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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2018/02/13 - ADMIN - Minutes - Charter Commission - Regular OFFICIAL MINUTES CHARTER COMMISSION EXPERT Q&A PANEL – RANKED CHOICE VOTING ST. LOUIS PARK, MINNESOTA February 13, 2018 6:00 p.m. – Council Chambers, City Hall 1. Call to Order Chair Maaske called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m. 2. Attendance Members Present: Maren Anderson, JC Beckstrand, Gary Carlson, Lynne Carper, Jim de Lambert, David Dyer, Terry Dwyer, Ken Gothberg, Sara Maaske, and Henry Solmer. Members Absent: Jim Brimeyer, Matthew Flory, Andrew Rose, and Erin Smith Others Present: Nancy Deno (Deputy City Manager/HR Director) and Melissa Kennedy (City Clerk) 3. Expert Q&A Panel – Ranked Choice Voting Chair Maaske thanked the panelists for taking the time to share their knowledge about Ranked Choice Voting and elections in general. She stated the purpose of the meeting was for the Charter Commission to get their questions answered as a part of their process to study and make a recommendation to the city council regarding Ranked Choice Voting (RCV). She explained questions were submitted by Charter Commission members in advance of the meeting. The panelists were selected by the Charter Commission. She noted although no public comment will be taken at this meeting, those wishing to comment on the topic are invited to attend the Public Listening Session being hosted by the Charter Commission on March 6, 2018 at 6 pm in the Council Chambers. She stated bio information on each of the panelists was available on the city’s website on the Ranked Choice Voting page. The panelists introduced themselves and provided information on their background in elections. The panelists included: Loren Botner, Deb Brinkman, Ginny Gelms, Professor David Schultz, Mary Wickersham, Jeanne Massey, and Chris Tholkes. Question #1 – Ginny Gelms: Has the voting equipment adapted well to RCV and can you describe the steps involved in counting the ballots once the machines can no longer tabulate races? Ms. Gelms stated the voting equipment used in Hennepin County was not originally designed specifically for RCV, however they have been able to work with their vendor to develop a workaround that will allow the machine to accept and read ranked-choice ballots and perform a preliminary tabulation. She explained the ballot machines can produce a raw vote total of the number of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choices that every candidate has received. Depending on rules that the city would need to write and adopt by ordinance, the raw vote totals may be enough to declare official winners for any candidate who passes the 50% threshold in the first round. She added tabulation can get more cumbersome in races in which no candidate reached the required threshold on election night. At that point the information needed to actually perform the RCV reallocation and tabulation – not only the number of first, second, and third choices that each candidate Charter Commission Minutes -2- February 13, 2018 received, but how each individual ballot was actually marked, which candidates appeared on each ballot and in what order – is not transmitted electronically on election night. The City of Minneapolis retrieves the memory sticks from each vote tabulator and returns them to Hennepin County on election night and staff has to physically do wnload the information off of the memory sticks. The data is downloaded and accumulated overnight and an excel file is generated and provided to the city the next morning. The data in the file is essentially a spreadsheet on which every line represents a single ballot and the candidates appear in the order in which they were marked on each ballot. Staff from Minneapolis then perform a manual tabulation process using the digital data by cutting and pasting the lines in the file to create digital piles of ballots within the excel file to ultimately determine who the winners are in each race. Question #2 – If a switch to RCV was made in St. Louis Park, what are the possible challenges an election judge might face in terms of being able to successfully administer an election? Mr. Botner stated the biggest challenge would be making sure that the voters are prepared for the change. Within the polls on Election Day, the biggest piece would be making sure that demonstration judges are adequately trained and equipped to answer questions and explain to voters how to mark their ballot. He stated it ultimately comes down to whether or not voters have enough information to feel comfortable marking their ballot. Ms. Wickersham added that more time spent with the demonstration judge would be the biggest change that would have the most impact. She stated more than half of voters pay no attention to the demonstration judge and this change would require them to be more engaged at this station within a polling place. She noted along with additional questions, she would also expect judges to receive additional comments related to the change. She stated more personal interaction with the judges is not necessarily a bad thing, however judges and voters will need to be prepared for the change. Question #3 – How does RCV improve civility among candidates during the election cycle? Ms. Brinkman stated civility is improved because candidates need to vie for their opponents’ second and third place votes. She added candidates will also have to campaign to the majority, not just their base of voters. She stated some of the negative campaigning that has occurred in other cities has actually had negative consequences for that candidate. Ms. Massey stated RCV is a shift in the culture of campaigning and they work with candidates to make sure they understand that process. She added candidates are generally happy about the shift after their campaign is over because they had an opportunity to get to know more voters. Candidates really run to serve and they like to speak to people in their community and RCV gives them a reason to speak to more people. Question #4 – Based on your knowledge of elections and campaigns, would RCV benefit non- traditional candidates versus a non-RCV election where the winner would only need the most votes to win? Professor Schultz stated a lot of times people may want to vote for a non-traditional candidate, but fear that if they vote for that particular candidate it will in fact help elect the candidate they liked the least. Our current voting system creates a disincentive to vote for a spectrum of candidates beyond the top two most likely to be elected. He stated there is pretty good evidence that suggests that RCV gives people the incentive to vote for their first choice candidate and to pick their second Charter Commission Minutes -3- February 13, 2018 and third choices. It encourages voters to take a larger risk in terms of voting for non-traditional candidates and also seems to encourage a lot of other candidates to run to give voters a broader range of candidates to choose from. Question #5 – As an election judge in St. Paul, what was your experience with voters using RCV in the last election? Ms. Tholkes stated she worked at the Ramsey County elections office the week before the election to assist with absentee voting activities and saw a very diverse population of people come in to vote. She noted that although a lot was done to try to educate people in St. Paul on RCV, most of the voters who came in to vote the week before the election did not know that they would be voting on a ranked-choice ballot and they did not understand how to mark a ranked-choice ballot. She stated there was a lot of same-day education that needed to happen, especially through interpreters. She noted the number one question that was asked after the process was explained was “can I still just vote for one choice”. Vice Chair Dyer asked Ms. Tholkes what could be done to better inform the public to ensure they were prepared when they came to vote. She stated as a resident of St. Paul she felt there was a lot of good information out there and an effort was made to educate, so she is not sure where the breakdown was for people. She reiterated that there were a significant amount of voters who did not know about the change or how to vote on a RCV ballot. Question #6 – Do election results take longer to tabulate and post in an RCV election and how long did the process take in the 2017 election in Minneapolis? Ms. Gelms stated that the results process does take longer than a traditional election. In 2017 the City of Minneapolis was finished with their tabulation process by the end of the day on Wednesday. She noted this was an improvement from what was experienced in the 2013 election when the tabulation process took until the end of the day on Friday. She added Minneapolis has made improvements to their processes after every election with ordinance changes related to their rules for administration of elections, including the tabulation process. Question #7 – What challenges do voters face when trying to understand our current voting system? Mr. Botner stated the only difficulty he has seen on a consistent basis is during partisan Primary elections where voters have trouble understanding that they have to vote along party lines. It seems the greatest obstacle is people understanding that they have to pick a party at the Primary versus being able to make selections across party lines at the General election. Ms. Wickersham agreed that was the main difficulty and reason for spoiled ballots at partisan Primary elections. She stated at health care facilities voters typically have trouble understanding why some offices are partisan and some are non-partisan and judges spend a lot of time with each individual voter explaining how to mark their ballot. She added RCV would be a little more difficult for people at health care facilities and even more time would be needed to help voters understand the process. Charter Commission Minutes -4- February 13, 2018 Question #8 – Aside from the elimination of the Primary election, why does St. Louis Park need RCV and what is the problem it will solve? Ms. Brinkman stated it restores majority rule when there are multiple candidates running for a single office and is a much better representation of voters’ choices. She added that voters also seem to really like having more choice on their ballot and it reduces the influence of money in elections. Ms. Massey stated because the decision has already been made to eliminate the Primary, a candidate can win a race without majority support. She added RCV fosters more choice without the risk of the spoiler dynamic and greater diversity in candidates and those that have an opportunity to win. Question #9 – Are there any negative side effects or unintended consequences of RCV that St. Louis Park should be aware of? Mr. Schultz responded a lack of preparation in terms of implementation and a lack of understanding of what RCV is supposed to do. When Minneapolis first implemented RCV there was some evidence of voter confusion and one of the recommendations he gave to the city was to put more resources into educating their citizens on what RCV really was and how to participate in the process – such as how to mark a ballot. He stated St. Louis Park would benefit from doing much more targeted and continuous education to certain groups of citizens. If the city does not prepare the proper foundation in terms of education, it will likely run into problems with voters not understanding what to do or the change that occurred. He added it is also important to make sure people understand and have realistic expectations for how RCV works and how the results are processed and communicated. Question #10 – What steps did election judges take to assist voters who were having trouble understanding RCV and what type of help or other materials did you have available? Ms. Tholkes stated one of the biggest resources they had available was interpreters to help communicate with voters. She added they had many judges on hand to assist voters so that they could take a little extra time to help educate a voter if needed, and they had educational materials available that voters could look at or take with them. Question #11 – RCV appears to necessitate the increased use of manual processes to tabulate ballots. Does this increase the opportunity for human error, fraud, or manipulation of results? Ms. Gelms stated she does not believe that the process introduces additional avenues for fraud. She noted there is the potential for human error with the manual tabulation process. That risk was mitigated in Minneapolis by the way they setup their process with multiple teams performing the tabulation simultaneously. Human error is an element that should be kept in mind and risk mitigation strategies should be developed to address that risk. Question #12 – How do we support non-English speaking, seniors, and voters with disabilities at our polling places? Mr. Botner stated the written materials in the polling place are now available in a broad spectrum of languages. Voters with some form of impairment also have the opportunity to mark their ballot using an assistive device (Automark). Additionally, a voter can request assistance in marking their Charter Commission Minutes -5- February 13, 2018 ballot and two judges from different political parties would perform that service upon request. He noted election judges are a unique community because they all understand implicitly that they are there to help all eligible citizens be able to vote. Ms. Wickersham stated in the past interpretation services have been used over the phone. She noted a majority of non-English speaking voters tend to bring a relative with them to provide assistance. Chair Maaske asked Ms. Wickersham to talk about her experiences with assisting senior voters. Ms. Wickersham stated many seniors are hard of hearing or visually impaired and they typically need assistance from judges or health care facility staff to mark their ballot. She added 90% of the voters in healthcare facilities require some assistance in marking their ballot because the voter is concerned they may have a problem marking it on their own and they don’t want to make a mistake. Question #13 – Can you explain what you mean by voter participation and how it relates, or does not relate, to voter turnout? Ms. Brinkman stated RCV leads to more voter participation because it makes people feel more engaged in the whole process and voters have a better chance of selecting a winner. She added the increased civility in the campaigns is more appealing to voters. Ms. Massey stated RCV automatically increases voter participation by combining the Primary and the General election into one single election where turnout is the greatest and most diverse. Question #14 – Is there a causal relationship between RCV and the higher turnout in Minneapolis and St. Paul in the 2017 election cycle and what other factors can influence voter turnout? Mr. Schultz stated there are a lot of factors that can influence voter turnout and it is hard to separate those factors to conclusively say that RCV is the cause. One important factor is the perception that there is a close or competitive race. Additionally, a higher number of candidates can increase turnout because they are trying to reach out to their base and get them to vote. He noted media attention is also a big factor and typically the media pays less attention to local elections. He stated RCV does seem to have an impact because it addresses the question of why people should vote or why they should get engaged, but he would be hesitant to say that there is one singular factor that drives turnout. Question #15 – Had there not been a decisive winner in the last election, what other responsibilities would election judges have had in terms of the tabulation process used in St. Paul? Ms. Tholkes stated she was not one of the election judges trained in the tabulation process, but there are teams of judges that are trained to participate after the election in performing the manual tabulation process of sorting and counting ballots. Question #16 – As new ballot tabulating technology emerges, will the cost to St. Louis Park be disproportionately higher because the city will be an early adopter relative to the rest of the United States? Charter Commission Minutes -6- February 13, 2018 Ms. Gelms stated to the extent St. Louis Park has costs related to RCV, she is not sure that they would be related to the fact they are an early adopter as far as technology is concerned. Hennepin County purchased new equipment in 2013 that has a shelf life of 10 -15 years. She noted ranked choice voting capabilities are one thing, among many, that the county considers when they go out for a RFP to purchase new equipment. The last time they purchased there was limited technology available in federally certified equipment for tabulating ranked-choice voting elections. She stated they will have to see what the market has available the next time equipment is purchased, noting it is helpful to them to have cities onboard with whatever their particular algorithm is so that can be put directly into the RFP when they prepare to make a purchase. Question #17 – What are typical issues you run into on Election Day and how much is understanding how to mark a ballot an issue for voters? Mr. Botner stated he did not think that understanding how to mark a ballot was a significant issue for voters. He added if there is appropriate education and a voter is prepared when they s how up to vote, that can help reduce confusion. Ms. Wickersham added if RCV was used, new demonstration ballots would need to be developed to help explain that there are RCV races and non-RCV races on a ballot. Question #18 – Please describe your pre-election education efforts to explain the RCV process to voters. Ms. Brinkman stated the League of Women Voters is very insistent on adequate voter education with any change in a voting system. Voters need to be educated about any change, no matter what it is. So far, the LWV SLP has held events at which people can “practice” the RCV process. As the process continues, the League would partner with FairVote and the city on voter education. Ms. Massey stated a concerted effort was made in Minneapolis and St. Paul to raise money for public education on RCV. FairVote can go deeper with a more grassroots effort to educate candidates, voters, and the media. Question #19 – Is RCV an artificial means of creating a majority out of a plurality? What is wrong with the winner-take-all approach in current elections? Mr. Schultz stated one of the things that has been seen at the national and state level is situations in which candidates don’t have to appeal to the other side and can get elected by just running base politics. Research suggests that is helping feed pre-existing polarization. RCV is an effort to start to create real majorities by building incentives for candidates to go beyond their base and forcing people to build real government coalitions that involve compromise. Question #20 – Have you completed any survey of voters who have used RCV to assess their level of satisfaction with the process and what were the results? Ms. Massey stated she provided the Commission with exit polling results from the last election and noted that Minneapolis also has conducted post-election surveys in the past. She reviewed the results of the exit polling done by FairVote and noted the numbers in Minneapolis were extremely positive. 92% of the voters polled in Minneapolis found RCV was easy to use and the vast majority of voters enjoy the ranking process and want to keep using RCV in the future. Charter Commission Minutes -7- February 13, 2018 Question #21 – How are recounts handled in Minneapolis – electronically or manually – and what is the county’s involvement? Ms. Gelms stated this is one area where the city is completely on their own, the county has no involvement in recounts. In Minneapolis recounts are performed manually using physical ballots. Question #22 – If St. Louis Park switched to RCV what challenges or barriers might need to be addressed to help non-English speaking or senior voters better understand how to mark an RCV ballot? Ms. Tholkes stated making sure the interpreters have a base level of knowledge regarding the ballot and the process. She added some of the challenges related simply to the volume of people coming in at one time to vote. Ms. Wickersham stated she would foresee developing and providing multi-language signage or other materials that would specifically address the rules related to RCV itself. Mr. Botner stated from a logistics standpoint it would be important to ensure that there was adequate space available to provide demonstrations to larger groups of voters at one time versus having to individually help one or two voters at a time which could lead to longer lines. Question #23 – In any 2017 multi-candidate race, can you indicate the number of races, the number of candidates, how long it took to tabulate results after they were reported on election night, and were computer systems adequate to handle the tabulation? Ms. Massey stated Minneapolis has very large elections every four years. There are a total of 22 races on the ballot. In 2017, the mayoral race, 8 of the 13 councilmember races, park board at - large, and approximately half of the park board races were competitive and required additional rounds of counting in the tabulation process. The mayoral race took less than 3 hours to count, a vast improvement since 2009 and 2013. The council races took approximately one hour per race. She noted that in order to make the tabulation process efficient, resources (people) are required and a viable tabulation method. Question #24 – How does RCV work with ballot rotation requirements per Minnesota law? Ms. Gelms stated it works the same as it would on a traditional ballot. Candidates are rotated on a precinct-by-precinct basis to ensure that the same candidate is not listed first on every ballot. Question #25 – What does evidence show about voter participation and RCV? Is it increased and is it more equitable? Mr. Schultz stated the evidence is somewhere between showing positive increases in voter turnout and saying it isn’t any worse than what is seen under traditional voting systems. He noted it is difficult to sort out all of the variables that can impact turnout. Among cities in the United States that have implemented RCV there seems to be some evidence of an uptick in turnout, but that uptick could also be correlated to an increase in the number of candidates running and voter perception that they have more choices. Charter Commission Minutes -8- February 13, 2018 Question #26 – Please describe the vote tabulation process in a RCV election? Ms. Massey stated that St. Paul and Minneapolis do use different processes. St. Paul counts the ballots manually using the physical ballots. In Minneapolis they have created a shortcut by using the data file called the cast ballot record. The data is then transferred by staff into spreadsheets that allow the people performing the tabulation to aggregate everyone that voted in exactly the same way on their ballot. She added that some ballots become exhausted in the tabulation process, mainly because voters do not rank beyond the first or second choice. Ms. Gelms stated a ballot could also be exhausted if all of the candidates ranked by a voter were eliminated in earlier rounds of the tabulation process. Question #27 – In your experience do most voters actually take advantage of the opportunity to rank multiple choices on their ballot? Ms. Gelms stated that has varied by election. In the recent Minneapolis mayoral race, only 12% of the voters made just one selection and 25% made just one or two selections. Ms. Massey added that people are more likely to rank in competitive races. Question #28 - What is your view on the implication of a majority winner having a clear mandate and increased legitimacy versus a plurality winner and does RCV create clear majority winners? Mr. Schultz stated this is more of a philosophical question and in his estimation the more we can create real majorities there is a perception that decisions are legitimate in terms of how we think about representative democracy. In general, RCV is going to ensure that there is a numerical majority. Question #29 – If voters have a difficult time understanding differentiators between candidates in a winner-take-all system, how will voters become more educated with a greater number of candidates for which they may vote for under RCV? Ms. Massey stated voters need to be educated in any election and there is a broad spectrum of levels of education. Under RCV, the need for education doesn’t go away but it eliminates the need for voters to have to vote strategically. Mr. Schultz added one of the problems is that there are too few resources dedicated to civic education in general. He stated that some say that RCV asks too much of voters, but if they can actually gather the resources they have shown that they can understand the system and rank their choices. Mr. Botner stated his perception has been that as the society has moved towards polarization, participation has not been diminished. It has energized people to participate, and saying that RCV is too complex is underestimating our citizens. Question #30 – Based on your general experiences, does RCV make your job as an election administrator harder or more difficult? Ms. Gelms stated it does make the job more difficult as an elections administrator and if this is something that passes in St. Louis Park the city should consider giving staff in the clerk’s office Charter Commission Minutes -9- February 13, 2018 raises and more resources. She noted that St. Louis Park would benefit from the fact that both Minneapolis and St. Paul have already gone through the process of adopting and implementing RCV. She stated the city would not be able to avoid the difficulty of developing the expertise in - house in order to be able to handle the actual tabulation of the ballots. She added that is a very esoteric thing, and it is something the staff would have to educate themselves on – there is no assistance from the state or the county in that regard. Voter education, outreach, and election judge training are also very important aspects that will require very robust efforts from in -house staff and the trend in Hennepin County and the State is showing that more people are voting before Election Day via absentee ballots which will continue to require increased resources from the clerk’s office. She reiterated that St. Louis Park would need to put resources into people, training, and education in order to adequately serve the needs of voters and successfully implement a change such as switching to RCV. All of those requirements combine to make things more difficult for election administrators such as the city clerk. Question #31 - Please explain the weighted inclusive Gregory method and how it works. Ms. Gelms and Mr. Schultz agreed that there was no need for the Commission to understand that at this point and it was not applicable to St. Louis Park. Question #32 – Please describe the county’s pre-election education efforts to explain the RCV process to voters in Minneapolis. Ms. Gelms stated this is another area in which the city is on its own. The city does all of the education efforts related to how to mark the ballot and how votes are counted in a RCV election. Question #33 – As an election administrator what additional was or would have been helpful for voters in an RCV election? Ms. Gelms stated it isn’t too difficult to educate voters on how to mark a RCV ballot. The more difficult piece is explaining to voters how ballots are counted because it is important for voters t o understand what voting strategies make sense in a ranked-choice election. As election administrators it is difficult to remain neutral but also explain the process in a way that is easy for people to understand. Question #34 - In situations where one ballot contains races using the RCV method and races using the traditional method, do you sense voters are confused or discouraged by having two different voting styles on the same ballot? Ms. Gelms stated Minneapolis does not have non -RCV races on the same ballot. She explained she could foresee this being a difficulty in St. Louis Park when school board races are on the same ballot because it is a multi-seat race. She stated it would be particularly tough to educate voters on how to vote using two different methods on the same ballot. The ballot design would also be difficult, depending on the number of choices St. Louis Park would allow, because there is only so much space on one ballot. Ms. Tholkes stated St. Paul has an RCV race on the front side of the ballot and school district races on the back side of the ballot. Ms. Massey stated both Minneapolis and St. Paul have done a good job of designing the most user- friendly ballots possible. Charter Commission Minutes -10- February 13, 2018 Questions #35 – Can you speak about the distribution of spoiled ballots in recent RCV elections and are they greater than in previous non-RCV elections? Ms. Gelms explained a spoiled ballot occurs when a voter in a polling place makes a mistake while completing their ballot and requests a replacement from an election judge. She added that a spoiled ballot represents a voter who knew they made a mistake and received a new ballot. She stated with all of that being said, yes, the number of spoiled ballots does increase if you compare the numbers to the most recent non-RCV election in Minneapolis. The spoiled ballot rate was approximately 1% and that increased to approximately 4% in the 2017 election. She stated this increase from non-RCV to RCV elections has been consistent in that it quadruples, however the number itself is relatively small. Ms. Massey reiterated that the election with the most spoiled ballots is the partisan Primary. Question #36 - What is one piece of advice you would give to an organization considering RCV? Mr. Botner stated to educate voters and personnel. Ms. Brinkman agreed with and reiterated Mr. Botner’s comments. Ms. Gelms stated she would not underestimate the amount of resources the city would need to put into the administration and voter education components. She noted she is on the panel as an election administrator, not as a policy maker. The goal of all election administrators is to make sure elections are run well no matter what system is used and that does take resources. Mr. Schultz stated he would advise the city to learn from others that have already implemented RCV. Ms. Wickersham stated she envisions having a couple of different ballots that could be used in a test mode and then build the education piece from that testing. Ms. Massey echoed Professor Schultz’s advice to learn from others and to find where the holes are in terms of voter education to improve upon those systems. Ms. Tholkes stressed the importance of voter education and added that the city’s election judges are an invaluable resource for in-person voting and she would encourage the city to invest in a variety of modalities to train judges. Additional Questions from Charter Commission Members Commissioner Carper questioned why the exit polling numbers from Minneapolis and St. Paul show differences between the number of voters that felt RCV was easy to use and those that said they actually want to continue using RCV in the future. Ms. Massey stated 92% of voters in Minneapolis said they found RCV easy to use and 84% said they would like to continue using RCV in the future. She explained although it is hard to say why the drop-off occurs, both numbers are very high in terms of voter satisfaction with the system. Commissioner Beckstrand stated St. Louis Park has not necessarily had the same problems as Minneapolis and St. Paul that have demanded or called for a switch to RCV. He added St. Louis Charter Commission Minutes -11- February 13, 2018 Park is a relatively small community that has challenges even getting viable candidates to run for office and plurality has generally not been an issue. He asked what the problem is that is trying to be solved and is a switch truly going to be worth it for St. Loui s Park given the administrative burdens, costs, and voter education efforts that would need to take place. He asked why the switch is specifically needed in St. Louis Park. Mr. Schultz stated he would never go in and tell another community what is best for them or what is wrong with them. He added at the end of the day it is a question of values and what is most important to them. Every community has to make decisions regarding their electoral system and what is best for them. He suggested identifying the problems that exist and then determining what policy options are available to help address those problems. He stated the Charter Commission and the City Council have to identify the problem and then determine whether or not RCV will help solve those problems and perhaps enhance some of the other values of the community. He noted in many situations he believes RCV has the ability to address some problems for some communities, but he would not say that RCV is the answer to every problem. He added there is not one correct answer or system that will work or be beneficial for every community. Mr. Botner stated from a civic perspective, if RCV will allow the citizens of St. Louis Park to feel as though they can participate more fully and back a broader range of candidates, which could be a valuable thing because more people will want to be involved. In the end St. Louis Park needs to determine what values are important to them and his understanding is that at least two of those values are inclusion and diversity. Ms. Massey stated the conversation about bringing RCV to St. Louis Park started with the decision to eliminate Primary elections. Commissioner Beckstrand stated the event was extremely helpful from an educational perspective and he thanked the panelists for their time and their thoughtful responses. He added one of the challenges he has had is balancing a broader policy decision with the more detailed tactical questions surrounding implementation. Chair Maaske thanked the panelists and the Charter Commission members for their participation and for taking the time to share their knowledge. 4. Adjournment The meeting adjourned at 8:15 p.m. Respectfully submitted by: Melissa Kennedy, City Clerk