Senator Erich M Fabricius submitted the following report regarding Government Bill 38, "Board of Elections Act", on Wednesday, November 13th 2002, as sponsor to said act , in supplement to the report of Wednesday, October 30th 2002:

Common Questions on the Board of Elections Act

Q. Does the new Board of Elections require more people than before?

A. No, it does not. Current statutes require a chair and eight commissioners, along with the technical personnel. The new Board requires a supervisor, 3 associate supervisors, and five commissioners, along with the same technical personnel.

There can be any number of Supervisors, not just the minimum. However, any additional people is because of new programs, such as College Council elections, not costs of operations.

Q. Won’t it be harder for the SBP to recruit for these more specialized positions?

A. It’s important realize broad duties aren’t necessarily more attractive than specific non-trivial duties. Commission membership will be attract people interested in upholding the fairness of elections but are not willing to spend huge amounts of time getting the details of elections together. Associate and Assistant Supervisorships will appeal to people interested in improving elections participation and in general making the election bigger and smoother. These people don’t have to deal with difficult issues under intense public scrutiny.

Q. Isn’t the Commission more effective because its members are very involved in the elections?

A. That depends on how you define effective. The commission is faster, perhaps, because of its members operational involvement. I don’t think it can be said that the Commission makes better decisions because of member involvement. The proposed Commission is still as knowledge in the procedures of election as the old one. By not being involved in the day-to-day of elections, the commission can appear fairer to both sides of an issue than if they were already involved in one side. The commission must then judge an issue on the same collection of facts as the public.

Q. A five member Commission seems small.

A. A five member panel will need 3 to 4 votes for action depending on the needed majority. This represents a balance between a small number of people being able to push things through and a small number being able to block matters. It’s important to note that the commission has few things they need to adopt compared with things they must exercise great care adopting. A significantly larger board would also be more difficult to recruit without necessarily gaining significantly different viewpoints.

Q. Won’t having both a Supervisor and a Commission Chairman deprive the Board of clear leadership?

A. Not at all. The Supervisor of Elections is very much the successor to the current chairman position. The Supervisor is still in charge of most things, and is certainly in charge of everything that doesn’t require deliberation beforehand. If every rule was followed and every candidate completely forthright, the Commission would almost need to do nothing at all. Also, since the chairman is elected by and from the Commission, the President is only appointing and defending one individual as a leader of the board.