1 Lowell Finley, SBN 104414 LAW OFFICES OF LOWELL FINLEY 2 1604 SOLANO AVENUE BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA 94707-2109 3 TEL: 510-290-8823 FAX: 510-526-5424 4 Attorney for Plaintiffs and Petitioners 5 SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 6 IN AND FOR THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO 7 ) 8 CENTER FOR VOTING AND ) CASE NO. CPF-03-503431 DEMOCRACY; CALIFORNIA ) 9 CONGRESS OF SENIORS; SAN ) FRANCISCO LABOR COUNCIL, AFL- ) 10 CIO; CALIFORNIA PUBLIC INTEREST ) SUPPLEMENTAL DECLARATION OF RESEARCH GROUP; CHINESE ) STEVEN HILL IN SUPPORT OF 11 PROGRESSIVE ASSOCIATION; ) PETITION FOR WRIT OF MANDATE ENRIQUE ASIS; GWENN CRAIG; ) 12 ARTHUR CHANG; TRACY BAXTER, ) DEPARTMENT: 301 ) JUDGE: Hon. James L. Warren 13 Plaintiffs and Petitioners, ) DATE: August 20, 2003 ) TIME: 9:30 a.m. 14 v. ) ) 15 JOHN ARNTZ, Director of Elections, City ) and County of San Francisco; ALIX ) 16 ROSENTHAL, President of the San ) Francisco Elections Commission; ) 17 MICHAEL MENDELSON, ROBERT ) KENEALY, THOMAS SCHULTZ, ) 18 RICHARD SHADOIAN, BRENDA ) STOWERS, ARNOLD TOWNSEND, San ) 19 Francisco Elections Commissioners; SAN ) FRANCISCO DEPARTMENT OF ) 20 ELECTIONS; SAN FRANCISCO ) ELECTIONS COMMISSION, ) 21 ) Defendants and Respondents. ) 22
23 I, Steven Hill, declare as follows: 24 1. This declaration supplements my earlier declaration in this case, executed on August 25 11, 2003. 26 2. I am a Senior Analyst for the Center for Voting and Democracy (CVD), a 501(c)(3) 27 nonprofit organization. CVD is dedicated to fair elections where every vote counts and all voters 28 SUPPL. HILL DECL. RE: WRIT OF MANDATE
1 are represented. As a catalyst for reform, CVD conducts research, analysis, education and
2 advocacy to build understanding of and support for more democratic electoral systems. CVD
3 promotes full representation as an alternative to winner take all elections and instant runoff
4 voting as an alternative to plurality elections and traditional runoff elections.
5 3. As a Senior Analyst for the Center, I have authored and co-authored two books on the
6 subject of electoral systems, "Fixing Elections: The Failure of America's Winner Take All
7 Politics" (Routledge Press, 2002, www.FixingElections.com) and "Whose Vote Counts?"
8 (Beacon Press, 2001). I am a frequent contributor of political commentaries to the
9 Knight-Ridder-Tribune wire service, and my articles and commentaries have appeared in dozens
10 of newspapers and magazines, including the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street
11 Journal, New York Daily News, Chicago Sun-Times, The Nation, Ms., Roll Call, The Hill,
12 American Prospect, Miami Herald, Baltimore Sun, Chicago Tribune, Houston Chronicle,
13 Minneapolis Star Tribune, Salon.com, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News,
14 Politik-Digital (Germany), Italy Daily, International Herald Tribune, and many others. My work
15 has appeared in the academic press, including the journals Representation: Journal of
16 Representative Democracy, Asian American Policy Review, and Inroads, a Journal of Opinion,
17 and the anthologies Making Every Vote Count (Broadview Press) and Civil Rights Since 1787
18 (New York Univ. Press). I co-authored a paper presented to the Western Political Science
19 Association convention in 1997. I am a frequent guest on radio and TV shows seeking political
20 commentary, and I have given presentations and workshops to numerous conferences, charter
21 commissions, legislative committees and organizations.
22 4. I have studied extensively the use and administration of ranked choice or instant runoff
23 voting elections in jurisdictions here in the United States and in a number of other countries.
24 5. Attached as Exhibit A is a graphic representation of the process for an instant runoff
25 voting hand count in San Francisco, prepared by the Center for Voting and Democracy. This
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1 presentation is modeled after the declaration in this case of Simon Hearn of Electoral Reform
2 Services, and his proposal to the Department of Elections to conduct a hand count. It
3 incorporates minor modifications for consistency with California practice.
4 6. I attended the meeting of the Elections Commission on August 6, 2003 when Director
5 of Elections John Arntz requested a $3.5 million supplemental to cover the costs of the citywide
6 recall election for October 7, 2003. Director Arntz also said that elections cost about $3.5
7 million for a ONE-card election (like the recall), and $500,000 for each additional card. That
8 means a three-card election, which is pretty typical for San Francisco, is $4.5 million, which is
9 right in the ballpark of what we at the Center for Voting and Democracy estimated as the cost for
10 a citywide election in early June. In a study entitled "What does a citywide election cost in San
11 Francisco?", we used Elections Commission and Department of Elections figures to arrive at an
12 approximate cost of a citywide election of $3.8 million to $5.7 million, depending on the
13 complexities of the election.
14 7. I have read the declarations from the City Attorney and Director of Elections John
15 Arntz, and they have made several false statements regarding the timeline for implementation
16 beginning in March 2002, as well as have made several false representations regarding the
17 various proposals from the vendor Election Systems and Software (ES&S) to produce an
18 automated solution for counting IRV ballots. Director Arntz states that on September 4, 2002
19 ES&S first provided the city “with a comparison of the optical scan and touch screen voting
20 systems and…did not provide specific cost estimates for either approach.” This is false. ES&S in
21 a letter dated May 29, 2002 (see true copy attached hereto as Exhibit B) first informed the City
22 that the best way to provide an automated solution was to use either computerized touch screens
23 or to upgrade the high-speed centralized scanner (known as the Optech IV-C) at that time used
24 for counting absentee votes, and to not use their precinct-based scanners known as the Optech
25 Eagle. ES&S specifically advised against using the the Optech Eagles because it is older
26 technology. Then again on June 10, ES&S representative Joe Taggard e-mailed a memo to
27 Deputy City Attorney Julie Moll (true copy attached hereto as Exhibit C) with a comparison chart
28 SUPPL. HILL DECL. RE: WRIT OF MANDATE 2
1 that clearly demonstrated that touch screen voting equipment is the easiest and a relatively
2 inexpensive method for running an IRV election due to availability of Proposition 41 money for
3 upgrading voting systems. On July 9, ES&S presented a formal and full proposal (attached as
4 Exhibit D) for using touch screens, including details like costs, types of hardware and software,
5 to implement IRV. The proposal of September 4 cited by Director Arntz was mostly a restating
6 of the ES&S July 9 proposal, and once again ES&S’ Joe Taggard outlined the difficulties of
7 upgrading the Optech Eagles for the purposes of counting IRV ballots, and urged Director Arntz
8 to go with other available options such as using touch screens. This opinion from ES&S’ Joe
9 Taggard was restated once again in a letter dated November 29, 2002.
10 8. This opinion of ES&S stated numerous times to Director Arntz that upgrading the
11 Optech Eagles was the worst possible way to implement an automated solution for IRV ballots
12 and touch screens were the best, also was reiterated to Director Arntz by most of the members of
13 an ad hoc task force for IRV implementation, on which I served along with Director Arntz,
14 members of the Elections Commission, ES&S representatives, and others. The clear consensus
15 of the task force was that touch screens was the most efficient and cost-effective manner to
16 implement IRV in San Francisco. Director Arntz rejected this conclusion because he felt
17 transitioning to both a new voting equipment (touch screens) and a new electoral system (instant
18 runoff voting) would be too much change too fast for both his Department and the public, even
19 though we still had over a year before the first election. Nevertheless, not until October 15 did he
20 finally send a letter to ES&S informing them of his decision to upgrade the Optech Eagles – the
21 least IRV-friendly option available.
22 9. The Director of Elections, who has only four years of election-related experience with
23 some of that experience serving as a clerk at the front desk, made several decisions like this over
24 the 17 months since the passage of Proposition A that made IRV implementation more difficult.
25 Other problematic decisions are detailed in the annotated timeline I have prepared and which is
26 attached hereto as Exhibit E.
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4 I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct of my own
5 personal knowledge and that if called upon I could and would testify competently thereto.
6 Executed this __th day of August, 2003, at San Francisco, California.
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8 ______Steven Hill 9
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