boe in nyc r sboe submissions 020712

8/3/2019 BOE in NYC R SBOE Submissions 020712

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The Board of Elections in the City of New York Response to the New York State Board of Elections

Submissions Regarding the June 26, 2012 Federal Primary

The movement of the 2012 Primary for Non-Presidential Federal Offices (Federal Primary) to

June 26, 2012 has introduced a number of operational and technical problems for the Board of Elections in the City of New York because of the coupling of the Court Order with theredistricting changes to the Congressional Districts and the requirement to complete thePresidential Primary under present district lines. Although these events are approximately twomonths apart, the preparation for Federal Primary and the completion of the Presidential Primaryoverlap considerably. This requires that the Board of Elections in the City of New York maintaintwo voter ED/AD assignments, both operational at the same time.

Our present computer and operational systems and procedures do not have the capability toaddress this requirement. Modification to our systems would require significant reprogrammingand resource allocations to program, test and implement the necessary changes. Moreover, we

would have an additional redistricting cycle for the Congressional Districts which would beextremely compressed as we will be sent Assembly/Senate District Lines for total redistrictingwhich we must complete for the 2012 State and Local Office Primary and General Election.

Because of the knowledge level required to address our systems this is not a situation whereincreasing manpower or shifting resources would be practical. This work would impact:

1. Our systems and technical support for the Special Election for the 27 th Senatorial DistrictKings County on March 20th, the Presidential Primary on April 24th and a potential CityCouncil Special Election in May.

2. A number of important development and implementation programs will be delayed orpossibly deferred into 2013, including NYSVoter Database Changes, MOVE II planningand analysis and the operational support, updates and modifications to our major electionsupport systems including Candidate Processing, Poll Worker, Poll Site/Facilities,Election Equipment and Inventory Management, Election Day Incident Reporting,Election Setup and Election Results and Certification will be impacted.

These technical and operational issues are significant and will drastically impact our electionsupport programs.

To implement the Court Order two additional servers and systems software are necessary at acost of approximately $75,000. We estimate the need for a core group of six to ten technical staff members for approximately twelve hours per day for ninety days incurring the applicableovertime costs.

Based on the foregoing description of the complex technical and resource issues that must beaddressed in order to enable the Board of Elections in the City of New York to comply with theprovisions of the Court’s January 27, 2012 order, the Commissioners of Elections in the City of New York respectfully request that the Court modify the following provisions of the New York



State Election Law, which if so ordered would better enable the Board to conduct the June 26,2012 Federal Primary:

1. Suspend the application of the provisions of Sections 4-100(3)(a) and 4-100(4) requiring

the Board to establish new election districts if the number of registered voters in anelection district exceeds 1,200 voters for the Federal Primary only;

2. Reduce the period for the circulation of designating petitions and the number of signatures required to qualify for the ballot for the Federal Primary by 50% from 37 daysto 18 days (as was done in 1992) [Modifies Sections 6-134(4) and 6-158(1) of theElection Law]. The recommended petitioning period would run from April 9th throughApril 26, 2012.

Our ability to comply with the Court Order is predicated on the timely adoption of the newCongressional District lines by the State of New York within the first week of March 2012 and

the capacity of the New York City Department of City Planning to accelerate their work to meetthis compressed schedule.

Our technical analysis, and its conclusions set before you address solely the Court Order whichestablishes June 26, 2012 as the date for the Federal Primary. This is already based on a set of assumptions since we do not have specific geographic data or concrete dates when we willreceive such information. Therefore, we cannot precisely determine the extent of the workloadinvolved.

If the June 26, 2012 Election is expanded to include Primaries for State and Local offices thetechnical and operational issues presented in this document would be significantly compoundedand other unforeseen issues may develop. Therefore a re-analysis of the entire situation wouldhave to be done.



MIS Technical Group

Meeting ReportFebruary 2, 2012

Background The Board of Elections in the City of New York is conducting elections on the following dates inthe first half of 2012: NYS Senate Special Election on March 20th, Presidential on Primary April24

th, potential City Council Special Election in May and the Federal Primary on June 26

th. As of

this date, Assembly, Senate or Congressional District lines have not been enacted by the NewYork State.

Problem The movement of the 2012 Primary for Federal Office to June 26 2012 and the process of this

election under new Congressional District lines introduces a number of operational and technicalproblems for the BOE. The coupling of the directive with the redistricting changes to the newCongressional Districts and the requirement to complete the Presidential Primary under presentdistrict lines contributes to our difficulties. Although these events are approximately two monthsapart the preparation for Federal Primary and the completion of the Presidential Primary electionoverlap considerably. In addition to supporting two election events, it will require that wemaintain two voter ED/AD assignments and sets of maps operational at the same time. Ourpresent computer and operational systems and procedures do not have the capability to addressthis requirement.

Assumptions

To define a solution to this problem the following assumptions were made1. Enactment and receipt of the new Congressional District Lines by the State of New York no later than March 7, 2012.

2. The State and Local Primaries will occur in September3. Initial changes will be for the Congressional Lines only although AD/Senate Line

Changes are anticipated4. This may necessitate ED splits and additions however it must not change the ED/AD

affiliations.5. There will be a Special Council Election in May6. ED/ADs with more than 1200 voters will not be split for June7. Minimal calendar compression is anticipated

Discussion with City PlanningIn our discussion with the Department City Planning (DCP) we were advised that their part of the redistricting process for Congressional lines will be faster if no splits are included for theJune redistricting, and the iterative process of polygon changes between DCP and BOE whichusually includes a Quality Assurance (QA) process on both ends, were minimized. This wouldpossibly allow them to compress their processing to a week. The results would be put in aprivate region for controlled access.



Technical SolutionWe discussed several scenarios which could provide a technical solution to the dual state(ED/AD) requirement:

1. Defining the ED/AD through a finer granularity

a. Introducing tract/block into the voter recordb. Introducing X and Y coordinates (ruled out by Tom Costa at City Planning)

2. Maintaining Duplicate AVID and S-Elect Systems

3. Supporting Concurrent Elections with Differing Maps

a. Host two maps within S-elect and track both states in AVIDb. Develop a User Interface that accommodates the map state change

For a number of technical and practical reasons Solution 3 was selected and the followinginformation is our initial evaluation of the scope of work regarding what in the systems will haveto be addressed and the workload, resource and development plan impact.

Discussion of Required Systems Modifications and ScopeFor this part of the discussion it is important to view all election system functions as eitherelection specific or the current/ongoing.

AVID functional points to be considered:

Non-Event/Ongoing Request of support systems:

1. Normal current map adjustments – with help from City Planning2. Street Finder – with help from City Planning3. Poll List – Vanguard4. IVR – phone bank

5. GOAT web service6. Political Calendar7. LAP Targeting Process8. Map Production

Non-Event Request of the AVID system:

1. New Voter/Change Voter – ongoing2. Voter Inquiry - ongoing3. Voter Extract (for public and other city agencies) - ongoing4. Counter Copy – May5. State record synchronization process – ongoing

6. Labels by subdivision7. Geo Override8. NCOA9. Voter Record Print10. Subdivision and Poll Site Inquiry to S-elect11. Voter Correspondence (in supported languages)

a. Notice of Approval (Acknowledgement)b. Poll Site Change



c. Information Noticed. Transfere. Cancellations

Event Requests of the AVID system:

1. BATS2. Specs (signature verification)3. Labels by Event4. History Capture5. Poll Books and Emergency Poll Books6. Voter Correspondence7. Poll Site Accessibility Letter8. SCYTL Information Feed9. More Information Button (Ballot Presentation and Poll Site Locator for the next

upcoming election)

S-elect functional points to be considered:

Non-Event/Ongoing for the S-elect system:

1. Poll Site Locator Feed2. BDELs (ED moves from site to site)3. Poll Worker Labels4. Candidate/Current Member Labels5. Political Subdivision Support6. Calendar

Event Requests of the s-elect system:

1. Election Setup for Petitioning2. Candidate Filing3. Lotting for Printer4. NYPD Shell5. NYPD Return6. Direct Feed to ES&S EMS7. Correspondence (dozens)8. Event based Reporting (200+ stock reports)9. Forms (dozens)10. Ballots Online11. Enrollment Check of Candidates12. Fleet II/Inventory Management13. Poll Worker14. Call Center15. Election Results



Resource and Development ImpactTo execute these plans all the current development efforts will have to be tabled. Systemssupport will be reduced including the handling of operational support requests, new user reportand other database analysis requests. Current development schedule highlights which will be

affected (not including operational requests during a Presidential/Re-districting Year):

1. AVID - NYS Voter Database Change – Automated Process to Handle the InterimStatewide Database Processing (Duplicates, Death and Felon)

2. AVID – MOVE II3. AVID - State Re-synching4. AVID - DMV Interface5. S-elect – Electiondayworker.com6. S-elect – S-elect 7 Reporting7. S-elect – Call Center Stress Testing8. S-elect – Fleet and Inventory Management Upgrades

9. S-elect – RFID10. S-elect – Financial Filer Tracking11. S-elect – Poll Worker Supplemental Enhancements12. S-elect – Facility conversion S-elect 7

The development resources required for this effort must be drawn from our own developmentteam. We discussed other resource potentials such as DoITT and from these discussions there isno time for the transfer of knowledge required to address the necessary systems changes. Whatmust be done is not adding a new module but intricate changes to the internal coding andintegration elements of our total system.

For the development and testing, two additional servers and systems software are necessary at acost of approximately $75,000. We estimate needing a core group of six to ten MIS staff members for approximately twelve hours per day for ninety days incurring the applicableovertime costs.

boe in nyc r sboe submissions 020712

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