1999-08-25 Charter Commission Minutes (2)

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minutes 8-25-99Page 28 of 60 KONISHI: I’m glad you mentioned integrity because one of your members is Mrs. Irvine who is the Chairman of our Observers group and I would say that one of the most daunting jobs that we have in putting on an election is recruiting people to work at the election. This is the job where the girl goes home and cries almost every night because even though we have people that have done it for years, it’s really hard to get qualified people to come out and work at the polls. Seems like a simple problem. Just call the guys that did it last time. It’s very difficult. Mrs. Irvine’s group provide observers. She can tell you, it’s very difficult. It takes hundreds of people to put on the election properly so that people have confidence in the results. I would say - how many workers we recruit for election? KOZOHARA: The last election we had about 700 people. KONISHI: To me, that’s the most daunting aspect of putting on an election and in terms of meeting your thing about integrity, we’ve got to get people from different parties, obviously. We have to get people who will come and observe. We need people that handle the poll book. Like I said, you go below a certain level and you are hitting the integrity issue. You just cannot cut corners below a certain amount so that’s one thing that I would put out there for your consideration. SANTANGELO: So, it’s the Elections Division - it’s the printing and the mechanism, it’s the logistics, then it’s the workforce involved, and then there’s the expense, the financial expense to go with that? KONISHI: Yes, and there’s one more consideration. One of the things that - I’m going to turn over the mike quickly to Mr Kozohara because I’m a political appointee. Mr. Kozohara’s a civil servant so whatever he says is less tainted than what I say but one of the things I want to stress is, this will not occur in a vacuum because the election process for the September and November, 2000 election is going to start - I guess the nomination papers are issued in February and so this Special Election would not occur in a vacuum so the time that they spend working on this Special Election means that they’re not going to be spending working on the regular election. Now, I guess I’m going to turn it over to Ed and he can tell you more about the obstacles. Again, he’s a civil servant. He’s been there 20 something years. He comes without the political taint that I guess, me, as a political appointee, might have. SANTANGELO: For me to finish up, I thank you. This is the kind of informa-tion we need because if it came down to the needs of the people then it has to be a need that supersedes and overcomes all these and then therefore, makes it necessary. And so it’s just really good to know what it is that we’re up against so that we have some sort of standard, so I thank you, Ed. You’re on the right track from where I’m - RAY: What do you mean by the needs of the people? Can you explain what you’re - SANTANGELO: I mean, if there’s something that we put up, John - you asked the question so I will answer it. If it was something that we put up that was so important that the public wanted to hear about it. It would have to be something that they wanted so badly that we’d have to overcome this. And I, frankly, don’t see anything on our table that meets that and so it’s good to know the kind of problems that we’re laying on the County, the kind of expenses that we’re laying on the public, before we put something up like that. That’s where I’m coming from. RAY: Sue. IRVINE: I think Ed was asked to speak. Did you have something to say before I - I wanted to make a comment, actually - file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 8-25-99.html7/1/2011