WEBVTT 00:00:00.194 --> 00:00:08.046 - I'm, this is the calling order, the October meeting of the Monroe County Election Board. I will start 00:00:08.046 --> 00:00:16.359 - with approval of the September minutes. I will make a motion to approve the September minutes as originally 00:00:16.359 --> 00:00:24.134 - prepared. I will second that. Can't hear. Can you hear me? Okay. I will make a motion to approve the 00:00:24.134 --> 00:00:29.214 - minutes that were prepared by my office. I'll second that motion. 00:00:30.530 --> 00:00:42.855 - Ms. Ashley, would you call the roll? Nicole Brown? Yes. Danny Shields? Yes. Motion carries. I'm going 00:00:42.855 --> 00:00:54.334 - to make a small adjustment so we can get some CFA questions, comments dealt with. So go ahead. 00:01:01.186 --> 00:01:09.072 - My name is Liz Fiddle. I appreciate you working me into this agenda at this point. I received a letter 00:01:09.072 --> 00:01:16.728 - most recently on September 15th, excuse me, saying that this was the notice of my first offense for 00:01:16.728 --> 00:01:24.385 - what I thought was taken care of when I filled out a form, the CFA-1 form on September 8th, after I 00:01:24.385 --> 00:01:27.294 - had received a letter on August 25th. 00:01:27.618 --> 00:01:34.519 - which is election board findings. So I'm just here to hopefully get the approval that the form I filled 00:01:34.519 --> 00:01:41.220 - out on the CFA form, CFA-1 form I filled on September 8th meets the, and will mitigate the notice of 00:01:41.220 --> 00:01:46.462 - first offense that I received the letter about. So that's really why I'm here. 00:01:47.842 --> 00:01:54.181 - Okay, so on that the first letter that she received was the notice of findings and that was that the 00:01:54.181 --> 00:02:00.645 - filing was not yet turned in by the July 11th deadline. We had sent out the second letter after we had 00:02:00.645 --> 00:02:06.921 - received it stating that we have received the letter and that it was the first late filing and then 00:02:06.921 --> 00:02:13.950 - that would just go on the record. It was approved at the last election board meeting to send out those letters. 00:02:18.018 --> 00:02:25.342 - So I guess my question is, what do I need to do now to remedy this situation, right? So now we just 00:02:25.342 --> 00:02:32.959 - make a note in our office that it was the first late filing that await in the future. We have a record, 00:02:32.959 --> 00:02:40.576 - and then it would then be just kept on file in our office. I'm sorry, there would be no more succeeding 00:02:40.576 --> 00:02:45.630 - letters of infractions or whatever at this point now? No. OK, great. 00:02:46.626 --> 00:02:53.529 - Does that meet with your approval? As long as I don't have to do anything else and I'm not supposed 00:02:53.529 --> 00:03:00.639 - to do anything else, I'm good. I am happy to make a motion that because this is the first offense that 00:03:00.639 --> 00:03:07.750 - we just keep the record on file, initiate that record on file with Election Central. I have a hand up. 00:03:07.750 --> 00:03:10.718 - Ms. Givens has joined us. Go ahead, ma'am. 00:03:15.042 --> 00:03:25.025 - Your sound is not up. Hold still, your sound is, we're getting up. We've got to cross through 00:03:25.025 --> 00:03:36.494 - your microphone. Sound, can we fix that? Is it okay now? There it is, go ahead. Okay, it was very difficult 00:03:36.494 --> 00:03:44.990 - to join the meeting today for something. I'm sorry. It was difficult. Go ahead. 00:03:46.242 --> 00:03:54.426 - We're good. Thank you. OK. So I made a motion. So far, we have approved the minutes, and we've let Ms. 00:03:54.426 --> 00:04:02.450 - Seidel deal with her CFA one. And I think we're finished with that part. Am I correct? Yeah, we just 00:04:02.450 --> 00:04:10.396 - need to make a motion that it's going to be kept in file in our office. I will make the motion that 00:04:10.396 --> 00:04:14.686 - we keep that on file. Then I will second that motion. 00:04:15.970 --> 00:04:23.067 - Ms. Ashley? Nicole Brown? Yes. Danny Shields? Yes. Penny Gibbons? Yes. So thank you, ma'am. I think 00:04:23.067 --> 00:04:30.164 - we've got that fixed. I think we're done for now, right? I think we've got that fixed. Thank you so 00:04:30.164 --> 00:04:37.545 - much. Has my camera been enabled because you have to be able to see me and hear me for me to vote? Yes, 00:04:37.545 --> 00:04:44.926 - ma'am. We can see you. Yes, we can see you. OK. Because at my end, it says my camera has been disabled. 00:04:46.626 --> 00:04:55.715 - We're looking right at you on the screen in front of us. We're good. We're good. Thank you. We are flowing. 00:04:55.715 --> 00:05:04.298 - Clerk's update is next, ma'am. Very quickly, as I mentioned last month, my office hosted a roundtable 00:05:04.298 --> 00:05:12.798 - on citizenship and elections. It was a very productive discussion with several panelists, bipartisan 00:05:14.050 --> 00:05:22.598 - members of the panel group and the feedback that I have received is that it went well. I did not receive 00:05:22.598 --> 00:05:30.983 - any negative feedback regarding the discussion and where I had intended to have questions be anonymous 00:05:30.983 --> 00:05:37.822 - and just allow panelists to respond, it was a very open and honest discussion where 00:05:37.954 --> 00:05:45.512 - people raised their hands in the round table and just spoke very freely. So I appreciate my staff, especially 00:05:45.512 --> 00:05:52.521 - Kylie and Sarah and Jessica, Angie and Kelsey for setting everything up. I thought it went very, very 00:05:52.521 --> 00:05:59.872 - well and I appreciate your hard work on that. Thank you, Ms. Brown. I will add that I had some individuals 00:05:59.872 --> 00:06:05.438 - after the round table come up to me and say that they were very thankful for the 00:06:05.794 --> 00:06:11.720 - opportunity to come in and just get a better understanding of the new legislation and that they hope 00:06:11.720 --> 00:06:17.587 - to be able to see this in the future as well with more just to continue to keep it transparent. And 00:06:17.587 --> 00:06:23.805 - that's one of the main goals of our office is just to make sure everything is as transparent as possible. 00:06:23.805 --> 00:06:29.672 - Thank you. Okay. I believe that Ms. Giddens, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I believe 00:06:29.672 --> 00:06:35.070 - you were in favor of having public comment after each thing rather than have a general am I 00:06:35.426 --> 00:06:41.694 - Did I read you correctly on that? If I did? I thought we were supposed to have a resolution today about 00:06:41.694 --> 00:06:47.901 - how we would continue. Yeah, but that doesn't mean we can't go ahead right now and have public comment 00:06:47.901 --> 00:06:53.928 - as we go by anything. So we have a resolution on that, I think, later. But I'll go ahead right now. 00:06:53.928 --> 00:06:57.182 - And is there any public comment about the roundtable? 00:07:02.850 --> 00:07:10.148 - I see none, so we will move on to Ms. Ferris's election central update. Hey, guys. I'm just going to 00:07:10.148 --> 00:07:17.446 - go ahead and start with the citizen update, and then I'm going to go into the voter list maintenance 00:07:17.446 --> 00:07:25.178 - update as well. So for citizenship, since July 1st, we have sent out a total of 41 requests of citizenship 00:07:25.178 --> 00:07:28.574 - letters. And that is as of today, October 2nd. 00:07:28.738 --> 00:07:35.763 - Six letters have returned to us, USPS, as undeliverable. And one has returned as not a US citizen and 00:07:35.763 --> 00:07:42.375 - was registered through the BMV by error. And then an additional three have provided their proof 00:07:42.375 --> 00:07:49.539 - of citizenship to make sure that their records stay active. And then voter list maintenance, since July 00:07:49.539 --> 00:07:52.638 - 1st, we have processed 7,558 voting records. 00:07:52.738 --> 00:08:01.513 - Through the voting list maintenance hoppers in SVRS, 6,523 of those voters have been made inactive, 00:08:01.513 --> 00:08:08.094 - 814 have stayed active, 189 have been canceled, and 32 have been rejected. 00:08:12.322 --> 00:08:19.440 - And then I'm going to just bring up some concerns that we're having with the 2026 early voting location 00:08:19.440 --> 00:08:26.696 - right now. We were informed that our look at date for moving in will be February, and we're just starting 00:08:26.696 --> 00:08:33.540 - to get to that point of we're trying to prepare things for next year and make sure that we're gonna 00:08:33.540 --> 00:08:39.358 - have enough time to get everything turned around, set up, and be organized enough to 00:08:39.906 --> 00:08:46.368 - I'm not sure that we can push through with that, but we're also wondering if there is going to be a 00:08:46.368 --> 00:08:52.830 - discussion among us, the election board and election office staff, if there should be an additional 00:08:52.830 --> 00:08:59.292 - place as a backup in case if construction is not completed in time. I also think that it would be a 00:08:59.292 --> 00:09:05.819 - great idea if we could probably get Richard Kreider in on some of these conversations so that we can 00:09:05.819 --> 00:09:09.438 - get a better understanding of where we're at in general 00:09:11.458 --> 00:09:19.018 - And with apologies, Ms. Kiley, I was preparing to go out of town at the time we were having this discussion, 00:09:19.018 --> 00:09:26.232 - but I feel as though we were given, well, first for clarification, we are talking about moving Election 00:09:26.232 --> 00:09:33.307 - Central from where it is now at the old Johnson Hardware to the north end of the showers in the space 00:09:33.307 --> 00:09:40.382 - on the first floor that had been taken up by Parks and Rec and some other offices, that whole hallway 00:09:40.770 --> 00:09:48.549 - set of offices but he's the mr. Crider's correspondence said the correspondence is that we're looking 00:09:48.549 --> 00:09:56.557 - at a potential move-in date being in February they believe the construction will be completed in January 00:09:56.557 --> 00:10:04.183 - when we first started the conversation of the construction it was suggested by our office and clerk 00:10:04.183 --> 00:10:05.022 - Brown that 00:10:05.570 --> 00:10:14.452 - Hopefully the construction would be completed and be ready to be moved in in January since filing begins 00:10:14.452 --> 00:10:22.910 - in January. And then filing will close in February. What is the date of that filing begins? Is that 00:10:22.910 --> 00:10:31.792 - like first day or? I want roughly January 6. OK, I believe. And then closing is February 3rd, I believe. 00:10:31.792 --> 00:10:35.006 - So currently you would we would start 00:10:35.970 --> 00:10:43.315 - candidate filing in one location and then finish candidate filing in another location. Right now, it's 00:10:43.315 --> 00:10:50.517 - being relayed that it's only going to be the early voting location that's going to be moving at this 00:10:50.517 --> 00:10:57.648 - time. But the way that it's looking is that you would file for the primary in one location and file 00:10:57.648 --> 00:11:00.286 - for the general in another location. 00:11:05.314 --> 00:11:13.315 - That doesn't sound awesome, but I think it sounds like it could be accomplished. Yes. Oh, excuse me. 00:11:13.315 --> 00:11:21.315 - I just would be uncomfortable if candidate A went to file and it was at one location and candidate B 00:11:21.315 --> 00:11:29.633 - running against candidate A found that it was somewhere else. Correct. Gee, what could go wrong? Mm-hmm. 00:11:29.633 --> 00:11:34.782 - Okay. Just to circle back to what Kylie first suggested, because 00:11:35.586 --> 00:11:44.652 - moving dates change, construction deadlines change, and so if it were not to be ready by that February 00:11:44.652 --> 00:11:53.982 - date, we're talking about needing a backup location so that we can oversee early voting in Monroe County. 00:11:58.882 --> 00:12:06.389 - Sorry, I don't know what happened. It's not an option to use the old Napa building anymore if anybody's 00:12:06.389 --> 00:12:13.680 - driven by there in the recent past. But what we've had, and this is my suggestion, I'm just throwing 00:12:13.680 --> 00:12:20.971 - it out right now, you may have had other thoughts, because today is the first time we're seeing each 00:12:20.971 --> 00:12:28.478 - other in a couple of weeks, that the convention center rooms that we have used for poll worker training 00:12:28.610 --> 00:12:36.180 - Um, but I feel like I kind of threw that out there. Um, I had agreed with the convention center as a 00:12:36.180 --> 00:12:43.751 - location. Um, but there was some question with the budget for next year because our budget currently 00:12:43.751 --> 00:12:51.771 - where the polling location money was for if we needed to rent a space that, um, money's not there anymore. 00:12:51.771 --> 00:12:58.142 - So we're trying to find something that'll be within the county that we won't have to 00:12:58.882 --> 00:13:07.154 - rent that we'll be able to use for the duration of the 28 days of early voting that will be able to 00:13:07.154 --> 00:13:15.757 - be locked up and the equipment will not be disturbed in that time frame. So could we invite Mr. Kreider 00:13:15.757 --> 00:13:21.630 - to next month's meeting? Yeah. Certainly let's reach out to him early. 00:13:21.986 --> 00:13:31.478 - Yeah, I wanted to kind of get a conversation starting between us that a way we can get some ideas written 00:13:31.478 --> 00:13:40.790 - down and then be able to have him here and be prepared. Hey, then. Hey, everything has just worked out. 00:13:40.790 --> 00:13:48.222 - I understand that. And then one last thing underneath the election central update. 00:13:48.482 --> 00:13:54.919 - We have a list that I created last year after the presidential election completed that is of all of 00:13:54.919 --> 00:14:01.485 - the elected officials who represent Monroe County. And I am wanting to look at getting this posted to 00:14:01.485 --> 00:14:07.986 - the website for the election board and the voter registration website that a way that it's available 00:14:07.986 --> 00:14:14.552 - to the public. I've had some individuals come into the office and really enjoy being able to see that 00:14:14.552 --> 00:14:15.646 - document and had 00:14:15.778 --> 00:14:22.977 - if it could be posted on the website. But I wanted to bring it to the election board first for approval 00:14:22.977 --> 00:14:30.106 - to get that posted on the election board page. And having just returned from the annual conference for 00:14:30.106 --> 00:14:37.236 - the Association of Indiana Counties, the Indiana Election Division was there. They came to the clerk's 00:14:37.236 --> 00:14:44.158 - breakout session. And specifically, one of the co-directors requested that we send them the offices 00:14:44.482 --> 00:14:53.086 - that are up for 2026. And so I'm happy to make a motion to approve that. And then with the first order 00:14:53.086 --> 00:15:01.689 - of business, if we should get that approval today, that you send that information to that co-director, 00:15:01.689 --> 00:15:10.126 - or both co-directors, at your earliest opportunity. Yeah, I can do that. So that was a motion to put 00:15:10.126 --> 00:15:14.302 - up? Well, unless there's some further discussion. 00:15:15.266 --> 00:15:19.134 - I'm shocked that it's not already online somewhere, to be honest with you. 00:15:19.234 --> 00:15:25.153 - So when I was working with another county on some information in SVRS, they stated to me that they thought 00:15:25.153 --> 00:15:30.795 - we should have a list of all the elected officials. And so I created one earlier this year. I want to 00:15:30.795 --> 00:15:36.326 - say it was about January, February is when I very first started working on it. And then we got busy 00:15:36.326 --> 00:15:41.857 - with voter list maintenance. So it kind of got pushed back a little bit more. But now we're getting 00:15:41.857 --> 00:15:47.555 - to that point of where individuals are coming in wanting to know who's going to be up and what offices 00:15:47.555 --> 00:15:49.214 - will be opening up next year. 00:15:49.218 --> 00:15:54.902 - I think this will be a great addition to the website. So individuals have that access directly on the 00:15:54.902 --> 00:16:00.919 - website. When you put that out, I mean, as I look through, you can tell it's not hard to read next election 00:16:00.919 --> 00:16:06.659 - year 2026. That's not hard to read. But it would be kind of nice if we had a list of these offices are 00:16:06.659 --> 00:16:12.231 - up this year, possibly in a, I hate to say an addendum, but here are the offices, here are the ones 00:16:12.231 --> 00:16:17.858 - up this year, because that would be easier for the general public rather than go, oh, wait a minute, 00:16:17.858 --> 00:16:18.750 - back and forth. 00:16:19.138 --> 00:16:25.502 - Yeah, it's because it doesn't add that much. And I can do that. I can have this one uploaded if it's 00:16:25.502 --> 00:16:32.055 - approved today and then I can also create one that's just the 2026 elected officials and take that data 00:16:32.055 --> 00:16:38.545 - straight out of there and have that is uploaded as well. Might I also suggest and I'm happy to discuss 00:16:38.545 --> 00:16:45.098 - that we take the names off of the people who are currently in in the office because I could see someone 00:16:45.098 --> 00:16:47.870 - feeling like that's electioneering ahead of 00:16:48.098 --> 00:16:56.551 - the ones that are coming up in 2026, if there's a name already on there, does that make, did I make 00:16:56.551 --> 00:17:05.511 - sense? Okay, so I think if I hear you correctly, we're going to have a list of all the elected officials. 00:17:05.511 --> 00:17:14.302 - And then we're going to have a second list that doesn't have names, but just the offices. Super Spencer 00:17:14.722 --> 00:17:20.446 - precinct board number one is up for election just to throw something out. Is that correct? Yeah, and 00:17:20.446 --> 00:17:26.113 - I would just title it as like 2026 open offices or offices to be elected. Because it should be hard 00:17:26.113 --> 00:17:31.950 - to go from the list these are up for election this year to go back a couple little bit to see who that 00:17:31.950 --> 00:17:37.900 - person is if you want to know that. That would be correct. We could do it year to year. Yeah, of course. 00:17:37.900 --> 00:17:41.470 - Yeah. You know, certainly you want to know who the judges are. 00:17:42.178 --> 00:17:50.214 - And then we might also consider the fact that the courts have a website, right, with judges and court 00:17:50.214 --> 00:17:58.093 - staff. Yeah. OK. That's all I have for that part of the discussion. So we need a motion to have her 00:17:58.093 --> 00:18:06.129 - do that. I think so. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't see your hand up. Yeah. OK. Thank you. Do you 00:18:06.129 --> 00:18:11.486 - already have all the district maps showing at the election website? 00:18:11.618 --> 00:18:20.135 - because if not, I would like to see that also for people. The map is on the website currently is just 00:18:20.135 --> 00:18:28.569 - a. It has all the districts on it as well as all the precincts, but it's also used for finding where 00:18:28.569 --> 00:18:37.671 - your polling location is going to be for Election Day, and it's all combined into one by the GIS Department. 00:18:37.671 --> 00:18:38.590 - So I mean, 00:18:38.978 --> 00:18:45.696 - If someone wanted to run for county council, could they quickly look at where those divisions are or 00:18:45.696 --> 00:18:52.547 - do they have to dig through multiple layers to get to that? Is what I'm asking a sort of thing to make 00:18:52.547 --> 00:18:55.806 - it easier for the general public to find things. 00:18:56.482 --> 00:19:04.536 - I'm sorry, John has it set up where on the side there is just like a bar that has County Council, County 00:19:04.536 --> 00:19:12.360 - Commissioners, Senate, and a couple other districts on there as well. And it's just a simple click to 00:19:12.360 --> 00:19:20.107 - show each of those district lines. Ms. Givens, if I'm misquoting you, correct me. I think what she's 00:19:20.107 --> 00:19:25.630 - saying, and I agree with this fully, that if I decide I want to run for 00:19:26.210 --> 00:19:34.336 - Pick an office. It's very simple for me on that website to say, here's my address. I want to run for 00:19:34.336 --> 00:19:42.461 - whatever. Dog catcher. Yeah, dog catcher. Yeah. Which district am I running? Would I run in? Is that 00:19:42.461 --> 00:19:50.828 - what you were saying? Well, I mean, if that fits, I just wanted to make sure that it's easy for people. 00:19:50.828 --> 00:19:54.046 - Because occasionally, sometimes the GIS 00:19:54.210 --> 00:20:02.465 - is a little dense, even though John does a fabulous job with it. He's an award winner with it. Just 00:20:02.465 --> 00:20:10.885 - if people want to go to the election, that shows the different precincts. So I have pulled up the map 00:20:10.885 --> 00:20:19.222 - on the teams for you guys. And it's a simple, there's a task bar up here that's a search bar. If you 00:20:19.222 --> 00:20:23.102 - type in your address, so I'm going to use the, 00:20:23.298 --> 00:20:31.965 - current voter registration office as an example. I understand what you're saying. And then over here, 00:20:31.965 --> 00:20:40.548 - you can just put which you're looking at. So for instance, county commissioner, then it will pull up 00:20:40.548 --> 00:20:49.300 - and show you which district that is in as well. That's what I wanted to make sure we could do. Because 00:20:49.300 --> 00:20:51.934 - as I look even at my precinct, 00:20:52.546 --> 00:20:59.306 - as a committee person where, you know, it's kind of difficult to figure exactly where it is, 00:20:59.306 --> 00:21:06.575 - looking at maps. Yes. You know, so I'm totally with her on making this as easy for people to figure 00:21:06.575 --> 00:21:13.990 - out as possible. And I join you in wanting to make it as easy as possible for prospective candidates, 00:21:13.990 --> 00:21:18.206 - but I would also be remiss if I did not let you know that 00:21:18.306 --> 00:21:26.415 - clerks have been made aware that the governor is calling for redistricting ahead of 2026. I don't know 00:21:26.415 --> 00:21:34.289 - what that picture looks like. In fact, none of the clerks know what that picture looks like at this 00:21:34.289 --> 00:21:42.398 - time. We have expressed concern that if that redistricting occurs right up to, you know, butting up to 00:21:42.658 --> 00:21:49.966 - the first day of candidate filing that that is going to cause a significant amount of confusion. We 00:21:49.966 --> 00:21:57.347 - believe our lobbyist for the clerks association is articulating that to the people who have the most 00:21:57.347 --> 00:22:04.655 - contact with the governor. But we are awaiting that and so it does not make sense to me to put that 00:22:04.655 --> 00:22:08.894 - map up when it could change depending upon the governor's 00:22:09.986 --> 00:22:16.942 - decision, and we are still waiting. I have no further information on that. I will also note on that. 00:22:16.942 --> 00:22:23.829 - It's not only just the confusion it can cause, but also the amount of work that it's going to be to 00:22:23.829 --> 00:22:30.853 - get that redistricting done in time in SVRS to ensure that each individual is in the correct district 00:22:30.853 --> 00:22:36.638 - that they're running for. And the clerks break out at that session, we talked about 00:22:37.506 --> 00:22:45.668 - I don't know him personally, but my understanding is the governor's willing to consider moving the first 00:22:45.668 --> 00:22:53.441 - day of candidate filing back. I don't know. There is a lot in discussion because we've not received 00:22:53.441 --> 00:23:01.447 - definitive answers from the state, so this is just a preview. Stay tuned. Nobody's talking, obviously, 00:23:01.447 --> 00:23:03.390 - but they're all talking. 00:23:04.162 --> 00:23:12.490 - My understanding is what they're talking about is congressional districts, but I guess if they have 00:23:12.490 --> 00:23:20.986 - a special session, they could do other things as well if they chose to do so. Yeah, so, okay. Special 00:23:20.986 --> 00:23:29.647 - sessions can, yeah, okay. All right. Anything else from members here? Anything from the general public, 00:23:29.647 --> 00:23:31.646 - public comment on this? 00:23:35.234 --> 00:23:44.445 - I see none, so let's move on to old business. Clerk Brown has the accessible polling presentation discussion 00:23:44.445 --> 00:23:53.233 - from our last meeting. Just really quickly, I don't know that we had a full-on discussion about it last 00:23:53.233 --> 00:23:57.374 - month, but I, of course, was very impressed with 00:23:57.602 --> 00:24:04.936 - Michael Sherman's presentation. And as I look out into the audience, he generously came here in person 00:24:04.936 --> 00:24:12.341 - because I know he's very busy. And so I'm going to presume you're here for any questions that the board 00:24:12.341 --> 00:24:20.031 - might have as far as clarification. And so did you want to come up to the podium in case there's questions? 00:24:20.031 --> 00:24:22.238 - Okay. Otherwise, you know, my, 00:24:23.298 --> 00:24:32.970 - I've had an opportunity to see a demo on more than one occasion. It is phenomenal. I think it keeps 00:24:32.970 --> 00:24:42.642 - us out of litigation if we know what the issues are and do our very best to mitigate them. We can't 00:24:42.642 --> 00:24:48.542 - necessarily fix everything, but if we can make it mitigating 00:24:48.802 --> 00:24:56.143 - to make it more accessible. I've told Mr. Shermans I would love to have something where Monroe County 00:24:56.143 --> 00:25:03.484 - is in partnership with the city so that if you go to a polling site, and I saw this at the library so 00:25:03.484 --> 00:25:10.753 - this is not my original idea, that there's this emblem where they're kind of shaking hands and it is 00:25:10.753 --> 00:25:17.662 - a accessible site at the Monroe County Library because the city has worked with ADA to get that 00:25:18.114 --> 00:25:25.062 - the library in compliance. And I'd love to see that at our polling sites, even if it's only temporary, 00:25:25.062 --> 00:25:31.875 - a sign up that kind of says. Actually, in your guys's packet, there's already one drafted up for you 00:25:31.875 --> 00:25:38.823 - guys. Look at you. Look at you. And me and Sharmas have already had a little bit of a discussion about 00:25:38.823 --> 00:25:44.894 - an edit on that. So I think me and him will continue to work on that and make some edits. 00:25:45.186 --> 00:25:54.583 - you give me an idea where it's the last page of the packet for the ADA that is what I am talking about. 00:25:54.583 --> 00:26:03.709 - Did I receive that packet? Penny, I believe so. I should be able to also pull it up for you as well. 00:26:03.709 --> 00:26:12.113 - OK, I don't recall seeing it and I thought I was current on all the emails, but I missed it. 00:26:12.113 --> 00:26:14.462 - I love this. It's credit. 00:26:14.626 --> 00:26:22.680 - where credit is due with respect to ADA, Blue Dag, who is being very generous to us in terms of making 00:26:22.680 --> 00:26:30.499 - a deal. Certainly we would not even know about this were it not for the city of Bloomington and Mr. 00:26:30.499 --> 00:26:38.318 - Shermas and I think any amazing opportunity for the city and county to partner that I don't see how 00:26:38.318 --> 00:26:41.758 - we could turn it down. That's my two cents. 00:26:47.906 --> 00:26:58.012 - I'm not sure this actually came in our packet yesterday, did it? I don't believe it was in the packet 00:26:58.012 --> 00:27:07.919 - from yesterday. Yeah, I've seen that. Okay. Can you email the packet to the board? Yeah, of course. 00:27:07.919 --> 00:27:11.486 - Okay. Yeah, I'll make a copy of the 00:27:12.322 --> 00:27:19.047 - information that you guys had today, and most of it was in that that was sent yesterday. The only thing 00:27:19.047 --> 00:27:25.708 - that was added was this information, which the information that was added was what you received at the 00:27:25.708 --> 00:27:32.239 - last election board meeting and then this additional piece of paper. So then is it fair just to take 00:27:32.239 --> 00:27:38.705 - advantage of the opportunity that Mr. Shermans is here to answer any questions and then revisit it? 00:27:38.705 --> 00:27:39.934 - It's fine with me. 00:27:41.346 --> 00:27:48.953 - The only question I have is, who pays for this? We do. Out of the election budget that we just had cut, 00:27:48.953 --> 00:27:56.560 - not officially cut, but cut, we have to pay for all these. Right. We would have to pay. The city's part 00:27:56.560 --> 00:28:03.948 - in it would be helping us with the inspection of polling sites, which is what they've done for us in 00:28:03.948 --> 00:28:09.726 - the past. But as far as the opportunity to use this software, that would be on 00:28:09.858 --> 00:28:17.281 - on the county, Mr. Shermas negotiated as low a deal as he could on our behalf as far as expressing our 00:28:17.281 --> 00:28:25.065 - interest and I believe got the company to agree to one year at a time where they normally might do multiple 00:28:25.065 --> 00:28:32.488 - years and then we would not be beholden in a year that we were not holding elections. Is that correct, 00:28:32.488 --> 00:28:38.686 - Mr. Shermas? He is nodding his head. I'm not sure we're totally following each other. 00:28:39.010 --> 00:28:47.294 - comment was, who pays to fix the building? The things that you've shown us that are not appropriate. 00:28:47.294 --> 00:28:55.825 - Yeah, we have a contract with them for doing this. Not yet. The mitigation would be done by the police. 00:28:55.825 --> 00:29:04.191 - I assume it would be done by the? And or Bob. He has helped us before. So if a ramp was too steep, we 00:29:04.191 --> 00:29:08.702 - might have the extended, I don't know what to call it, 00:29:09.090 --> 00:29:15.974 - We have ramps that we have a couple of locations that we already set them up at those locations, but 00:29:15.974 --> 00:29:22.927 - then we have additional ramps as well in case if we need them anywhere. But they're already purchased 00:29:22.927 --> 00:29:29.675 - and they're already in our storage. But most of the situations are if the bathroom is not handicap 00:29:29.675 --> 00:29:31.038 - accessible, then we 00:29:31.522 --> 00:29:40.745 - provide a sign for the locations that that is the case and allow individuals who need a handicap restroom 00:29:40.745 --> 00:29:49.620 - to go ahead and vote that a way they can get to a location that does have a bathroom for them. So the 00:29:49.620 --> 00:29:58.408 - city slash county is not required by law to have these places accessible. And that's with a question 00:29:58.408 --> 00:30:00.670 - mark and raised eyebrows. 00:30:01.122 --> 00:30:08.539 - If that has to be done, why is the county, and I'm going to say maintenance for lack of a better term 00:30:08.539 --> 00:30:16.102 - here, not taking care of fixing that? Is that outrageous to think that it's their stuff? I don't expect 00:30:16.102 --> 00:30:23.446 - my neighbor to come fix the crack in my sidewalk. But a lot of these polling places are not owned by 00:30:23.446 --> 00:30:29.118 - the county. They're at a church or they're at schools. And I understand that. 00:30:29.378 --> 00:30:36.260 - I understand about what I'm talking about early voting in the showers building is where is where I'm 00:30:36.260 --> 00:30:43.210 - talking about. And the mitigation efforts that you found that you presented to us. Yeah. Michael from 00:30:43.210 --> 00:30:48.798 - the City of Bloomington Council for Community Accessibility just to identify and. 00:30:49.058 --> 00:30:57.504 - I would say that when we do surveys, we identify all of the barriers, and then we suggest the software 00:30:57.504 --> 00:31:05.950 - will suggest mitigations. Many of these mitigations potentially won't cost anything. They just require 00:31:06.050 --> 00:31:12.281 - different signage or placing a stack of paper towels that are reachable or a soap squeeze. There's just 00:31:12.281 --> 00:31:18.392 - lots of different kind of mitigations that can take place that don't cost money. And for ones that do 00:31:18.392 --> 00:31:24.503 - cost money, sometimes they can be very low cost to whatever the facility that is doing it. So if it's 00:31:24.503 --> 00:31:30.494 - a church and they know, oh, this would make it more accessible by doing this, it doesn't cost much. 00:31:30.594 --> 00:31:36.538 - but we identify all barriers, and yes, some potentially could be more costly, then that's for you all 00:31:36.538 --> 00:31:42.424 - to determine with that facility what you want to do to address it. Again, we're there for consulting 00:31:42.424 --> 00:31:48.543 - in case it does, because sometimes we can say, well, you could do this instead of that kind of solution. 00:31:48.543 --> 00:31:54.370 - So it's somewhat dependent on what the survey finds for what barriers are there. I would expect the 00:31:54.370 --> 00:31:57.342 - church would want to fix something of that nature. 00:31:57.602 --> 00:32:03.571 - you know, whatever locations we use would want to fix that. But if it's government property, I just 00:32:03.571 --> 00:32:09.660 - don't want that to have to come out of the election budget. I want to make sure that doesn't come out 00:32:09.660 --> 00:32:15.869 - of the election budget. That's why I'm clarifying here. I misunderstood you. You want to say something, 00:32:15.869 --> 00:32:20.286 - then I'll tell you. I was going to say, for instance, we had a church not 00:32:20.738 --> 00:32:26.507 - in the 2023 election that was as a polling location, and it was stated that their paper tile dispenser 00:32:26.507 --> 00:32:32.220 - was too high. And so we had let them know that, hey, this is showing that it's an ADA violation, like 00:32:32.220 --> 00:32:37.933 - there could be an issue for anybody that's handicapped that's not able to reach it from a wheelchair. 00:32:37.933 --> 00:32:44.039 - And they went ahead and lowered it for us so that we didn't have to worry about it. So most of our locations 00:32:44.039 --> 00:32:49.696 - are very understanding, and we'll go ahead and make the changes on their own. And some of them we do 00:32:49.696 --> 00:32:50.704 - just have to find 00:32:50.704 --> 00:32:57.061 - and solutions to fix it for the day of. And I was just going to say, and like for example, if you're 00:32:57.061 --> 00:33:03.606 - speaking about election central, my assumption is that that's in the county budget to deal and fix with 00:33:03.606 --> 00:33:10.025 - and what's not you have to determine, but that wouldn't be anything for you guys to fix. I agree. The 00:33:10.025 --> 00:33:16.382 - way it was coming out, I want to make sure who was paying for that. That's fine. That's fine. And to 00:33:16.382 --> 00:33:18.270 - dovetail what Ms. Kiley said, 00:33:18.402 --> 00:33:26.747 - We, I don't think we're talking about the same church, but we also had a church near the Metalwood retirement 00:33:26.747 --> 00:33:34.409 - community where the slope was too steep for someone with mobility issues. And I remember this pastor 00:33:34.409 --> 00:33:42.146 - because he was just the loveliest man, new pastor, new to the area. The church did not have the money 00:33:42.146 --> 00:33:44.574 - to, they would have had to redo 00:33:44.994 --> 00:33:53.508 - whatever you do to concrete to make a ramp and they could not afford to do that. And then of course, 00:33:53.508 --> 00:34:02.191 - Bob was not able to help us mitigate that with a ramp or anything. So I believe what we ended up doing 00:34:02.191 --> 00:34:09.694 - that year was rerouting the people who would have voted at that church to the UU church. 00:34:09.826 --> 00:34:15.309 - And I'll just throw in a little side note. They consulted with us. We went up there. We looked at it. 00:34:15.309 --> 00:34:21.060 - We reviewed. We helped them determine a solution for their problem. And at last, I understand that they're 00:34:21.060 --> 00:34:26.650 - going to implement and redo all that. So just wanted to throw that in there. It made them actually say, 00:34:26.650 --> 00:34:32.026 - we need to be more accessible after they got that survey. It would just shock me that they wouldn't 00:34:32.026 --> 00:34:36.702 - want to do that. They did want to do it. They didn't have the funds. And I don't know. 00:34:37.026 --> 00:34:44.820 - how you get church building funds, he genuinely wanted to do. They genuinely wanted to serve as a polling 00:34:44.820 --> 00:34:52.173 - site for us, just the loveliest people. But they just did not have in their building fund to do so. 00:34:52.173 --> 00:34:57.982 - So we had to make different arrangements. Yeah, so some barriers sometimes are 00:34:58.082 --> 00:35:03.943 - really challenging and that was one that was like there's not much way to get around this and that was 00:35:03.943 --> 00:35:09.747 - a way to do it. But most of the places you can address them and certainly as Kylie said on the day of 00:35:09.747 --> 00:35:15.779 - that they can be addressed because they can make temporary arrangements. So that's what this helps figure 00:35:15.779 --> 00:35:21.982 - out for everybody. All right. Thank you sir. Any other any other public comment. I will say one of the large 00:35:22.530 --> 00:35:30.389 - things that we see is handicapped parking. And so we have signage that we have for handicapped parking 00:35:30.389 --> 00:35:38.020 - to make additional spaces at the locations on Election Day. All right. Thank you, sir. I'm going to 00:35:38.020 --> 00:35:45.802 - interject here. We have a county attorney here who may want to talk about our lawsuit. Or is that why 00:35:45.802 --> 00:35:48.702 - you're visiting us? Please feel free. 00:35:51.298 --> 00:36:00.646 - We have received some discovery requests in the federal lawsuit that we need to respond to shortly. 00:36:00.646 --> 00:36:09.995 - I'm just wanting to know if I can get together and talk with you about some of these items. I'm not 00:36:09.995 --> 00:36:18.782 - sure whether these are records that are readily available in your office or that will require 00:36:19.074 --> 00:36:29.095 - someone from the voting machine company to... So prior to leaving town, I printed off what I had from 00:36:29.095 --> 00:36:38.919 - your correspondence requesting, and I thought I had sent someone from my office to deliver those to 00:36:38.919 --> 00:36:48.350 - you in an envelope, but I remember you and I were trying to connect and you were in talks. Yes. 00:36:49.186 --> 00:36:58.279 - This is a different request. This is a different request. OK, then I'm not aware of the different request. 00:36:58.279 --> 00:37:06.862 - Yeah, it's a little bit more extensive and may involve some technical programming to get information 00:37:06.862 --> 00:37:15.361 - out if that can be done. So I think we probably have to respond by the middle of this month or seek 00:37:15.361 --> 00:37:18.590 - an extension, which we can easily do. 00:37:21.666 --> 00:37:29.625 - provide the information they requested, but six requests for production of documents, one interrogatory, 00:37:29.625 --> 00:37:37.584 - but they are pretty comprehensive, so it may take some time. So I just wanted to put that on your radar, 00:37:37.584 --> 00:37:45.695 - and I'll probably be calling you, Clerk Brown, in the near future to set up a meeting, if that's possible. 00:37:45.695 --> 00:37:50.622 - Absolutely. Have you already sent the discovery paperwork to me? 00:37:50.786 --> 00:37:58.858 - I think I did. Okay. So I've been out for nearly two weeks. Yeah. Literally came from the AIC conference 00:37:58.858 --> 00:38:06.623 - into the office and then here. So, um, if, um, Ms. Kylie, if we can look at his correspondence, like 00:38:06.623 --> 00:38:14.388 - early next week and see who, you know, what stakeholders we need to help us with this. We, I believe 00:38:14.388 --> 00:38:18.078 - we could probably meet your mid month deadline. 00:38:18.338 --> 00:38:26.463 - I have printed out copies of this. Should I give those to Kylie? That would be great. Depending on those 00:38:26.463 --> 00:38:34.355 - records, we might be able to extract them ourselves, depending on which department and what equipment 00:38:34.355 --> 00:38:42.248 - it's going to be from. That's what I'm hopeful for, so that we can get them to you quickly. Thank you 00:38:42.248 --> 00:38:47.742 - very much. Thank you. Thank you. I did reach out to Molly Turner King. 00:38:47.906 --> 00:38:56.091 - She does not have the resolution that was on the agenda for today. So we will have to postpone that 00:38:56.091 --> 00:39:04.521 - for the next election board meeting. All right. Then do we have any, we have new business. Ms. Givens, 00:39:04.521 --> 00:39:12.869 - you're listed here on 2024 provisional discussion. Yes. There are several issues I want to raise. And 00:39:12.869 --> 00:39:17.534 - then following that, I have five motions I want to make. 00:39:18.146 --> 00:39:25.716 - that follow up on on those different items. One of the things I learned. Sorry, the echo is terrible. 00:39:25.716 --> 00:39:33.435 - One of the things I learned when at the recent roundtable discussion that the clerk held was that there 00:39:33.435 --> 00:39:41.079 - were almost 400 provisional ballots cast in the November 2024 election general election. I'm concerned 00:39:41.079 --> 00:39:46.942 - about those, so I reached out to Kylie and obtained a list of the reasons that 00:39:47.266 --> 00:39:54.200 - these ballots were declared provisional. So I wanna like to ask questions about some of the categories 00:39:54.200 --> 00:40:01.000 - and begin a discussion about what we could do better in 2026. I say this because almost 85% of those 00:40:01.000 --> 00:40:07.934 - ballots were rejected. These are people, over 300 of them who made an effort to vote. And I think it's 00:40:07.934 --> 00:40:14.802 - unfortunate that their votes didn't count. And I'm not pointing a finger at anyone here. I wanna make 00:40:14.802 --> 00:40:16.350 - that very, very clear. 00:40:16.482 --> 00:40:23.915 - I just would like for us to develop ways to better educate the voters on how to register, how to change 00:40:23.915 --> 00:40:31.205 - their registration if they need to, how to file for a mail-in ballot if that's what is best, or where 00:40:31.205 --> 00:40:38.353 - to vote in person. I'd like to start that. First, there were seven voters whose provisional ballots 00:40:38.353 --> 00:40:45.214 - were approved because their registration was incorrectly canceled. Kyle talked about canceling. 00:40:45.666 --> 00:40:53.874 - registrations earlier in the meeting. So who incorrectly canceled those ballots and how might we avoid 00:40:53.874 --> 00:41:01.843 - this going forward? I know that people can check their voter registration online at indiana.in.gov, 00:41:01.843 --> 00:41:10.131 - but people like my 96 year old mother have neither the skills nor the equipment to check. Second, there 00:41:10.131 --> 00:41:15.390 - were nine voters who were incorrectly given a provisional ballot. 00:41:15.938 --> 00:41:22.678 - That seemed something easy to correct going forward with training, and six of those nine occurred at 00:41:22.678 --> 00:41:29.419 - one location, which was at the Indiana Memorial Union. Um, third 210 of the provisional ballots were 00:41:29.419 --> 00:41:36.426 - cast at a single location, the Indiana Memorial Union. While eight of these ballots were accepted, most, 00:41:36.426 --> 00:41:42.366 - meaning almost 200, were rejected because the voter was not registered in Monroe County. 00:41:42.946 --> 00:41:50.673 - This is where I think voter education would make a very, very big difference. 23 of the people or 5.9% 00:41:50.673 --> 00:41:58.250 - of the people who cast a ballot in Monroe County in November 2024 had their ballots rejected because 00:41:58.250 --> 00:42:05.902 - they voted at the wrong polling location. 13 of these individuals voted at the wrong location. And as 00:42:05.902 --> 00:42:11.454 - I'm sure anybody could guess, it was at the Indiana Memorial Union again. 00:42:12.194 --> 00:42:19.656 - So I hope that we can devise programs for outreach to reduce this number or even bring it down to zero. 00:42:19.656 --> 00:42:27.190 - And at this point, too, we don't know how many additional voters were turned away from the first polling 00:42:27.190 --> 00:42:34.436 - place they attempted to go to and then didn't try to go onto their own polling place. I've worked as 00:42:34.436 --> 00:42:40.894 - a clerk on at least five different occasions. And I know I personally had to help people. 00:42:41.154 --> 00:42:51.348 - They weren't eligible to vote at that location. So then there was another issue that isn't part of what 00:42:51.348 --> 00:43:01.149 - I heard from Nicole, but plays into the 2026 election. Neither the two ballot scanners that were at 00:43:01.149 --> 00:43:07.422 - the Sherwood Oaks polling location functioned properly in 2024. 00:43:07.618 --> 00:43:14.856 - So apparently state code only calls for a very limited number of machines to be tested prior to an election. 00:43:14.856 --> 00:43:21.629 - And I hope we can go beyond the state minimum next year. There was an additional problem when I voted 00:43:21.629 --> 00:43:28.402 - at that location, because I personally saw this, only one person was staffing the box where completed 00:43:28.402 --> 00:43:35.175 - ballots were deposited. Given the normal checks and balances we have in our system, I felt that there 00:43:35.175 --> 00:43:36.702 - should be someone from 00:43:36.834 --> 00:43:46.323 - each political party to oversee that box. They should have been clearly identified. I think this is 00:43:46.323 --> 00:43:56.476 - another instance where additional education and additional efforts might make a difference to what happens 00:43:56.476 --> 00:44:04.542 - in 2026. Like I said, I have five items I'd like for us to consider today and put in 00:44:05.122 --> 00:44:11.812 - to motions. And when before I begin that too, when I talk about public comment, generally there would 00:44:11.812 --> 00:44:18.370 - be public comment for items that are not on the agenda and public items or public comment on things 00:44:18.370 --> 00:44:25.191 - where there are motions. Generally, there wouldn't be a comment period, for example, on the citizenship 00:44:25.191 --> 00:44:31.880 - update that Ms. Ferris gave us earlier and those kinds of things. But that's why I was hoping that we 00:44:31.880 --> 00:44:34.110 - would have that resolution today. 00:44:35.394 --> 00:44:44.422 - So the first item that I have for motion relates to voter outreach. So I want to say with so many people 00:44:44.422 --> 00:44:53.105 - accessing television through streaming services and more competition locally for internet providers, 00:44:53.105 --> 00:45:01.789 - I feel that advertising on Comcast is no longer effective in reaching voters, especially new voters. 00:45:01.789 --> 00:45:04.798 - So I would like to ask about this. 00:45:05.346 --> 00:45:12.619 - don't exactly know who it should be, who it should fall to, but I would like to ask Clerk Brown and 00:45:12.619 --> 00:45:20.111 - the election staff to begin to explore other avenues advertising and to bring a report to the election 00:45:20.111 --> 00:45:27.747 - board at our December 20, 25th meeting. This timeline would give the clerk and her staff time to develop 00:45:27.747 --> 00:45:34.366 - new material and to get any necessary contracts signed before early voting begins in 2026. 00:45:34.722 --> 00:45:44.917 - So with that, I move that Clerk Brown and her election staff explore other avenues for advertising and 00:45:44.917 --> 00:45:54.915 - bring it to the board at our December 25 meeting. Are we making motions with no discussion among the 00:45:54.915 --> 00:46:04.318 - board? No, usually you have discussion after a motion is made. So I'm making a motion and then 00:46:04.546 --> 00:46:13.079 - If there's a second, then we would have discussion about it. So what I'm hearing is that she's making, 00:46:13.079 --> 00:46:21.446 - again, you've got a problem with the speaker. Actually, so do we. I'm just reading the bottom of the 00:46:21.446 --> 00:46:29.731 - screen to see what you're saying. And I'm hoping they're getting it's coming through correctly. The 00:46:29.731 --> 00:46:33.790 - motion is that we ask the clerk and the election 00:46:34.306 --> 00:46:41.408 - office to look for other ways to advertise rather than the Comcast method that is currently being used. 00:46:41.408 --> 00:46:48.441 - Is that what I'm hearing? Correct. And to bring it back to the board at our December meeting or by our 00:46:48.441 --> 00:46:55.816 - December meeting. If they can do it earlier, that would be excellent, but I don't want to put that pressure 00:46:55.816 --> 00:47:00.254 - on them. What do we need? Do we need a motion or can we just say 00:47:02.082 --> 00:47:08.524 - highly with your office, please look for other methods that we can get information out, as opposed to 00:47:08.524 --> 00:47:14.966 - paying, particularly if we're paying Comcast for this, and I'm sure we are, is it easier just to, I'm 00:47:14.966 --> 00:47:21.472 - not sure what a resolution, I'm not knocking, please don't misunderstand me, I'm not sure a resolution 00:47:21.472 --> 00:47:28.293 - is really necessary when we can just say, hey, we don't think we're getting a good return on our investment 00:47:28.293 --> 00:47:31.198 - with Comcast, can you look for other methods? 00:47:31.874 --> 00:47:38.126 - Does that does that make sense? Yeah, Clark Brown. Can you clarify when we took the contract to the 00:47:38.126 --> 00:47:44.377 - commissioners last year for Comcast? I believe there was questions about the streaming at that time 00:47:44.377 --> 00:47:49.566 - as well, and you had contacted your connection with them and they had stated that. 00:47:49.794 --> 00:47:56.846 - With us going through them, they were also getting it onto the streaming services as well by the same 00:47:56.846 --> 00:48:03.898 - channels that are through Comcast. If those are also aired on a streaming service, they're also being 00:48:03.898 --> 00:48:09.982 - aired on that streaming service. Only if they have Comcast for their internet provider. 00:48:11.362 --> 00:48:18.745 - I'll say I don't have Comcast for my internet provider and I have my streaming set up for Bloomington, 00:48:18.745 --> 00:48:25.985 - Indiana instead of Greene County, Indiana. And I was seeing the same advertisements on YouTube TV as 00:48:25.985 --> 00:48:33.726 - individuals who do have Comcast were seeing. And so, yes, Ms. Kiley, you're correct. Our vendor at the time 00:48:34.146 --> 00:48:41.944 - And I mean, obviously we didn't have to reach out to her this year with no elections. More than 55% 00:48:41.944 --> 00:48:49.976 - of all Monroe County households have something connected to Comcast, either the streaming or the cable 00:48:49.976 --> 00:48:57.931 - or the internet. And so all of those ways, as you said, they have access to, so that's more than half 00:48:57.931 --> 00:49:00.894 - of all Monroe County households. But, 00:49:01.282 --> 00:49:11.360 - we do use more than one method. We also had a radio commercial. Um, we also worked with candidates, 00:49:11.360 --> 00:49:21.741 - legal women, voters, um, college and Republicans and Democrats. Um, so we do use more than one method. 00:49:21.741 --> 00:49:27.486 - Um, I wanna, I wanna circle back to the presumption that 00:49:28.002 --> 00:49:34.716 - It comes back to us, all of the provisionals that were at the Indiana Memorial Union. And Ms. Kiley, 00:49:34.716 --> 00:49:41.497 - please help me where I leave off. At the beginning of every academic year, we do send someone, and in 00:49:41.497 --> 00:49:48.278 - this case, more than one person to the university in connection with PACE, in connection with college 00:49:48.278 --> 00:49:51.934 - gems and college Republicans to get the word out about 00:49:52.066 --> 00:49:58.882 - hey, you're here in Monroe County, we want to encourage you to vote where you sleep. And so we had, 00:49:58.882 --> 00:50:05.971 - on National Voter Registration Day, we actually went out to a building very near campus, and there were 00:50:05.971 --> 00:50:10.334 - several, if I remember correctly, several places on the campus. 00:50:10.466 --> 00:50:17.075 - Last year there was, I believe it was a total of 10 tables for the presidential year. Last year there 00:50:17.075 --> 00:50:23.554 - was one table. And actually, Ralph from the League of Women Voters, myself, Jessica, and Sarah from 00:50:23.554 --> 00:50:30.098 - the voter registration office were all there to help with education and getting students registered. 00:50:30.098 --> 00:50:36.642 - And if memory serves, you even arranged for free pizza for anybody who came to register. The problem 00:50:36.642 --> 00:50:38.910 - that I understood is that students 00:50:39.426 --> 00:50:46.749 - don't want to cancel their home registration. Those are the names that they're familiar with. Those 00:50:46.749 --> 00:50:54.218 - are the names that they want to vote for those people. And so it then becomes their responsibility to 00:50:54.218 --> 00:51:02.053 - request a ballot from their home community. We can't make them register here in Monroe County. The problem 00:51:02.053 --> 00:51:08.350 - that we had, and I believe it was twofold, was that then, of course, on election day, 00:51:08.642 --> 00:51:16.116 - They realized they had not requested an absentee ballot so that they could vote and then mail it back. 00:51:16.116 --> 00:51:23.371 - They also realized, you know, I had someone come in, I remember from St. Joseph County, they didn't 00:51:23.371 --> 00:51:30.700 - come in until noon. Well, by the time you would drive a minimum, and that's in good traffic, of four 00:51:30.700 --> 00:51:34.110 - hours to St. Joseph County, you may or may not 00:51:34.210 --> 00:51:41.497 - get to vote if that person had an opportunity to do that. I remember one young lady from Marion County, 00:51:41.497 --> 00:51:48.713 - another from Hamilton, and another from Vandenberg that I pretty much said, you better get in that car 00:51:48.713 --> 00:51:56.350 - and start heading there right now because here's where you vote and your polls close at this time, depending 00:51:56.350 --> 00:52:03.006 - on the time thing. Also, my recollection is that there was a group, nobody affiliated with us, 00:52:03.394 --> 00:52:11.376 - who was at the union giving out some poor information that was then attributed to Monroe County Election 00:52:11.376 --> 00:52:18.979 - Central. We did not give out misinformation. And so it is the case that we do not refuse voters. We 00:52:18.979 --> 00:52:26.581 - offer you a provisional ballot. We knew, you know, that if the records indicated that they were not 00:52:26.581 --> 00:52:30.686 - registered in Monroe County, despite having that huge 00:52:30.818 --> 00:52:39.703 - voter outreach effort that those would not be able to be considered by the Monroe County Election Board. 00:52:39.703 --> 00:52:48.165 - It just happens in a presidential year that there are way more provisionals issued than there would 00:52:48.165 --> 00:52:55.358 - be in a municipal or in an off presidential election. So this is not something where 00:52:55.554 --> 00:53:01.953 - I think Monroe County Election Board should be upbraided for not getting the word out. In fact, I think 00:53:01.953 --> 00:53:08.290 - that we did get the word out. It was heart wrenching when we saw people come in with their ballot that 00:53:08.290 --> 00:53:14.566 - they never mailed. And the reason that I recognize them is because they look nothing like what we had 00:53:14.566 --> 00:53:21.150 - sent out when we sent out mail ballots. And so, you know, what can I do with one that is for Allen County? 00:53:21.858 --> 00:53:30.393 - I can't process that and by election day, it is too late unless that person wants to get in the car 00:53:30.393 --> 00:53:39.185 - and drive up to Allen County. There was nothing that we could do with that. I'm hopeful that addressed 00:53:39.185 --> 00:53:47.720 - a couple of things that I saw as far as university students. Well, one of the, and this was another 00:53:47.720 --> 00:53:50.622 - motion I wanted to make was that, 00:53:51.010 --> 00:53:58.097 - I really feel like we should come up with additional ways, and I applaud what's been done in the past. 00:53:58.097 --> 00:54:05.116 - This isn't any, again, I'm not pointing a finger at anybody here, but I was recently talking with the 00:54:05.116 --> 00:54:12.134 - current president for the IU College Dems, who said that a lot of IU students don't watch traditional 00:54:12.134 --> 00:54:19.084 - television, and they're not listening to radio at all. They're on different kinds of streaming, even 00:54:19.084 --> 00:54:20.254 - for their music. 00:54:20.578 --> 00:54:28.238 - I don't know that we have currently an effective way to reach IU students. And especially we have an 00:54:28.238 --> 00:54:35.897 - indication that they want to vote with all the provisionals that were given is why I'm raising this. 00:54:35.897 --> 00:54:43.481 - And so again, and I'm glad that you brought in the IU political and civic engagement program, but I 00:54:43.481 --> 00:54:46.590 - would like for us to figure out new ways 00:54:47.042 --> 00:54:54.711 - to reach the IU College students specifically, but also other new potential voters. Kylie, is it correct 00:54:54.711 --> 00:55:02.526 - that they use social media? Yes. So early last year, I had brought up the conversation of wanting to get a 00:55:03.106 --> 00:55:08.919 - social media page for the voter registration office slash election central office and my original idea 00:55:08.919 --> 00:55:14.562 - was I wanted to start with Instagram and Facebook since they're connected you can post on Instagram 00:55:14.562 --> 00:55:20.205 - I'll automatically post to Facebook so it takes away some of the stress in my office of making sure 00:55:20.205 --> 00:55:26.018 - these postings are getting posted and that they're getting posted everywhere instead of just one place 00:55:26.018 --> 00:55:31.661 - and not the other. In addition to that I also want to say that at the last election board meeting I 00:55:31.661 --> 00:55:33.072 - mentioned a program that 00:55:33.072 --> 00:55:39.802 - I created while doing the SEATS program through Ball State University called the Civic Student Network. 00:55:39.802 --> 00:55:46.726 - I am still currently working with Ball State and a few individuals from VSTOP to finalize some information 00:55:46.726 --> 00:55:53.392 - in that. And I do plan on having that to the election board towards the end of December, hopefully for 00:55:53.392 --> 00:55:57.598 - the December election board meeting, if not the January meeting. 00:55:57.730 --> 00:56:04.146 - And that is going onto the campus directly and getting a day set up of just working with these students 00:56:04.146 --> 00:56:10.501 - and showing them how to register to vote, where to go to get all of their information about elections, 00:56:10.501 --> 00:56:16.670 - and hosting a mock election for the students so that they can physically see what it's like to fill 00:56:16.670 --> 00:56:23.518 - out a ballot for the first time and vote with the actual machines that they'll be voting with on election day. 00:56:23.714 --> 00:56:30.733 - I did this beginning last year at Bloomington High School North and it was a huge success. The students 00:56:30.733 --> 00:56:37.752 - absolutely enjoyed us being there, have already been asked to come back again next year for the seniors 00:56:37.752 --> 00:56:44.569 - there again and the hope is to get that spread across the whole county to get in communications with 00:56:44.569 --> 00:56:51.655 - MCCSC and get this countywide and then also reach out to Easton Green, not Easton Green, sorry, Edgewood 00:56:51.655 --> 00:56:53.680 - and get them involved in that 00:56:53.680 --> 00:57:00.189 - as well. And I am working with a few other individuals from other counties who are wanting to push it 00:57:00.189 --> 00:57:06.570 - in their counties as well. So that's one way that I'm really trying to push the involvement between 00:57:06.570 --> 00:57:13.462 - Monroe County Election Central and the student body on both IU's campus but also our hometown high schools. 00:57:13.462 --> 00:57:20.035 - Don't forget Seven Oaks and Lighthouse if you do that. They are on my list. And we had several of them 00:57:20.035 --> 00:57:21.822 - serve as poll workers. Yes. 00:57:21.922 --> 00:57:28.973 - We go to Seven Oaks, we go to Lighthouse Christian Academy, Bloomington North. We've not been able to 00:57:28.973 --> 00:57:36.093 - get into Bloomington South yet, but we've had multiple students who are part of the 4-H junior leaders 00:57:36.093 --> 00:57:43.005 - program who we have reached out to as well and gotten students signed up to work on election day so 00:57:43.005 --> 00:57:50.056 - that they get to see what it's like actually to serve as a poll worker. And the only other thing I'll 00:57:50.056 --> 00:57:51.646 - say is the traditional 00:57:52.546 --> 00:58:00.635 - I'll use traditional methods, are not the ones that we gear toward the IU students, the social media 00:58:00.635 --> 00:58:08.643 - and reaching out to college Dems and college Republicans. It's other households in Monroe County or 00:58:08.643 --> 00:58:16.812 - streamers or whatever, the people who listen to B97 on their way to work. So it's a wide net. I think 00:58:16.812 --> 00:58:18.974 - that there's some kind of, 00:58:20.578 --> 00:58:28.006 - there appears to be some kind of effort to say just shut all of that down when we're not, if IU students 00:58:28.006 --> 00:58:34.940 - were the only people we were talking about, I would agree that they probably don't get what they, 00:58:34.940 --> 00:58:42.015 - you know, their information from that. But I'm saying there are other places that do. And we've had 00:58:42.015 --> 00:58:49.726 - people wonder why they didn't see the commercial or hear the radio. So it is something that's taken hold in, 00:58:49.826 --> 00:58:57.810 - Monroe County. So I know you probably want to move on to other things, Mr. Chair. Well, I struggle to 00:58:57.810 --> 00:59:06.030 - feel sorry for people on campus who don't know it's an election year. I mean, you're that old and you're 00:59:06.030 --> 00:59:14.014 - in college. It's kind of hard to miss. And they carry around these little things in their pockets all 00:59:14.014 --> 00:59:19.102 - the time that would make it really easy to say, where do I vote? 00:59:19.522 --> 00:59:26.142 - and you put your address in and there it is. So I struggle to feel sorry for the ones that wait till 00:59:26.142 --> 00:59:33.023 - the last minute and don't get stuff done. And we did have people post on their own social media so that, 00:59:33.023 --> 00:59:39.643 - you know, and young people are friends with young people and please pass it on and things like that. 00:59:39.643 --> 00:59:46.590 - So we did, you know, I feel that, thank you, Kylie, we did an amazing job for outreach ahead of the 2020, 00:59:46.914 --> 00:59:55.198 - for presidential election. And we will continue to build on that. But our voters are not all IU students. 00:59:55.198 --> 01:00:03.325 - Thank you. Okay, so moving on. I also want to point out, well, I've got a couple more items too. I want 01:00:03.325 --> 01:00:11.296 - to point out that social media only works if you've got followers. And so just to say that we created 01:00:11.296 --> 01:00:16.766 - this, we have to figure out a way to expand who follows those things. 01:00:17.602 --> 01:00:24.309 - With that we are in constant communication with the Indiana University Pace, College Dems and College 01:00:24.309 --> 01:00:30.885 - Republicans and I've reached out to them and well they have their followers but I reach out to them 01:00:30.885 --> 01:00:37.723 - personally all the time and have them post on their social medias for our office because I also reached 01:00:37.723 --> 01:00:44.365 - out last year to the commissioners and had some items posted on their Facebook as well but it's just 01:00:44.365 --> 01:00:46.206 - you got to start somewhere. 01:00:46.658 --> 01:00:53.634 - you absolutely have to start somewhere and you have to have more than one tentacle. Is there a Democrat 01:00:53.634 --> 01:01:00.676 - version of Turning Point on campus? I'm not for sure. I would have to... If there is, those then I would 01:01:00.676 --> 01:01:07.250 - suggest you add the local Turning Point chapters. Yes. If you want younger people. Yep. You know, 01:01:07.250 --> 01:01:13.957 - now that... Good to do both. I have no problem with that. Now that IU is back in session, would you 01:01:13.957 --> 01:01:15.902 - be able to reach out to both 01:01:16.130 --> 01:01:23.525 - college chairs and invite them to our next meeting to enlist their assistance in, you know, what we 01:01:23.525 --> 01:01:30.995 - can do to have more tentacles on campus. I feel like you, again, I feel like you did an amazing job, 01:01:30.995 --> 01:01:38.464 - but certainly we're open to feedback. We appreciate the feedback we've received and we can reach out 01:01:38.464 --> 01:01:42.014 - to other clerks where they're university based. 01:01:42.690 --> 01:01:49.925 - and see what they do as far as, please excuse me, outreach. And you had other things, Ms. Giddens, you 01:01:49.925 --> 01:01:56.948 - had a couple other things you would add? Yeah. Yeah, and I do want to thank the board for listening 01:01:56.948 --> 01:02:04.042 - to me about these issues again. Last fall, I was watching some of the election board meetings, and I 01:02:04.042 --> 01:02:11.136 - know there was some confusion with providing the election board with a complete training packet in a 01:02:11.136 --> 01:02:12.190 - timely manner. 01:02:12.482 --> 01:02:21.678 - And I know that Ms. Ferris stepped into this role and has really taken it on full-fledged. But I also 01:02:21.678 --> 01:02:30.694 - know that Ms. Ferris keeps a really tight, concise calendar. And I'd like to propose that she bring 01:02:30.694 --> 01:02:39.891 - to the election board a training calendar so that we will be advised in advance when things are going 01:02:39.891 --> 01:02:41.694 - to be coming to us. 01:02:41.794 --> 01:02:46.334 - when we can expect to see things related to the training material. 01:02:47.746 --> 01:02:54.021 - So the training material was brought to the election board last year after it was brought to our attention 01:02:54.021 --> 01:03:00.061 - that it needed to be reviewed and approved by the election board beforehand, which had never been done 01:03:00.061 --> 01:03:06.453 - in the past. So we made sure that that happened last year, and the plan is to continue to do that. Actually, 01:03:06.453 --> 01:03:12.317 - Ashley and Jessica both are getting ready to begin working on updating that information once we get 01:03:12.317 --> 01:03:17.712 - some clarification on the legislation that's currently in the lawsuit. And once we're done, 01:03:17.712 --> 01:03:25.606 - with getting that clarified, then it will be to you guys as soon as possible. Thank you. So I want to 01:03:25.606 --> 01:03:33.345 - now talk about something that probably will be a bit contentious. But I think I heard at an earlier 01:03:33.345 --> 01:03:41.316 - election board meeting this year and even today that Mr. Shields indicated, and I'm paraphrasing here, 01:03:41.316 --> 01:03:47.198 - please, that he thinks people should have to put forth some effort to vote. 01:03:47.554 --> 01:03:54.140 - I feel like in 2024, we had hundreds of people who put forth that effort who actually tried to vote, 01:03:54.140 --> 01:04:00.986 - but their balance didn't count. And some of that again is because they weren't registered here in Monroe 01:04:00.986 --> 01:04:07.767 - County. But I hope that with expanded and redirected education, we can overcome some of those problems. 01:04:07.767 --> 01:04:15.070 - But I think one of the ways that we as a board can make a difference is to allow vote centers in Monroe County. 01:04:15.842 --> 01:04:24.196 - And even at last month's election board meeting, when vote centers were not on the agenda, we had two 01:04:24.196 --> 01:04:32.467 - residents speak out in favor of them. It's my understanding that now all of the counties surrounding 01:04:32.467 --> 01:04:40.985 - Monroe County, including Brown County now, all of them who have Republican majorities on their election 01:04:40.985 --> 01:04:44.670 - boards, they all have vote centers in place. 01:04:44.834 --> 01:04:53.936 - it. But there is eliminate turning away voters because they're at the wrong polling location or offering. 01:04:53.936 --> 01:05:02.523 - Eliminating or offering provisional ballots which are later rejected. When the board considered the 01:05:02.523 --> 01:05:11.454 - vote centers a few months ago, clerk Brian supported this effort and I would now like to move that. We. 01:05:14.242 --> 01:05:22.358 - that we reopen a discussion of vote centers and that we have two public meetings that are required before 01:05:22.358 --> 01:05:30.322 - a vote center for the election board can take a vote center. And I move that those two meetings be held 01:05:30.322 --> 01:05:38.361 - at least 28 days from now, but prior to November 14th, 2025, so that we can discuss this at the election 01:05:38.361 --> 01:05:41.118 - board's December 4th, 2024 meeting. 01:05:44.098 --> 01:05:50.829 - If I may, Mr. Chair, board member Githans, are you aware that the secretary of state is holding public 01:05:50.829 --> 01:05:57.495 - hearings throughout the state on this very topic? And so Kylie and I have both attended some of those 01:05:57.495 --> 01:06:04.488 - meetings. And in fact, this week I believe they were in Evansville. Correct. And then I think that they're 01:06:04.488 --> 01:06:08.670 - doing one in Lake County. And so they're going through, we have 01:06:09.346 --> 01:06:17.119 - I don't believe that information is due prior to Org Day at the State House. And so we won't know what 01:06:17.119 --> 01:06:24.666 - comes out of that. But he had, at the presentation that you and I went to together in Indianapolis, 01:06:24.666 --> 01:06:32.740 - V-Stop made a presentation. The Secretary of State's office made a presentation. There was public comment, 01:06:32.740 --> 01:06:38.174 - and everybody was given an opportunity. I don't think civics was there. 01:06:39.650 --> 01:06:49.683 - And so we are the clerks who are not yet vote center counties, and some have adopted vote center counties. 01:06:49.683 --> 01:06:59.528 - They've become vote center counties since we had our public hearing. I apologize. I got ahead of myself. 01:06:59.528 --> 01:07:02.622 - But we are waiting to hear back. 01:07:03.074 --> 01:07:10.367 - from the secretary of state as to whether or not he's going to mandate vote centers throughout the state. 01:07:10.367 --> 01:07:17.454 - And what I asked Kylie to ask in the meeting she attended in Delaware County was whether or not if the 01:07:17.454 --> 01:07:24.471 - secretary does mandate, if we can use the program, I'm sorry, the plan that the vote center committee 01:07:24.471 --> 01:07:31.902 - came up with so that we don't have to reinvent the wheel because we had an amazing plan. It just, you know, 01:07:32.290 --> 01:07:39.641 - It just didn't rise to the level of the unanimous vote that we currently need to have. Well, it's my 01:07:39.641 --> 01:07:47.138 - understanding, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that this has to go before the legislature in terms 01:07:47.138 --> 01:07:54.708 - of whether or not there are vote centers, which means that they would not be in place in 2026, at least 01:07:54.708 --> 01:08:00.094 - not for the primary. That I am not aware of, and I just saw the secretary 01:08:00.194 --> 01:08:10.879 - at the AIC conference that was not said by his office or his delegates. But that does not prevent us 01:08:10.879 --> 01:08:21.565 - from again holding public to public hearings. And I do have a motion on the floor to hold two public 01:08:21.565 --> 01:08:29.182 - hearings prior to November 14th, 2025 to reconsider having vote centers 01:08:29.634 --> 01:08:38.000 - in Monroe County in 2026. Ms. Githans, are you wanting to hold the two public hearings without a plan 01:08:38.000 --> 01:08:46.202 - or are you wanting to open up another vote center committee to create a plan to then propose to the 01:08:46.202 --> 01:08:54.649 - election board? I would like for us to use the existing plan because it was created earlier this year. 01:08:54.649 --> 01:08:57.438 - I don't feel that it's necessary. 01:08:57.730 --> 01:09:06.346 - But to create a new plan, I think it's completely valid. And like I said, since it was created this 01:09:06.346 --> 01:09:15.047 - year, there may be other members of the public who, after hearing that this was projected, who might 01:09:15.047 --> 01:09:24.266 - want to come and speak. It feels to me, in terms of the motion, that we should have a better understanding 01:09:24.266 --> 01:09:27.454 - of whether the secretary is going to 01:09:27.650 --> 01:09:35.443 - mandate vote centers. I'm happy to reach out to my contacts at the secretary's office to see when we 01:09:35.443 --> 01:09:43.312 - might get that information. If it's sooner rather than later, it seems like the motion would be moved 01:09:43.312 --> 01:09:51.259 - if it is later rather than sooner. We can have a motion, but I'll be quite honest, nothing that I have 01:09:51.259 --> 01:09:54.654 - heard would change my mind on vote centers. 01:09:55.362 --> 01:10:01.344 - So we can have a motion, you can have hearings, but nothing has happened that would change my vote. 01:10:01.344 --> 01:10:07.446 - If the Secretary of State and the legislature mandate vote centers, then we'll put a plan together if 01:10:07.446 --> 01:10:13.607 - it's mandated, unless somebody sues, just like we're under a lawsuit right now because of legislation. 01:10:13.607 --> 01:10:19.769 - If that happens, then we can talk about it. But at this point in time, nothing has happened that would 01:10:19.769 --> 01:10:23.358 - change my vote, so I see no reason to bring people in here. 01:10:25.058 --> 01:10:31.185 - So are you saying that there is nothing that anyone could say, no data that anyone could present to 01:10:31.185 --> 01:10:37.312 - you that would ever change your mind? I did not say that. I said there's nothing I've heard to this 01:10:37.312 --> 01:10:43.501 - moment that would change my vote. Well, then what I'm asking is for other people to come forward and 01:10:43.501 --> 01:10:50.302 - ask people to state their reasons for things. I'm asking for people to give you that chance to listen to them. 01:10:55.778 --> 01:11:02.490 - out to my contact at the Secretary of State's office just to see where we are. That would inform whether 01:11:02.490 --> 01:11:08.945 - I would... The Secretary of State is real easy to get a hold of. Yes, he is. And I can text him this 01:11:08.945 --> 01:11:15.337 - evening and say, I have a question for you, sir, and I'll get an answer. But at this point in time, 01:11:15.337 --> 01:11:22.113 - I think this is premature, depending upon what laws that may be changed and decisions that may be changed 01:11:22.113 --> 01:11:24.478 - by that Secretary of State's office. 01:11:28.194 --> 01:11:35.200 - If the purpose of this is to get people in here and try to intimidate me into changing votes, I've got 01:11:35.200 --> 01:11:42.002 - a life history of people have been mad at me about things, and I didn't change my mind. And at this 01:11:42.002 --> 01:11:48.940 - point in time, I don't see things that are changed my mind. And the more you push me, the less likely 01:11:48.940 --> 01:11:55.742 - you are to get the vote that you want. I was talking about persuasion. Mr. Chair, I kind of want to 01:11:55.742 --> 01:11:57.374 - meet in the middle here 01:11:57.730 --> 01:12:05.730 - in terms of the secretary himself has not announced. And so it does seem, and I have reached out, I'm 01:12:05.730 --> 01:12:13.651 - hoping I get a quick answer, but I don't know if I will while we have this meeting. If he is leaning 01:12:13.651 --> 01:12:21.886 - toward that and we can get that kind of indication, then there wouldn't be any point in a public hearing 01:12:21.886 --> 01:12:27.454 - because he's leaning toward that and could do that, and the only thing 01:12:27.714 --> 01:12:35.801 - I do agree with board member Githans that if he mandates it, I'd like to use the existing plan that 01:12:35.801 --> 01:12:43.889 - we have because the vote center committee worked for a year and a half on that plan. It was a solid 01:12:43.889 --> 01:12:51.976 - plan. And I think that that would take some of the sting out of all the work that would be required 01:12:51.976 --> 01:12:56.990 - to implement vote centers in Monroe County. If it is not, and 01:12:58.946 --> 01:13:09.802 - I'm sorry, I'm getting a response, but I can't read it yet. If it is not mandated, then it's local control 01:13:09.802 --> 01:13:20.049 - and you've made your perspective very clear. And so I would make a motion to table this motion until 01:13:20.049 --> 01:13:26.846 - we have a little bit more information. I would second that motion. 01:13:28.994 --> 01:13:36.345 - And then it sounds like you have connections, direct connections, as do I, but I'll let you as the chair. 01:13:36.345 --> 01:13:43.488 - I'll be happy to reach out. I'll let you as the chair reach out directly and report back. I will reach 01:13:43.488 --> 01:13:50.562 - out to his office and say, OK, where is this going? We've had, he and I have had slight conversations 01:13:50.562 --> 01:13:57.150 - about this already. And I'll reach out to him again and see what he says. And this is, for me, 01:13:57.442 --> 01:14:06.965 - this isn't something that would have to wait until the next meeting if we wanted to call a special meeting 01:14:06.965 --> 01:14:15.954 - as long as it is not the last week of October. I'm open to meeting again in the next couple weeks if 01:14:15.954 --> 01:14:25.566 - you could. I have to look at the calendar. I will not be here the first week of November. In fact, I have a 01:14:25.922 --> 01:14:33.611 - proxy already in place for that meeting. That's right. So the 9th, the 16th, or the 23rd, after you 01:14:33.611 --> 01:14:41.376 - talk to your... Are you talking about November? October. I'm talking about calling a special meeting 01:14:41.376 --> 01:14:45.374 - so that we don't have to go to the November meeting 01:14:45.634 --> 01:14:51.441 - I would suggest a special because generally the two hearings need to be spaced apart 30 days to allow 01:14:51.441 --> 01:14:57.362 - public comment from the first to the second. Okay. But I'm not talking about a special. I'm not talking 01:14:57.362 --> 01:15:03.511 - about a public hearing. I'm talking about saying a special meeting to motion until we have more information 01:15:03.511 --> 01:15:09.318 - from the secretary. And by that, by that time, I'm not sure when that Lake County public hearing was. 01:15:09.318 --> 01:15:12.734 - It's, it's gotta be soon. Or day is, or day is in November. 01:15:13.730 --> 01:15:22.499 - I don't remember exactly which day it is, but I will say that to have these public hearings and if there 01:15:22.499 --> 01:15:31.269 - was a chance of the vote centers being approved, there's not enough time now to get the equipment turned 01:15:31.269 --> 01:15:39.704 - around because it's a six to eight month production time to get the equipment to us. So. So we would 01:15:39.704 --> 01:15:42.878 - have to make decisions quickly. Yeah. 01:15:43.618 --> 01:15:51.103 - based on what the secretary reveals to the chair. Correct. I understand, too, that Clerk Brown and your 01:15:51.103 --> 01:15:58.947 - staff was able to get a HAVA grant last year through the state for, I think it was five additional printers. 01:15:58.947 --> 01:16:06.216 - Correct. Are those printers in Monroe County? And also, I know that you had the opportunity to apply 01:16:06.216 --> 01:16:11.902 - for an additional grant this year. Could you fill us in on the status of that? 01:16:12.994 --> 01:16:20.920 - Five predators are here in Monroe County, and that brings us up to a total of 12, I believe. To answer 01:16:20.920 --> 01:16:28.769 - the second question, first, we have not been made aware of additional grant opportunities through the 01:16:28.769 --> 01:16:33.694 - Secretary of State's office. Again, we just saw him on Tuesday. 01:16:33.794 --> 01:16:40.248 - And he did not mention addition. And that is something that he likes to deliver a check. So that is 01:16:40.248 --> 01:16:46.895 - something that he very much would do if there is an opportunity to apply for a grant at this time. And 01:16:46.895 --> 01:16:53.671 - he did not mention that. So the printers that we got, Kylie, I may mess it up. Help me. But the printers 01:16:53.671 --> 01:17:00.318 - that we got were the current model ahead of the upgrade. And what I understood from our vendor is that 01:17:00.418 --> 01:17:07.747 - They wanted us to have something because we got that grant money and we paid them, but they are getting 01:17:07.747 --> 01:17:15.216 - the certification for the newer models of the printers and it is their intention to swap the new printers 01:17:15.216 --> 01:17:22.334 - out for the ones that they sent us for the current model as soon as they get that certification from 01:17:22.334 --> 01:17:29.310 - VSTOP and the state. Yes, we have printers. Are they the ones that we'll likely use? Probably not. 01:17:29.506 --> 01:17:36.657 - of the certification efforts, but I've not been made aware of any updates on the recertification, I 01:17:36.657 --> 01:17:43.808 - keep saying recertification, certification efforts on the new model printers. So the new model will 01:17:43.808 --> 01:17:51.031 - be the 2.0, and that will transfer our printers from the Okee printers to Brothers, and we have been 01:17:51.031 --> 01:17:58.396 - informed that once that has been approved, they will send us five new printers, and then the five that 01:17:58.396 --> 01:17:59.326 - they sent us 01:17:59.426 --> 01:18:05.915 - in the event of if we had a special election we had them and we're able to use them then we'll send 01:18:05.915 --> 01:18:12.793 - those back once we receive the new ones. I would like to say in closing today too that I want the general 01:18:12.793 --> 01:18:19.347 - public to understand that I am not allowed to discuss these kinds of things behind closed doors with 01:18:19.347 --> 01:18:25.836 - either Mr. Shields or with Clerk Brown it would be a violation of the open door law so the things I 01:18:25.836 --> 01:18:27.134 - brought forth today 01:18:27.778 --> 01:18:35.050 - are things that they did not know I was going to be talking about except for having it on the agenda. 01:18:35.050 --> 01:18:42.465 - No issue with me. I just want the public to be clear on that as well. These are not things I was trying 01:18:42.465 --> 01:18:49.880 - to play gotcha or surprise people. We just have to follow the law in all situations. I'm not interested 01:18:49.880 --> 01:18:57.438 - in violating open door law. That's why I stayed away from the thing in Kylie's office a couple weeks ago. 01:18:59.874 --> 01:19:11.233 - All right, I'm going to move on to public comment on just general public comment. Anyone? Not on the 01:19:11.233 --> 01:19:22.817 - agenda. My name is Cheryl Langdon. Most people are familiar with me by now. Today I want to speak. Our 01:19:22.817 --> 01:19:29.790 - constitutional right of free speech is our most sacred right. 01:19:30.402 --> 01:19:37.423 - When non-agenda public comments were brought up last month, I think confusion occurred when there was 01:19:37.423 --> 01:19:44.444 - a last minute shift in the agenda's order of business. Thankfully, free speech will be upheld in this 01:19:44.444 --> 01:19:51.328 - forum. A very young, good man died using his right to free speech, which occurred a couple of weeks 01:19:51.328 --> 01:19:56.766 - after the subject of non-agenda comments in this very room. Unexpected shifts. 01:19:56.898 --> 01:20:04.339 - on the agenda caused the confusion, and I'm glad clarification was brought up. Charlie Kirk once said, 01:20:04.339 --> 01:20:11.707 - when people stop talking, really bad stuff starts. When marriages stop talking, divorce happens. When 01:20:11.707 --> 01:20:19.148 - civilizations stop talking, civil war ensues. When you stop having a human connection with someone you 01:20:19.148 --> 01:20:26.878 - disagree with, it becomes a lot easier to want to commit violence against that group. What we as a culture 01:20:27.362 --> 01:20:34.795 - have to get back to is being able to have reasonable disagreement where violence is not an option. These 01:20:34.795 --> 01:20:42.016 - words were the essence of Charlie Kirk. I feel humanity has lost the most amazing human being to ever 01:20:42.016 --> 01:20:49.449 - walk the earth in the 21st century. I'm not a conservative. I'm not religious. But I would have followed 01:20:49.449 --> 01:20:56.670 - Charlie Kirk to the ends of the earth if he would have asked me. Why? Because Charlie was courageous. 01:20:57.090 --> 01:21:04.877 - truthful, and willing to learn. He was humble, grateful, kind, and most of all, authentic. Anyone who 01:21:04.877 --> 01:21:12.587 - thinks otherwise are lost to themselves, the heavens, and civilization. I have always been activated 01:21:12.587 --> 01:21:15.870 - and energized long before knowing Charlie. 01:21:16.354 --> 01:21:23.104 - But with Charlie's assassination, I'm not only showing up for myself and my country, but I'm showing 01:21:23.104 --> 01:21:29.854 - up for the good of mankind and standing firm in my convictions against the evil. And evil is real. I 01:21:29.854 --> 01:21:36.804 - am ashamed that I have ever voted Democrat. Charlie was right. Our nation was created under a Christian 01:21:36.804 --> 01:21:44.222 - ideology. Our very Constitution's laws are based upon Christian principles. Again, I'm not a religious person. 01:21:45.026 --> 01:21:52.325 - But Charlie Kirk was absolutely correct about that fact. I am here to honor Charlie with something he 01:21:52.325 --> 01:21:59.768 - stood by. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which 01:21:59.768 --> 01:22:06.995 - it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Charlie Kirk was an 01:22:06.995 --> 01:22:14.366 - American son. Anyone who doesn't see that should reflect on their own loyalty to our sovereign nation. 01:22:14.882 --> 01:22:23.262 - We are Charlie Kirk. Thank you. And my flag that matches your shirt was delivered today in the mail. 01:22:23.262 --> 01:22:31.643 - It hasn't gone up yet because I had to come to the meeting. Anything else? Any other public comment? 01:22:31.643 --> 01:22:40.272 - Then I will entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Seconded. Would you call the roll, please? Second. 01:22:40.272 --> 01:22:44.670 - Nicole Brown? Yes. Danny Shields? Yes. Penny Givens? 01:22:45.954 --> 01:22:52.472 - Yes. Thank you. Our next meeting is in November. And I'm sorry I'm going to be in Fort Myers. I hope 01:22:52.472 --> 01:22:58.991 - you forgive me. I certainly forgive you. Unless is that unless we call a special meeting. If we have 01:22:58.991 --> 01:23:05.444 - a special meeting. Yeah. Now the 16th of of October is the Monroe County Lincoln Day dinner. So I'm 01:23:05.444 --> 01:23:12.350 - probably going to be at that if it's at night. If I want to stay married I'm going to be at that at night. 01:23:13.410 --> 01:23:20.003 - I will say generally the special meetings we try to hold at the same time as election board meeting, 01:23:20.003 --> 01:23:26.923 - so it'll be 130. So we're looking at either the 9th or the 23rd if we're going to hold a special meeting. 01:23:26.923 --> 01:23:29.534 - Thank you. All right, we are adjourned.