Hi. Please let me know who of you near Boulder can come and speak or just raise your hand at the July 17 City Council hearing about putting online petitioning on the ballot: eravitz@gmail.com. The agenda giving the approximate hearing time for the 17th is not online yet, but it will be at: https://bouldercolorado.gov/agendas. The hearing is not just on online petitioning but on all Charter Amendments for Council to consider putting on the ballot. This is really important, because the City Attorney's office staff, who are supposed to assist our City working group, refused to fix errors they put into our last report to Council. You can see from the email chain below that Council member Cindy Carlisle is concerned about it and longtime former Councilman Steve Pomerance, who is on the working group with me, backed up and expanded on my complaint. Council member Grano asked for the errors to be corrected at the June 19th City Council meeting. July 5, from 9 to 9:30 Council member Jill Grano and I will be talking about online petitioning on KGNU, with host Maeve Conran. Jill is very supportive. Kgnu is 88.5 FM in Boulder 1390 AM in Denver or kgnu.org worldwide Here's that email chain, with Council member Cindy Carlisle getting the last word at the top, and ending with Steve Pomerance. -Evan Ravitz ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Carlisle, Cynthia Date: Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 9:56 AM Subject: Re: As referee will you make the attorney's office play fair? To: Evan Ravitz Evan, Thanks for your perseverance in this matter. I share your frustration. I’ve been following the matter, have been in contact with Steve, and asked for the corrections that appeared in the errata. Steve is my main contact because, as you say, there’s more than enough confusion and it’s easier to have one main contact. I do read your and others’ comments. Sincerely, Cindy Sent from my iPhone On Jun 23, 2018, at 8:22 AM, Evan Ravitz wrote: Regarding my last email to Council below, it's clear to the working group that staff repeatedly introduces the same errors and confusion that the group keeps fixing. Tom Carr's animus towards government by the people was obvious during the council meeting of December 19th at which he said "direct democracy undermines representative government," and he has to take responsibility for 2Q and not enforcing our campaign finance laws. Carr is one of three people that Council directly hires and fires and therefore you can order him to be even-handed, and that should solve the continual problems our group has been having. Our group has been unanimous on most things and works well together, and staff's actions about online petitioning are the only real problems we have. As you remember I protested last year when Human Services was running a big ad campaign with our money asking people to engage about their services, but leaving out that they administer homeless programs, the most controversial services they administer by far. You called me on the phone, but absolutely nothing changed. At this point I wouldn't consider playing ultimate frisbee with you because every player is supposed to be self-refereeing. Evan Evan Ravitz, guide, photographer, writer, editor. Ex-not-so-tight-rope artist. Direct democracy promoter since 1989. The unlikely takes longer... http://EvanRavitz.com (720)403-5594 ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Evan Ravitz Date: Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 9:10 AM Subject: Fwd: Pomerance: Re the first reading memo To: , Aaron Brockett , Bob Yates , Cindy Carlisle , Grano, Jill , Lisa Morzel , Mary Young , Mirabai Nagle , Sam Weaver , Suzanne Jones Was my public comment last night "rhetoric" as Carr said, or fact? Below is Steve Pomerance backing what I wrote trying to get the falsehoods in the draft fixed before the final version was given to you, and adding the more important financial statement bias that I missed this time, having fought the same battle months ago and not seeing that staff reintroduced the error - if that's what this pattern that has repeated many times is. The pattern of reintroducing errors we fixed before has been going on for months and I emailed Jill about it before. We volunteers on the group are paying staff to undermine our work through our taxes. It's taken many extra hours for all of us. It's taken me about 4 hours in the last 3 days. The group was never alerted to your discussion of these matters over a month ago, until after the fact. Otherwise we could have been there to dispel all the confusion. I've tried by email, but since I never hear back from any of you I have no idea who might be reading what. This is the same City Attorney's office which hoodwinked Council into putting 2Q on the ballot and the public into voting for it and refused to enforce our campaign finance laws - the two reasons the Campaign Finance and Elections working group exists! Evan ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Steve Pomerance Date: Mon, Jun 18, 2018, 1:18 PM Subject: Re: Re the first reading memo To: Evan Ravitz Cc: Ward, Rewa , Rionda Osman-Jouchoux , Mark McIntyre , Valerie Yates , Allyn Feinberg , Matt Benjamin , Tyler.Romero@colorado.edu , Michael Schreiner , John Spitzer , Ed Byrne W , David Gehr , Kathy Haddock , Beck, Lynnette , Burnette, Tammye , Geoff Wilson , Taylor Smith , Jane Brautigam To the City Staff: I agree with Evan’s points. In addition, one other thing needs to be said — If the staff is going to make a big deal about the costs of evaluating using electronic signing or endorsing petitions, then the staff should also make a big deal about the potential savings from taking this path. If the city were to use Denver’s iPad approach, the time required to check that the thousands of people who sign really are registered in Boulder and really live at that address would be zero, other than the cost of access to the data base. So the only real cost would be that of checking the actual signatures, which would for sure be way less that having to check all the data. And, if the city were to go to real on line petitioning, where people use their SS# or driver’s license number to sign in (as the SOS’s web site uses now to allow people to change their registration info), then the cost of reviewing the “petitions” would be essentially the cost of using the data base, almost zero other than setup charges. And it would be done pretty much instantly. So, if we’re going to talk costs, let’s also talk about savings. And the costs are pretty much one time items, whereas the savings would go on and on, occuring every time a petition is done. Steve Pomerance On Jun 18, 2018, at 12:44 PM, Evan Ravitz wrote: Staff has only shared the DRAFT of the first reading memo to us. Steve is working off the FINAL first reading memo, which is part of Part 1 of the agenda packet for first reading at Council tomorrow. Here is the URL where you can download the packet: https://www-static.bouldercolorado.gov/docs/2018_06_19_Agenda_Packet_final1_Part1-1-201806141732.pdf Our part begins on page 153. The online and electronic petitioning part starts on page 165. I can barely keep up with all the confusion and misunderstanding that has been repeatedly introduced into the part about online and/or electronic petitioning, so I will confine my comments to that part. I agree with Steve's comment that the part he highlighted in red is confusing and redundant. Further, as I stated about the draft version, Denver does NOT have online petitioning. It is ONLY available on an iPad with special software and the Secretary of State's voter registration database installed. And as I stated, electronic petitioning IS feasible in Denver (eSign is working and therefore is feasible) and therefore it IS feasible in Boulder. The word feasible should be removed completely. I PROTEST staff keeping two falsehoods in what is being given to Council, after I corrected them, along with the endless confusion and wasting of our time and effort. Again, here is my suggested version: Ordinance 8274 See Attachment D for the full ordinance The Ballot Title is proposed to read as follows: Ballot Question No. ____ Electronic Initiative Petition and Voter Identification Charter Amendments Shall Section 38 of the City Charter be amended pursuant to Ordinance 8274 to allow the Boulder City Council to adopt ordinances that permit use of electronic petitions and to permit online electronic signing or endorsement of initiative petitions? For the Measure ____ Against the Measure ____ Sec. 38. Preparation of initiative petitions. The working group recommended that the charter be amended to authorize the city council to adopt ordinances that will permit the use of electronic petitions and permit online electronic signing or endorsement of initiative petitions. Online signing or endorsement of initiative petitions would require an amendment to the charter. The current initiative process contemplates a circulator affirming that the petition was signed by the people on the petition. Because this is an evolving area it makes sense for the authority to be in the charter and the regulatory authority directly assigned to the city council. The working group would like the council to direct the city manager to form a working group to evaluate methods of signing initiative petitions electronically, especially online so as to be available 24/7 to everyone, everywhere. The implementation would be completed through the adoption of a subsequent ordinance. The charter could be amended after that. The City and County of Denver have electronic petitioning and the same software has been licensed to Washington, DC. Boulder staff met with the software developer. In Denver, petitions and the Secretary of State's voter registration database are downloaded to an iPad. The voter types the information into designated fields on a form. The person is then identified as an eligible voter in the database (or they can register or change address on the spot.) Then, the person signs the petition form on the electronic device, and petition pages are printed that look like and are checked just like traditional petitions, including signatures. This recommendation of the working group will have an impact on the city’s budgeting. Evaluating implementation of signing or endorsing of petitions electronically would require staff time from the City Clerk’s Office, City Attorney’s Office, City Manager’s Office, Communications and the Innovation and Technology Department. It will require modifications to the work plans for each of these departments and potentially funding increases. Evan Ravitz, guide, photographer, writer, editor. Ex-not-so-tight-rope artist. Direct democracy promoter since 1989. The unlikely takes longer... http://EvanRavitz.com (720)403-5594 On Mon, Jun 18, 2018, 11:19 AM Steve Pomerance wrote: Hi David, A few comments re the memo: 1. Ordinance 8272 has the original language re “may verify” signatures in its Sec. 39. But 8273 would change that language to “shall verify”. Is there going to be a problem if both pass, but 8272 passes with more votes? I don’t want to get caught by such a procedural issue. 2. The ballot title for 8273, and the summary in the memo, do not contain the language “as reasonably possible” re verifying the signatures. It seems to me that this language is important to the concept, and it’s in the actual charter language, and is only 3 words more. Do you think you could propose adding in this on first reading, so as to smooth things for second reading? I think that would help both the council and the voters. 3. The discussion about electronic petitions seems to have a contradiction in it. 8274, if it passes, would allow the council by ordinance to establish electronic endorsements, etc. So why is there all this discussion about another charter amendment to do exactly the same thing? That doesn’t make any sense to me. Here’s the language from the memo — see parts in red. I could see a charter amendment, maybe in 2019, to require that the City allow electronic endorsements, etc., but the permission would have already been granted if 8274 passes. So why is this in here? All it does is create confusion IMO. The working group would like the council to direct the city manager to form a working group to evaluate the methods of signing initiative petitions electronically. One potential advantage of having petitions online is that they could be available to eligible voters 24 hours per day, seven days a week. The implementation would be completed through the adoption of a subsequent ordinance if the second working group finds it feasible. The charter could be amended after that working group determines whether signing electronically is feasible or it could be amended in 2019 or thereafter to permit the city council to find a way to allow signing electronically. 4. Re the discussion re 38B about timelines and charter amendments, all this about McCarville v City of Colorado Springs is interesting, but not what the WG was directed to deal with. We were NOT asked to fix the charter amendment process. (And, frankly, I do not recall any discussions that we could alter the timeline in state law for charter amendments.) Let’s be 100% clear — 2Q did NOT address the timeline for citizen initiated charter amendments, only citizen initiated ordinances. So it made NO attempt to make them mesh, align them, or whatever other verbiage is being put forth. If that had been the point of 2Q, it would simply have required citizen initiated ordinances to follow the state law timeline for charter amendments! Or at least it would have granted the power to the CM to write a new timeline for such charter amendments. But it did nothing of the sort! As to whether using a different timeline for charter amendments would “create the type of conflict between the two state laws” that we would end up losing in court over, well, that’s an interesting legal question. But (1) again, we were asked to fix the municipal initiative process that was screwed up by 2Q, not the charter amendment timeline, and (2) no other cities use any other timeline for charter amendments other than the one that is in state law. (I asked at CML and that’s what I was told.) So, we’d be swimming up a very long pipe if we wanted to fight that one out, IMO. All of this looks like just another attempt to justify 2Q, and should be dropped. It just confuses the issue. 5. In the memo, it is stated that in Sec 39 the clerk has to set the number of signatures required by "180 days before the date of filing (320 days before the election), based on ten percent…” I looked through Sec, 39 with the amendments, and I could not find any such language. Also 180 days before “filing" is not 320 days before the election. In fact, I’m not clear what “filing” actually is supposed to mean. But “submittal” must occur no later than 150 days before the election, and 150+180 (the allowed max time for signature gathering) = 330, not 320. All of this needs to be clarified and straightened out, and if my assessment is accurate, then there should be another first reading amendment to put in the date for setting the number of required signatures, and make it at 330 days, or whatever it is supposed to be. Steve Pomerance -