Hot Takes on Turnout Leave San Francisco Elections Commission Cold

"Election Day is not a day anymore...it takes time to process"

Voting by mail has changed how election turnout unfolds, and the media's reporting may have to change, too. The city's Elections Commission is eyeing premature reporting of turnout in the March primary by San Francisco media.

In a March 5 memorandum to the commission, President Robin Stone noted that since 2021, California has permanently sent mail ballots to every registered voter, and 9 out of 10 San Francisco voters are doing so by mail, with “considerable implications” for election results reporting. However, someone close to the matter told us it’s probably too early to “establish a trend line.”

“On the March 5 Primary Election night, the Department still had to count more than 50% of total ballots cast. However, several local news outlets began calling races, making determinations about election outcomes, and inaccurately covering the results reporting schedule,” Stone added.

One issue that seems to have generated “alternative facts” from local media is election turnout. Early reports characterized the March Ballot as a “snoozer” with low turnout.

This allowed some of San Francisco’s more access-reporting-driven pundits to frame what results emerged as an anomaly, driven by a record amount of campaign spending and, by implication, not truly representative of the deeper electorate.

The reality was rather different. It wasn’t a total washout for the candidates and measures the city’s progressives championed. Voters supported more enforcement and accountability in policing the streets, drug policy, and fresh blood for local Democratic Party leadership. They also supported an independent judiciary and increased funds for affordable housing.

More importantly, voter turnout wasn’t that low once the dust settled. In fact, at close to 47%, San Francisco’s turnout was considerably higher than the state turnout of 34%. San Francisco certified the election today per the state deadline.

In our previous coverage of this past election, Department of Elections chief John Arntz advised us, “Election Day and toward the close of voting tend to bring a surge of activity […] With many ballots yet to be cast, many vote-by-mail ballots could still be delivered by the USPS and voters using drop boxes and polling places.” The Department also had regular updates on its reporting schedule in the days after the election.

Commissioner Cynthia Dai also circulated a memo on the turnout reporting issue on March 18, noting that “one issue was that the media were reporting results despite the fact that less than half of the ballots had been counted. While we cannot control the media’s desire to “scoop,” we can state more precisely than ‘many ballots’ and show it visually.”

At a Feb. 14 commission meeting, Dai noted how “maybe the public doesn't recognize that it takes time to process these ballots fully” and how counting November's monster ballot will take even more time.

“I'm thinking more about November, not so much March, but making sure folks are preemptively aware that it is going to take, you know, that election day is not a day anymore… and making sure the public is aware of that,” she added.

Discussion continued when the commission met again on March 20. Commission vice-president Michelle Parker asked Arntz why, in addition to the late surge in ballot turn-ins, ballot counting slows down in its later stages.

“Once we get through the initial batches of vote-by-mail ballots, we have to do more manual review,” answered Arntz. “It's just a slower process. The second week usually consists of provisional ballots, which all require manual review and processing,” he added.

Later in the meeting, Stone commented further on local media “putting the cart before the horse, or jumping to make determinations about races […] We've been talking about this since 2022 specifically around the recall elections and the midterms […] we've asked the department and the director to update the website results reporting page to provide greater clarity and transparency [and] the results reporting page looks much clearer and stronger [but] people in the media did not necessarily pick up on some of these things.”

Asked about communicating expectations to media, Arntz noted that the department has “already started messaging around the fact that the processing of ballots will require more time in November than it did for March” in their outreach presentations. “This is not the first time we've made these efforts to explain the process,” he added.

The commission entertained several suggestions to deal with the matter, including “inviting local press to roundtables” to get them up to speed on the new normal in results reporting, more graphic data visualization on the department website, reframing the nature of interim counts, and a more extended FAQ about results reporting.

“Maybe there’s some room within the reporting to talk about why it takes so long once you get past those first few days,” noted Parker. Dai, noting the early voting period, suggested perhaps there should be an “election month” period preceded by a press briefing. Commissioner Kelly Wong, the body’s newest member, noted that the problem of premature pontifications afflicting some local media outlets “might be worse” in the Chinese-language media space.

No doubt, commissioners will continue brainstorming between now and the beginning of preparations for the November vote. The real question is will the usual suspects in San Francisco’s press corps get the memos, as posed by commission president Stone towards the end of last week’s discussion.

“I think the FAQ would probably be a good idea, [but] I think the challenge is less about clarity of information than the fact that the media isn’t using the information already there.”