Good morning. I call to order the meeting of the Philadelphia City Commissioners Board of Elections for Wednesday, May the 7, 2025. This meeting is in compliance with the Pennsylvania Sunshine Act. The Philadelphia City Commissioners are a
three member bipartisan board of elected officials in charge of elections and voter registrations for the city of Philadelphia. Each commissioner is elected to serve a four-year term that coincides with the municipal election cycle for mayor and city council. The
commissioner set and enforced departmental policies to administer voter registration and conduct elections in accordance with federal and state voter registration laws election laws. The city commissioners were created by the Pennsylvania assembly in 1711 with a
focus on taxation and hel various regulatory powers throughout the centuries. The commissioner started maintaining border list in 1799 and took on more election related responsibilities but didn't emerge in its current form until the adoption of Philadelphia's home charter in
1951. We will start off with public comments before beginning their comments. Commenters shall state where they live or if they are not a resident of Philadelphia and that they are a Philadelphia taxpayer. Public comment is not an opportunity for dialogue or Q&A.
It is public comment, a chance for you to tell us what you think. Each speaker will have two minutes to speak. However, I may extend the time at my discretion. Public comment must concern matters on today's meeting agenda. Finally, it is
my responsibility to preserve the order and decorum of the meetings. As such, profane, slanderous, discriminatory, personal attacks will not be tolerated. If you wish to make a public objection to a perceived Sunshine Act violation, please raise your hand and I will
recognize you. Outburst will not be tolerated. Anyone wishing to offer public comment, please step forward. Have no public comment. We will now move to report from secretary for email public comments. Commissioner Bluestein, are there any email public
comments? As of 9:45 a.m., there were no email public comments. Thank you very much. We will now proceed to old business. First, we have report from our director's operation, Mr. Joseph Lynch. Morning, commissioners. Morning.
Our report for uh public meeting for May 7th for our voter registration report for the current election cycle. We have processed 1023 voter registration applications, of which 4550 were submitted on paper. Delaware and Spring Gardener is
currently reviewing all applications and correcting any mistakes as necessary. The final 5,35 ID cards will be mailed out today. The County Board of Elections as of Tuesday, we approved
70,68 vote by mail and absentee applications, which is 4,111 added from last week's total. Of those, 40,345 are paper applications and 30,263 are electronic
applications. This includes military and civilian overseas voters. All processing is currently up to date. On May 5th, 2025, we sent out our first initial mailing of ballots. We have sent out
68,933 ballots for the 2025 municipal primary and special election. Our satellite office in city hall, room 140 is now o open. Voters can request a mailin or replacement ballot in person and return it all on the same visit.
Office hours are Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p. p.m. Voters who will like to vote by mail for the May 20th municipal primary and special election can also apply for a mailin or absentee ballot at vote.fill.gov.
The deadline to apply is Tuesday, May 13th at 5:00 pm. Excuse me. Satellite election offices satellites 1 through 10 are also open. Office hours are 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10:00 a.m. to
400 pm on Saturday and Sunday. These locations also offer mail ballot services. Mail-in ballot services. Friday, May 19th, 2025 is the deadline for filing cycle 2, second Friday pre- primary campaign finance
reports. All candidates, committees, political committees, or a committee contributing to candidates for office that have made expenditures to influence a city election must file a report. ID verification letters have gone out to
voters that either did not include the required proof of identification on their absentee mailin ballot application or their proof of identification could not be verified by the county board of elections office. Voters who have received this letter may submit their proof of ID to
the county board of elections via email at phillyelectionsfill.gov, fax US mail, telephone or in person. Voters have until midnight May 27th to return their proof of identification for the municipal primary and special
election. The poor workers unit is continuing our spring training sessions as and 2,737 pole workers have attended the trainings. Online train online training is available. So far 882 have completed
the training online. Thanks to the involved 17 program, we have we have placed 305 students as board workers. We will continue confirming pole workers for the election. We've already received confirmations for
7,866 pole workers. Thank you. That's all I have. Thank you, Joe. Vice Dill, do you have any questions? I have none. Secretary Bl, do you have any questions? I have none. Thank you. Thanks, Joe. completes our old business for
today. We will now proceed to new business. We will begin by considering our first agenda item. A motion to approve 2025 primary election ballot canvas procedures. Is there a second? Second.
Does anyone wish to make comment before we proceed a vote? Yes, Mr. Chairman. I would like to motion to table this question so that the staff may have time to undo the change that was made to the credentiing procedure. A change which is unnecessary and will make it harder for watchers and the parties to get their
credentials. Okay. Um so we have our director of uh safety and security here. Mark Johnson. He made a recommendation at deputies meeting. Mark you want to come on up and explain why you made the recommendation?
Good morning, commissioners. Morning. Um, is there a question? A particular question? I have a motion on the table, but I don't have a question. Okay. Oh, well, no, I understand. Before we even get to the motion part, whether we second or not, I just wanted to let our
director I'm saying that he what you're referring to he made a recommendation to the change about the credentiing. So I wanted to let him sort of explain that he did. Um traditionally and in the past for credential approval um uh any party or
individual candidate could um recommend observer watcher who could ask for credentials to come and observe operations here at the warehouse. Um their option was they I mean actions would have to be they would make the request to our office. We would approve
it or deny it. They would go to the eighth district police district in which we would have some city storage worker, some part-time tent working down there who would distribute those preprinted um badges to them and they would show up
at the front gate um with their some type of government ID and their preprinted credential and they would be allowed access to our building. So with that process there um my assessment is there was two problems. Our preprinted badges did not have a picture. They
didn't have any unique identifications on it. Um so we were preprint them in advance. So for example last year I think last election we printed some close to a little over 1100 1300 badges. We only gave out 217 which left a thousand
badges just floating around the city that we have no idea where they went and who they belong to. Um, in my changes, the only thing I did in our changes is that um, we supplemented actually passing out IDs to
individuals, actual credentials. We'll be giving them a a email stating that you have the right to come to our campus to observe elections. And when you get here, then we will issue a badges after you come in and take a picture with you, picture of you, so we can put on a badge that actually meet best practices when
it comes to security. Um outside of that, we didn't make any additional changes. Um the other change we made was instead of giving it out at the eighth district with employees that we we really don't know, temp workers. Um and I believe um we would
have anywhere from two to three at the eighth district passing these badges out in bulk to people that they don't know. We're a soft target, so we don't really know these people and we don't have the ability to vet observers and watchers before they get here.
um in my mind is a cost savings because we can do a lot of that in-house. We can print less badges. We have more oversight of who we give it to. We get firsthand observations of who these people are. Um and we can do it with less personnel because it's inside of our space.
So I believe my recommendations I believe those changes one is more makes us more secure and is more efficient from a cost standing. Um I believe there might be some issue with how we administratively implemented this. Um so
if there's any questions about that um but I believe I engaged I mean most of the commissioners at least all the deputies verbally in person before requesting we present this at the deputies meeting in which I wrote it up and I presented it at the deputies meeting.
Thank you. Just I guess for the record, you know, like what was like your background for you was under director of safety? Um my professional background um work experience
um um I retired from the FBI after um 25 to 27 years because I retired once and after four months of retiring I was asked to return. I did two more years. Um I worked as a director of safety and security for um Dor College for a few years, a
private contractor um a security contractor that that did um a lot of schools and private um government cont um government uh what you call those hospitals and manufacturing plants. um here locally.
Um I was the the police chief at China University and then I came here. Um I'm also a certified uh by American Society of Industrial Security as a um certified security professional. Um I met those
board standards and now I'm here. Thank you. So you're basically not a rene has some some great credentials and from your recommendation is basically going to save our department more money and make our make make the policies and procedures a little bit more safety for
us. And I also want to also want to say I do understand that you know um just based on prior history a lot of you guys this is my you know that I don't the elections are new to me so I did want to make sure that I understood um the concerns of particularly the commissioners and I and I think that's
why I verbally engaged everyone just get an idea of what your concern is and one of the major concerns was they want to make sure that um you guys want to make sure that when people come on campus we at least have some idea at least during that election period of who they are um
if it was me I probably would have made some additional changes if if I if I existed in a vacuum but I realized I do not exist in a vacuum. Um so without tipping over the apple cart completely um I really felt a reasonable a
reasonable uh change would be instead of just giving out the badges let's give out um a email and have them vet. I think it's important that we can control those credentials and we make sure the credentials are they're not hard to
duplicate, but to make them as difficult to duplicate as possible and be able to account for them when we give them out. So instead of giving out 1300, let's only give out 50. We only going to have people 50 people here because they're physically here. So I just thought that was just a reasonable a reasonable
adjustment to our our policy as a whole. Thank you. Does anyone want to second Lisa Dilly's motion? Okay. Hearing no second, we will now proceed to vote. Secretary Blues
team, please call the role. Vice Chair Dey. Um, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to uh just uh respectfully uh speak on the motion. So I have
expressed uh to the staff numerous times my opposition to the change in the credential procedures. I believe that it it will make it much harder for watchers and the parties to get their credentials. Plus it brings possible conflict uh 317 people possibly uh back
to our doorstep. We learned what works for credential distribution and what does not work during the 2020 election. Our previous procedures reflected that and a change is not warranted. I was asked for I respectfully requested a meeting with stakeholders so that they
would have they would be aware of the possible change and we could address any issues and they could have been discussed. That meeting never took place and therefore I will be voting no. I vote I chairman Sabir. Motion
passes. Next item on our agenda. Just stick around. Just stick around, man. We almost done, man. I feel I can leave here. I feel more safer when you're here, man. Just relax, man. We almost done. Um, next motion we approve the 2025
primary absentee and melon application challenge procedures. Is there a second? Second. Does anyone have a statement for this uh proceed to vote? I have no neighbor. Secretary Blueste, please call a role. Vice Chair Dey, I
vote I. I vote I. Chairman Seir, I Motion approved. Passes. Okay, that was our last item on the agenda before we adjourn. Uh does any commissioners have any other business to be raised at this meeting? Yes, Mr. Chairman. Please please
proceed. Uh first of all, for the record u thank you Mark for elaborating on all your experience and certainly we do uh respect your uh all that all that experience and the work that you do here. So I please don't believe that there's anything other than that. I just
also feel as though the experience um that we lay we bring to bear to this, you know, should also have some weight. Um and I would just like to state for the record my opposition to the language in the notice that was included with the initial mailing of the mail ballots.
That's it, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Hear another other business. A motion that we adjourn today's meeting. Is there a second? Second. Secretary Blstein, please call the role. Vice Chair Dey, I vote I I vote I.