- I will call the June 5th meeting of Monroe County Election Board order.
- Now my mic's on, okay, fine.
- So we're called to order.
- We need to approve minutes of the May 1st Election Board meeting and the second vote
- hearing.
- Can we do that at once?
- Do we have to do them separately?
- Can we do that at once?
- We've done them collectively in the past and I have read and reviewed the minutes.
- I have no additions, corrections, or deletions.
- So is that a motion to accept?
- It is.
- Second that, those in favor, aye.
- Aye.
- Opposed?
- That passes.
- That's Ms. Kiley.
- Yes.
- Okay.
- So, voterless maintenance started at the end of May and we're still working through
- it currently.
- We are expected to be completed with voterless maintenance by September of 2025 and then
- I did want to also give an update that we are currently processing our annual SVRS audit
- and that has begun this week and it should be completed by December 31st.
- That is connected, is that connected to the postcards we received in the mail?
- So the postcards will be part of the voterless maintenance portion of that that is just verifying
- that every registered voter is still at their current address and if they are not, then
- they can update or request to cancel their registration if they've moved out of state.
- And then the SVRS audit is strictly auditing users that have access to SVRS, so all of
- the employees in the office ensuring that there are not any on there that are seasonal
- workers such as our leads during the election and just maintaining the order of SVRS.
- Is there public comment on this?
- I see none.
- New business.
- Is the?
- All right.
- Just to enter for a second.
- Somebody texted me that audio is not coming through for the online portion of the meeting.
- Can folks hear it?
- Yes, we can hear you online.
- Okay, thanks.
- Thank you.
- So the contract review and resolution.
- I did not prepare a resolution for this agenda item, so I guess I can quickly prepare one
- based on election board compensation.
- Question I'm going to ask is what do we have to do with this?
- Do we approve it and then it goes to the commissioners to sign?
- I think historically election board has not reviewed election related contracts, but this
- is one where there was a request for the election board to review it.
- So I think that would be the process that ultimately the contract is to be approved
- by the commissioners.
- Based on my understanding again from what I've done with the last week, Hart sells us or
- leases us, sells leases, leases the stuff, and then we have used B&L to make it work.
- So I guess the question is, do we support that?
- Is that, am I reading that correctly?
- We actually do own the equipment and B&L services helps us with the IT portion of our election.
- They're our IT vendor.
- They also move our equipment prior to election day and then pick it up.
- And then they also help us, I'm doing a very poor job of this, Mr. White is on the meeting
- if you have specific questions, but they also help us with our IT during early and absentee
- voting as well as on election day.
- Based upon the meeting that I had last week with Kylie and with Mr. White, it's the company's
- job is to when there's a glitch that occurs or something's not correct, they come in and
- fix it.
- Would that be...
- They work with heart to address any issues that we might have.
- They also help us with preventative maintenance.
- Mr. White submitted a letter for the election board's review providing extensive detail
- on what it is that he does.
- He has worked with us for more than 11 years.
- He started under the previous Monroe County clerk and has continued with under my administration.
- So you'll have to forgive me, I have a couple of different questions.
- I really wouldn't...
- Probably a couple of different questions.
- I've had only a day or two to review this.
- There's a mention in the letter that is serving as a statement of work of a team of 20 and
- just my fundamental question is whether that team of 20 are direct employees of the firm
- or whether they're subcontractors.
- I think it would be fairest to ask Mr. White who has been made a presenter.
- You hear me?
- Yes, we can.
- Yes, subcontractors.
- Is there any...
- Is there a way...
- Do you have an existing employment agreement or assurances or indemnities with subcontractors
- and machine access to include with the contract?
- I'm unclear what you're asking.
- Is there any sort of just like a memorandum of understanding and outlining of liabilities
- and protections, what the employment agreement for those subcontractors looks like?
- Do they have access to voting machines, voting software, that kind of thing?
- They have access to the voting machines, the software is provided by Harkin, that's their
- software provider, and it's gorgeous.
- So not for that nation, but you have the ability to vote and select the proper polling location.
- Sorry, that was a little bit unclear, the audio was just off and the transcript was
- hard to understand.
- Could you please repeat?
- Yes, each one signs an agreement that they are subcontractors and is defined by that,
- but they are limited in what they do.
- The actual program is provided by Harkin and they load the information on the correct piece.
- I think it was we load that information on the correct piece, I don't think it, I don't
- think it.
- Yeah, I think we got it.
- Yeah, it's just some of the wording Mr. White, as you're using, it's not translating wellness
- and I just want to clarify that.
- You are.
- I think we're fine.
- I think I understand.
- Yeah, thank you.
- Questions that I guess we could call if there's public comment on this, correct?
- Public comment on the hello, Monroe County Commissioner Julie Thomas, I just wanted to
- reiterate information that we sent in this letter in May.
- And we have questions about whether you all had reviewed the contract and were fine with
- it, whether there was a search for multiple vendors to find a good price, whether this
- is something that could be done in-house, how many other counties do this with outside
- IT versus inside IT.
- And our biggest concern was that there's $100,000 in non-election year cost that goes to this
- particular company.
- And yes, while HART may indeed offer some software updates this year in a non-election
- year that happens, we don't understand the dollars.
- And that's all we were asking for because we were asked to approve a contract that there
- is missing information for us because for transparency sake, we want to make sure that
- when we get asked a question by the public about why does it cost this much to do this
- when you're also paying HART that, what is this person doing?
- What is this company doing?
- We want to be able to answer those questions and we felt like the contract had a lot of
- gaps in it and Ms. Turner-King is aware of those gaps, so thank you so much.
- Commissioner, did you receive a copy of the letter from Mr. White where he responded to
- the commissioner's concerns?
- No, I did not.
- I just got a copy of the letter yesterday so I did not have time to distribute it.
- So Mr. White, are you, would you mind to summarize what you listed in that letter?
- Yes, good afternoon, basically the current costs are normal election costs, and maintenance
- of all these, and we test them all each year, make sure they're in good working order, and
- do that here also to be corrected, and then, so we're expecting it to be hard for the state
- to be approved by the state that will have to load it up with the equipment, and then
- there are also anticipated election improvement groups that have already began due to improvement
- the election office, and we handle that, and then, quite honestly, we've already done the
- elections to provide the clerk's office on projects that will be provided information,
- that kind of thing, for both centers, and the status now, we did a lot of work with
- those offices. So, that's what happens with the office here. On a regular day in and out
- basis, the clerk provides the equipment that we purchase, and then they provide the software
- which then will call, that is what their office did, and then day in and out, we include something
- around, take it off the clerk, we do it, we support it, we pick it up, put it all in place,
- and then we, with the tools, along with scanning buds, and the balance.
- So unfortunately, there is still, there continues to be some garbling, the translation between
- what you're saying. I believe that they are reviewing, the election board is looking at
- the letter that you presented, but is it fair to summarize it in a way that costs, whether
- or not there's an election, there are still costs. Is that a fair thing to say? We continue
- to pay for software and licensing, we do preventative maintenance, we could pay HART to come from
- Texas and do that, but you work directly with HART for the off-election year responsibilities
- with respect to the election equipment that we purchased under the contract with HART.
- Is that fair? That is fair.
- And is it also fair to say, when you see the $100,000, it is up to that amount, you have
- given us an amount so that we can have an idea of how much it could cost, it may not
- cost that much, as I understood it from your letter, we have never gone over that amount
- where we had to go back and ask for additional appropriations.
- It does not exceed that budget and allows you to change out the batteries and other preventative
- maintenance as HART recommends what we need to do each year to get ready, whether it's
- an election or non-election, the preventative things and that that is what your company
- does and has done for the last 11 years without incident.
- Is that fair? That is fair.
- So under your time, Nicole, under your time, have they done what they said their contract
- would do and have they been timely on an issue either on election day or early voting pops
- up?
- Absolutely.
- They have more than fulfilled the terms of the contract that we have with them.
- There has not been any issue.
- And because we could we could pay a lot more, I would guess two to three times what B and
- L charges us for heart to come here from Texas to do the things that we need to service our
- equipment.
- We actually are getting B and L at a lower cost than where Mr. White previously worked,
- which was the Indiana voice and data.
- So we kind of, I guess, got bang for our buck by going with B and L because what they charge
- is exponentially less than what we would charge and as to only so many vendors make election
- equipment and everybody is not does not have the experience or background to work on that
- equipment.
- B and L does.
- This is just short of just short of bringing heart in here to service their own equipment
- and work with us.
- We are getting an incredible deal and he's been good to us for the last 11 years.
- His ethic is beyond reproach and we are incredibly fortunate that he continues to lend his talents
- and services to Monroe County government.
- He retired from city technology, the city of Bloomington technology and I really do not
- short of bringing heart here.
- I really do not believe we can do better than B and L. Thank you.
- So it does not seem like the quality of service provided is really in question.
- I hope not.
- The contract seems like it is being executed.
- I think there is more of a question to the commissioner's comment that how costs are
- being structured, how they are being documented.
- Storage is mentioned a couple of different times.
- Is equipment stored at a county property somewhere?
- Yes.
- So the county is not paying a private storage facility for anything?
- We were paying a private storage facility for election-related items, not the equipment.
- The equipment is stored in a county facility in the showers building.
- How much are we paying directly for private storage or is it going to B and L?
- So we were, so the annual contract for the storage unit came due for renewal.
- I negotiated with them to keep their prices set and they agreed if we would sign the contract
- for two years, which would be until the end of my term, then they would not raise their
- prices as they intend to do for their other storage customers.
- When the time came to sign that contract, there was concern.
- What I thought initially was the concern was that B and L did not feel that they had any
- ownership or interest in the contract, I'm sorry, in the storage, the property that was
- in the storage.
- And so we were asked to move, I did not make that choice.
- We were told we would be moving and so movers were hired and property was moved.
- And as I understand it, that ended up costing more than if we had maintained the contract
- with the storage facility.
- Sure, if you could just clarify for me, the costs for the storage, like the actual disbursement
- of money for the cost of storage, was it disbursed to B and L or was it disbursed to the storage
- facility?
- We were paying, the invoice would come to us from the storage facility.
- Okay, that's what I was looking for.
- I didn't know if that was also a subcontract where B and L was paying a storage facility
- and the money was passed through the LLC or if the county was paying storage directly.
- It was coming out of my contractual.
- Understood.
- Thank you.
- Mr. Udak, I can provide some additional commentary on this as I dealt with the storage contract.
- Please.
- So originally, the storage contract was with a company in Ellitsville and it was not in
- Mr. White's or B and L's name.
- Right, that's, yep.
- The items were moved to the Showers Building as there was available space to house these
- items at no additional cost to the county.
- And so that was one of the reasons they were moved and there was also a concern that there
- was county property in this outside storage facility when no other department has a storage
- facility of that capacity and in order to maintain a storage unit, there are certain
- state statutes including a public hearing that we have to have in order to maintain
- that storage unit.
- Yeah, my concern is less that we had a storage facility or that a storage facility was paid.
- It was more what was the flow of money relative to cost structure that's outlined in the letter
- here in the contract as it exists.
- But it's clear that is a separate expense that's coming out of the clerk's budget.
- It has nothing to necessarily do with the contract and that was one point I was confused
- on because there's mention of moving equipment back and forth and I just know who was managing
- that contract and how it was being paid, but that makes sense, thank you.
- Any other comments or questions?
- Okay, so what do we need to do then with or was this just information?
- I think my recommendation to the election board is if you're in support of this contract
- then you should, as a board, state such.
- If you need me to make a motion, I am in full and complete support of the B&L contract.
- I have reviewed it.
- I've spoken with Mr. White.
- This year's contract was actually based on one that was written by the county attorney
- previously, so most of the language stayed intact, there were some things that Mr. White's
- attorney asked be included to protect him.
- I am also in agreement with that and again, it is not to exceed budget.
- We do not intend to spend what was quoted but up to so that we wouldn't have to ask
- for additional appropriations.
- I will second that motion that we approve it.
- I agree with the strong suggestion that at least a memorandum of understanding with regard
- to liability with subcontractors, at least protecting if not outright indemnifying the
- county from any kind of liability with those subcontractors be included before it is signed
- by the commissioners.
- Aye.
- Opposed?
- Okay.
- The motion carries.
- Have any other public comment for the day?
- I think you have one more item.
- What item is?
- Okay, well, and I've had a conversation about the hearing this board.
- I would be perfectly content to wait until your appointment has been made and then we
- can have a discussion.
- I mean, it seems to me that it's supposed to be or it usually is done two years for
- one party, two for the other.
- We can work with that either way.
- I mean, I don't care if it's the first two, the second two, if it doesn't matter, particularly
- if it's someone who has more experience, I do letting him have the first two years.
- I'm not been out of shape either way about it.
- Yeah, I think it's I think it's appropriate to wait.
- I don't I don't think my making a decision about that makes sense in this way.
- I appreciate the patience with it to be quite it's not a huge deal.
- Sure.
- You call it to order.
- You call them.
- I mean, it's.
- Yeah.
- And there's no like code actually governing who chairs the board, right?
- Correct.
- There is no code.
- The election board adopted a resolution in twenty seventeen and then when Miss Bankhart
- took was appointed in July, she was originally came in as the chair.
- She chaired thirty seconds of a meeting before she relinquished early the chair to the Democratic
- Party.
- Well, I would prefer to wait until you have we have the permanent appointment and then
- we can.
- Well, that person and I can have a discussion about how to do it just if it's if it's legal,
- we can have a discussion privately and then make it you know, we can just move to it that
- if that works.
- It may not with two sitting members of the board, I think that would probably have to
- be noticed.
- Right.
- Correct.
- Yeah, so the conversation probably has to happen in public, but yeah, but but I'm not
- trying to hide anything.
- It's just, you know, I don't think it's a huge deal.
- No, I agree with you.
- I think it's appropriate to wait.
- I think that's the I think patience is the right attitude and much more to say on it
- beyond that.
- Thank you.
- Thank you for catching that, ma'am.
- You're welcome, sir.
- And now for other public comment.
- We're sorry we interrupted you.
- Go ahead.
- Danny, one thing I would suggest that the letter for the appointment for today be read
- into the minutes.
- Want me to read the letter into the minutes, or would you prefer to read your own letter
- into the minutes?
- I can read it.
- So I wrote a letter this morning, appointing myself for a short term to the board, it reads
- as follows.
- To whom it may concern, this letter serves as notice that on June 5th, 2025, I'm appointing
- myself to the Democratic Party seat on the Monroe County Election Board effective through
- June 30th, 2025.
- A formal notice of a permanent appointee will be made to county staff no later than that
- date.
- As of the writing this letter, the chair has made no other formal appointment to the position.
- Thank you, Samuel Udak, chairman of the Monroe County Democratic Party.
- I will move that's added to the record.
- Second.
- Those in favor?
- Aye.
- Now.
- Hi, I'm Cheryl Langdon, Monroe County citizen.
- I have yet to hear about any investigation concerning what happened to me during my employment
- as a Monroe County employee at Election Central as the Democrat representative in my office.
- I want to share openly to everyone that I didn't vote for Trump last year.
- And I'm here to share the Monroe County Commissioner's public statement shared last night on social
- media and today in this room.
- Quote, "The Trump administration has added Monroe County to its so-called sanctuary jurisdiction
- list, threatening over $6 million in federal funding due to our commitment to lawful and
- inclusive policies."
- Commissioner Thomas said, I quote, "We follow the law.
- We will not be intimidated by political theater or unconstitutional threat."
- Commissioner Jones said, "This is not about safety.
- It's about control.
- We'll continue protecting our people, not scapegoating them."
- Commissioner Madera said, quote, "We will not be complicit in criminalizing people based
- on fear and xenophobia.
- Monroe County remains committed to respect, dignity, and safety for all residents.
- With the hashtags #DefendDignity, #InclusiveCommunities, #StandWithImmigrants, #NoHateInOurState."
- My response is, no hate in our state?
- Here were the voices when hate against conservative Americans was at a high pitch.
- When people were being dragged on social media, in their own homes, and at their Monroe County
- government jobs, you all said nothing.
- Fellow Democrats said nothing.
- And when you say nothing, when one person or group is marginalized, nothing will be
- said when it's your turn.
- It's called cause and effect.
- It's called science.
- Now budgets suffer because of the political theater that was created by the Democrats
- in the first place.
- What a shame.
- Nothing was said against the auto-pin Biden regime when his executive office allowed an
- open invasion against American people, and his executive office actively violated conservative
- Americans' constitutional rights to free speech on social media.
- The Biden administration openly targeted these conservative Americans, and as a Democrat,
- that's a shame to see that.
- My fellow Americans.
- Biden's regime committed treason against our nation's sovereignty and against all of us.
- Shame on any party and any member of my party, the Democrat party, who supported the treason
- committed by the Biden regime.
- We are the ones that put Trump in office because there was bullying, and people refused to
- listen to fellow party members in the Democrat party, people like me.
- The Democrat party created this mess, and they have only themselves to blame.
- Thank you.
- Julie Thomas, Monroe County Commissioner here once again, but we wanted to provide some
- information for all of you and for the public, because as we know with the groundbreaking
- for the new convention center, the Napa building election operations will be demolished very
- soon, and we want to assure you all that there are plans in place, and this is, for those
- who don't know, Richard Kreider, who is our fleet and facilities manager, and if you would
- quickly just walk through what our plans are, that'd be great.
- Thank you.
- So, our plans are to renovate the east side of the first floor of the showers building
- for early voting.
- It's been a little bit of a process.
- We started in January working myself with clerk staff on getting to a point where we
- could hire an architect to start doing some real programming, and through that process,
- we've added some more space than what we originally thought.
- It was obvious and apparent that we needed more square footage, so we've extended that,
- and I think where we need to be square footage-wise, and if we can maintain the architect's program,
- we're looking at a finish in construction December 20, 2025.
- My apologies.
- You can't have it done before you start?
- Correct.
- I have a question, if I could please.
- One of the things we had talked about was possibly having multiple early voting sites.
- If you're the person, I think that maybe you should know this.
- How much trouble would it be if we decided we wanted to, rather than a month, do two
- weeks early voting, and have three or four sites?
- Do we have the space to do that currently?
- Commissioner-owned buildings?
- Do you have anything to say?
- All of our buildings are downtown, so I would imagine if you wanted to do something in the
- community, you would want to use space that is a church or a school or something else.
- I don't know, but yeah, everything we have is downtown, and I'm sure we can make things
- work if you want a couple sites, but to everything being downtown, it doesn't seem to make a
- lot of sense to do that.
- But we like the showers building because there's plenty of parking, access off the sidewalk.
- It's still downtown.
- It's very convenient.
- So we're really excited that this will be the new future home of election operations.
- Sorry.
- I was going to bring you up to speed on previous efforts, but I can wait until you have your
- finishing remarks.
- I just want to make sure that you're all aware and the public's aware that we're not getting
- caught flat-footed here.
- We are well aware that the Napa building would be demolished very soon.
- And so, yes, we began this process in earnest and it is on schedule, thanks to Mr. Kreider
- and all the folks he was working with.
- Did the commissioners own the Napa building?
- Was that purchased or leased?
- Okay.
- So is there any, there's no real significant cost difference between operating out of showers
- versus the Napa building?
- I will say I appreciate working with you, Richard Kreider.
- It's been great just getting together and being able to communicate our concerns and
- them being answered pretty quickly for us.
- You're welcome.
- Feelings mutual.
- Thank you.
- Just to bring both of you up to speed, there have been efforts, other efforts, to have
- multiple early voting sites.
- The previous administration, she had a very well-intentioned early voting operation where
- she moved, I believe it was a trailer or some kind of motorcade thing to different areas
- around Monroe County.
- That did not, the feedback on that was not good.
- And after the pandemic, when the commissioners recommended that we have more rural early
- voting sites, I consulted with the Allen County clerk because he has four different sites,
- north, south, east, west, or I believe he splits it up into quadrants, north, west, northeast,
- southwest, southeast.
- I wanted to do something like that during early voting where one week we were on the
- northwest side, northeast side, and through that four weeks of early voting, the incarnation
- of the election board at that time was not, it was not palatable due to cost.
- Now, in my mind, I saw the same team going to each location.
- I then suggested like maybe north, middle, south, dividing the county up into thirds.
- That also was not palatable, but it is something that I think is amenable to voters, makes
- it easy because it comes close to their town or their side of town.
- And the only thing that I, please excuse me, that I would say would be that we want to
- make sure to use sites that we would not use on election day because that could be confusing.
- And we have places that we used to use, but we don't.
- So a place on campus, we have that one site, I can never think of the name of it, Ms. Guy.
- Center of representative governments.
- We've never used that before as an early voting site, but I'm sorry, as an election day site,
- but that might be something right near campus.
- Or the church that we used to use off of the bypass.
- Things that -- >> I would think that we could probably work
- with churches without having to really add cost to it.
- >> So one concern about churches is that the equipment has to be able to be locked and
- stored and generally during early voting, it's easiest and best to keep it set up once
- it's set up.
- So that's the only thing that we're really concerned about because if we have it start
- on a Saturday, then that next day, Sunday, they have service.
- So where do they plan to store and keep our equipment and the process of getting it set
- back up.
- I know during my work with the vote center committee, we had spoke about doing the public
- libraries because we can use them and as long as they have a room that is sectioned off
- that can be locked, then we would be fine.
- You know they have security because it is a public library and that was one thing that
- we really lean towards but just making sure that our stuff is able to be locked, secured
- and not have to be disturbed.
- The Southwest Library branch has these very large modular meeting rooms where the walls
- are removable and they literally have a security guard posted at a desk immediately outside
- the room you would want to use.
- We have time to talk about this.
- Yeah.
- Correct.
- Yeah.
- Low cost options for libraries.
- Also, I know that like Ellisville is another location that has like questioned multiple
- times over especially 2024 where their early voting location was in Ellisville because they
- had figured that there would be one and there wasn't.
- So that is another one that we really looked at that really think that there should be
- one at least in Ellisville and then somewhere on the south side of town and then we have
- election operations in the center of downtown.
- Well, and that you're pointing out about the equipment being secured for that length of
- time.
- You have had success.
- Would you agree with the convention center where we did the the training where we had
- our training?
- We had great success with the convention center then and I know you'll know what I'm talking
- about.
- The public may not, but on the one side where we just did training for this past presidential,
- there's rooms that that's the cook room, right?
- So one could be for early voting.
- One could be for training.
- Because they locked our they guarantee that we would have we would be able to lock up
- the equipment at night.
- Correct.
- Yep.
- Thank you.
- Or not unless there's additional public comment.
- Not at this time.
- Is there a motion to adjourn?
- So moved.
- Second.
- Opposed?
- Those in favor?
- Aye.
- Opposed?
- We are adjourned.
- [Music]
- (upbeat music)