A “normal” election in San Francisco?
After being closed to the public for over two weeks, records at the Department of Elections were re-opened Thursday, July 10 thanks to the persistence of citizen investigator Doug Comstock. The deadline for filing a legal challenge to the June 3rd election is July 18, 1997.
Here are some of the documents Mr. Comstock has found since the records were re-opened. Keep in mind, these are the Department of Elections own records:
1. Internal “Problem Report” logs from the June 3rd election.
These show the nature of the problem reported, the precinct it was reported at, and when and how it was resolved. Sample problems: unsealed ballot boxes, electioneering in the polls, poll workers keeping private election records, etc.
2. Field Election Deputy Precinct Review Forms
Several of these routine reports noted unsealed ballot boxes.
3. Letters from voters
According to the Department of Elections chief Germain Wong, only half of the citizen complaint letters are available. Why? The employee in charge of handling these complaints took them home (apparently this is legal) and will be on vaction until August 1, a good two weeks after the deadline for filing a legal challenge to the election. Here are two of the more disturbing ones we did find in the file.
