going to have a tremendous problem adapting to it. And yet in the percent of the 5 American counties that use these systems, 20,000 6 machines, I believe, all together, the voters, the 7 candidates, the election workers, and the Boards of 8 Elections have adapted incredibly well to this. 9 Most installations have gone much 10 faster than people thought they would. Because when we or a group of us might sit in a room and say, how do we do this, we conjure up everything that might go wrong. And these systems have been out there since 1984. The very first installation in America was in Montgomery County, Alabama. These machines are used in every part of this country, whether it is Wyoming, Mississippi, big city, little city, rural area. And I am talking now generically about all the three vendors. I am not just talking about the one that I was involved with.
Direct electronic voting 114 RESOLUTION 960894 machines -- not the punch cards and not the paper counting -- first began to be used in 1984, Montgomery County, Alabama, years ago, in a 5 presidential election. 6 I went down to Montgomery County in 7 '86, on behalf of the State of New York, to see 8 what this was all about. And they showed me around 9 a guided tour. And I said, "Look, this is all nice, 10 but I don't want a guided tour. " 12 And they got all shook up and they 13 took me out to a trailer that was a precinct out in the edge of the county. And there were four poll workers inside the trailer; they were running the machine. And we got in, and everything was set up and everything was working fine. " They said, "No. " It is not. It is really relatively simple. You need to think of it as simply the voting machine you vote on now. But in the context of 1980 or 1990, that it is electronic, you push buttons instead of levers. There are differences. There are a lot of things you need to all look at about how you cancel in your straight ticket, how you do multiple voting; that is, where you can vote for more than one. And these things need to be made aware of to everybody, but they don't need to hold things up. The thing that I congratulate you on is this hearing and Councilman Nutter's resolution. Because you are doing precisely right what the City of New York did wrong. I testified at the City of New York Council hearing. But that hearing was held after the whole procurement process was finished, after everything that could go wrong had gone wrong. And I think that is one of the reasons they still don't have the machines in New York City after eight 116 RESOLUTION 960894 years. But your resolution, which proposes that the Administration, the Commissioners, and the Council work together to put together an implementation plan and a timetable is the right direction. I have to tell you, you don't need a 3,000-page RFP. I give you the story of the state of Hawaii, which is an unitary unit when it comes to voting systems. They were going to buy 1500 machines. And the executive branch had a blue-ribbon panel of Senators and legislators, the whole bit. And they studied all of this stuff for about a year, and extensive demonstrations of equipment. And they went to the legislature and said, "We have selected that machine. " And the legislators all came in, voted on the machine, voted the $15 million. Everybody went home and adjourned. The executive branch changed its mind, put out a thousand-page RFP, and selected a 117 RESOLUTION 960894 different machine. They don't have machines today. Because when the legislature got back in, they pulled the $15 million and said, "You asked us for money for an apple. You went out and bought an orange. " So working together is critical. But I have to tell you, really, the bottom line -- and I think you all know it -- is the commitment to money. The technology is there. It works whichever vendor of at least two of them that you select. There is no question it works. I think there is some question about the third, but there is no question about two of them. And I honestly believe that there is no real practical or legal reason, if the will is there, that you couldn't start putting electronic voting into this city before the Year 2000 -- in other words, in the year 1999 -- if you all figure out how you are going to pay the bill. Because as we used to say when I was in the legislature in New York for eight years, if 118 RESOLUTION 960894 they want it in the budget, it will be there. And even when I was in the legislature, we couldn't figure out who "they" always were. It was always somebody who somewhere could get something in a budget. So whoever the "they" is here, I trust you will all figure out who that is. This is not something that needs to drag and take a long time. Franklin County, Ohio, I think, took about two and a half years.
And that was, in part, because they had to get the money in two appropriations and, in part, because in the middle of the installation there was a changeover in manufacturing rep and the manufacturer, and so on. So it delayed it a little bit. And that's 2200 machines. I must tell you, I think you could even meet the 103-week requirement, if you had to. I really believe you could with either of the two major ones. And in terms of those two that I am talking about, one is in the State of Delaware today and in Berks County. The other one is in Montgomery County. So you don't need to have -- 119 RESOLUTION 960894 CHAIRMAN COHEN: Were you here when Miss Swirsky spoke? She spoke of one machine.
Well, no. She spoke of one system, called the Direct Recording Electronic system. There are three versions of that, or three types of machines. What has happened in Pennsylvania, there are some differences on it. All of the counties except Montgomery County chose a machine, said, "This is the one we want of the three," and put it to a referendum. The people voted, and they bought that machine. Montgomery County didn't do that. Montgomery County put the referendum up and said to the voters, "We are choosing a system called DRE. After you vote yes, we will pick the machine." Of course they picked the machine that didn't work, and then had to go get another one. So I think that the experience of the other two counties is probably a little better. Pick the machine first, and then take the referendum. And by doing that, you can avoid some of this 12-month delay involved in a procurement 120 RESOLUTION 960894 process. I am no expert at all on your Philadelphia laws involving procurement. But the state election statutes have no requirements for competitive bidding, no requirements for bidding at all. The reason we have the referendum in Pennsylvania is that the state statutes presume that the county Commissioners, Board of Elections, which in other counties is the same thing, are going to select the system and the voters are going to vote yes or no. 14 And that can be done based on simply a Request For Proposal. The idea being that if there is something wrong about the process, the voters will get wind of it and vote it down. And, by the way, no referendum has failed in Pennsylvania on the electronic voting machine. Some counties have voted down the punch card and the marked sense because they don't want to vote on paper. But that is, what Sherry was talking about, is DRE, is one of three types of electronic systems; mainly, punch card, mark sense, and 121 RESOLUTION 960894 machine. There are three -- it's been two years, there might be another one. There are at least three versions of the machine, two or three versions of the punch card, and two or three versions of what they call mark sense. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you. If all of you could wait around on the panel, so we can do questioning at one time. Mr. Mondesire, we would be very pleased if you would join. Identify yourself for the record first.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Jerome Mondesire, President, Philadelphia branch, NAACP. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Go ahead.
First permit me to thank this Committee and its illustrious Chairman on behalf the Philadelphia branch of the NAACP for its kind permission to hear our testimony on what we consider to be a vital matter of public interest. Other than crime and public safety, there is no more paramount facet of any democracy than the electorial process. 122 RESOLUTION 960894 From this process flows our laws, our elected officials, and the policies that make our society work and, in some cases, fail to work. The issue of voting technology in Philadelphia has been marooned, in our opinion, to the back burner of civic responsibility for too long. So long, in fact, that this failure to act today jeopardizes the access to vote for some of our most vulnerable citizens, which, in the opinion of the NAACP, clearly is a threat to the civil rights of all Philadelphians. It is our opinion that the city's failure to modernize voting technology plays a significant role in the overall lack of voter interest that, regrettably, has been abundantly clear in recent voter turnout. The technology issue has been studied several times by blue-ribbon panels and outside experts. We have even spent money for several of these studies, which today are gathering dust in some city vault or some closet. Both present and former City Commissions have talked repeatedly about the need to 123 RESOLUTION 960894 upgrade our electorial technology, yet nothing has changed. Our city is still plagued with outdated, costly, and too often unserviceable voting machines that in many cases actually retard free and fair voter response. In a city where public consensus is an endangered species, where different opinions clash on every conceivable subject, as diverse as sports, the best place to hold an outdoor rock concert, or where to buy the best cheese steak or soft pretzels, there is only one area where a true public consensus is even imaginable. And in a city where there are enough opinions to fill every pothole at least twice, the only issue that all of us seem to agree on is that there is a need for new voting technology. Philadelphia's current voting technology is almost as old as penicillin, and is almost as useful in today's modern satellite communications age as Morse Code. 9 million to operate, we are spending taxpayers' money on a system that every expert agrees is a 124 RESOLUTION 960894 bottomless pit from which there is no escape. The Philadelphia NAACP has a long history of voter registration and education programs. Each year we conduct extensive registration efforts throughout this city. Furthermore, me expend great many hours of our volunteers trying to get the message out to voters about the importance of voting and of the need to constantly reach out to young voters. However, all too often we must respond to complaints about conditions of many of our polling places, as well as problems with the machines. In elections with large numbers of candidates, sometimes a candidate's name will be at knee level or so high up in the right-hand corner that a voter who is handicapped or who suffers from impaired vision will not even notice the lever, let alone the name. Such configurations effectively disenfranchise some disabled voters from being able to view all of the choices with ease and comfort. And, in turn, it is not unusual to find that after one such bitter experience, that these voters may 125 RESOLUTION 960894 not return to the polling place for some time. Finally, the NAACP firmly believes that the lower the turnout, the less representative the resulting government. Voters who face language and/or physical barriers are seriously being disenfranchised by the current outmoded system.
For a sizeable, yet manageable, increase in our current debt service, the City Commissioners could be provided with the necessary funds to purchase a Direct Recording Electronic voting system, or DRE, that can provide full ballot face display capability, paper auditing printing, and which will also be durable. The 1995 task force report explored the various computer-assisted systems currently on the market and, apparently, unanimously agreed on the DRE system. The NAACP agrees. It is time to stop bickering and to modernize Philadelphia's voting system. The old system is not worth fixing. It must be replaced. There is nothing less at stake than the very fabric of our democracy. Thank you. I would also add, like the League of 126 RESOLUTION 960894 Women Voters, if you decide to move ahead and modernize the system, you can count on us to be out there beating the drum for this. Because we firmly believe that the public will listen to a call for new voting technology without a real serious controversy about it. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Well, we thank you for that. Because this is not going to be possible unless there is community and organizational activity before a decision is made and then after the decision is made. We need that support. Incidentally, I want to announce the presence of the Vice-Chair of the Committee, Councilman Ortiz, who I believe is the eighth member of City Council that's attending today. And not one of them has voiced disagreement. So we would only need one more vote in City Council. And I believe we would probably get a unanimous vote from City Council.
It means money. You might need 12 to override a veto. CHAIRMAN COHEN: The Mayor appointed a task force. And it is pretty much a bipartisan 127 RESOLUTION 960894 task force. And one of the co-chairs has just been confirmed as a District Judge, so we may even have the threat of judicial action for his having misled people into believing he supported this if he tries to indicate anything to the contrary. But, really, we think it is going to be cooperated with. We think the Mayor and the City Council all will move forward together. And if the NAACP and the League of Women Voters can set your own committee to get other community organizations active, behind this, I think we may well have a winner, which means the people of Philadelphia will have a winner. Councilman Nutter.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To the leaders, to my party Chairman, and then to Mr. Melinson, just a quick question on what you might think the current positions of the various ward leaders and other party people, committee people, would be on such an issue. The committee people, and certainly Election Board members, other than the City Commissioners, get the brunt of any fallout from the 128 RESOLUTION 960894 voters on Election Day about how the machines function and operate. But, also, they have to, in many instances, ensure that they are in location, in the building, and then that they are in the right room. Sometimes they have to move them around. And then they obviously have to deal with the count, which in a long ballot can extend into the evening. Could you share, if you are in a position to do so, what you think the position would be of the various ward leaders and community people on this particular issue?
You know, I never, ever speak for a ward leader unless they tell me what to say. But I will make --
But I will make an exception here. I would have to tell you that, through my experience dealing with ward leaders and my own committee people, that I could not imagine any ward lead or any committee person in the City of Philadelphia that would not love to have new voting 129 RESOLUTION 960894 machines to make their job a little easier, to make the polling place acquisitions a little easier, to make the tally a little easier, and to make it a little easier for the people that they represent to vote. I would tell you unequivocally, I can't imagine anyone, through the experience of complaints that I hear over and over again about not being able to find polling places, not being able to find Election Boards -- because the polling places are open for hours. 13 You have to remember, the judge has to go prior to that, pick up these cumbersome binders, bring them home. Then they have to get there a little early, open the machines up. A lot of women work these Election Boards. These machines are cumbersome and big and heavy. They have to be moved in a certain position. When a trucker brings this machine to the location, he doesn't put it right where they want it, where they can fit their tables, where the electricity works. He just drops them off and goes. 130 RESOLUTION 960894 They have to get there a little ahead of time. They are a little leery about doing that, getting there a quarter to 7:00, because there are a lot of people looking and a lot of insinuations that happen. They have to move these machines, put them in their proper place. That's earlier than 7 o'clock. And I have never gotten a result before a quarter to 9:00 in my ward. Because you have to sit there, run them off, read them out, make sure they turn the key right, go down, squint. And I think, without question, the committee people and ward leaders would welcome it. I will go on record, very reluctantly, but I will do it this time. I'm sure that they would welcome them.
I don't think I could say it any better than Chairman Brady. In an era when it is so difficult to find people that are committed enough to come out and work what turns to be a 17- or 18-hour day for those people. And some of the committee's reports 131 RESOLUTION 960894 are replete with references to 900-pound machines. And sometimes the castors get stuck and they don't move. And I couldn't think of a group of people who would be happier to have the new technology than the ward leaders and the committee people.
The machines out in the 52nd Ward, we fortunately have all the machines. They are listed in the report at 942 pounds. It is not a lot of fun trying to move a couple of those machines around if they are not, as Chairman Brady said -- but they usually are not -- in the exact location. Truckers have a lot of machines they have to move. The fact that they get them in the building is oftentimes, they think that their job is done. In addition, the City Commissioners probably spend at each election a little bit of money in claims. And I have personally, unfortunately, been in the position of having to partially pay a 132 RESOLUTION 960894 claim in order to keep a voting place in place. That was the only way that the building manager would even consider keeping that polling place there, that their tile floor get fixed as a result of being cracked from a 900-pound voting machine rolling across it. Mr. Wilson, let me ask you, you have, obviously, some experience in this area. First, your testimony earlier was that, to your knowledge, the DRE technology was first implemented in 1984 in the presidential election in Montgomery, Alabama.
What do you think of the technology today as compared to 1984? And do you think that, on the one hand, technology continues to move, and hopefully improve? But is it a relatively reliable technology?
Well, I don't think there is any question about the reliability. There has not, to my knowledge -- and I won't count the last two years, but from 1984 to 1995 -- never an election on a direct electronic voting machine that was overturned by the courts. 133 RESOLUTION 960894 And there have been elections that were studied in the courts. I will give you the most famous example. When Doug Wilder was elected the Governor of Virginia, there was a huge state recount. And they had to recount. They have what they call a Recount Court that sits in Richmond. And the Recount Court ordered all the punch card ballots to be held up to lights and counted one at a time. And all the paper ballots. And all the voting machines to be opened up. And then it got to the three counties of Northern Virginia that had the Direct Recording Electronic. And it heard witnesses as to how the system worked and how the computerization worked, and how the tally sheets came out and so on. And the unanimous vote of the Recount Court was that there was nothing to do in those three counties. The results, obviously, since the tally sheets and the cartridges and the internal memory matched, were absolutely correct. It is one of the reasons Governor Wilder was Governor, because he won those three counties, but that's beside the point. That just 134 RESOLUTION 960894 happens to be. And if he lost them, I'm afraid he wouldn't be the Governor. We had a race in Mississippi which is even more dramatic, where there was actually -- one of the few times I am aware of, where there was an actual mistake in an electronic voting machine in regard to the printout that came out at night. The ballot was correct, but the printout, which was separately set by the computer, reversed the names. And so in this small town of Holly Springs, Mississippi, where, since the first time since the Civil War, there was a contest for Mayor between two individuals of different racial backgrounds. And, needless to say, one was a background that had never held the office since the Civil War. To put it simply, the white candidate won in this printout. But the whole community was convinced -- or not the whole community, the people who knew that these systems worked -- knew full well that the African-American candidate won. There is a fail-safe system where you 135 RESOLUTION 960894 can go into the voting machine itself. And regardless of cartridges, there are other memory chips in these machines. And you can pull out the data in these machines with no regard to names. The data is stored with regard to buttons. And it will tell you which button was pushed and which wasn't. I know this all very well because I was the one sent to Mississippi to handle this whole recount and describe to this packed courthouse of 300, approximately, equally divided people why, in fact, the African-American candidate really won, and the white gentleman had actually lost, even though the paper tape said one thing, and it was clear that the machine which reflected the will of the voters said another thing. When we got done explaining to these people, the following things happened: Unanimous vote of the Board that was hearing the issue declaring that the winner, in fact, was the African-American candidate, and total acceptance by the community. People telling me that any voting system, even three years before -- I mean, these things are reliable. 136 RESOLUTION 960894 You have got federal standards, you have got state standards. They have to be certified in Pennsylvania by the state Board, which employs a gentleman whose name I have forgotten. It is a couple of years since I have been in it. But he works for about five states, and is considered one of the experts in the country on this.
A question was raised earlier about security, whether it is these, quote, unquote, hackers, or just anyone who would try to invade the system. Can you speak to us about any of those issues?
It is almost impossible. Because, basically, what you do is, a database is created. There might be one for the whole county or there might be one for each ward. And these databases, which are simply what we do now, the Board of Elections does now, by putting into the computer the names and offices and precincts and so on of the candidates. These databases then are used to program the printing apparatus that makes the 137 RESOLUTION 960894 ballots, and program the cartridge that is inserted into these machines in which the results are stored at night. But the reason I say that it is fail-safe is that the results are also simultaneously being stored in memory chips that are solidly inside these machines and cannot be taken out. So, basically, the only way to tamper with the results of this election after it happens, you have to steal the voting machine. You have to steal and destroy the voting machine. You would have to destroy the cartridge. I mean, because, as we talked before, it is not a system where you have any connection with modems, like, say, AOL, or something, in the course of the whole process. You can use modems at the end of the process with different readers to facilitate the tallying. But that's after the machines are closed down and all the votes have been cast.
Okay. All right. CHAIRMAN COHEN: All right. We want 138 RESOLUTION 960894 to thank all of you. And, obviously, we are going to need strong participation by every element of the political establishment in the city to put this across. We are going to try to, at the end of this hearing, take an action that we hope will make official in short order the support of City Council for this action. And we would hope that this could be done rapidly so it doesn't get involved in the mayoral politics that will begin to consume the city very shortly, if it has not already begun. Thank you.
One last statement, Mr. Chairman. A request, actually, to this particular panel. Again, I want to say thank you for the sense of both agreement, unanimity, and working together, at least on this particular issue, both between the two major political parties and then, obviously, two very well-known and established constituent organizations. I might ask that subsequent to this 139 RESOLUTION 960894 hearing, if the four entities -- and there may be others -- participate in this process, if there might be some opportunity for the Democratic party, the Republican party, NAACP, League of Women Voters, and there could be either business establishment or community or other group or organization, might begin working together on a public education program and process for how we let the voters know. And we will certainly do our part. But we are elected officials. And sometimes people don't want to listen to us to tell them the time of day, let alone what should be going on with the voting process. But I think coming from your respective organizations in a coordinated fashion, we would all tremendously benefit from that kind of effort. And if we are able, out of this hearing, to talk about a timetable and the like, then we would be able to target not only at election time, but in between, what our efforts should be and how they should go in the future to get it done. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Go ahead.
If I could just say, 140 RESOLUTION 960894 on behalf of the voters, again, based on our experience with the phone bank, that polling places do not open on time and create havoc with the voters, that a system like this, as was described by Mr. Wilson, that would be so easily set up, would be such a boon. Because this particular election there was one call saying that it was o'clock in 10 the morning, and the polling place was not open, and they were extremely agitated. So I think the voters would graciously accept something that could be implemented quickly. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you. Our thanks to the panel. And we will now proceed to the final panel of the hearing, which consists of Mr. Joseph Vignola, Executive Director to PICA and an alumnus of this body; John Estey, the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Mayor's Office; and Dean Kaplan, the Budget Director. Mr. Vignola, would you be good enough to identify yourself first for the record, and then proceed. And then the other gentlemen representing 141 RESOLUTION 960894 the city Administration can speak. And we hope if they don't tell us the story we would like to hear, that you will be in a position to rebut them.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman. My name is Joseph C. Vignola. I am the Executive Director of PICA. Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee. If I may, today is a very particular day for me. I am a member of another union, besides the carpenters' and electricians', the union that you are a member of; that's the Bar of Philadelphia. And I am teaching a Continuing Education Course that begins at 1:15. One of my co-instructors happens to be the President of City Council. Because we were teaching, along with members of the General Assembly, how a bill becomes a law, both in Harrisburg and Philadelphia. So that, if I may, instead of going at the end, I would like to go at the beginning. And maybe what I might say might color what they are going to say. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Go right ahead. 142 RESOLUTION 960894
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee. As I was sitting here throughout the hearing, I was just thinking to myself -- and it is a shame Councilwoman Tasco left, because she had the distinction, as well as myself, of being a member of the City Commissioners. And I had the great fortune of being elected by my colleagues as Chair of the City Commissioners. And, of course, she was here in City Council before I joined this body, and is still here now that I have left the body. So I have seen it from all sides. And then adding a couple of other jobs that I have had, namely City Controller, now with PICA, I can see from the financing side. The issue confronting us is not whether we should have new voting equipment. Because I started that process back in 1981, when I computerized the registration rolls, and then started looking at electronic voting machines as far back as 1982. The question is, how do we pay for it, and can we pay for it? 143 RESOLUTION 960894 The traditional way has been through bond issues, because it is a long-term capital expense. And if we keep new voting machines as long as we had the current voting machines, then we can amortize the cost of the 30 year or year, however 7 long the term of the bond is. The question is, 8 where do we get the money from. 9 And when your colleague and my former 10 colleague Councilman Nutter asked me about that 11 question, as well as Commissioner Talmadge, who is 12 my successor in the office of City Commissioner, I 13 see that one of the things PICA has done over the 14 years is borrow money. 15 And since 1992, PICA has borrowed 16 capital dollars on behalf the City of Philadelphia. 17 There are currently capital projects that PICA has 18 authorized back in 1992 as emergencies that have not 19 been fully implemented. 20 And that during the city's budget process, not only the City Planning Commission at the executive level, but at the Council level, that the city should examine this pool of money that PICA has, which may be upwards of 20 to 30 million dollars, to say, well, these projects either are not 144 RESOLUTION 960894 going to be built, they are going to be incorporated in other bonds for which now that we have access to the capital markets could be built, and maybe dedicate some of this excess money, what would then be considered excess money on behalf of PICA, to a project as worthwhile as voting equipment. The question is, can it fit one of the PICA criteria. And I have spoken to my deputy and other staff members to explore the program. , the Mayor and City Council, the Administration and City Council, that PICA's staff would affirmatively review that request and consider that voting is very essential to democracy in Philadelphia, and that it would fit the criteria of an emergency as originally defined when PICA was created back in 1991. Will it be that we have all the money to fund for all of the voting machines that would be necessary? At this point I can't answer that question because we are running a gamut of whether 145 RESOLUTION 960894 you have a system that could cost $10 million, where a system based on 1999 or 1998 dollars, that could inflate up to $25 million. But I believe that as the oversight Board, something that is concerned about the integrity of the city -- not only the financial integrity of the city, but the governmental and ethical integrity of the city -- that it is something that PICA would favorably review. And I am here at the behest of your colleague, Councilman Nutter, to say that there is a funding source out there. And we could be part of that funding source, whether it is general obligation bonds that are needed, or revenue bonds as in the case of PICA. So with that, Mr. Chairman, I will be glad to answer whatever your questions are. But I would like your permission if the hour does approach the o'clock hour, that I be excused. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you.
And, particularly, the Chair will say yes to your request to leave whenever you feel you have to, particularly since you gave us such a good report on the possible availability of funds. 146 RESOLUTION 960894
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is John Estey. I am Deputy Chief of Staff to Mayor Rendell. I am very pleased to be here today to present the views of the Administration on this particular resolution. I am here today, obviously, with Dean Kaplan, the city's Budget Director, who is familiar to this body. Let me start off by saying that I did prepare some written remarks, which I have submitted. I won't run through those for you verbatim, but I would like to hit a few high points that are included therein.
Before you get too far in that, and recognizing the time constraint that -- I am not sure what title -- CHAIRMAN COHEN: Director.
Technically, you 147 RESOLUTION 960894 never lose that title.
That is truly an honor that I keep, and especially back in my old chamber. And I will answer to that appellation.
Mr. Vignola, you mentioned that PICA has upwards of to 30 million 8 dollars in previously allocated dollars for, at the 9 time of allocation, emergency projects. 10 Could you give us a couple of 11 examples of what fits into that category? 12
Some bridge 13 infrastructure repairs, street repairs, repairs to 14 what we infamously call improvement to existing 15 facilities, monies of that nature, Councilman. 16
Thank you, Councilman 20 Nutter. And to piggyback on that issue, I think, obviously, one of the first issues that needs to be considered by this body in determining whether and how to move on this resolution is the question of capital funds, where the dollars are going to come from to pay for this. 148 RESOLUTION 960894 In 1995, when the task force put together its report and the Budget Office was asked to look at it, the PICA situation was not on the table. And we have not, the Administration has not, discussed those dollars in detail in connection with this particular project. But I think that the position of the Administration with respect to those dollars is the same as with the dollars that are included in the city's Capital Budget every year. $20 million is roughly one-fifth to one-sixth of the city's Capital Budget in any given year. A decision, a collaborative decision, would need to be made by this body and by the Administration that $20 million should be used for the purpose of purchasing new voting machines. Such decision might require decisions to be made with respect to other projects that are already on the books. And we put in the written comments that I have submitted some examples of Capital Budget items in Fiscal 1998, just for comparison 149 RESOLUTION 960894 purposes. The Police Department's Capital Budget for this fiscal year is approximately $10 million, Recreation is approximately $12 million. And if you put together Fire and Fairmount Park and the Library, you get about $10 million. Obviously, these are things that need to be considered.
Let me ask you a question. Those departments are in the Capital Budget just about every year; isn't that correct?
This is essentially a one time -- for most of us, this is going to be a once-in-a-lifetime purchase; is that correct?
So those departments are not going to suffer irreparable harm if we were to proceed with this kind of purchase, allocating dollars over a couple of years. I mean, you wouldn't be making the same testimony if we were talking about the 800 150 RESOLUTION 960894 megahertz system, which we have been funding now from the day that I came into the body. And Councilman Vignola was in the class that I was in. And I don't think that any of these other projects have impacted our ability to put away dollars every year for the 800 megahertz system; isn't that correct?
That's correct, Councilman. I don't mean to suggest that there would be any irreparable harm to any particular department. That you would have to eliminate capital funding, say, for the Library. I am simply putting on the table what is obvious to this body, obviously, that there are going to have to be some decisions made about funding and when in particular funding should be included in the budget for some other departments. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Would that be applicable if we found that Councilman Vignola's proposal worked out? Couldn't we go ahead with the Capital Budget that we already have? Because this is funding from a different source, a one-time area. So that the only 151 RESOLUTION 960894 additional cost to the city immediately would be the annual cost of meeting the bond interest rate.
Thank you. Dean Kaplan, the Budget Director. I think this comes in the same vein as Mr. Estey was saying earlier, that it is a matter for discussion between Council and the Administration. The Administration's assumption and the city's budget is built on the presumption that, to the extent that PICA dollars are available, eventually, for reprogramming, that they will be used to supplant city general obligation issues, not to be added on in addition to city general obligation issues. And the reason for that is that we, of course, are already paying debt service on the PICA issues now. And we would not have assumed that we would have to bear an additional burden beyond that for other projects. However, to the extent that the Council and the Administration can reach an 152 RESOLUTION 960894 agreement, that would be something we could talk about, depending upon the amount of the particular funds. CHAIRMAN COHEN: I want to follow through for a minute. I want to make sure I understand what you are saying. Is the city currently paying interest on that accumulation of funds that exists from other budgets?
Mr. Chairman, the taxpayers of Philadelphia, through the PICA tax, are paying the debt service on the PICA bonds, that is correct. CHAIRMAN COHEN: And under the proposal that you say PICA would be prepared to study, what would be the additional cost to the city if those funds were used?
It would be the ongoing debt service cost. Right now the money is minimally costing the tax payers, because we have the money invested. And depending on how the federal arbitrage regulations play up as to the interest 153 RESOLUTION 960894 we're earning while the money is sitting in our bank accounts, not being spent either by transfer to the city or by the city holding it in their recovered funds account, we run that calculation every year. So it is not -- CHAIRMAN COHEN: It would not be a very great figure.
Well, I don't want to speak for the Budget Director. But what he was saying was that, in redistributing the PICA dollars to other capital projects, that may lessen the need for Fiscal Year '99 or Fiscal Year '98 or Fiscal Year 2000 to borrow additional capital dollars. They could take those old PICA dollars. And that is true. What I was putting on the table was that, during the deliberations, as Mr. Kaplan said, between the Administration, between the Mayor and City Council, if they agree to put monies on the table, that monies that could be considered on the table are these PICA dollars that have long been borrowed and may be used. As I said, we probably can't pay for the whole thing. Because there are other demands on 154 RESOLUTION 960894 those monies, and realistic demands, that you as a member of City Council would not want to see liquidated. But some of the monies can be used to jump-start the process, while you get a general obligation bond ordinance passed and approved that deals with voting machines.
Let me ask this question: Does it strike anyone else as slightly strange or unusual that PICA is, by your testimony, Mr. Vignola, holding dollars that were allocated for, quote, unquote, emergencies, that are now five years old? I have never experienced a five-year-old emergency, other than maybe a five year old who is having a problem.
Councilman Nutter, we could go back and forth and debate that issue. It is something that I, and members of my staff, have constantly raised with the Administration. Because there turns out to be other problems, vis-a-vis the federal regulations and the arbitrage rules that we have to deal with in accounting for that money. 155 RESOLUTION 960894 But, yes --
Basically, yes. It is an identified project. I mean, no one --
Not you as City Council, not the Mayor, not me as the Director of PICA, not the PICA Board, can say, "I now want to spend that money for voting machines." There has to be a process that it has to go through, that a cumulative political decision has to be made. And what I am suggesting to you my staff has said to you during discussion about this matter, in preparation for my coming here, that staff said that if the elected officials of this city agree that this wanted to be an expenditure on behalf of the city, that we believe at PICA it fits one of our criterias, i.e., an emergency criteria, and that monies can be made available.
But it has to be a political decision made by the elected officials of 156 RESOLUTION 960894 this city.
I understand. Mr. Estey, let me go back to the first page of your testimony. Down at the bottom of it reads, "However, there is currently not a line item in the city's Capital Budget for the purchase of new voting machines," and then it goes on, "And we have not yet performed an analysis of those existing Capital Budget items that might be impacted by a decision to proceed with the purchase of new DRE machines." That is somewhat confusing to me, given the statement that was made, apparently, two years ago by the former chief of staff, that $15 million had been allocated for voting machine purposes. Can you clarify or explain the discrepancy?
I'm sorry. In the Fiscal Year '96 through 2001 Capital Budget, there was a line item included, a $15 million line item, for the purchase of new voting machines that is not carried forward into the Fiscal Year 1998 budget. 157 RESOLUTION 960894
What happened to it, and where was it? And where did it go?
The $15 million line item, as Mr. Estey said, it was in the '96 to '01 Capital Budget. I am not aware of why it was not included in '97 to '02 budget. But it was in the Finance Department line. It was spread over a period from, I believe, '97 through '01, and it was not included in the '97 and forward plan.
Well, wait a minute. You put the budget together; right?
The '97 to '01 Capital Budgets was largely -- was actually enacted before I was the Budget Director. I can look into it, but I am not aware of why it was done.
Mr. Estey provided an answer to the question. I assume he got his answer from somewhere. Someone must know what happened to $15 million. I know in a $2.3 billion operation, if might not seem like a lot of money to you. But, 158 RESOLUTION 960894 I don't know, from where I grew up in West Philadelphia, $15 million is a lot of money. What happened to the money?
We are certainly going to look into the particulars of what happened to that $15 million line item allocation. The information that I had was based upon my review of that particular document, the '96 to 2001 document, and my review of the current budget.
So you are telling me, if I read the news account correctly, that on September 20, 1995, the former Chief of Staff, David L. Cohen, says that $15 million is available. You are now saying that it was available then, but it is not available now. And that between the two of you, you don't know what happened to $15 million?
The $15 million was not in the Capital Budget for the budget year. As you know, the Capital Budget for a specific year is adopted and passed by Council, along with a six-year capital program. 159 RESOLUTION 960894 The budget for -- the funding for the voting machines was included in the last five years of the plan. And my experience has been that between discussions between the Administration and Council and the public, that the out years of the plan are frequently used to indicate a variety of priorities, and those numbers frequently change. I believe that, my suspicion would be, that at the time the '97 plan was put together, the election -- whenever the '96 plan, when this was included, was passed by the Election Task Force, it issued its report, that, because the budget recommendation had been to wait the five years until the machines were purchased, that it was decided to remove them from those interim years. I don't know why they were not kept in the final several years of the plan.
I would really like to know who made the decision to take it out. And even with the task force recommendation, it seems to me that there would have been no harm to leave it in. You guys left the proposed revenues 160 RESOLUTION 960894 for riverboat gambling in the plan for the first five years, and had not one ounce of a notion that it was ever going to come through. And it has only been in the last couple of years that you got smart and decided to take it out, since everybody, apparently, except the Mayor, knew that the money was not going to be forthcoming. So I really would like to know what happened to it. Mr. Vignola.
Mr. Chairman, if I may, just by way of clarification, taking a little bit of interest because I was a member of this Council. Council votes on that. And that was part of the ordinance. So that whatever the Administration did, Council, by whatever vote it took when it adopted the Capital Budget in that fiscal year, concurred. So, you know, no one at Council objected to say, "Hey, this was in last year, it is out this year," then it has gone on from that. I am just saying, it is spilled milk at this time. And let's not worry about what 161 RESOLUTION 960894 happened in the past. Let's just go on.
Well, I can appreciate the perspective. Although, for such an important issue, and for some of the information that is here on much less important issues, it seems to me that someone would have thought it slightly important to mention, in a six-year capital program, that has hundreds, if not thousands, of items in it, that they might have nodded or whispered or given a special handshake to say, "Oh, by the way, we happen to be taking the million out for the voting 14 machines." But, that was their decision. 15 Let me ask this question about the Administration's view on this: The Mayor established the Election Reform Task Force. You asked, apparently, about people of a bipartisan 19 nature to serve. 20 I think one, or possibly both, of you 21 were here when I read a portion of the Mayor's 22 letter asking the co-chairs to serve. 23 What is your interpretation of what 24 the Mayor's intention was at the time of 25 establishing the task force? 162 RESOLUTION 960894 Was it for the purpose of answering the three issues that were raised in this letter, or was it merely an exercise to keep the public at bay that was upset as a result of a particular election?
Councilman, it certainly was not an exercise. I think the Mayor's intention -- I was not here at the time, but I think it was fairly clear from the letter, that he was asking for a fair and frank assessment of the current state of the voting machines and the technology that was available, with costs, to replace those voting machines.
Do you think he received that by way of the task force report?
I think he received a set of recommendations from the task force, which were intended to foster exactly this type of process that we are engaging in today. And that we are more than willing to work cooperatively with the people that have gone before us, and with this body, to try to turn those recommendations into some concrete action items.
What is the 163 RESOLUTION 960894 concrete action that the Administration is prepared to put on the table at this moment?
I think, as is reflected in my written testimony -- and let me back up for a moment. Because I am not sure that that question can be answered, given what I heard earlier this morning. I don't think that there is a consensus among the Commissioners, the task force members, and some of the other people who testified -- and I wouldn't presume to speak for the members of this Committee -- as to what precisely it is we are looking to put in place as a replacement for the existing machines. I heard at least a couple of people who testified talk about their wanting to be involved in the process in determining what types of machines should be purchased. But assuming that a machine --
I think that all gets resolved. I think that is the least of our problems. The issue today is, is the Mayor of this city and the city Administration prepared to 164 RESOLUTION 960894 put the dollars on the table to make it happen and commit to a reasonable time table? Not one that has us waiting until they all fall apart, and then we try to figure out how to open 1600 polling places on Election Day. But one that, with the same sense of commitment and integrity and smarts that the Administration has demonstrated on projects that it was interested in, that we take a longer-term view and a smart view that says, we know we need at least three years to do it. Why not start now. And as we drag some of us kicking and screaming into the 21st Century, that some voters might have an opportunity in the year 2000 to vote on new machines; that's the issue. Not what are we going to do, not what is Procurement going to do, not what the City Commissioners are going to do. It is the money. And it is the providing of the money, and it is when. That is the issue today. That is the only issue, as far as I am concerned.
I understand your question completely. And I don't intend to be in any way argumentative. 165 RESOLUTION 960894 But I think when you say, "it is the money," we need to know from the budget perspective and from the administrative perspective what that means. And if you are talking about DRE, you are talking $20 million. If you are talking about some other system --
I think we are talking DRE. I don't think that is a question.
Well, that's not what I heard from some of the Commissioners who were up here earlier. I didn't think that I heard sign-off from them. But if we are talking about DRE --
The only dispute amongst the Commissioners was an exchange between Chairwoman Tartaglione and Mr. Voight about who was going to participate in the process, and did you need a full examination of what was out there, or, I think, the Chairwoman was almost saying that, you know, we can rent some space and have a voting machine fare, and let them all come in, and we will look at what they have, and we will go from there. But I think that those two, given 166 RESOLUTION 960894 their 20-plus-year history, will figure out what they want to do in about or minutes. 4 I think it really does, again, 5 revolve around if the commitment and the will is 6 there. 7 Tell me what election there is going 8 to be a referendum for the voters to vote on. And I 9 don't understand today why it takes Procurement a 10 year to go through this process. But, you know, I 11 am willing for the moment to even brush that aside. 12 Tell me what election we are going to 13 have a referendum in, tell me when the money is 14 going to be put forward, over what period of time. 15 Tell me when the machines are going to be put in place, what election. That's a schedule. That shows a commitment. Everything else is just discussion. That's the issue.
On the assumption that we are going to do DRE, that it is a 20-plus million dollar hit. I think that the position that is put forth in my written remarks is that, given the budget analysis that was done in 1995, the most 167 RESOLUTION 960894 appropriate time to have an election would be, on the ballot question, would be November 2000. And the machines would then be in place over the period from November 2000 through November 2002.
Because I think that's the place where you have maximized the life span of the existing machines, and you can, therefore, result in the lowest decrease in operating cost to the City of Philadelphia General Fund from the switch-over to new machines.
Why do we need to maximize the life of these particular machines? Do we maximize the life of everything that we buy around here? Or do we buy stuff when we need it, or think it is best to replace it?
Based on that theory, we would keep our cars virtually forever. I mean, they keep making parts for them. But that's not the case. Right? We keep a lot of stuff around here 168 RESOLUTION 960894 virtually forever, but that doesn't mean that it isn't time for it to go.
What does it mean? You think we haven't gotten enough out of a 1948 or 1950 or a 1957 voting machine?
I think, in light of where we are in terms of the procurement process and the time it will take to do an RFP and get a vendor in a position to move forward, and in that we are continuing in the Administration -- and I know Council continues -- to be committed to maximizing savings and reducing costs, I mean, it is clear that for ten years this is going to increase our operating costs. For ten years from the time we put these machines in place until the end, this will increase operating costs. So what we would like to do is, take that time to put the RFP together, take advantage of whatever innovations have occurred in the last two years and whatever innovations may occur in technology over the next year to 18 months, use that 169 RESOLUTION 960894 time. And then, when appropriate, when the two lines meet, and we have managed to get into a position where we can reduce the cost, the incremental increase in cost, that the movement to new machines will require, then we go ahead, have the ballot question, hopefully it passes, and you put the machines in place over the next 103 weeks. CHAIRMAN COHEN: I am going to recess the Committee for about 30 seconds for an informal conference. The Chair is going to recess the Public Hearing very briefly for the purpose of having a Public Meeting for this Committee. (Public Hearing temporarily adjourned.) - - - 170 COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC MEETING of the COMMITTEE ON LAW & GOVERNMENT - - - Wednesday, November 1997 8 - - - 9 Public Meeting conducted by the Committee 10 on Law & Government, held in Room 400, City Hall, 11 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the above date, to 12 consider action on the following: RESOLUTION 960894 - - - PRESENT: COUNCILMAN DAVID COHEN, Chair COUNCILMAN ANGEL ORTIZ, Vice-Chair COUNCILMAN MICHAEL T. NUTTER COUNCILWOMAN ANNA CIBOTTI VERNA COUNCILMAN W. THATCHER LONGSTRETH - - - 171 PUBLIC MEETING CHAIRMAN COHEN: A quorum is currently present, and I am going to ask Councilman Ortiz to present a motion.
Mr. Chairman, are we in the Public Meeting? CHAIRMAN COHEN: We are in the Public Meeting.
And we have a quorum. CHAIRMAN COHEN: A quorum is present.
I suggest we hold a Public Meeting. I move that we move favorably on the issue of voting machines and request that Councilman Nutter prepare a report to be signed by members of this Committee as submitted to the whole Council for approval. (Duly seconded.) CHAIRMAN COHEN: Any discussion on the motion? If not, all those in favor please say aye. Any opposed? 172 PUBLIC MEETING The ayes have it, and the motion is adopted. There being no further business to come before the Public Meeting, we will adjourn the Public Meeting and resume the Public Hearing. (Public Meeting adjourned.) - - - 173 RESOLUTION 960894
And certainly you have sat through this hearing and heard from the various political parties and people who have to deal with these matters on a regular basis, not only myself and Councilman Cohen, but also Councilwoman Verna as a ward leader here in the city. Does that timetable take into consideration the concerns of the voting public, or is it primarily a use of machine and fiscal analysis of this problem?
Councilman Nutter, the answer to that question is yes, the timetable does attempt to take into account the concerns that were articulated this morning. And let me make a couple of points on that. First of all, I want to reiterate what I heard several times this morning. This is, obviously, a critical issue for the Administration. I know it is a critical issue for Council. It is very important that we do this. But, at the same time, I think it is very important that we do this correctly. And I know -- in a former life I had some dealings in 174 RESOLUTION 960894 Montgomery County in 1995. I know what happened in 1995, when they brought in their machines and had a fiasco. So we want to be sure that we move as expeditiously as possible, but, at the same time, that we do this correctly, and we get the correct vendor, so that you don't have more people possibly disenfranchised because the machines don't work or they are confused about how they work. And I was particularly interested in Councilman Rizzo's remarks this morning about making sure that there was education and training put in place so that people who have been voting on the same, admittedly, old and sometimes antiquated machines for several years know how to do this.
Well, I would agree with you. The report was issued in the fall of 1995. We are now in the fall of 1997. Tell me what the Administration has done to push forward the recommendations from the task force in the intervening two years.
What we have done internally is, we have reviewed the report and we 175 RESOLUTION 960894 have continued to look at emerging technologies in the voting machine area. We have also reviewed the financial information in light of intervening budget years, to determine the appropriate budgetary points at which we might want to make decisions. And we have, quite frankly, considered it in the context of existing capital requirements.
Well, when you finish all of the reviewing and all of the analysis and the thinking about it and looking at how the technology continues to move, at what point do you make a decision and decide to do something? I mean, based on that kind of analysis, in a technology that hopefully continues to refine itself and improve -- I mean, if we did that, for instance, over at MOIS, we would never buy a computer. The computer you buy today is obsolete in a year. The programs that you buy, I mean, before you have loaded it up, the new point something is out. So you would never buy anything because you are constantly evaluating what's going 176 RESOLUTION 960894 on. I have to believe that whether it is in FY '98 or '99 or 2000, that whatever we get, hopefully, is the best thing that's available at the time. It has got to be better than what we have now. So when do we ever make a decision?
Well, I want to concur with your remark about obsolescence of computers, having bought one less than eight months ago, and now I need new software for it. I think that the appropriate time to make a decision is -- first of all, the decision needs to be a collaborative decision. Obviously the Administration can't make a unilateral decision with respect to city capital dollars. We need to do that in a collaborative effort. And I think this is the --
You could have made that statement in the beginning of the hearing. You lose the opportunity to say that the Administration can't act in a unilateral fashion. Because the Administration unilaterally 177 RESOLUTION 960894 decided on its own to remove $15 million from the capital program for this purpose. So you lose that one. Second --
Councilman, I have to disagree with that. I'm sorry. You heard Mr. Vignola, when he was here -- and I don't mean to be argumentative. But when the Capital Budget is presented, it is voted on by this Council.
And what I'm saying to you is, there are a lot of items in there. Someone on the Administration side decided to take it out, and they didn't tell anybody. Or they certainly did not tell me. Now, if you want to get into a poll-by-poll analysis by Council members and find out who knew or who didn't know, I think you are going to lose there, as well. So you might want to leave the issue of who unilaterally decides whether something is in a capital program or not in a capital program.
I certainly have no 25 intention of suggesting that we ought to do that. I 178 RESOLUTION 960894 merely reiterate that point. The point I did make at the beginning of the hearing is that --
Yes. What does 10 the Finance Department have to do with this? Or was 11 it just parked there for certain purposes? 12 I mean, if I was looking for it, I 13 wouldn't look in Finance. Anyone with any sense 14 would look in the City Commissioner's budget or 15 maybe in Procurement, or maybe in Public Property. But you don't go looking for money for voting machines in the Finance Department budget. I believe that the reason that it is in Finance is because at that time, under the way we handled capital administrative costs at that time, a variety of miscellaneous capital administrative costs were put in Finance and, because there was no 24 City Commissioner, Capital Budget line. I believe that merely has to do with 179 RESOLUTION 960894 how City Planning structures the budget.
I would make the request, and provide it to the Chair. I would like to see where that item was. If you are telling me that it was in the '96 to '01 capital program, I would like to see the book, I would like to see the item.
Although I got in trouble a moment ago, I also want to reiterate the second part of what Councilman Vignola said before he left, which was that this needs to be a collaborative process. And we are here today. We can certainly look into what happened to that $15 million line item, we can report to you. We are happy to do that. What I think a more productive use of the rest of the few minutes we have here would be to talk about the steps going forward, and how we can work with Council in terms of resolving some of the operational questions, what type of machine, those types of things.
So now you are saying that you are ready to collaborate? 180 RESOLUTION 960894
And would like to begin working on a schedule going forward.
There is a tentative schedule that we have outlined that we think makes sense in the written remarks. And I think that's the appropriate --
I am going to read from of the written remarks that I submitted at the beginning of my testimony, and I will paraphrase some of these. But essentially what this says is, based upon the financial analyses just discussed, it appears that the existing city voting machines will end their useful life span between Fiscal Year 2000 and Fiscal Year 2005. It should be emphasized that the 181 RESOLUTION 960894 existing machines could provide effective service beyond that date. Development of a Request For Proposal that would allow the voting machine question to be placed on the ballot in the general election in November 2000 would provide sufficient time to allow the installation of the new machines during the Fiscal Year 2000 through Fiscal Year 2002 time frame. The period between today and November 2000 can be employed to develop and issue a comprehensive Request For Proposal that will solicit vendor proposals on the latest voting machine technologies. With a vendor selected through the RFP process by the summer of 1999, the city will be in a position to move forward expeditiously with the purchase and installation of new electronic voting machines by November 2002, in compliance with the applicable Pennsylvania statutes.
Just a couple, few, final questions. It sounds like we would almost be starting from ground zero with the RFP process based on the schedule that you laid out. 182 RESOLUTION 960894 Is there no benefit to us at this point in time from all of the work that the task force did, in terms of looking at technologies and vendors and the like? Do we really have to start at ground zero? We can't benefit from any of that work?
That is a very good question, Councilman. I think there are a couple of answers to that. The first is, in the context of the task force report, the Procurement Department was asked to estimate how long it would take them to do an RFP. And from my reading of the report -- and I wasn't on the task force, but it was my interpretation of the report -- that they had concluded that if we took the task force recommendations as what we're going to do, in other words, purchase the DRE, then it would then take a year.
I am afraid I can't answer that, because I was not involved. I can check with the Procurement people who put that 183 RESOLUTION 960894 together and give you a report on that, as well. It seems to me that we should endeavor to preserve and use, to whatever extent is possible, all of the excellent work that the task force did, which is why I was a little nervous this morning when I thought I heard -- and perhaps I was wrong -- but I thought I heard some discussion about going back to ground zero and starting again with, what is an electronic voting machine. I don't think we ought to do that. And I think we ought to mine all the gold out of that that we possibly can.
What I want you to figure out, even with the timetable -- and I do appreciate that -- I would like an answer to the question. Because in all the materials, it does not seem to be available. Why, given the level of information we have -- and I don't know whether there are more vendors in this business or less vendors in this business today -- even if there are more, I can't imagine there are that many more. There can only be so many ways to do this. Why it takes a year to put together 184 RESOLUTION 960894 an RFP about something that someone already spent close to a year taking a look at. I do not understand why it would take so long.
I will look into that with the Procurement Department and get back to you quickly.
You have put out a timetable on the table. And I think as both you and Mr. Kaplan have laid out, there needs to be some discussion and collaboration between the Administration and City Council. What are your suggestions, or what are you prepared to do, or what are you recommending at this point, given, I am sure you picked up there is, at least for the Committee, a little bit of sentiment that people want to do this, and they want to do it soon, when are we going to start the process between the city Administration and the City Council on some preliminary funding for this? I think you should understand that I don't think anyone at this table, let alone, possibly, in the body, believes that we should try to fund this all at one time. If we know that we have, by statute 185 RESOLUTION 960894 and by vendor process, that it is going to take us a few years to do it anyway, similar to what we have done with the 800 megahertz system and a couple other things, it seems to me that it makes more sense to put aside 6 million here, million there, 7 million in the other. And by the time you need 8 the money, it is available. I don't want to be in a situation where, even if we all agree, then we have to sit around and scratch our heads to try to figure out where we get $20 million from. Because $20 million is a lot of money. But if you start putting some away now, you also send a signal to people that you are serious and that it is legitimate. And it should also not just be in the capital program budget, but it should be in the Capital Budget for these upcoming two to three years. And then you won't have people all over you at these hearings, because you will have done something that demonstrates a certain level of commitment, beyond a large conversation. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Can you yield a 186 RESOLUTION 960894 moment, Councilman Nutter. In Philadelphia now we have three different voting machines, maybe four. I don't know how widespread the old Jamestown is. But you have the old Chute and the new Chute, and the Jamestown. Following Councilman Nutter's suggestion, one simple approach would be to go ahead partially and replace, say, the Jamestown machines, the old Jamestown machines, with these new machines. We therefore do it, we break up the process into parts, get some actual experience, and have time to accumulate the money to cover the whole city. Now, why should we wait until 1999, with a new Mayor coming in saying, "But I never appointed that task force. " I don't see, it doesn't make any sense to me, to do that, to throw away the work. I gave the Chair of that Committee a pretty good grilling, it seemed to me. And at the 187 RESOLUTION 960894 end I was convinced that they had done a fine job, and that we're just wasting that. Secondly, why should we start all over with the new Mayor, whoever that Mayor may be? " Therefore, it would make much more practical political sense to begin doing it as quickly as we could, and for a good purpose. We'll take the Mayor with us on Election Day in May and have him see what happens out there, and see the trepidation that so many people have when they approach these machines. These machines are so big and cumbersome. Some people get claustrophobia being inside the machine. And they get in, and they want to get out as quickly as possible. And sometimes they don't go over, in the Chute, all the way over to the right to vote on the questions or the retention of judges, because they are so anxious to get out of the machine. It seems to me it is in everybody's 188 RESOLUTION 960894 interest to pursue the plan that Councilman Nutter has been presenting. Let's be up to date and begin dealing with today's problems. Sorry. I intended for that to be very brief.
Sometimes when you get into it. I understand. I mean, the Mayor has been around for some time, not just as Mayor. And I don't think he has ever been a committeeperson, and he has certainly not been a ward leader. Mr. Estey, you mentioned that you had some experience with the DRE machines out in Montgomery County. I don't know whether because you were living out there or you were involved in --
Do either of you have any practical hands-on experience with these machines?
With the current 189 RESOLUTION 960894 voting machines. Have you ever been a committeeperson?
Have you ever had to sit and wait for a machine to come until 2 o'clock in the morning? CHAIRMAN COHEN: Did you ever have the experience at 11 o'clock at night waiting for trucking company to deliver machines, to move machines where they delivered them in the wrong place, 11 o'clock the night before the election, working through to 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning to get the machines in the right place? And we are dealing with people we want to keep involved in the electorial process. We don't want the older folks to get discouraged that there are just too many problems.
Councilman. I am sorry, Mr. Chairperson. Can I pick off a couple of points briefly? 190 RESOLUTION 960894 CHAIRMAN COHEN: Yes.
First of all, no, I have never had that experience. And it is an experience that I don't think anyone agrees should happen. And we should do whatever is necessary to try to avoid those situations.
So your primary experiences -- I assume both of you are registered to vote?
Coming to the polling place on Election Day, pull a couple of levers, or a big lever, and that's it; right? CHAIRMAN COHEN: You are under no 16 obligation to answer anything that will reveal how you voted.
As a city official, obviously, I am not allowed to be involved in most of those activities. However, as you know, in my prior life I was involved in the campaign 1986, Senate campaign, in great detail. I was Legislative 191 RESOLUTION 960894 Director for a member of Congress, who you are familiar with, who won his 1984 congressional launch by 500 votes out of 250,000. Those voting machines were impounded for about six weeks. We put many of the people who were familiar to you in election along the city, and spent a lot of time being intimate with the election machines for quite some time. So, I mean, obviously I think many people in the Administration who were involved in this issue are quite well aware of it. Although, again, most of us are not allowed at this point to be as involved as you are, as sensitive to the specific condition of the specific machines right now.
Could I make one point on an operational issue? And I have heard several times this morning the issue of size raised and weight. And I think it is something that's one, maybe, small issue that needs to be looked at again. Because I know what the machines are like in Montgomery County. They weight less, they don't weigh 940 pounds, but they are the same size, 192 RESOLUTION 960894 the ones they have there, full-size voting machines. And the thinking is that you want someone to be familiar with, at least, walking in, with the curtain behind you. So, I mean, I raise that as a sidelight, but it is something that needs to be taken into consideration when whatever decision is ultimately made on these is made. I know that in the report they talked about a laptop situation. And nobody wanted to do laptop because of concerns that it might not be there the next morning. But I heard that theme echo throughout this morning's comments, about the fiscal size and the truckers and moving things. I think everyone should be aware of those issues.
And I think that's along the lines of some of the questions that the Administration wants to understand there is consensus on. The Chair of the Democratic party said he wanted to have smaller machines that would fit into some of the polling places where he just 193 RESOLUTION 960894 can't fit them now, so he would have a chance to get more places. The machines that the election task force recommended would not meet that criteria. And I think that that's not an insurmountable obstacle, but, obviously, the kind of thing we're talking about.
But I would also share with you that it is not only the size. But weight is an issue and does factor into the decision of some people as to whether to even have them in their place. I mean, some people don't want a thousand-pound thing rolling across their floor. It damages their property. And so you are often left to limited choices as to where you can even have a polling place because some people don't want to deal with it at all. If they physically don't fit, that's a different story. But, I mean, I have moved those machines. They are very difficult to move around. And as I think Fred Voight indicated, with an older Election Board and committee people, you put a burden on the people who really have to deal with 194 RESOLUTION 960894 these machines, not some others of us who can kind of have the luxury of a dispassionate fiscal and budgetary analysis. We are talking about, one, a very serious opportunity for people to participate in their government. But, secondly, you have got 1681, I think, polling places out there, 3200, or if you include both parties 6400-some-odd people who have to deal with this twice a year. It is a problem. CHAIRMAN COHEN: And we may not be able to solve every problem that exists today, but I think we can solve them, most of them, and enough of them, to increase the interests of the voting public in voting. And that's what we want to do. As well as get a quick response to the election, curtail these election contests, which have a very divisive effect on the city. If you are going to lose, you might as well have the misery of it, as a candidate, immediately, instead of suffering through a long night. But to have something continue on for weeks and weeks is just a very unhealthy thing. 195 RESOLUTION 960894
I would tell you that another experience I had in Montgomery County had to do with a very close congressional race about a year and a half ago, two years ago. And when we were involved in the recount, nobody touched the machines. I mean, everybody took the tickertape vote count off the machines, and there was no dispute about it. The only dispute was over the absentees; that was the only issue.
I think all we are saying is that, as we try to build consensus around this, the number of people that came in today and expressed concerns about being able to see the top right corner where the ballot questions are, that will not be addressed by this machine. Some of the access questions will be, because I think the weight change will allow us to get some additional polling places. But there are still some accessibility issues. I think our only concern is that we want to make sure that people's expectations are the same as everyone's.
All I would ask 196 RESOLUTION 960894 you to do is, through the Chair of the Committee and through the Council President, is to start a process that allows for a Council/Administration discussion on this issue. And if we are able to shave a year or two off of the timetable that you have laid out, if we can have a sense of agreement by this Administration that this project is something they want to do, that it doesn't get pushed off, or doesn't end up on someone else's addenda or off the radar screen completely, that goes a long way to making sure this actually happens. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Being old enough to have a historic perspective, wouldn't it be good for this Administration to leave a legacy that twice a year, for how many years ahead, they can point to this was what the Rendell Administration presented. They made life livable for us, made it easier for us to vote. So we'd like you to become advocates for this. The Mayor doesn't like yes people, so become advocates for this and convince him that if he has hesitations, he ought to overcome them.
We will certainly take 197 RESOLUTION 960894 Councilman Nutter's suggestion to heart, and we will try to move the process. And we will get back to you on the issues that we have talked about. CHAIRMAN COHEN: We thank you very much.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Is Mr. Williams here?
I believe he has left. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Is there anybody else who wishes to be heard?
Mr. Chairman, I would just like to put into the record we received testimony from Marlene Perkins, Associate Advocacy Director of the Eastern Paralyzed Veteran's Association. And I would ask that their testimony be incorporated into this record. CHAIRMAN COHEN: It will be done.
Thank you. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you. There being no further business to 198 RESOLUTION 960894 come before the Committee, the Committee stands in recess. (Public Hearing adjourned at 1:35 p.m.) - - - 199 C E R T I F I C A T I O N I HEREBY CERTIFY that the foregoing proceedings of the Council of the City of Philadelphia of Wednesday, November 12, 1997, were reported fully and accurately by me, and that this is a correct transcript of same. RE: COMMITTEE ON LAW & GOVERNMENT _____________________________________ DEBRA A. WHITEHEAD, RPR