2003_11

Four Creeks Unincorporated Area Council

Special Meeting Minutes – November 6, 2003

Submitted by Gwendolyn High

Attending:

David Rockabrand

Gwendolyn High

Cynthia Green

Marshall Brendan

Brian Thomas

Kelly Faoro

Matthew Hebb

Dave Dahlin

Preliminary Discussion

Kelly F. reported that she had never received the postcard or the ballot. Gwendolyn H. reported the same.

David R. suggested that all future mailings have "-or Resident" appended to each address. He reported that there were very many postcards returned as undeliverable. The addresses were purchased from Labels and Lists and were supposed to be current up to at least this last quarter with names and addresses of all the registered voters in all the voting precincts that the Four Creeks UAC represents. David said he would follow up with the vendor.

Discussion of Errors on the Ballot

§	David R. opened the discussion by stating that the At Large section of the Ballot did not have write-in lines as the District section did.
	David D. asked if there was room for names to be written in. There was, but consensus of those present acknowledged that the lack of lines introduced confusion and was inconsistent with the overall format and content of the ballot.
	Kelly F. asked if there had been a specific challenge.
	Claudia Donnelly was invited to express the challenge. The following is a summary of her comments: Two years ago the then president of the UAC had called for volunteers for the election committee and no members stepped up. Thus, he created the ballot alone. Ballots were mailed and the community voted. MVEC challenged the election because that ballot included errors (one candidate was listed in the wrong district and one of the candidate statements had been reproduced incorrectly). At the emergency special meeting that was called, MVEC members promised to sue the UAC if the election was not invalidated and re-run. The UAC members voted to do just that. Two weeks ago, her ballot arrived and she voted. Then she got a phone call from a local resident who pointed out the writ-in lines error. She called David R.
	Joe K. commented that there is no way to tell that write-ins for the AtLarge positions could be submitted.
	A member of the audience asked if there were any official format standards that the UAC was supposed to be following. David R. explained that there isn't such a standard. Each year the elections committee creates all the election materials. David had called King County Records and Elections department as soon as the errors were reported. They told him that they have no oversight of our elections and that the ordinance that created the UACs (the Citizens' Participation Initiative) and our Bylaws are the governing legislation in this case. Neither specify the format or content of our ballot.
	Marshall B. said that this was a legitimate concern and that is was certainly appropriate for the UAC to address it. The council agreed. He pointed out that there was another error that had not yet been reported: District 10 was listed as having an open seat in the body of text at the head of the ballot, but District 8 was listed in error in the District section. Upon review of the current roster, it was agreed that District 10 was indeed the open seat. Brian T. serves now as District 8 member. Brian T. offered to step aside if a candidate received more votes than he.
	There was much discussion about the possible remedies to the acknowledged errors. There was no dispute that the errors as reported existed. Claudia was thanked for bringing the first errors to the UAC's attention and for her courage to come to the meeting and speak even when others would not. The following points were made: Better process, format and content procedural guidelines need to be drafted and adopted in order to prevent any recurrence of these kinds of errors. No resident has stated that they have been denied the opportunity to serve on the UAC because of the error. Several seats are expected to remain open after the election, and if any one does come forward to state such denial, they can be appointed to an open seat. No resident has proposed to take legal action. While it would be a perfect solution to conduct the election again from the beginning, the UAC simply does not have the funds to do so.

Date/Motion Description	Member	Motion Made By	2nd	Aye	Nay	Abstain
2003.11.06 Postpone any further action on the reported ballot errors until further challenge might be raised after the votes are counted and published.	David Rockabrand			X
	Gwendolyn High			X
	Cynthia Green		X	X
	Marshall Brendan			X
	Brian Thomas			X
	Kelly Faoro					X
	John Gillingham
	Matthew Hebb	X		X
	Paul Zucati
	Edie Jorgensen
	Dave Dahlin			X
Result: PASSED				7	0	1

Meeting was adjourned at 7:40pm.

Initially submitted via email to all UAC members, and posted on the website on November 18, 2003. gh