- We'll go ahead and call to order the the April 3rd meeting of the Monroe County Election Board.
- We have a few action items today, not a heavy agenda. The first item of business,
- do we do we have minutes to approve? I will make a motion to approve the minutes.
- All right, so I move and second. Can we call the vote on the minutes? All those in favor say aye.
- Opposed? Great and that's item is the clerk's update and I think you have some legislative updates
- for us. I do legislation. The session at the state house is winding down. There are some bills that
- have been already been signed by the governor. The one that relates to elections so far that's
- been signed is Senate Bill 199, which is it is the bill that provides that two or more candidates
- of a political party may sign a written statement indicating their desire to name a watcher to be
- present at the county primary election. I note that that talks about the primary only, but it was
- signed on April 1st by the governor. Next, House Bill 1633 is the bill that calls for the study
- of election issues, but it also talks about the possibility of requiring all counties to become
- vote centers that will go to a study committee this summer. House Bill 1643 has been it's a
- campaign
- finance bill that has been sent to the committee on appropriations. House Bill 1679 is of
- particular
- interest to clerks. It's where we asked for specific things such as making sure that every
- county clerk's office is closed on election day. Some of my clerk brothers and sisters are not as
- fortunate and so this says that the clerk is relieved of their judicial responsibilities
- on election day and their office is closed except for the purposes of overseeing the election.
- It also says that any county government employee who would like to serve that they be given that
- day off like you would any other day to volunteer and that you are allowed to be off for to serve
- as a poll worker on election day. We also did get our ask that the date for presidential
- certification
- be moved up to September 1st. This past year it was September 13th and that created a problem in
- that we only had one week to get everything done and get out our mail ballots to our absentee
- overseas and military voters. That again was house bill 1679. 1680 is election security and
- transparency that is typically the bill for the Indiana election division. It has passed through
- both houses and is on second reading at the state house. House bill 1681 is for local public
- questions and it provides that any local public question or referendum may be placed only on a
- ballot for the general election. Senate bill 10 is the voter registration bill. It's a really big
- bill but the one that impacts elections. It does specify that you may not use a university
- identification to vote so students will not be allowed going forward to vote with their student
- ID. It is expected to pass and become law. Senate bill 199 I said that had already been signed by
- the governor and then Senate bill 526 voids an advisory opinion adopted by the Indiana Election
- Commission and it has definitions for tabulation and ballot retraction should someone pass away
- and we need to remove the ballot. We anticipate those all becoming laws. It is on its third reading
- and we expect it to be signed by the governor. That's all of the legislative updates I have.
- Thank you. I don't know if there's any public comment on that part of the agenda but
- let's move on to the next action or agenda item which is election central update. We have a
- couple items. Hey guys first I want to go over voterless maintenance. My office participated
- in a voterless maintenance testing with civics last week and part of earlier this week also.
- The testing went well and the IED has updated their website so that the public has information
- more about the IED, Indiana Election Division. So they will have more information on there about
- what voterless maintenance is and that's going to be at indianavotors.com/vlm and you can also
- find that link on our county website on the voter registration page. Voterless maintenance will
- begin
- on May 16th and we are anticipating to get the first wave of cards out at that time. There will
- be a second wave of cards that will go out on May 30th and that is going to be to any registered
- voter who is in the active status. This is just to and make sure that all of the voters in Monroe
- County are up to date with their address and any other information that we need in order to make
- sure that their registration is valid. And then there will be a phase two of testing that is
- expected to start in June so we should have that done with that testing by July for the final part
- of voterless maintenance to be completed. Is there an element of this maintenance of removing
- people who are no longer eligible to vote here don't live here? How does that work? So there
- are two phases the first one is a postcard that goes out to and make sure that it's being able to
- be delivered to that individual. If it comes back as undeliverable then there's a second phase that
- we send out that is forwarded to a new address that that person lives at and then at that time
- they can update their information if they're still within Monroe County to update it to their new
- address or if they're out of the state then it will send it to them they can check off saying
- they no longer live in the state it comes back to us and then at the end of the year we have a
- auto cancellation where anybody who no longer lives in Indiana or did not update their registration
- is cancelled there any questions from the board for Kylie on that for the public all right thank
- you and then the second part is the CFA letters which we had approved at the last meeting and
- then once getting back to the office we noticed a couple of things and just wanted to clarify some
- language in it and so I had spoke with John to confirm that we were on the same page and that I
- was thinking the same the way that they should have been relayed was the right way and so we
- worked with Molly to get those fixed over the past week and we have those to be reconfirmed today
- do um either you have any question oh go ahead molly sorry I did provide a copy of the letters to
- the
- board members um there was really in the notice of delinquent I'm just going to run through the
- changes and the notice of the delinquent report I just added up to fifty dollars for each calendar
- today to ensure that it was clear that it was possibly a max of fifty dollars a day with a
- maximum of a thousand dollars um the notice of the first letter I again clarified up to twenty
- five dollars a day for a second offense up to fifty dollars a day for a third offense
- and I indicated that for a first offense you may but are not required to appear in person
- that satisfies the notice requirement under administrative procedure orders but then also
- coincides with the election board policy which is that first time offenders would not be expected
- to attend and then the same up to language was added in the second and third offense
- and then I didn't make any changes to the notice of election board finding letter so procedurally
- an individual would get the notice of a delinquent report to let them know that they needed to file
- the report and then based on what level of offense they would get one of the first second or third
- offense letters to provide the notice of the hearing of which a fine could be imposed against
- them and then after the election board makes a decision they would receive the notice of election
- board finding which would advise them um of the fine that was assessed and their right to appeal
- great any questions this is clearly an issue because you've got to fill this out
- am i being naive to think why in the world people don't have these things filled out is it
- is it a complicated form i mean it looks to me like unless you've got a little bit of work just
- to get your numbers together in a day you get it done does i mean am i am i missing something
- okay i just reminds me of sixth graders i guess
- well you will see i'm sure in a meeting shortly a list of people okay well i've seen i saw the
- list that much like okay i mean you know i mean especially the first time offenders there's so
- many um danny that you'll see that it came in at like two o'clock instead of noon yeah you know
- what i i get that i get that that's not a huge there are some that just i guess they lost their
- election and they're not underpowering okay i hear you yeah okay comments questions i have no
- comments or questions i think you sum your concerns up very nicely i appreciate molly you and kylie
- working together on that because i think it really does express the intent we had
- to simultaneously hold people accountable but do things in a way that are kind of efficient for the
- board as well is there any public comment on this action item i believe we
- speak come up and say your name and
- langdon as i'm familiar with this i have seen what happens i mean honestly life happens
- people have lives things happen that come up unexpectedly i don't think that it's
- necessary to be sarcastic and to belittle people that are really trying to just serve
- the public and that's all i have to say about it thank you any other comment
- and i would just add that i think that is exactly why this board historically has been very
- lenient on the first time offenders because things do happen no doubt about it okay uh i
- think we need to i'm going after anything other than trying to figure out why this wouldn't get
- finished when you've been getting letters i assume letters go out beforehand that's all i'm trying
- to
- figure out is this is there something that we need to do differently to make them aware getting
- this
- done maybe it's when they file whatever i think the fairest thing to say is that and i've had
- several been a part of several incarnations of elections election boards this has come up
- we have tweaked for lack of a better word our approach we want to encourage people to run
- we don't want to punish people or discourage them but um we do have some repeat people and i
- certainly don't disagree that life happens but um i think the message at least as i talk to clerk
- siblings is you know the accountability of you believe you're ready to serve in elected office
- but you can't get the necessary paperwork in on time that becomes you know a conflict i'm with you
- and i just trying to figure out you know yeah what's what's causing this okay so we probably
- need to approve these letters before you can use them so could i get a motion i will so move
- i will second okay um all those in favor please say aye aye opposed nope okay next item is the
- vote center study committee update hi um uh you guys should have a document that kylie has in
- front of you which is um in preparation for our conversation about details for the upcoming public
- hearing um so a couple of different things i think that are on that list is just for the general
- public um or the the public hearing is at 5 p.m in this room on monday um i am intending to give a
- short presentation at that meeting um of why of kind of similar to what the updates i've given
- you and hopefully we'll have also some material available about vote centers a couple of different
- things i think we can just go through line by line i in terms of it do we want to just go from
- there
- okay yeah so um the document that i gave you guys was just basically trying to establish an agenda
- for monday essentially so first was like trying for the public comment the way that we are going
- to be receiving those from the public for the 30 days that we can um there have been a couple of
- questions of how we want to go about having them sent to our office um i will say that the microsoft
- forms is probably going to be the best option and i've already created a draft of that which is the
- second page in that packet that i give you guys um it just is a very simple first question is do
- you think minero county should switch to vote centers yes no if not what are your changes
- what the changes you would like to see are and then goes on to how would you vote on election day
- and then please leave any other comments you may have and that way it just all goes into one place
- that will put it into basically graphs for you guys that is easily able to see and then all the
- comments will be in one place as well and um right now i have that one created if there's anything
- you guys want to change or take out you guys have more than welcome for those comments and then um
- and just to confirm that has a place that someone optionally wants to include their name
- yeah okay yep and then uh the other couple of things was just trying to figure out
- timeline for a presentation and public comment how many minutes you would like to give
- for the public comment and then a couple other things as well
- you have a preference on does the committee have a preference on some of those items
- uh i i don't think we have a preference on the amount of time i think three minutes is usually
- pretty typical in that environment so maybe we can just agree on three minutes for that
- i'm planning on giving probably about a 20 minute presentation of items i don't know if it'll take
- that long and then um yeah and then yeah having some sort of form to go out is is sort of the
- next step in terms of it um because then we also um later in that agenda we wanted to figure out
- just for for advertising reasons when we want to do the next public hearing whether you guys want
- to do it at your june 5th meeting or have a special meeting 30 days after the um the comment
- period um i guess pros cons doing an evening public hearing since it's where you guys are
- doing the vote might be i think that would be a preference of the committee is to have some sort
- of evening meeting for that for the vote because that will be the voting meeting i believe um uh
- and then i think that so that would be an argument for doing something kind of out of sequence in
- terms of as opposed to at your june meeting which would be the next time you do it so i don't know
- where you guys feel i feel in terms of that so the 30-day window would be may 7th
- i well i'll defer to others i mean let me look i don't have a strong preference um i mean
- let me ask a question why people are looking at their calendars
- have we resolved the timing elements as relates to a
- have we resolved the timing like say county council resolution do they need to do it before
- or after the hearings i think that you could proceed with the hearings the resolution just
- needs to be attached and sent and provided to the state for the plan for the okay for the plan to
- take place and i will add that it's not a resolution has not been added to the county council
- agenda for
- consideration yet but i will say i have followed up with the county council to try and work on
- getting it onto their agenda so we've contacted them and i know that hopefully we're able to but
- yeah it just needs to be done before the whole thing is filed right correct yeah um i believe
- the council meets on the 13th of may and so if their preference is to wait until after to if their
- preference is to wait to pass that resolution to see what plan is forthcoming i think their
- earliest
- they could pass a resolution would be the 13th okay what what do you all think would you rather
- do a special meeting or handle it at the uh clarify a little bit here we're talking about
- the second hearing which ended may 7th came out okay that would be i assume well that would be
- after our regular may meeting which is the first i think isn't it um i can i can go i'm okay may
- seventh if that works for you but just kind of surprising because it is softball season and i'm
- gone you know my suggestion would be the earliest um the second hearing could be was may 8th
- because
- the statute says at least 30 days and that's holding it on the 30th day are you here in june
- yeah once it's i'm sorry i've just done this for 40 years and it's april and may if it ends
- in wine it's not sunday i'm somewhere doing a softball game i'm fine with may but i also
- i don't think may 8th works for me it does not it does not okay so then what was the june date
- what's the regular meeting but just so you all know i will not be here for the june
- so it sounds like for you it's coming to a special meeting
- okay i do agree that a special meeting would be a better option with the being a later
- meeting so that public can be there for the vote i know that there's some we're talking about you're
- talking about another meeting we actually vote on it now is what we're talking about not the second
- hearing would be yes and if one is voted okay all right i believe there was some conflicts with the
- eighth and the ninth yeah so i guess what we do is maybe the 12th i won't be around for that but
- that's shouldn't i have a whole wonderful community for that the only other date i have in may
- right
- now it's the 19th i will be yes i can do that i need to close it because it's raining
- and then there's that they fill everything else up let's get may 19th on our calendars
- before anything we can do that yeah before life happens
- yeah and i think my preference would be 5 p.m is great but could we do it at like 5 30 or something
- for people that are like coming from work and stuff like that since the goal is public comment
- is that okay okay yeah
- and then that bottom section is about postcards i had had a meeting with alana earlier this week
- and she had made a suggestion about sending out postcards to registered voters to inform them of
- where they can go to send their public comment and i'm going to let molly take over a little
- bit more on this because i believe that was a discussion between the two of them
- if my mic works um yes i had mentioned this to alana i do believe that's the process that
- the planning did when they um the planning committee when they redid their cdo and so
- it was just a postcard with a qr code that i do believe either took them to a google form or an
- email and it just made it easier for um the public to know how to provide public comment and then i
- think that they also provided the option if you couldn't if you were struggling with the electronic
- option of providing public comment you could deliver public comment to a designated address
- and i think in this sense it makes sense to do it at elections office and with that packet i did
- give you guys a half sheet of paper it has a qr code on it that's to the one that i already drafted
- that away that we do have that if you guys decide to go with that one and then if there
- are any changes to that we can update that qr code as well
- who's paying for the postcards it would come out of either the elections or the voter registration
- budget do we have an idea how much that would cost it's not cheap i have a request in to our
- vendor who has helped us with if you ever got the cards in the mail letting you know i've
- requested a meeting with him they certainly have done right by monroe county and helped us get the
- word out to all monroe county voters i always go in asking for a deal but you see what's going on
- with the postal system i will just all i can do is try to navigate the best deal that we can
- i just cringe at spending money you know that that precious necessarily
- you know elections are never going to get cheaper than i just kind of my point they're not going to
- get cheaper so i'm kind of wondering uh you know we again we still have the elephant of the
- shortage of the uh the county council had with with the funding i'm
- so keep in mind um and this has just happened over
- since i have been clerked it was implemented by the previous monroe county clerk any money that we
- do
- not use during the budget reverts back to the election fund we'd have to go and ask obviously
- um if we if our current budget and we didn't account for postcards but if we ran out of money
- we can go back but money has previously um gone back into the election budget understand does that
- help yeah i just i'm struggling with the concept of spending the money for those kind of for those
- things i don't know i don't know it's necessarily our job to tell everybody these things i think
- they can there are ways to get news out that don't cost money it's it's an effort it's a it's a it's
- an effort um i'll relate a story i don't know if it was the presidential or the municipal where we
- sent out postcards about a change in a polling site and uh we had this woman who was just
- she didn't know she didn't she never got the postcard she didn't see the signs we had asked
- the papers to list all of the polls so no we we we can only do our best we are not going to reach
- every person but at least it would be proof now what we've done in the past um because we all get
- mail that we're like and we toss it out but so what we've done in the past is try to put it on
- some kind of funky color like a neon orange or a neon green something that stands out you know and
- we happen to be very lucky i'm sure you taught her this miss kylie can make a poster or a flyer or
- something to get a message out like nobody's business i have told her what i wanted before
- this is how i wanted to look this is what i wanted to say she has come up with something
- creative that stands out and i have no doubt that she would help us to do that to get this out
- again
- i would negotiate the very best deal i am not monroe county is not the only um county who uses
- the particular um printing and postage vendor that we use and so i believe we could negotiate
- something i just i'd like to see a cost before we before we spend money to do it's very reasonable
- to ask for a quote yeah i'd like to see a quote somewhere and if this helps i did check the
- election budget and there's already budgeted fifteen thousand dollars in there that hasn't
- been it's unexpended just because we haven't spent it doesn't mean we have to spend it i agree i
- just
- wanted you to be aware of what was in the budget and it is it is going to be with the vote and
- voter list maintenance we are going to have to do some work so we were already going to be spending
- money okay so maybe we need just you know i'm not trying to be obstinate i just don't like to spend
- money if we don't need to spend money for some for certain things i'll negotiate a good quote
- i will say that the flyer that i created for monday's event i did send to the commissioner's
- office and they posted on their facebook so we have that source and then we also have both of
- the parties that i have sent the flyers to and they've been posting and then groups around the
- community that i've reached out to as well and then we do anticipate to get some of those flyers
- out to some community areas within minero county the rest of this week today and tomorrow there's
- a difference in a flyer posted somewhere and postcards to every registered voter in minero
- county yep so i think our action moving forward is to approve the mailer with associated cost at
- our
- may meeting does that make sense that would still give people a lot of time to it still would give
- us a lot of time because our may is i forget may 1st yeah that would give us some time before the
- may 19th deadline okay so we're good on the ask a clarifying question when you say approve the mailer
- are you contemplating the vote center committee approving a mailer oh no sorry i meant the election
- board yeah yeah okay but we're set for uh the date for the second hearing the time of the second
- hearing and the agenda uh we just need to approve if you guys want to use the um microsoft forms
- document that i had created with that qr code or if you guys have any changes to that because i can
- make the changes and then send it to you guys in email could someone take a photo of this qr code
- and share that with it does it still if you took a picture of that qr code right now i'd pull it up
- to the one that i gave you in a while so yep i just tried it it's it shares okay okay it shares all
- right i have no issues with um i think we we have one suggestion to add a field that if somebody
- wants to leave their name and contact info they can but correct yep
- yeah just everything maybe nothing be required on the form yes some people might not want to answer
- all the questions right molly you're you look like you're thinking hard i do have a thought
- but i don't know that it's well developed yet so we need to take any formal action on any of this
- or are we good to go i mean i think you eventually have to formalize the um way you would like to
- receive public comment and i don't know if you want to do that now or if you want to do it at
- the first hearing i think you should announce it at the first hearing um i did send you guys an
- email
- prior to the meeting um i do think that a google doc or a microsoft form is a better option um
- my fear is when we have a designated email if the email goes to all board members where there's a
- line there with open door and what an email meeting constitutes and i've been guilty myself
- of getting a group group email and then just hitting reply and that's what i don't want to
- happen so i think it seems like the forms might be a better option aggregates the results
- automatically
- so all right okay so um what's the pleasure of the board would you prefer to
- make a decision today about how we're going to receive
- public input i mean i don't see any controversy i mean you know we're looking for public comment
- man either through the electronic form or you know submit written comments to the
- election central office i would prefer not to get emails to my personal email account i was less
- than pleased to see that released i'm happy to make an email address of a different kind
- but i don't want i don't need it to be overflowing with stuff from people you know i want to be
- able
- to compress that to when it's time to work with that not i know i just i saw this really no it
- wasn't the clerk's office but i saw a post that had private email addresses on it for people to
- see the comment i was not pleased with that i'll be quite blunt and i believe that was me that did
- that because i didn't have any other ones so i apologize i mean permission would have been much
- better in my mind before you do that okay okay uh i can you know it's not it's easy to make 47
- email addresses i just would you know the other one is used for things that i need it used for
- so i don't have any problem with what i've seen so far now we're having a problem with may 19th
- at 5 30 excellent if that works okay i'm gonna get him leave the uh public comment via uh the
- digital form and or written uh submissions to the election central office and we'll post that
- address
- okay so i i saw move if we thank you yeah okay unless there's a public comment on that i don't
- see anything on the okay so um all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed oh great
- all right just a reminder before we uh adjourn we've got the public hearing on the vote centers
- next monday april 7th at five o'clock here in the nate hall courtroom on the third floor of the
- courthouse and then the nets election board meeting will be thursday may 1st at 130 here as well
- you can have i was just uh we were gonna we're not there yet yes thank you danny so that's
- for us now we have uh you know public comment period where anybody can address any item that's
- not already on the agenda and comments are limited to three minutes and just my own point of
- personal
- privilege um it'd be nice not to include personal attacks okay let's say we have a taker um again
- my name is shara langdon um i'm here every month and i'm i time myself so i always do three minutes
- i try to stay in that place um i come here each month with my tiny three minutes and my tiny
- unimportant life to stand up for myself and others i've been bullied here in my tiny three minutes
- in
- my tiny unimportant life by people in this room i'm not a highfalutin grandiose senator holding
- people hostage for 20 plus hours while i pontificate in delusional narcissistic behavior i'm a
- nobody
- taxpayer i'm a big fat zero in the scheme of things i'm just here to step to not be stepped on and
- not
- to be bullied and to have a voice that is my right when john arnold spoke last month introducing
- himself as the republican representative in this room he threw himself on the sword expressing
- protectionism as a sixth grade teacher responsible for the actions of an adult grown woman in this
- very room i understand his compassion but my sixth grade teacher who was also my high school
- teacher
- isn't able to follow me around to clean up my messes i clean up my own and that's what grownups
- do and i'm positive that mason reid would be proud of me when i self-correct my mistakes
- once more is that i'm sure mr reid would be proud of me for not making the mistakes in the first
- place by behaving with honor honesty and integrity you see my mentor is long gone we have only his
- memory left to us but i'm positive he would have stood up for his fallen fellow americans at the
- presidential speech honoring those fallen people and i'm certain he would have called every bully
- in this room who has bullied me in numerous times especially while i stood here and asked for
- integrity integrity is important it's a shame that it doesn't exist in the administration that i
- have
- complained about over and over here in monroe county or in the federal government how can it our
- government both local and federal have become nothing but reality shows filled with narcissistic
- social paths who have no intentions in serving the people that they were elected to serve but
- only serve themselves in their bank accounts it's time that we all start acting like grown-ups with
- integrity self-correction is literally part of everyone's job in government if i multiply
- three minutes each month that i'm here times seven years that would have equaled the statement that
- i
- did give the monroe county hr and legal in this building if i equate my tiny three minutes per
- month here to corey booker's grandiose hostage event it would take me 35 years worth of monthly
- three minute speeches to express my voice and views just in this room think about that that's
- how small and unimportant the taxpayer is in the scheme of things 35 years of three minutes of
- freedom of speech in monthly increments that's freedom not freedom of speech that's manufactured
- consent it's a facade and there needs to be an investigation and not a switching off of gatekeepers
- who protect the corrupt that is in this room thank you okay thank you do we have any other
- folks who want to make public comments anybody online seeing none i will entertain a motion to
- adjourn so moved second all right all those in favor say aye aye okay we're adjourned thank you
- ("Pomp and Circumstance" by Edward Elgar)