The “Better Together” plan for the re-consolidation of St. Louis City and St. Louis County is being released, and the initiative drive is about to begin. These are my thoughts about it. (There are ten points, but they are not inscribed on two tablets.)

1.  I definitely support some kind of merger or consolidation of St. Louis City and County. I don’t need to be convinced that something must be done. I understand that many people like their local governments and are worried about losing that connection, but at the minimum, the city and county must somehow be brought together.
2.  I am open to ideas on the best way to do this— form of government(s), taxation and financing, timetable, etc.— I will consider all options. I don’t have any preconceived notions.
3.  I am determined to ignore County residents saying they don’t want any part of the city and its crime, bad schools, etc. I will also look beyond City residents worried that this is all just a power grab. And I am happy to pay no attention to government officials who are just protecting their own fiefdoms. (I do understand that many in the black community are concerned that any kind of consolidation will weaken their political clout, but I don’t think that is automatically true.
4. I am not going to be swayed by “We’re stuck in 1904 (or 1876) and we must move forward” kind of slick PR slogans. I know we must do something. What is the best way to do it?
5.   I am not going to be swayed by arguments along the lines of “we have to do something now and this is the proposal that’s out there so it is this or nothing.” We are talking about taking steps that will have a huge impact on the region for the next century or two. As frustrating as the current situation is, I’m not going to vote for a bad plan just for the sake of doing something. I’d rather wait and do it right.
6.  I will not support anything that opens the door to privatization of government services.
7.  I will not support any plans, proposals, or campaigns that in any way limit full public disclosure of discussions, information, decisions, etc.
8.  I am not convinced that this is something the whole state must vote on—at least not before city and county residents come to an agreement.
9.   Nothing against the five people who developed the plan, but there is already one strike against this because there was no public discussion of the plan before it was released and presented to the public. (I know they had hearings and public sessions, but the plan was developed behind closed doors.) The Better Together campaign has gotten off on the wrong foot.
10.   The fact that Rex Sinquefield is investing massive amounts of money in this means the proposal already has two strikes. Sin-Q has proven that he does not care about the well-being of our region’s residents. He only cares about protecting his own wealth and forcing his libertarian philosophy on everyone. It is very tempting to oppose the plan on this basis alone. His involvement puts a very negative cover over this whole thing.

So— the Better Together plan has two strikes against it. It has a lot of work to do to not strike out. And in the mean time, I am open to competing ideas.

What do you think?

The post Proposed St. Louis City – County merger: Better together? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Ten days before the high-stakes 2018 midterm election in Missouri, Eric Fey, St Louis County’s director of elections, led a group of high-schoolers on a back-stage tour of election headquarters. Three months from now, he’ll be in the warehouse, overseeing the de-tangling and re-rolling of miles of orange extension cords used to power up the Nov. 6 election. The highs of making big-news elections work, and the lows of post-election mop-up are the bookends of a job that few voters understand.

Correction: Fey is actually co-director of St. Louis County’s Board of Elections, and that’s important to know. He’s a Democrat. The other co-director is Rick Stream, a Republican. In St. Louis County, we get two directors, because, by Missouri law, all election administration has to be bi-partisan. Every function requires a Republican and a Democrat: You need an R and a D to open the door to the tabulation room. You need an R and a D to approve every absentee ballot. You need an R and a D to check voters’ IDs at every polling place.

“The only thing you can do here by yourself is go to the bathroom,” says Fey. “Everything else requires a bi-partisan team.”

In the world of election administration in the US, that’s unusual. Across the US, 70 percent of election officials are, themselves, elected, and there’s no requirement for party balance—which can lead to doubt about independence and fairness. “The person counting the votes is, him or herself, on the ballot,” comments Fey. “That doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world.”

That’s just one of the intriguing tidbits Fey shared during the two-hour tour that took us into places most people never get to see: the areas where election workers process voter registration cards, verify signatures on petitions, respond to requests for absentee ballots, sort out mailed-in ballots, electronically count the votes, and service voting machines—among myriad other election-critical tasks.

During the tour, Fey reeled off some key statistics that offer insight into the scope of the St. Louis County election operation. Here’s an annotated rundown:

Polling places in St. Louis County: 411  [The largest election district in Missouri]

Registered voters in St. Louis County:  750,000

Active voters in St. Louis County:  650,000

Workers employed on Election Day:  3,500

The election board is constantly recruiting election day workers—begging, really. The hours are terrible—5 am to 7 pm or later, depending on how things go. The pay is lousy — $125, which covers a separate two-hour training session plus the 14+ hour day. And it’s all one shift.

Election Day payroll:  $600,000  [The largest line item in the election board’s budget]

Petition signatures verified in 2018:  approximately 400,000

The 2018 midterm ballot in St. Louis County includes 4 amendments to the Missouri constitution, 3 statewide propositions, one countywide proposition, and  7 amendments to the St. Louis County charter. It’s the longest ballot ever produced in Missouri history, Fey noted. [His office, though not responsible for the wording on the ballot, had to negotiate with various sponsoring groups to edit the propositions, because, as originally written, they wouldn’t all fit on one piece of 8 1/2 x 19″ paper, which is the largest size that can be read by optical scanners.]

For every petition initiative, county election workers had to review each signature—to verify that the signer was a registered voter in St. Louis County and the signature matched—within reason—their original voter registration.

Early voting days in Missouri:  0

Missouri is one of just 13 states that do not allow early voting, notes Fey. Ninety-percent of voters cast their ballots on Election Day, putting a lot of pressure on Fey’s operation all in a single, 14-hour day.

The only “early voting” option is to vote absentee, either by mail or in person at headquarters or at a satellite location, if the jurisdiction opts to have one.  You have to provide a reason for voting absentee. Disability, being an election worker, or being outside of the voting jurisdiction on Election Day are acceptable reasons, so many people just say they’re going to be out of town. They are not required to show proof. “Our rules make liars out of a lot of voters,” says Fey.

In the cavernous, bare-bones warehouse that looks spookily like a set from “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” Fey showed our tour the election-day equipment he manages, and explained the limitations of what he has to work with:

Touch-screen voting machines:  1,800

Optical-scanner voting machines:  500

St. Louis County uses touch-screen machines purchased in 2005, at a cost of $10 million. Fey noted that the technology is 20+ years old. The machines operate on the now-antique Windows XP, which is no longer supported. Replacing broken touch-screen machines is not possible, because a) they are no longer manufactured by the supplier, ES&S, and there is no additional inventory. Only about six companies make voting machines in the US, and they haven’t been interested in maintaining their older models as they roll out newer ones.  “It’s a racket,” says Fey; and b) You can’t fill in, incrementally, with newer machines, because they won’t work with Windows XP, which is also the operating system for the equipment that counts the votes.

Also, you can’t borrow replacement machines from other Missouri jurisdictions, because many don’t use this model: In Missouri, each county election board is its own fiefdom. There are no statewide standards for voting equipment, so each county decides, independently of others, which equipment to buy and from which vendor. [On the plus side, notes Fey, it could be argued that this decentralization of the voting process is a positive—a fortuitous defense against widespread tampering.]

A few years ago, Fey learned that the voting district in in Troy, MO experienced an equipment disaster, when the roof of their warehouse caved in in a rainstorm, soaking all of their ES & S voting machines. The district’s insurance policy covered the purchase of new equipment. Fey took in the salvageable machines and cannibalized them for spare parts.

“The dirty secret in election administration is that we hope for a crisis—but not here,” quips Fey. He further explains that the hanging-chad debacle in Florida, during the 2000 presidential election, created a national electoral nightmare—which, in turn, resulted in Congressional legislation and federal funding for more advanced voting equipment. Although Fey is constantly asking for money for better technology, the state legislature and the county council just won’t come up with the funds, citing other, more pressing priorities. As an aside, Fey notes that rural jurisdictions have found it easier to upgrade their equipment, because they need fewer machines, so the overall cost is less.

“Our only hope is that money falls from the sky again, as it did after 2000,” says Fey.

So, with all of this creaky equipment, how does Fey know that votes are being recorded properly?

“We conduct a Logic and Accuracy test,” he explains. “We ‘vote’ on every machine in the warehouse, before they are sent out to polling places. This mock ‘vote’ has a pre-determined pattern that we can check for accuracy. This Thursday—five days before the election—is test day.”

Electronic poll books:  1,200

These i-Pad type tablets recently replaced the cumbersome, paper tomes that contained the names, addresses and precincts of all registered voters in St. Louis County. Election workers had to paw through hundreds of pages to find each voter as they came in to the polling place. Electronic poll books are a good-news, advanced technology update for Fey’s domain that are streamlining voter check-in. But a recent court fight over voter ID forced Fey’s IT department to reprogram the electronic poll books to match the new ruling [details, if you’re interested, here.] “We’re reprogramming 10 days before the election,” says Fey. “It’s a nightmare.”

Metal transport cases for Election Days supplies:  400+

These institutional-gray, banged up cases—an average-sized person could fit inside — look like they’ve been around for 50 years. Election workers stock them with all the standard paper forms and ancillary equipment [chargers, extension cords, pencils, pens, signs, forms and even American flags] needed at every polling place. It takes six days to deliver all of them. It takes three months—as noted before—to untangle the extension cords, clean out leftover materials and trash, and restock them for the next cycle.

“If you’re wondering what the heck we all do after the election, this is a big part of it,” says Fey.

Another stop on our tour was the tabulation room, where the actual votes are counted. Fey says that 98 percent of ballots in the US are counted electronically—as is also the case in St. Louis County. While some voting-rights purists wish that ballots were counted by hand, so that they cannot be electronically hacked, Fey contends that hand-counting itself can be subject to cheating, too.

Fey assured us that his tabulation machines are tamper-resistant, because they are not networked together [they are “air-gapped”] and are not linked to the internet. Nor are the electronic voting machines at polling places linked to each other or to the internet. Each voting machine records its votes separately from all others and stores the votes on a separate storage device. Election supervisors deliver the storage devices—in addition to paper votes recorded on optical scanners—to the tabulation room, where they are catalogued and entered into the tabulation machines.  Results are posted to the internet using what Fey calls a “sneaker net.” Wearing his election day sneakers, he walks the tabulated results to another room, where they are posted to the internet for public viewing.

At the end of our tour, Fey invited the high-school students to participate in an innovative, election-day internship program: While you must be 18 to be an election official, students 16 and older can work at polling places, timing the vote and conducting exit surveys to assess voters’ experiences of the process. Interns can be paid either in community-service hours or in real dollars [$120].  Nearly half of the 25 students on the tour took application forms—an encouraging sign about the next generation of voters.

The big stress test for Fey’s operation will, of course, come on November 6. I came away with the impression that with Fey in charge—equipped with his attitude of openness, fairness, bi-partisanship and transparency—we’re in good hands around here. But I’ll still be staffing a shift outside a polling place, as an Election Protection volunteer.

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On their 2018  ballots, many voters in St. Louis County may be surprised to encounter a quartet of proposed County charter amendments–plus a fifth that is, essentially, a no-brainer. Reading them over for the first time, they can seem obscure, and, as a result, voters may opt to skip over them. But don’t. While they may seem obtuse and “inside baseball,” the proposals are actually worth consideration.

And, incredibly, they are bi-partisan, supported by Republican and Democratic council members.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch offers an excellent analysis of where these proposals came from, and what they are intended to do:

…County Executive Steve Stenger has frequently overstepped his boundaries, and the County Council is taking action to restrain him through several ballot initiatives. County executives have, for decades, treated the council as a rubber-stamp body — a formula for corruption and mismanagement.

Republican and Democratic council members have joined forces to put a stop to this, primarily by restricting the ability of the county executive to abuse his power and by clarifying the council’s role as a necessary check and balance on executive power. We recommend voting yes on the first four county charter amendment items as they appear on the Nov. 6 ballot. Here’s why:

County Prop 1 would codify the campaign-finance limits that the council wants to place on county elected officials. It asks voters to approve a $2,600 limit per election on campaign contributions by individuals or entities to elective office candidates. A key element of the proposition is its prohibition on donations from any person or entity seeking a county contract, extending from 90 days before contract bids are solicited to 90 days after the contract has been awarded. This provision would help eliminate the hint of undue influence in the awarding of government contracts.

County Prop 2 is a response to the sneaky effort by Stenger’s allies to slice off a chunk of Creve Coeur Lake Memorial Park last year to build an ice-rink complex, including a St. Louis Blues practice facility. Prop 2 would require that future land transactions involving county parks be approved by voters.

County Prop B goes to the heart of the power struggle between Stenger and the council. Stenger has used funds transfers within departments, including restrictions of County Council funds, to wield power and limit the council’s legislative powers. Once a budget is submitted by the executive and approved by the legislative branch, it should be respected by both branches. But that hasn’t happened. Prop B would require the county executive to obtain council approval before making such funds transfers in the future.

County Prop C is a straightforward effort to impose transparency on government by requiring the county to create a website where the public can access financial documents. If you want greater specificity about how your taxpayer dollars are being allocated, this website would make access easier.

A yes vote on these four items would restore much-needed balance in county governance.

County Proposition D

The mysterious Proposition D: While it simply asks if there should be a charter commission to revise the County Charter, it is causing consternation among voters. [I know. I’ve been answering the phones at the League of Women Voters. This is a question that a lot of people are asking.] The answer,, as I understand it, is simple: Every ten years, St. Louis County is required to review its charter [which is sort of the constitutional for the county.]. This proposition authorizes the charter commission to do its job.

The post 2018 Missouri ballot: What are these St. Louis County charter amendments about, anyway? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

If you live in St. Louis County, Missouri, and you’re planning to vote in next week’s primary election, your August 7 ballot will include three proposed amendments to the County Charter that may come as a surprise. I’m known to be somewhat of a political junkie, but when I looked at the sample ballot that arrived in the mail a few days ago, I saw the three proposals for the first time [printed in the tiniest type possible, thus virtually unreadable.] These are the kind of what-the-hell ballot items that even plugged-in voters know little about, and either ignore or, in protest, vote against.

But you’ll only be voting on two of them, because a judge just ruled that the third one [Proposition 4] is invalid, even though it’s already printed on the ballot.

In a nutshell

Here’s what the three propositions are about. According to the Post-Dispatch,

Charter Amendment Proposition 2 asks voters whether to allow the County Council to hire its own lawyers in certain cases when it is at odds with the county’s executive branch.

Charter Amendment Proposition 3 asks voters to change the definition of “employment” in the county charter to the same test established under state law that distinguishes employees from independent contractors.

Charter Amendment Proposition 4 asks voters to set a $2,600 contribution limit to candidates for county office and restrict contributions from entities competing for county contracts. It would also expand the council’s authority to transfer money. [Invalidated]

 

Arcane, right? It’s really hard to fathom what these propositions are about, and why they’re on the ballot in the first place. From what I can glean from news reports, these proposed amendments are the result of political in-fighting between members of the St. Louis County Council and County Executive Steve Stenger [who faces a Democratic primary challenger on August 7.]  Proposition 2 arises from Council members’ sense that the County’s lawyer is on the “side” of the Stenger administration, and that the Council needs a lawyer to represent its separate interests. Proposition 4 apparently grew out of some Council members’ objections to the way some contracts have been awarded to Stenger donors. It’s designed, they says, to address the issue of “pay to play.” [This proposition was invalidated by a Missouri court on July 25, 2018. So, never mind…]

Proposition 3 is especially hard to understand, so I’ll just quote the Post-Dispatch:

The measure would clear up questions such as the one that threatens to end Councilman Ernie Trakas’ tenure on the council. Last month, a special prosecutor asked a judge to remove Trakas because he performs contract legal work for three outstate school districts.

The crazy back story

Did I mention that these propositions were originally part of a package of five passed by the County Council in May? County Executive Stenger then vetoed them, and then the Council overrode his veto with 6 – 1 votes to get three of them on the ballot.

But wait, there’s more: A St. Louis County resident filed a lawsuit stating the the propositions should not be on the ballot, for a variety of reasons. The propositions are on August 7 ballots, which have already been printed, but a judge appointed by the Missouri Supreme Court invalidated Proposition 4 on July 25. According to the Post-Dispatch, “The wording in the question he struck was unclear because it used the word ‘interdepartmental’ instead of ‘intradepartmental’ when discussing the fund transfers. That was enough to strike it, he ruled.”

Adding to the intrigue is the fact that the St. Louis County Circuit Court recused itself from the pending lawsuit and kicked it up to the Supreme Court, because the County Council controls the County court’s budget, and Proposition 2 includes a clause that could affect funding.

Got that? Anyway, you still get to vote on two of the three propositions. That should be fun for election officials to explain.

What’s going on here?

My obviously limited understanding of what’s going on here is that the Aug. 7 ballot is being polluted by obscure measures that drag voters into the political fight between Stenger and his opponents on the Council. The only one of these three politically vindictive proposals that seems to me to have any benefit to the general public was the now-inoperative Proposition 4—but only the part of it that limited campaign contributions to $2,600. But there’s probably a much better way to accomplish campaign finance reform with a more cleanly worded measure on a different ballot. And couldn’t these people have settled these political differences in-house without involving and confusing the rest of us?

Spoiler alert: My first instinct was to protest these obscure proposals by voting no on all of them. I have since learned that they are seen by some as “good-government” propositions. With less than 24 hours to go, I am seriously considering voting YES on all three, er, I mean, two.

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Missouri does not have early voting. You have to vote when everyone else does, between the hours of 6 am and 7 pm CST on Election Day—unless you vote absentee, either in person or by mail. Last weekend was the first Saturday of in-person absentee voting in St. Louis County. There are four Saturdays for in-person absentee voting, in addition to weekday business hours.

But, as many Missourians seem to have discovered, the rules for voting absentee contain a little loophole that many may be wiggling through. Here are the rules, as specified by the Missouri Secretary of State. Can you spot the loophole?

Registered Missourians who expect to be prevented from going to their polling place on Election Day may vote absentee beginning six weeks prior to an election.

Absentee voters must provide one of the following reasons for voting absentee:

Absence on Election Day from the jurisdiction of the election authority in which such voter is registered to vote;

Incapacity or confinement due to illness or physical disability, including a person who is primarily responsible for the physical care of a person who is incapacitated or confined due to illness or disability

Religious belief or practice;

Employment as an election authority, as a member of an election authority, or by an election authority at a location other than such voter’s polling place;

Incarceration, provided all qualifications for voting are retained.

Certified participation in the address confidentiality program established under sections 589.660 to 589.681 because of safety concerns.

Did you catch it? It’s in the very first line:  “Registered Missourians who expect to be prevented from going to their polling place on Election Day…” [My emphasis].

Does that one word—“expect”—make it okay to vote absentee, even if you’re not really going to be out of town, working early or late, or in jail—because you might be, or expect to be, or just find voting on Election Day to be inconvenient?

Strictly speaking—no.  When you show up at the Absentee Voting site, you have to check one of the boxes listing your reason for voting absentee. An election official I interviewed reminded me that, while the Secretary of State’s website uses the word “expect,” the absentee ballot application does not include that term: It just says “absence…on Election Day.” When you put your signature at the bottom of that form, you are signing an affidavit asserting that your reason is true. The election official to whom you hand that affidavit doesn’t ask questions: You don’t have to show an airline ticket or any other proof that you fit into the category you’ve checked. But you are signing a legal document saying that you’re telling the truth.

But I wonder how many Missouri voters, seeing the convenience and popularity of no-excuse early voting in other states—are using the word “expect” to justify voting absentee.

If “expect” is the operative word, and voters have an expectation that they won’t be able to vote on Election Day, that’s not voter fraud, right? They are who they are. They live where they say they live. They bring the proper ID. They’re not planning to vote more than once. [One part of the affidavit makes you promise that you’re not going to try to vote more than once.] By allowing absentee voting, we are protecting all citizens’ right to vote. And that’s important, given the attempts at voter suppression that have become nearly epidemic in Republican-controlled state legislatures.

I suspect, too, that the election authorities—and the scores of temp workers staffing the check-in stations– know that this is happening.

Apparently, they are not authorized to fact-check your affidavit or subject you to interrogation. So, powerless to do anything about it—and perhaps even secretly wishing that Missouri would get on board with early voting already—maybe they tacitly accept the reality of what’s happening. I don’t know. Just guessing here.

But when I called the St. Louis County Election Board, an official–speaking off the record–told me this: “I don’t want to speak for the voters, but, just between you and me, there’s a lot of people who are going to be out of town on Election Day.”

Another election official said, “We trust that people don’t lie on their applications.”

I’m pretty sure I detected a  couple of wink-wink, nudge-nudges in those statements.

By the way, According to Ballotpedia, as of September 2016, Missouri is one of only a handful of states with no early voting that also require voters to provide an excuse for voting by absentee ballot. Twenty seven states and the District of Columbia offer no-excuse absentee voting. This map shows the distribution of no-excuse absentee voting, excuse-required absentee voting, and early voting, state-by-state. [Click on the map for a larger view.]

The election official who took my application mentioned that they are expecting 50,000 absentee votes in St. Louis County in the November 2016 election. A higher-up at the Election Board said that 30,000 to 35,000 is probably more accurate, reflecting the absentee participation in the 2012 presidential election. “In 2012,” he said, “interest in absentee voting increased as Election Day got closer, and during the last two weeks, we were getting as many as 2,000 absentee voters per day.”

Are there really that many people who fit the requirements?

My conclusion is that there’s probably a lot of “wink-wink, nudge-nudge,” in the absentee voting system here in Missouri. To me, a better way would be to offer some early voting days and thereby decriminalize the loophole wriggling that everybody knows is happening.

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