Did the San Francisco City Council appoint to the Board of Elections someone who a social media post called an "illegal immigrant"? No, that's not true: The person who was appointed to a commission in San Francisco is a "legal immigrant," the president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors told Lead Stories. And the person was not appointed to the San Francisco Board of Elections, but to the San Francisco Elections Commission, which is a civilian group that creates policy for the city's Department of Elections.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on Facebook on February 19, 2024. It opened with the person in the video saying:
In case you missed it, the San Francisco City Council appointed an illegal immigrant to the Board of Elections and this position will determine if illegals -- sorry, migrants -- will be able to vote. And in case you're wondering, everything is going exactly according to plan.
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Thu Feb 22 19:14:21 2024 UTC)
The caption on the post read:
The illegals are moving into America & deciding that their vote is more important than yours.& are getting paid for it as well!
The person in the video gave no proof or evidence that an "illegal immigrant" was appointed to the position, nor did the video name the appointee.
Kelly Wong, an immigrants rights advocate who legally immigrated to San Francisco in 2019 from Hong Kong for graduate school, was appointed to the San Francisco Elections Commission on February 14, 2024, as local news outlet KQED reported (archived here).
Wong's appointment sparked criticism locally (archived here) and nationally. Fox News reported on her appointment with an article titled, "Immigrant from Hong Kong becomes first non-US citizen appointed to San Francisco Election Commission," (archived here). The New York Post (archived here) identified Wong in their news article titled, "Non-citizen Chinese immigrant is sworn in on San Francisco's Election Commission."
Lead Stories reached out to Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin (archived here), who appointed Wong. In an email on February 21, 2024, Peskin said of Wong, "She is a legal immigrant."
As a legal immigrant without citizenship in the United States, Wong is able to serve on the commission due to Proposition C, which passed in San Francisco in November 2020. This proposition amended the city charter to "remove the requirement that individuals serving on city boards, commissions, and advisory bodies must be U.S. citizens and registered voters, while still requiring those individuals to be of legal voting age and San Francisco residents," according to Ballotpedia (archived here).
The San Francisco Elections Commission is a seven-member organization that creates policy for the Department of Elections, which then implements the plans. The commission sets "general policies for the Department of Elections." Other duties include "before each election, approving written plans for how the election will be conducted," as the San Francisco government website states (archived here). In San Francisco, the city and county are consolidated, therefore, "the Board of Supervisors has an increased amount of responsibility, acting as both the City Council and County Board of Supervisors," according to SFCiti.org (archived here).
