Luigi Borda

The Commissioner’s Office has the primary goal of overseeing the election process in Philadelphia, and to encourage Philadelphians to register and vote. As a Committee Member in Ward 26, and former Judge of Elections, I have participated in dozens of elections and know Philadelphia’s voting process very well. I believe my years of experience on the front lines of Election Day, allow me some valuable prerequisite knowledge. I have also been a Philadelphia School Teacher for 30 years, where I have focused on social studies and government. Educating our city’s brightest minds for decades helped me find my passion in civic engagement and voter turnout, which is an area where I’d like to see this Office transition.

My top three Policy Goals:

1. Increase voter turnout to 50% in my lifetime for ALL elections including primaries. This is
   an audacious goal, but I believe it is possible by addressing the systemic reasons for Philadelphia’s low turnout numbers. The number one reason we have low turnout is built into voting culture in our city. There is no easy fix to this, but it is a grassroots movement, that I beleive the City Commissioner’s Office can address in addition to its current perview.
2. Institute my curriculum Philly Civics 101 in Philadelphia High Schools. This 10 lesson unit would be directed to High School Juniors and would be co-taught by sitting City Council Members and classroom teachers . Students would be encouraged to share the lessons with family and friends outside of school The purpose of the class is to educate Philadelphia’s students on the City’s election process and give them personal exposure to our City’s elected officials. I believe that a systemic problem with voting is that so many young residents don’t have a connection to a complex process. By making the process and officials more real and visible to young residents, we can increase their likelihood to vote and promote civic engagement and education.
3. Increase access to voting. I will advocate for early voting, no-fault absentee voting, the restoration of voting rights for formerly incarcerated residents, and consider any policy proposal that aims to increase voter turnout or access to voting.

The City Commissioner’s Office is a relic of the former Democratic machine that help power over our City for generations, and if it’s going to stay, it needs to be overhauled and repurposed. The silver lining to this Office is that our City has a government arm that has the unique capability to address all voting issues, for that reason, I believe the Office should stay, but with a reinvigorated purpose to increase voter turnout and civic engagement.

I wouldn’t do away with the three elected officials, and I do agree that a minority party must be represented among the three. In addition to overseeing the election process, the Office should assist Ward Leaders and Committee Members in preparing them for Election Day. I would use the office as a nonpartisan GOTV operation that focuses on the systemic voting culture in Philadelphia. I believe that by working closer with committee members, and by implementing proven engagement strategies, with the strength that comes with an elected office, we can really make a difference in our city that will allow us to flourish for generations.

As a teacher for 30 years, I have worked on this problem first hand for decades. What I’ve realized about my students, is that when they turn 18, they’re off to college and living their life in another town or state for at least 4 years. If they do come back to Philly, which most do, they return at the age of 22 without ever voting in an election. Now, they’re getting their first job, consumed by the excitement of life, and one day they wake up 30 years old and have never voted. The longer it takes for someone to vote, the harder it is to get them to vote. My Philly Civics 101 class works to ameliorate this problem.

Also, I would like to see the voting age dropped to 17 years old, so that residents have a more realistic timeline to vote in an election or two before their life circumstances are changed by high school graduation. Moreover, I think access to registering to vote, and information surrounding elections needs to be expanded. It’s nonsensical that the only place to get voter data from the City is at City Hall. Our city is too large and diverse to allow that to continue. A major barrier to voting is lack of knowledge on the candidates. We have all heard someone say that before. I think that temporary Voter-Kiosks should be established throughout the City the month before and election that is equipped with non-partisan or influenced information on the candidates running. We must arm our citizens with the information necessary to be informed to vote. In addition mobile “VoterVans” should be at public events throughout the city equipped with volunteers/retired educators who are willing to share the Philly Civics 101 program and ready to answer any questions potential voters may have.

In addition to these issues, another pertinent, yet never discussed one is the role that campaigns play in the election process. It’s the job of a campaign to communicate to likely voters. That in turn educates those likely voters, but those that aren’t deemed “likely” are left out of the information pipeline. As a City Commissioner, I would request a GOTV information piece that is aimed at newly registered voters, and those who have voted in the past, but missed the last election or more. Voting is a habit, so we need to work to instill the habit in our young people, and work to re-establish it for those who are likely to re-engage the process with just a little nudging.

The root and substance of this question illustrates my impetus for running for City Commissioner. In examining the Office’s FY19 Budget and “About Us” section of the website, I found an interesting discrepancy. The City Commissioner’s Office’s Major Objectives, per the 2019 Budget: “Administer Federal and State voter registration and election laws and conduct Primary and General elections for Federal, State and local elective party office and encourage Philadelphians to register and vote. ” The “About Us” section of the Commissioner’s Website doesn’t mention anything about encouraging Philadelphians to vote. Oddly enough, when the current Commissioners request their $10,000,000 a year budget, they do include that language. Why the discrepancy? Simple oversight or an obvious disregard for actually encouraging citizens to vote. The current Commissioners haven’t put a high enough priority on encouraging citizens to vote, and I believe that we can address that with education — as a 30 year school teacher, I know this is a realistic solution.

I believe the City Commissioners should play the largest role in our City to educate and the public about voting issues and encourage them to vote. By educating our citizens, we will be able to decrease their hesitation to vote, and remove a portion of the cognitive dissonance that is a barrier to voting. This Office is perfectly positioned to make a huge difference in our city’s voting culture which will pay dividends for generations. I believe that by leading the way in educating our citizens about the electoral process and the candidates running in every election, that will increase voter turnout and civic engagement. In doing so, our City will strengthen its argument for increased funding at the State and Federal level for all services and departments.

The most serious problem is when something structurally doesn’t work, such as, failure to open the polling location on time, vacancies inside of the polling location, problems with the voting machines, among others. I think the easiest way to fix this is for the City Commissioner’s Office to take a more active role over the voting process by working closer with the Ward system and Democratic and Republican Parties in Philadelphia. The Commissioner’s Office must ensure that the workers the individual parties have in place to work the polls are prepared. For locations with systemic problems, the Commissioner’s Office should take a very serious and active role to fix existing or recurring problems.

Updates and improvements to our electoral rules could definitely facilitate greater electoral participation, and I will always support and advocate for those updates. It is important to keep in mind, that these improvements are not a panacea and research shows that there will only be modest levels of increased engagement. However, we should still strive to implement these changes because it should be the City Commissioners priority to make voting as easy as possible.

As a City Commissioner, I would make it a priority to recruit and train more poll workers to increase engagement in our City’s electoral process. I am open to hearing about proposed changes like half day shifts. In this regard, I am currently recruiting retired educators to get more involved by their classroom experiences to help strengthen the current training programs.

The first thing that came to my mind when I read this question was, thank goodness for the news media. No, I do not think the pros and cons of the new voting machines has been discussed and debated adequately, at least not by the Commissioners who voted to approve the new machines. If it wasn’t for our local reporters, I imagine that less than one percent of our residents would have any idea the City is purchasing new voting machines. I attended two of the public hearings and was struck by how many citizens, including the current City Controller seemed against the decision that was ultimately made, not to mention the fact that the Commissioners ignored the recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Commission by purchasing these machines. It’s an expensive machine that doesn’t meet the needs of our society. Voters must have confidence that their vote can’t be tampered with, and they need to know that the machine properly recorded their vote.

As a Commissioner, I would have made my concerns very clear at every public meeting and would have lobbied my co-Commissioners very hard to move towards a better solution that makes more sense. I would also have informed city activists of the problem. For our government officials to care, they must feel pressure. If they’re not feeling the pressure to govern responsibility internally, then it should be applied externally with community demonstrations and appropriate communications such as earned and social media.

However imperfect, the current voter check in systems aren’t the biggest problem in our voting process. Currently, I do not have a preferred amendment to this process. However, if my constituents, community groups, or voting rights experts have preferred suggestions, I am always open to hearing them and will always work for anything that makes voting easier and more accessible.

I would allow full transparency to the Office. Currently, the Commissioners Office has scheduled Sunshine Meetings, but those clearly aren’t cutting it. I would make all meetings publicly accessible and filmed and aired live, then the meeting would be posted on our website. I would require that all electronic communication that is related to office must be done on government phones, and email accounts so the public has complete access to all government communication. In short, no decisions should be made privately or behind closed doors. It is important to have the opportunity to discuss matters privately with other Commissioners, but if those discussions are related to an official decision being made, I would state my logic and rationale for those decisions on the public record at each meeting.

There are a number of things that I’ve considered, but I would like to incorporate basic strategies to improve registration rates, such as making it a default option to register to vote when a PA resident gets or renews their driver’s license after the age of 18. Meaning, when someone goes to the DMV after they’re 18, no matter what service they’re there for, if they’re not registered, they’re automatically presented, and prompted, to register to vote. The registration form will be presented electronically at the clerk’s window, and the option to register to vote will be automatically populated to say “yes.” The person doesn’t have to register to vote, but they would then need to switch the setting to say “no.” By doing this, research shows that more people will register to vote because the process for registering them is already started and they’re more likely to complete it, than if they were starting the process from scratch. This would add more people to our registration rolls, and our office would then mail them a Voter Information Pamphlet in following days to apply positive reinforcement to their voter registration. They would also receive a GOTV mailing as a first time voter near Election Day, and their likelihood to vote will drastically increase.

Beyond small measures like the one mentioned above, I would spend some time getting to know what can and cannot be done and always make decisions with the thought of how to increase voter turnout and to simplify the voting process for all of our residents.

The answer to this question will ultimately depend on who is fortunate to win the Primary and General Elections. In an ideal scenario, the three Commissioners will act as a team that allows for each Commissioner to focus her or his staff on their goals. Each of the Commissioners must agree that all of the responsibilities of their office must be collectively met, but we can allow Commissioners to focus on their passions. For me, I would devote the majority of my time to accessing the latest voter turnout and engagement research and then implementing those strategies by developing and training a voter registration team, GOTV team, and liaison to the Ward Leaders in the City that wish to increase voter turnout and civic engagement. I would make these paid positions in my office by hiring individuals that want to accomplish these goals as an additional part of their normal day to day duties.

I believe that all the Commissioners should be given the same amount of funding for their staff. However, I will be looking to cut waste within the Office by thoroughly examining the budget with the City Controller’s Office. Any remnants of the Office that are tied to patronage or nepotism must be rooted out because we need high-quality, driven individuals working to increase voter turnout and civic engagement. Moreover, I will implement cost saving strategies to reduce some of the Office’s largest expenses. Currently, the Commissioner’s Office is appropriated over $320,000 a year for printing. In a Presidential Election year, that number is over $570,000. In a digital age, we must offer the capability of emailing documents via PDF, and consider printing on a smaller font size to decrease the demand on paper and ink. By rooting out employees that aren’t working at an acceptable level, and hiring those that will, we will increase the Office’s efficiency with no additional cost. We can then use the savings we create with common sense budgeting to fund our GOTV mailings and outreach with little or no extra cost to taxpayers.