HomeMy WebLinkAboutSpecial Council May 25 20041
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DISCLAIMER: This document contains the Whatcom County Council or Committee
minutes, as approved. However, unless an attested signature page is attached, they
are not the final approved minutes.
Whatcom County Council
Special County Council
May 25, 2004
Council Chair Dan McShane called the meeting to order at 9:30 a.m. in the
Whatcom County Civic Center Annex, Second Floor Meeting Room, 322 N.
Commercial, Bellingham, Washington.
Present: Absent:
Barbara Brenner L. Ward Nelson
Sharon Roy Laurie Caskey- Schreiber
Sam Crawford
Seth Fleetwood
1. REQUEST AUTHORIZATION FOR THE EXECUTIVE TO ENTER INTO A
CONTRACT AGREEMENT BETWEEN WHATCOM COUNTY AND DFM
ASSOCIATES FOR PURCHASE OF A VOTER REGISTRATION AND
ELECTION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM, IN THE AMOUNT OF $99,074
(AB2004 -203)
Rich Griffith, Chief Deputy Auditor, stated this is an urgent matter to
successfully administer elections in Whatcom County. They are required to change
the existing election management system. As part of the Help America Vote Act
(HAVA), the State of Washington is required to go to a centralized statewide voter
registration database. A benefit of this change is that folks who move to Whatcom
County will not have duplicate registrations. The current Whatcom County
registration system is old technology. It will not be compatible with the new
statewide system. The County has to change. Along with that HAVA change,
Whatcom County is one of nine counties that will have to get rid of its punch card
voting system and move to a different counting system.
Those changes affect the Election Division's staff of four. In addition, this fall
Whatcom County will do its first partisan primary. For the first time in ten years,
the County will also do a charter review election. This year is a presidential
election. The staff still has its regular election deadlines, so it identified two times
that are available to make the two changes to comply with HAVA, to the voter
registration system and the vote counting system. This spring /summer is one time
period and next spring /summer is the second time period available to go through
request for proposal (RFP) process and make these two changes. The vote
counting system was a significant enough matter that would require enough
discussion about the topics, which is the reason staff chose to defer the decision on
the vote count system until 2005. That means that this year is when they need to
change the election management system.
Staff has worked through the RFP process for the voter registration system.
They've worked with the Election Division staff and Executive's Office. They have
Special County Council - Voter Registration System, 5/25/2004, Page 1
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DISCLAIMER: This document contains the Whatcom County Council or Committee
minutes, as approved. However, unless an attested signature page is attached, they
are not the final approved minutes.
also worked with the Information Services Division regarding the hardware,
network, and security of the system. The chosen vendor, DFM Associates is the
proper choice for Whatcom County.
To address issues that came up last Tuesday, he would emphasize that they
are talking about election management system, not vote counting system. This
system allows the County to keep track of voters, polling places, and precincts.
The official voter registration database will be in Olympia, not Whatcom County.
The Secretary of State identified four vendors that have signed memorandums of
understanding to allow them to be compatible with a statewide system. Those four
qualified vendors approved by the State are the four vendors who responded to
Whatcom County's RFP process. The State stipulated that the County has to use
one of two specific databases to be compatible, Oracle or SQL. The County
Information Services Division prefers not to choose an Oracle based product
because they don't support it. That was a negative for two of the four vendors.
Staff did not like how the Diebolt product worked, and Diebolt was having problems
with its voter count system in other states.
The Election's Division is on a specific timeline that does not allow the County
the flexibility to delay this process anymore. Filing week is coming up the last week
of July, which is a tight schedule to get conversion and training done even if the
Council approves this today.
Staff provided a memo that addressed many issues that were brought up.
They have gone through and done a thorough job of selecting the product. Staff
met with citizens last week and they talked through all the issues. Staff expressed
that it looked very closely at the DFM vendor.
Crawford stated it all sounds good. He's been discussing the concerns of
Whatcom Fair Voting representatives with them. He doesn't necessarily share
those concerns, however their request has been to have more time to study this
further. He asked what would be happen if this approval took two to three more
weeks.
Pete Griffin, Elections Supervisor, stated that if approved today, he will call
DFM and say they will send the databases to them for conversion. That process is
very involved and takes three weeks. They have hardware on order to install.
There are modules for poll workers, poll buildings, mapping and precincting of all
the wards and districts. That all has to be entered before it gets back to Whatcom
County. Once the modules are back in Whatcom County, a thorough testing has to
be done. They have to know that every street address is correct. There are
thousands of street addresses. They have to know for each address that all the
district and voting information for that address is correct. To get that done, they
have to start now. Because of the delay of this past week, they will have to delay
poll worker module. They need to get the basic system in first. Once that's done,
the vendor will come onsite and give a week or week and a half training.
Special County Council - Voter Registration System, 5/25/2004, Page 2
DISCLAIMER: This document contains the Whatcom County Council or Committee
minutes, as approved. However, unless an attested signature page is attached, they
are not the final approved minutes.
1 If the Council decides to wait three weeks for more review, then they'd have
2 to postpone installation until next year, even if they approve the DFM vendor. Next
3 year, staff and the County would have to try to let two RFPs at the same time, one
4 for vote counting and one for vote registration. They started this RFP in December.
5 It's now the end of May. That's how long something like this takes, when they
6 were concentrating on one. If not approved now, they would have to do two at one
7 time next year.
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9 Crawford stated he is not talking about doing it next year, but delaying it for
10 three weeks. Griffith stated that when they add in the fact that they are doing all
11 the extra elections, they can't get through implementation three or four weeks later
12 because of the regular election deadline commitments. Staff can't change the
13 backbone of the voter registration system in conjunction with all the filing requests.
14 The high volume of work for this fall's election doesn't enable staff to do both.
15 They would have to postpone the process until after the presidential election is
16 wrapped up, which is usually by the middle of December.
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18 Griffin stated that the day after filing, staff starts programming the ballots.
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20 Roy stated the worst case scenario is to use the current system if the Council
21 puts approval off for three weeks. Griffith stated that's correct.
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23 Roy stated one issue from citizens is that Whatcom County stay in control of
24 manipulating the data. She asked if this is a State system, and the State will still
25 get into the database to change things. Griffin stated the State will have the
26 database. Each state will be the central database for that state's voter registration
27 system. The County will just have a copy.
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29 Roy stated that whatever management system they choose is irrelevant for
30 that concern. Griffith stated that's correct. There are some efficiencies gained
31 from the centralized system. The County gets voter registrations now from a
32 variety of inputs, including the Secretary of State's office. The Secretary of State
33 receives, sorts, and sends the registrations to the counties for input. The
34 information goes into the database. With the new system, they won't need to do
35 that. The state will do the input there.
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37 Griffin stated Minnesota is the only state that does this. It's a major
38 nationwide change. The changes came from the blue ribbon commission that was
39 formed after the debacle in Florida.
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41 Fleetwood asked what information the councilmembers and citizens hope to
42 glean if the Council postpones the approval for a couple of weeks that they haven't
43 had an opportunity to glean in the last week. Griffith stated the four State -
44 approved vendors responded to the County's RFP. Two vendors used Oracle, which
45 the Information Services Division won't support. That leaves DFM Associates, who
46 the County selected, and Diebolt. If the Council delays, their chances of not
47 selecting DFM are remote. It makes no sense.
Special County Council - Voter Registration System, 5/25/2004, Page 3
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DISCLAIMER: This document contains the Whatcom County Council or Committee
minutes, as approved. However, unless an attested signature page is attached, they
are not the final approved minutes.
Myra Ramos, 2877 N. Nugent Road, Lummi Island, Whatcom Fair Voting,
stated her organization is a nonpartisan grassroots organization committed to
promoting the integrity of all aspects of the electoral process. They are all
interrelated. They are concerned that changes intended to reform the electoral
process not result in bad or worse pitfalls. They are interested in registration and
voting systems. Registration systems tell them who can or cannot vote. That's a
big deal. This decision is a very big deal financially. They are talking about
$600,000 over five years. It is a decision that must be done right the first time.
A bigger deal is election integrity. The complexity of the tasks convinces her
it would be imprudent to purchase, train, and implement the new system before a
presidential election. There is no external deadline that mandates it. Doing so can
compromise the results of this presidential election, result in civil rights violations,
and expose the County to liability. She asks the Council to disapprove this
contract, use the current registration system this fall, delay purchase of a new
system, and permit thoughtful study and citizen input. Citizens are ready to
contribute to and support that study in an attempt to have trustworthy election
results.
Jim Johann, 1405 E. Illinois, stated he is a retired computer software
developer and consultant, publisher of the Town Crier, and poll worker. He belongs
to Whatcom Fair Voting. He is interested in voting issues. He doesn't want to stop
the purchase of the system, but wants to delay the purchase to do this thing
properly. Having installed and written many systems, he knows it's too late to get
this done properly for the elections this year. Don't' be hasty. Because it's a busy
election year and there are tricky issues on the ballot, he recommends doing the
RFP's now so that, as soon as the election is over, they can get the systems in and
done in time for the 2005 elections. Delay the authorization to purchase the
system now. He recommends that the County start to implement the two systems
for registration and election in December or January of next year, as opposed to
trying to rush through it this year.
Linda Franz, 6640 Trent Lane, Ferndale, Whatcom Fair Voting, stated she has
concerns about implementation. They have to have safeguards. Security is
paramount. Elections must be done with best practices. Don't eliminate checks
and balances. Codify some of the procedures. Don't have any electronic poll book
at the site ever. Ms. Forslof agrees with that. Make sure there is never a
connection between the election management system and voting system.
Language in this contract talks about data importation, which is a potential route in
the system for information transference that should not happen. People found a
bug report at the DFM website and a ballot counting function in the DFM program.
Any connection between voter registration and election management is not a best
management practice. The current vendors are in trouble with their voting systems
across the country. There should be no connection between the voter registration
system and any aspect of the voting system. The smart card generation should
stay in -house and not go out to a vendor. HAVA says local elected officials can do
Special County Council - Voter Registration System, 5/25/2004, Page 4
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DISCLAIMER: This document contains the Whatcom County Council or Committee
minutes, as approved. However, unless an attested signature page is attached, they
are not the final approved minutes.
list maintenance. She's not sure the County has to give up its control of voter
registration to the State. Technological security of the list can also be done by the
local officials. HAVA is continually misinterpreted. The deadline for implementation
of these systems is the first federal election, which is in November, of 2006, not
January 2006. Don't rush into this too soon. Thurston County has its database up
and running already. She asked why they'd want to implement a new system in a
short time before a major election year. She believes staff has the best intentions
in mind.
Crawford asked if Ms. Franz is suggesting that the County delay and
implement both systems next year. Franz stated this can be done by November
2006. It is not prudent to rush into it. They need to work the system through, and
a major federal election is not the time to do that. Review the DFM bug reports.
There are things to look at and study before buying this system. Ask DFM to
change or tweak the system to get the ballot counting option out of the system. Be
a leader in the state for safe voting. Challenge the misinterpretations of HAVA.
Lorraine Lindahl, 729 High Street #103, Bellingham, stated she is a poll
worker. Voters now are concerned about elections. Keep the current system for
this fall's election. She's a poll worker and doesn't want problems.
Marion Beddill, 3600 Seeley, Whatcom Fair Voting, asked the Council to delay
the start of the system, use the current system for 2004, set up an advisory
committee, and prohibit the electronic poll book at the poll site. The Oracle system
is more secure and advanced than SQL, which is used by the Microsoft
environment. This SQL program being proposed runs on the Windows operating
system. It seems to be a variant of the business management implementation
using a regular Windows function. There are well -known problems with Windows.
Whatcom County might be one of several counties in the state that has been
designated as a beta test site for this year. Beta testing during a presidential
election year is frightening. This is a $600,000 commitment being brought forward.
Delay implementation until there is adequate and thorough review.
Crawford asked if the deadlines for HAVA will stand. There seems to be
much contention. There is discussion about delaying the deadlines. Beddill agreed.
Do not have a computer only system. Allow a paper trail audit system.
Fleetwood asked if a two week delay would be disastrous, not the delay to
next year. Griffin stated that's correct.
Fleetwood asked if the staff's concern is not about using the present system
this year, but about the prospect of implementing two huge systems next year.
Griffith agreed. He hears that the concerned citizens are asking staff to make
prudent decisions, take time, and properly go through checks and balances to
maintain the voting record in Whatcom County. The staff agrees. That's why they
split the two functions. The County will do better doing one thing at a time rather
than two things at one time. If staff delays until next year as suggested, they will
Special County Council - Voter Registration System, 5/25/2004, Page 5
DISCLAIMER: This document contains the Whatcom County Council or Committee
minutes, as approved. However, unless an attested signature page is attached, they
are not the final approved minutes.
1 have to implement two systems at the same time. Regarding the deadline of
2 January 1, 2006, they read HAVA differently than the Secretary of State. However,
3 the Secretary of State is the ex officio supervisor of elections in the State of
4 Washington and has the authority to write rules the counties have to follow. The
5 Secretary of State's work plan submitted to the federal government to receive
6 HAVA funding stated that Washington State would have it's changes completed by
7 January 2006. The citizens may have a disagreement with how the Secretary of
8 State interprets HAVA, but they should take that concern to the Secretary of State,
9 not Whatcom County.
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11 Fleetwood asked why the Elections Division wouldn't be able to allocate
12 planning to have several months to work on it beginning in January. Griffin stated
13 the regular work schedule doesn't stop. They still have to conduct elections in
14 February through April next year. That doesn't stop because of the new system.
15 Next year, the Elections Division will have a more complicated ballot formatting
16 because of more elections. The presidential election is a less complicated election
17 to program. By mid - December, staff is already looking at February. Staff is
18 working at the primary for this year right now.
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20 Fleetwood asked about the concerns mentioned regarding new pitfalls,
21 election integrity, and liability. Griffin stated the biggest liability is if they don't
22 comply with HAVA. The Justice Department is going to enforce HAVA. It will send
23 out attorneys to states that don't comply.
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25 The citizens said this was hastily rushed and needed thoughtful citizen input.
26 This process they went through was not in any way rushed. They started in
27 December. They spent many hours with the Prosecutor's Office reviewing the legal
28 requirements and the Information Services Division reviewing the vendors in terms
29 of hardware, security, and networking. Right now, the existing system is far less
30 secure than the new system.
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32 (Clerk's Note: End of tape one, side A.)
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34 Griffin continued to state that the difference is night and day in terms of the
35 existing system and the DFM system. Precincting is now all done by hand on a
36 map. Having a system that will define a street range when they change the wards
37 will be a huge benefit and far more secure.
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39 The citizens said the cost is $600,000, but that is not the cost. The entire
40 cost is $292,000.
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42 The citizens were concerned about export to polling places. The export they
43 are currently using is exactly the same export they will use in 2004. The plan has
44 always been to include these citizens when the County picks the next voting
45 system. That was promised to those citizens a year ago. In 2005, they will hash
46 out the type of voting system to use. All of these four systems export, but they
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DISCLAIMER: This document contains the Whatcom County Council or Committee
minutes, as approved. However, unless an attested signature page is attached, they
are not the final approved minutes.
don't export the smart card ballot. They export the ballot style. The system does
not export an actual ballot that goes into an electronic vote screen.
The citizens were concerned about the bug report on the DFM website. Every
software manufacturer has bugs in its software, particularly one this complicated.
In each generation of that software, there are bugs and patches for those bugs.
Oracle has had thousands of bugs, but they don't get the press that Microsoft gets.
Thurston County is ready because didn't do an RFP. In their legal work, they
said they did an upgrade. They never looked at any other systems. Thurston
County is so upset with its vendor, ES &S, that it's ready to throw out their system.
The citizens are concerned about the beta testing. The beta testing will not
be done in 2004. It will be done in 2005. There won't be beta testing before the
general election this fall. The beta testing isn't on the system, it will be to figure
out how the State's system interacts with the four vendors. The State has
identified stringent standards for any vendor. Their software has to interact with
the State's database. Obviously if the State is going to do this, it has to do beta
testing.
Brenner stated she came into this meeting ready to approve the request
because the staff had met with the committee. However, she's heard some
legitimate concerns from the committee. All along they've needed this dialog.
Right now, staff has alleviated her concerns, but she doesn't know for sure. She
would like to hear more from the citizens.
McShane stated he's not comfortable with going back and forth, and isn't
sure they would get anywhere. He would defer to the Council if that's what they
prefer.
Roy stated the message is that they should have had these discussions a
long time ago. These citizens should have been involved from the beginning. The
County knew these people were interested, and they could have avoided some of
this. She asked the real deadlines for HAVA. That makes a difference. They have
an election system that they use now. They could use it during the next election.
It would give time for implementation. She's having trouble with the argument that
all these things are all happening at once. If that's true, these are things they've
already done before. It would be more stressful starting a new system this year.
Dave Grant, Senior Civil Deputy Prosecutor, stated he didn't look at the vote
counting aspect of HAVA, just registration. According to section 303 of HAVA, all
states have to implement the centralized database. Congress set a deadline of
January 2004, with a two -year extension until January 2006 for both voter
registration and voting. After that date, according to section 401 of HAVA,
Congress empowered the U.S. Attorney General to engage in any civil action
against states that fail to comply.
Special County Council - Voter Registration System, 5/25/2004, Page 7
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DISCLAIMER: This document contains the Whatcom County Council or Committee
minutes, as approved. However, unless an attested signature page is attached, they
are not the final approved minutes.
Brenner asked if Mr. Grant is satisfied the County has covered all it's bases
and there is enough security to do this without problems. Grant stated he's only
looked at the terms of the contract to negotiate a contract that is of benefit to the
County and will reduce County risk. He thought they've done a good job doing
that. He is not involved with the mechanics of the RFP process, but is confident it
was done properly. He doesn't know about the committee's concerns.
Roy stated it's obvious this should have happened a long time ago. This is a
tough decision. She's not sure hearing any more debate will help her make up her
mind. She thinks she understands from Ms. Forslof that getting the citizen group
involved meant, to her, with the actual voting system. There was obviously a
misunderstanding. She's frustrated. Griffith stated he's worked with Ms. Beddill
and Ms. Franz in the past. They've participated in presentations on vote counting
systems. Ms. Forslof has been a guest speaker at some of their forums. Prior to
Tuesday night, he had no idea they were interested in the election management
systems.
Brenner stated they didn't know about it. Griffith stated the County went
through a public process. These citizens say they follow HAVA and have been
meeting with the Secretary of State. The fact that the County has to switch its
election management system should have been common knowledge for people who
were following this issue. He knew these people as the "paper ballot people" until
last Wednesday morning when he found out that staff has to meet with these folks
about the election management system. In addition, there is funding that
Whatcom County is depending on related to both the election management system
and vote counting system. That funding could be at risk if the County misses HAVA
deadlines.
Roy stated the question is what the HAVA deadlines are.
McShane stated an issue to think of in the future is regarding the electronic
poll book. They are not committing to it with this system. Griffin stated the
Elections Division has no intention of doing an electronic poll book unless laws
change. Even if the County has to do an electronic poll book in the future, there is
still a hard copy that someone has to sign. In fact, Washington State law requires
a signature at the polls.
McShane stated another concern is that there never be a connection between
the voting system and registration. Griffin stated there is already that connection
to a degree. They produce the poll rosters through the existing election
management system (EIMS). The concern about poll rosters is with smart cards for
the electronic recording. At this point, under HAVA, the County is required to put at
least one electronic vote recorder out for the disabled. The Elections Division is
already committed to having a system that has a paper audit trail.
Part of the citizens' concerns are concerns that the Auditor's Office shares.
Next year, when the County lets the RFP, the concerns will be at the top of the list.
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DISCLAIMER: This document contains the Whatcom County Council or Committee
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are not the final approved minutes.
However, this isn't something they've taken on lightly. There has been weeks and
weeks of review of these system. He has been in this business for 30 years. Ms.
Forslof has been the auditor for 16 years and worked in elections before that. The
best people in the Information Services Division spent dozens of hours working on
this. They received legal help from the Prosecuting Attorney's Office. All Elections
Division staff reviewed this. The public elected Ms. Forslof. The citizens pay his
salary to do exactly what he did. They did the best job that could be done.
They've made a management decision that is best for Whatcom County. Delaying
to next year to implement two new systems at the same time does not serve
Whatcom County taxpayers. It's the worst approach they could have taken.
Implementation doesn't take overnight. This process has taken four months so far.
The voting system will take at least six months of hard work to go through the list
of vendors.
McShane moved to approve the request. He thanked staff for their
presentation and the public for attending. He hopes they will be engaged in the
future.
Roy stated she believes in public participation and also in trusting staff. She
doesn't like it when the County Council second guesses the professionals on staff.
She asked that, if the Council approves this, the Elections Division involve some of
the citizens in some of these questions during the implementation phase of this
voter registration system. One concern about importing data to the voting system
is important. Continue these discussions. Griffin stated that's not a problem. The
DFM representative provided information on the question of the data import, which
said EIMS provides processes necessary to print the roster's poll books used at the
polling location to validate that a voter is eligible to vote. These reports are based
on voter registration data maintained by the County. The current systems require
the polling place worker to manually enter or key in the ballot style number
associated with a voter into the smart card generating hardware at the polling site.
There is no electronic link between EIMS and the data used to generate the smart
card. That's true of all four vendors, which have the option to export the material a
poll roster needs to distribute the 228 different ballot styles. In no way does it
create the ballot image that a voter uses.
Griffith stated Ms. Forslof intends to immediately create the advisory
committee, which will address implementation of election management and vote
counting systems.
Roy asked about the ballot counting function. Griffin stated there isn't a
ballot counting function in any of the four systems.
Crawford stated that from an administrative standpoint, this is an easy
decision. They can all have positions on different County issues. There is a
perception issue when it comes to elections and the roots of democracy. They've
got to have confidence in the value. People have to believe there is integrity in the
system, or the result could be anarchy. There is a national challenge to get the
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DISCLAIMER: This document contains the Whatcom County Council or Committee
minutes, as approved. However, unless an attested signature page is attached, they
are not the final approved minutes.
public's confidence. There are a lot of implications to doing this now. From a
management, administrative, legal, and RFP standpoint, there's no question. The
staff's competence is not in question. No one locally is making accusations of
fraud. However, he holds to the integrity of the system and the public perception
of the integrity of the system. Therefore, he will go with Whatcom Fair Voting and
vote against the motion. Administratively, that's a bad decision. However, it's a
decision they need to make certain the message is unanimous that they've got a
system they believe in and are confident in.
Motion failed 2 -3 with Fleetwood and McShane in favor.
Crawford stated he will support the Prosecutor's Office defending the County
against missing the HAVA deadline if the debate is about ensuring the integrity of
the system. They're not doing this to solve a problem, but to ensure that it's a
good system and to ensure democracy in Whatcom County.
Brenner stated this is just about the toughest decision she's ever made on
the Council. She has complete confidence in the staff. Griffith stated the
frustrating part is that if Whatcom Fair Voting representatives would have
acknowledged their need to discuss this at this level with staff earlier, the staff
would have been happy to do that. They are being penalized now because those
representatives showed up late to the game. That doesn't seem to be a fair thing
to do to those staff people. It will be difficult for them to swallow. With everything
the County is asking staff to do already this fall, the County is now asking them to
implement two systems at the same time. That's amazing.
Griffin stated the Council talks about staff's experience and qualifications,
which he appreciates. They also talk about voter confidence. Staff has the
expertise to do this, and these citizens don't. Their testimony proves that. They
don't even have the correct numbers in terms of costs. They don't know that the
statewide voter registration database was enacted. There's nothing staff can do
about that. The Council has said to the citizens of Whatcom County that the people
the County pays to make these management decisions are being ignored, and the
Council is going to go with a group of citizens who are not elected, appointed, or
paid by the taxpayer. The Council basically just made a decision that says these
folks are right and the staff is wrong.
F103,10111 t ►1
The meeting adjourned at 11:03 a.m.
Jill Nixon, Minutes Transcription
The Council approved these minutes on June 15 , 2004.
Special County Council - Voter Registration System, 5/25/2004, Page 10
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DISCLAIMER: This document contains the Whatcom County Council or Committee
minutes, as approved. However, unless an attested signature page is attached, they
are not the final approved minutes.
ATTEST:
Dana Brown - Davis, Council Clerk
WHATCOM COUNTY COUNCIL
WHATCOM COUNTY, WASHINGTON
Dan McShane, Council Chair
Special County Council - Voter Registration System, 5/25/2004, Page 11