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)
 ("Pomp and Circumstance" by Edward Elgar)
 ("Pomp and Circumstance" by Edward Elgar)
 ("Pomp and Circumstance" by Edward Elgar)
 ("Pomp and Circumstance" by Edward Elgar)
 ("Pomp and Circumstance" by Edward Elgar)
 ("Pomp and Circumstance" by Edward Elgar)