Purge Voter Rolls before March Election

Good idea! The best way to start cleaning up the mess, which is all over California, by the way, is to require anyone registering to vote to prove US citizenship, prove residency, and show a current state driver's license or ID. The same ID should have to be shown when one votes. This is the main way to stop fraud. When you have a system as we do now, when anyone can register without any proof of residency, you will always have fraud.

The Incredible Disappearing Election Records
If there's nothing to hide, why won't Director of Elections Germaine Wong and Mayor of San Francisco Willie Brown let Doug Comstock examine the voter books of precincts where fraud is suspected? See if you can figure it out.
Here's the timeline:

1. On June 9th and then again on June 10th, in front of witnesses, Germaine Wong promises to make precinct records available for Comstock's examination upon written request.

2. On June 20th, Comstock faxes a request to examine specific records. See copy of original letter

3. On June 25th, Wong replies:

"We have never received such a request after an election is certified, and thus, I have sought the counsel of the City Attorney."

"After the City Attorney responds, I will be in contact with you." See copy of original letter

4. In a letter dated June 30, 1997, Comstock points out that access to these records was promised many times and, given the City Attorney's outspoken support of the stadium proposition, submitting the question of access to her creates a conflict of interest. See copy of original letter

THE PROBLEM: In order to challenge an election, the complaint must be filed within 30 days of the election's certification. In order to file a challenge, evidence must presented. The Director of Elections is making it impossible for evidence to be gathered.

If there's nothing to hide, why is the Director of Elections making it so hard for Doug Cosmtock to examine the precinct records - and why does the local media continue to ignore this story?

Maybe Ms. Wong can explain it to you: 415-554-4375

Offering further reason to question the outcome of the Nov. 6 election, city officials announced Dec. 3 that 400 ballots had vanished on Election Day.

The revelation comes amid a growing clamor for the ouster of City Administrator Bill Lee and for an investigation by an outside party, possibly the state attorney general.

Even Secretary of State Bill Jones, who praised the 2001 election process effusively just two weeks ago, is now questioning it.

The latest debacle: while canvassing the vote last Friday (a process in which staffers double-check the number of cast and blank ballots), elections staff found that 400 blank ballots were not accounted for in a South of Market precinct near the Fifth and Mission garage.

Over the weekend sheriff's deputies searched in vain for two poll workers who might know about the missing ballots. On Monday morning, elections director Tammy Haygood said, one of the poll workers appeared in City Hall with a stack of blank ballots. Haygood would not release the names of the workers and said she didn't yet know if all of the ballots had been returned.

The ballot conundrum was announced just a few days after officials said they had discovered a batch of 240 ballots that should have been counted in the original vote tally but never were.

Haygood insisted last week that this discovery was routine. The ballots had simply been stored in the machines the city uses to electronically count votes, which happens if a machine malfunctions or loses power, she said.

But Haygood's decision not to warn the public that such a thing could happen drew sharp criticism.

"Given the situation in the San Francisco Elections Department, they need to keep the public up-to-date," Alfie Charles, Secretary of State Jones's spokesperson, told the Bay Guardian. "They should have been telling the media and the public that there were these extra ballots. The failure to communicate caused unnecessary uproar."

Charles also noted that the discovery of ballot-box tops floating in the bay the previous week added to the department's mounting public relations problem. "The fact that you would allow a situation to occur that causes more questions in the minds of people who are already suspicious doesn't do anything to help perception of public integrity," he said. It is not known whether Jones will further pursue an investigation of the 2001 vote.

At press time Haygood said she was planning to finalize the election Dec. 4.

"It's incompetency at best, willful election fraud at worst," said Doug Comstock, president of the Coalition for San Francisco Neighborhoods. "The citizens just cannot overlook the fact that there's some kind of malfeasance going on in our Elections Department, or higher up."

Among the many remaining concerns:

• When ballot-box tops were found in the bay, Haygood said they had blown away after being cleaned, yet half still had precinct numbers on them. Haygood's explanation: the cleaning simply wasn't finished.

• A police report filed election night by campaign consultant Jim Stearns alleged that people wandered out of a ballot processing station with what appeared to be ballot boxes. Jones investigated the charges and concluded that the boxes held trash from an employee dinner. But he won't reveal what evidence he used to confirm that information.

• Though she insists it was a routine move for ballot safety, Haygood still hasn't clarified important aspects of her decision to move ballots out of City Hall and to leave them unguarded on election night.

• Still other questions linger about the unusual absentee ballot returns, the strange pep rally-style press conference Haygood held to boost her department's image (insiders tell us the event was mandatory for elections staffers), poor public access to view the ballots, and the inconsistent flow of information from Haygood's office.

Additional reporting by Savannah Blackwell. E-mail Rachel Brahinsky at rachel [at] sfbg.com.

Dive for Ballots: Certified divers are needed for Global Exchange's upcoming Diving for Ballots, Diving for Justice action. Divers will drop into the icy drink to search for sunken ballots near Pier 29, where absentee ballots were stored. Call Ladan at (415) 255-7296, ext. 251; the date and time are to be announced. For more information go to http://www.powertothepeople.org.

It would be important to be careful about this so as not to drop regular folks. Does anyone ever have a poll worker ask to see their voter card? They send those out, and I've never been asked for mine, so I lost it. Asking for some ID would make sense though. A lot of the provisions of Motor Voter make sense, but they just need some more work done at the state level. People signing up at the DMV should be checked, and it seems very likely that when people move within the state, their old precincts aren't being notified of the new registration, and that is why there are so many extra listings. But this is the state's bureaucracy, that the local corrupt government could take advantage of.

Also, what sfbay.indymedia did during the last election with the video cameras at precincts was great. This is precisely what needs to be done each time, given the totally corrupt history of San Francisco politics. Everyone should read the brasscheck site.

The buck stops at the San Francisco's City Adminstrators Office. If this was the crporate world he would have been removed for incompetence, for allowing the Elections Department to operate in such a manner. We The TAXPAYERS demand you do your job or we will push for YOUR REMOVAL no matter who the mayor is.