Out of Commission

At the end of March, Ed Goppelt launched a website (www.hallwatch.org) that allows users to search City Council campaign finance reports, as well as to look up pending legislation. Now, Goppelt wants to expand the portal to include polling site information, but the City Commissioners who oversee Philadelphia elections are refusing to hand over the data he requested on computer disc.

By all accounts, the Ward Division book Goppelt asked for is public information. It contains no personal identification data and is simply a compilation of addresses and polling sites. But because Goppelt asked for the book on "computer tape," City Commissioner Marge Tartaglione told him the law does not mandate that she grant requests for information in "electronic form."

Since April 9, Goppelt has twice sent Tartaglione written requests for the data, explaining that by posting polling site information on the website, voters could easily access it. It would also help out the City Commissioners, who are flooded with phone calls right before Election Day, he argued.

Goppelt and a friend attended the past two public commissioners meetings to follow up on his written requests. They were met "with suspicion" at both meetings, he says.

"Judging by questions she asked us, Commissioner Tartaglione seems bothered by the fact that Hallwatch has only been online for one month," Goppelt says.

This fact is irrelevant, however, he insists. "We don’t have to pass a good citizenship test to request this information…the law says we can have it."

The Commonwealth Court on May 15, 2000 issued a decision on county commissioners’ obligation to grant voter registration information on "computer diskettes." It states: "Even if the chairman of County Democratic Committee had made request for voter registration information as a member of the general public, county commissioners would have been obligated to grant his request under Voter Registration Act, stating that the county’s ‘street list’… is open to public inspection…and…shall be provided to the public at cost."

However, Ed Schulgen, deputy city commissioner and an attorney, insists the case law is murky on this issue and he has to study it further. He expresses concern that Goppelt will "make mistakes" when he posts the polling site information on his website, noting that the City Commissioners "don’t have any experience with these individuals."

"We want to make sure this doesn’t result in a disservice to voters," Schulgen says. "At least if the information comes from our office, we control the accuracies."

Goppelt finds this explanation difficult to buy.

"If they're so worried about accuracy, why did they give me the Ward Division data as a stack of fan-fold computer paper four inches high?" he asks. "Which do you think would be more accurate — my friends and I typing in hundreds of thousands of streets, or me importing data from a computer tape into my database, a one step operation that would consist of me hitting the return key?"

But Schulgen says the Commissioners feel comfortable distributing a hard copy of the data. "There’s a mystery about computers," he says.

The other argument that Tartaglione and her staff raised repeatedly during the public meetings was their fear that Goppelt would use the data for "commercial purposes," which is forbidden under the Election Code. But Kennedy Printing already sells software based on the Ward Division book Goppelt requested (City Council members and the Committee of 70 use it).

"You'd think the Commissioners would have brought charges against Kennedy Printing," Goppelt says. "Yet, somehow, a printing firm selling a Ward Division locator is okay, while giving it away on my website is not."

Goppelt wrote letters last week to both U.S. Rep Bob Brady and Mayor Street, in hopes that they will exert their clout to obtain the information from Tartaglione’s office.

Schulgen says he expects the staff to give Goppelt a definitive answer at the Commissioners’ May 4 meeting.

—Gwen Shaffer