At least one precinct in San Francisco’s Tuesday election broke the rules regarding electioneering inside a polling station.
Entering Precinct 7327/7328 at the City College’s Chinatown North Beach Campus at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Mission Local discovered a man loitering near the polling booths. He wore a yellow “Recall the school board” campaign T-shirt, which was clearly visible through his unzipped black coat. For the duration of the next 40 minutes, the man sometimes stood directly in front of the voting booth, an otherwise restricted area, almost as if he were the one voting. At no point did any of the poll workers at the scene ask him to leave.
According to the man, who said he was not a citizen, he had already mailed in his ballot before Tuesday, and he was at the polling place to help the seniors as a “volunteer.”
“That is absolutely electioneering, and inappropriate. That should absolutely not have been happening,” said Matt Selby, campaign services division manager and custodian of records at the Department of Elections.
Mission Local witnessed only this incident. Clearly, this man’s action did not alter the outcome of the Board of Education recall; all three commissioners lost overwhelmingly. But it does raise questions about how such an obvious campaign violation could have been allowed by trained poll workers, and what steps will be taken to ensure nothing of this sort happens in the future.
San Franciscans will be going to the polls three more times this year. In April, they will vote in an Assembly runoff between Matt Haney and David Campos. There will be another Assembly vote in June, on a crowded ballot featuring contentious propositions and the highly charged recall election of District Attorney Chesa Boudin. And, in November, city residents will vote for a fourth and final time.
John Arntz, director of the Department of Elections, has not yet replied to Mission Local’s request for comments.
According to California Election Code, electioneering, described as “the visible display or audible dissemination of information that advocates for or against any candidate or measure on the ballot,” is “prohibited within 100 feet of” “the entrance to a building that contains a polling place.”
According to this policy, the man in the campaign T-shirt should never have been permitted to enter the building.
During the 40 minutes Mission Local’s reporter was present, at least four workers wearing badges failed to take any action. In fact, none seemed aware that this behavior was inappropriate.
David Ho, a political consultant, said unofficial volunteering at polling places is a gray area. In theory, such volunteers are not allowed in. But, in practice, for example, if a non-English-speaker does need help from someone he or she knows personally, a “volunteer” may be allowed in to assist.
But a volunteer in a campaign T-shirt, Ho said, would generally not be allowed inside a polling place.
“Because of low turnout at the polls, it doesn’t really make sense to cheat,” Ho added.
Ho believed the electioneering was an isolated incident, which was partially confirmed by Selby as he said, “Unfortunately, we didn’t receive a complaint about this.”
Selby suggested it was a failure of the poll workers rather than a systemic failure. “They’re certainly trained. I can share a poll-worker manual with you. There’s a section about it that does talk about what’s appropriate, what’s not appropriate.”
When asked if it was possible the poll workers had not been properly trained, however, Ho said, “It’s very possible.”
“A lot of these poll workers enjoy doing this kind of work, because it’s part of their civic duties. They are really proud of being called a poll worker,” said Ho. “But, you know, it’s hit and miss, the quality of poll workers.”
Selby said it was likely that the supervisors and managers were not informed. “At this point, unfortunately, there’s not much that we can do, aside from follow up with the inspector and the poll workers who were at that polling place, and we would potentially not hire them for the next election.”
Nothing new about this sort of thing – people always try to get away with it this shenanigans at polling places. But I think, in the zeal to have everyone vote by mail, we are relegating in-person voting to an afterthought. I wonder if the current poll worker training reflects that. When I voted last week, I had to remind the poll worker to give me the receipt stubs from my ballot.
Hold on there – as a poll worker and inspector, this aspect of training is quite clear. The inspector should have taken action per the SF Board of Elections codes. All polling places must be swept and cleared on the hour for any electioneering material. I had to have a bus moved one year.
If you see something like this in the future, please do call the campaign directly or report it to the Dept of Elections. The Dept of Elections has cell phone numbers for all the campaigns, in case of any issues.
Before the election, we emailed the rules to our entire mailing list and all our Facebook volunteers, to keep exactly this sort of thing from happening.
Had we known about this — either from the Dept of Elections or from your reporter — our campaign would have addressed this immediately. We would’ve appreciated the chance to set our volunteer straight and minimize any impact on voters.
@Autumn,
Maybe you didn’t know about this particular incident, but you were encouraging hateful zeal from your volunteers. All those pictures of you all celebrating and renting that yellow school bus are abhorrent. If you feel the recall needed to happen in a city where you lived for a month, then you do what you feel you need to do. But turning it into a tailgate party and enjoying it is just disgusting – even if it is legal.
After working as a poll worker for many elections, the training is not that much and there are a lot of materials to cover. I’m not surprised if most don’t know this is a violation or care enough to do something about it…
Like the article said, “But, you know, it’s hit and miss, the quality of poll workers.”
perhaps i am mistaken, but i don’t remember (or should i say *recall*) a story about Jason Kruta and his crime of stolen petitions? if you’re going to report the news, report the news. what jason did is just as bad, if not worse. I am not advocating for either person’s actions, i am advocating for fairness.
Sir or madam —
With all due respect, this is an imperfect analogy. The issue here isn’t so much the action of the misinformed volunteer, but how a roomful of supposedly trained poll workers could turn a blind eye to this – and the ramifications for the future. These are the distinguishing features here, and that bears very little resemblance to the example you bring up.
Yours,
JE
ML is certainly entitled to its own perspective, but the ongoing anti-recall (whether the school board or the DA) slant isn’t journalism. It’s bias. And it’s this kind of bias that really devalues everything that you do and claim to stand for as journalists.
Sir or madam —
Please lecture me more about what journalism is. By the way, we are *indisputably* biased against phonies who sock-puppet under multiple identities. Be gone.
JE
ML has been covering the issues with Asian-Americans, and being AA myself it’s really refreshing to read the stories coming from YUJIE ZHOU (keep up the great work btw!). Also the AA community isn’t all in agreement about the recall efforts, there was a ML article about this.
Respectfully Joe, this is one of the main reasons the recall succeeded with the Asian American voters: every time we’ve raised issues, we’re “white-splained” by the Progressive establishment, called racists, closet Trump supporters/Republicans, or gaslit into thinking nothing is wrong.
I think what the previous poster (and/or their sock puppets) is trying to get at here is that even the media, with the exception of Dion Lim, has largely ignored what the Asian American community’s concerns are. Mission Local is a great outlet and I have the highest respect for your work. But please, talk empathetically and openly to folks who supported the recall, and really attempt to at least academically understand why they voted the way they did. Our community has grievances like any other, and if the local media and Progressive leaders won’t listen to us, we’ll seek change at the ballot box.
Sir or madam —
I appreciate your kind words. I don’t have time to parse the thought process of a sock puppeteer, who would seem to believe that anyone who strays from his worldview is biased and that an an analysis of who is footing the bill for a recall is tantamount to a hit piece. Mission Local’s coverage of the recall, including the role of the Asian community, has been solid. You are reading one of the few English-language outlets that has a Chinese-speaking reporter and actively covers the Chinese community.
Respectfully, I would urge you to note who wrote the article you are commenting on and check her prior work on this subject, which appeared on this site.
JE