- And I have 1.30. We're not sure the chime is going to chime anymore, so I will call the February 2026
- election board meeting to order. I'm going to make a motion that we adjust the agenda so that Mr. Kreider
- can make his presentation, because I think he wants to get back over to where the work's going on. I
- will second that motion. All right. Well, unanimous, go ahead. Mr. Kreider, you're on.
- Thank you for that. Unfortunately, this week I don't have any pictures, but I think you guys have all
- been on site recently. Right now, all the drywalls installed and finished, ceiling grids going in next
- week, crews are in doing the prep work for flooring. That'll start anytime.
- We have the the date delivery dates been extended a bit to May 6th, but I do have confirmation from
- from crews that that May 6 date is like finalizing punch list items than that kind of thing But the
- space will be available for events happening on May 3rd and May 10th No issues there Furniture I've been
- working with the contractor on that. And my message to the furniture contractor is that it's critical
- that we have the early voting pieces by April 1. I don't feel under the same time constraints for the
- voter's registration. So it probably will happen in a couple of phases. But I don't think they'll be
- that far apart. Yeah. And we're moving on Monday to 203. So everything.
- Richard, I want to clarify, it's March, not May. Yeah, March, sorry. Everything is, yeah. We're rocking
- and rolling. So any questions? It looked good the other day when we were down there, so. Yeah, all right.
- I'm just getting geared up for Monday. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So if we just say, OK, you can go back to
- work, right? Yeah. OK. All right. Thank you.
- All right, now the approval of the minutes from the January meeting. I will make a motion to approve
- the minutes from the January meeting. Any questions, any comments? Okay, we will consider them approved.
- Clerk's update. Thank you, Mr. Chair. It was a busy week this week, legislative wise. I went
- Monday to testify at the Senate Elections Committee, came home, hurried up and got an overnight back
- together and went up for the AIC conference, but we also had a clerk's breakout session, and I also
- testified at the House Elections Committee hearing. We are at the place in the legislative session where
- bills are switching houses, so a bill that was initiated in
- The House will now move over to the Senate, and a bill that was initiated in the Senate will now move
- over to the House for consideration. So I just wanted to give you some bill numbers to keep an eye on
- that are moving. If I don't bring it up, it's probably dead. So House Bill 1055, which is the option
- to move municipal elections to even years, that is scheduled
- In the Senate, it will be scheduled for a hearing by the head of the Senate committee. I can't talk.
- campaign finance reports of local candidates. That is moving along and has been referred to Senate elections.
- I'm very proud of the fact that we were already doing in Monroe County what they are asking all clerks
- to do, which is to post those campaign finance reports on the county website.
- House Bill 1359 is the clerk's priority legislation. I have testified on that. And it is moving along,
- very grateful to the bill's authors on behalf of the Clerk's Association. And that will allow us to,
- where early voting will mirror election day because the voter is the last person to touch
- their ballot. We are very, very excited about that as a clerks association. House Bill 1377 repeals
- the provisions that would prohibit counting straight party votes for candidates. I'll try to do this
- in the one minute format. If you vote straight party, but then you'd want to go on and vote for an at
- large race where you can vote for no more than three
- People were finding themselves in a world of hurt in that you might be straight party Republican, but
- your neighbor who's running for dog catcher is Democrat. So if you try to vote straight party, but then
- vote for your neighbor, then that at large would be four votes.
- the three you wanted for being straight party Republican and then you have selected your neighbors being
- the opposite party. And so that was something actually ironically that the Monroe County clerk discovered
- the previous Monroe County clerk discovered about 10 or 11 years ago and every vendor couldn't do it.
- And so that that bill is moving on trying to figure out a way to make sure that
- The voter intent is recognized that we are always looking out for what the voter wanted to do. And we
- don't want it to result in under voting because that became the problem. People were just being told
- to vote for who they wanted in that at large and not mess it up any other way. Well, that's costing
- some people some votes on both sides of the aisle. So certainly not anything where it happens with just
- one party.
- Senate Bill 12, the prohibition of ranked choice voting in Indiana. It's always been very clear, at
- least when I've been up at the state house, that that was not something that was palatable to the state
- house. And so this just puts in writing and it's moving along that there will likely never be ranked
- choice voting in the state of Indiana.
- Senate bill 112 that just went before the house yesterday authored by Senator Schmidt that provides
- that when an individual files a notice of withdrawal and lists their address and it is different from
- the one when they filed for candidacy clerks can then use that updated information to update the voters
- individual
- voter registration record so that it is the same as the address that they listed on the withdrawal.
- Senate Bill 113, also I testified on that bill yesterday. That is where they are requesting that certain
- election material be preserved for 60 months as opposed to the current 22 months.
- The controversy there is most clerks have no room at the end in terms of storing materials for five
- years as opposed to two years. It's trying to align it with the federal schedule. And so I believe that
- Chairman Wesco is holding that bill in hopes of getting an amendment to address that concern.
- The cancellation of a caucus, this is Senate Bill 211. Essentially, if a caucus meeting can be rescinded,
- if only one candidate is seeking to fill that vacancy, then there's no need to have a caucus that has
- been referred to the House, but it was not on yesterday's agenda I anticipated coming up within the
- next couple weeks.
- And I think that is it in terms of legislation. This has been the fastest short session I have seen
- since I have been working on the legislative committee. And so stay tuned. I'm sure I'll have some more
- legislative updates for you next month. Thank you. Thank you. That kind of reminds me, Molly, this may
- not be what you've worked on. What's the status of the lawsuit as far as what you're
- requirement for your ID that was passed. Was there a stay on that or an injunction or are we planning
- on requiring state issued IDs for early voting? I'll have to check since there's outside counsel. I
- haven't been following it that well, but I will check and update the board. Kylie, what are you expecting
- at this point in time? At this time, it will be that we still follow Senate Bill 10 and only accept
- Indiana IDs.
- That's what's going to happen. We need to make sure that that is not a find out election day, oh gosh.
- That is currently how we are doing most of the training paperwork. We're going to create a secondary
- template just in case if we need to flip it last minute. I don't want people to be surprised. But people
- can also use passports and things too. Correct. So they could use a passport or an NDN ID. Yeah.
- I just want to know where we were with that. Thank you. Okay. Election Central update. You've got a
- chunk of stuff. Yes. So first up is going to be the voter list maintenance update. Our office completed
- voter list maintenance this week, so we have a couple of public record requests that have been put in
- to receive some walking lists. Those will be going out.
- I believe tomorrow, actually. But in total, we processed 7,626 voter list maintenance records. 992 of
- those stayed active. 6,385 became inactive, and 217 were canceled. And then moving forward, candidate
- filing update. As of the end of day yesterday, we were up to 199 candidates.
- candidate filings. That number I know has gone up today alone and will continue all the way through
- noon tomorrow. And then we also have some upcoming important dates. That's going to be tomorrow, the
- last day of candidate filing. But then I also have in the packets for the election board the dispatch
- that goes out by the Indiana Election Division on February 4th. Sorry.
- On February 13th, that'll be the last day for a candidate to withdraw from the primary. And then also
- on the 13th will be the last day to file a challenge against a voter. Lastly, I have a statement that
- came from Matthew Kachavar at the Indiana Election Division.
- Under I see code three dash eight dash two dash five candidates for local office file with the county
- election board as I understand it your county does not have a separate election board hired staff so
- filings run through the circuit court clerk's office as they would be a
- the only county election board members with an office. A member of the public, if they so wish, can
- call up for the candidates and give them their opinion on what they see as an error in their filing.
- The county election board on its own cannot reject candidate filings they think are an error. Instead,
- a candidate challenge filed by a voter of the election division where a candidate is running in by noon
- on February 13th is the only case that can happen in the primary candidate filings. We really can't
- see the screens well enough. So cats, if somebody raises their hand on the screen to say something,
- let us know because we can see them, but we can't really see them well enough to
- tell if somebody's actually trying to reach in, all right? Should have done that sooner. I apologize
- for that. CFA-4 filing report. That'll be me again. In the packet, you're going to find a CFA-4 filing
- report that is going to have a full list of everybody who has filed or should have filed for the January
- 21st deadline at noon.
- We do have some on there that are highlighted in red that are missing The yellow will be late and then
- there is one highlighted in green that candidate closed out their committee They are still an elected
- official So we need to send a letter to ask them to reopen their committee and file a CFA for I Think
- we need to do with that
- With that, I just need approval to send out letters to these individuals, certified letters, asking
- them to either file or give them their update of either first or second late filings. I'll make that
- motion. I'll second it. Discussion? Sorry. Discussion? Those in favor, aye. Aye. Opposed? I do have
- a question, if it's at all possible, about this. Sure.
- account has indicated that she is not going to run for reelection and her election will actually for
- that seat will occur this year. Do we have the authority if we were to vote on it to excuse her from
- having to file that or is that a firm state requirement? That is a firm requirement and I believe that
- that person was advised that when they came back to reopen their packet.
- Certainly they can send somebody if they're not able to come, but they should open it until the very
- last day of their candidacy unless you're breaking news today. No, I'm not breaking any news today.
- I'm just saying that we know that she's not going to be running.
- So that would have to be kept open until December 31st? So as of July 1st of 2025, it says that a candidate
- which involves a elected official must keep their campaign open until they are no longer in office.
- So instead of keeping her office open, she closed and it should have stayed open. And through January
- 1 of 27? Correct.
- And that was a huge thing throughout the state, because the clerks were, I mean, it kind of came out
- in a legislative update. We were not aware that that bill was even up for discussion. And so it took
- 92 clerks by 92 clerks back with having to do it. And I certainly know from staff reports that that
- particular candidate was advised, was not happy,
- I don't know if this, again, unless you're breaking news, I don't know if this is just an obstinate
- thing or willful. I think it's a health thing. Yeah. And then in the packet, you guys also have a late
- report filing tracker.
- That is a new thing that I have started in the office for this filing and we went back to see where
- the filings were since the new resolution that was created with the Prior election board when we cleared
- out all past filing missing or late filings This is now up to date the red X's are going to be the ones
- that will be added after these have been processed and gone through
- So there will be one individual on there that has a second late filing and will be fined for this one.
- Thank you. I don't get why they don't do that. All right. Any comments from the board? No. Okay. Then
- we have a records update request.
- So this is a individual, which they are here today, if you have any questions for them. They have noticed
- that their voting history records indicate something that they believe is inaccurate. We have a statement
- from them. And from the Indiana Election Division, we could go ahead and process this ourselves in office.
- But I felt it would be best to have it in front of the election board, just so that there is a vote
- on it to approve or deny. On that election, it was marked in by, manually by? Yeah, so on the documents
- that I provided, you can see the difference of where there was recently from 2022 to 2024, they were
- entered electronically. But then from anywhere 2020,
- 2020 and back was manually uploaded. So the indication is those pencil marks beside each one of the
- elections is that indicates that they were manually entered instead of electronically uploaded. And
- on another one of those documents, you can see how easily it could be clicked, either Democratic or
- Republican, because it is a simple dropdown, and you just click which one it was. And Ms. Kiley, is
- it fair to say we had done our due diligence
- I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean,
- I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean
- or parties involved, no longer work in the Monroe County Clerk's Office, and so I will make a motion
- that we go ahead and allow the voter registration staff to update this particular voter's voting history
- record to reflect what they have stated in their statement. I will second it so we can get discussion
- if there's any discussion.
- like it is a one-timer from this. So do you want to say anything, Mr. Ellington? I'd just like to say
- thank you for taking the opportunity to, Jeff Ellington, by the way, to correct this data error. I know
- it happens not very often, but it can happen, and I appreciate you doing your due diligence to make
- sure you do everything proper. Thank you. I personally hate drop-down boxes.
- They are so easy to mis-do so. Is there any public discussion or comment? And then I will, those in
- favor of making the change say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, Ms. Scali, would you get that adjusted?
- Yeah, I'll make that change once I return to the office today. Would you let us know when that's been
- completed and let them...
- Yep. Thank you very much. You're welcome. OK. Whole business, what we've done, Mr. Kreider. Now we're
- going to talk about the VSTOP. So you're on. Yeah. So Matt from VSTOP is here to do a presentation on
- post-election audits. I brought this to the election board's attention during the conference in December
- that I thought it would be a great idea to go ahead and do a post-election audit
- audit after the general election this year. Matt? As Matt's coming, it's a wonderful opportunity to
- thank him. I have the opportunity to see him at various conferences. Matt has been a very good friend
- to Monroe County whenever it is possible to give Monroe County a shout out.
- for the great work that we do here. He has been absolutely wonderful, for which I am incredibly grateful.
- Most recently, I believe we saw you at the Election Administrators Conference. I'm sure we'll be seeing
- you. We've got a spring Southern District Conference coming up. I'll look forward to seeing you there.
- But thank you so much for making the trip. You made a little bit of a trek to see us, and so thank you
- so much. Absolutely.
- First off, just so everyone's aware for the record, my name is Matt Housley. I serve as the Election
- Systems Audit Specialist for the Voting System Technical Oversight Program, located at Ball
- State University's campus in Muncie, Indiana. While I love Ball State and I love Muncie, Indiana, I'm
- really excited to be in a city and in a school where we win football games. Come on. Come on.
- Say it again, sir. So I'm really excited for that. So I didn't want to take up too much time today,
- but again, Kylie was enrolled in our
- certificate in election administration technology and security program and was a graduate of that certificate
- program. I got the chance to work with her and then of course through the Clerks Association work with
- And one of the things that VSTOP does is post-election audits. And as we talked about post-election
- audits with Kylie and the rest of the folks from Monroe County during the SEEDS program, I finally think
- I piqued her interest in learning more. And then I had the pleasure of meeting with the county election
- board informally at the election administrators conference in December. And so now they invited me here
- to give a public presentation on what post-election audits look like and why they're
- Monroe County should be interested in maybe looking to conduct one. Do I just say next slide on the
- thing? Perfect. Next slide would be great. So a little bit about VSTOP. I thought it would be good because
- some of you may not know anything about VSTOP or what VSTOP even is. And so I figured that it would
- be best to just quickly introduce my team and who else I work with, and then I'll talk about VSTOP as
- a whole and what we do.
- As you can see there, we have two professors at Ball State University, Dr. Jay Baga and Dr. Chad Kinsella.
- They serve as our executive directors and our senior research directors for the VSTOP program. Dr. Baga
- has been around since 2007. He's been around since the beginning of VSTOP's inception. And Dr. Kinsella
- joined the team about six or seven years ago now.
- Mark serves as our program manager. He previously served at V-Stop as the certification specialist,
- and then when the previous manager left, he applied and filled that role.
- Austin Bilbrey is our logistic specialist. He helps us basically with everything we need to know. He
- helped get me my car and my per diem and everything I needed to travel here today. Spencer
- is our certification specialist. He handles all of our certification protocols and field testing for
- voting systems. Duncan is our IT specialist. He manages all of the election systems inventory, managing
- our public test lists for the counties, everything like that.
- Elisa Gray is the training and assessment specialist. She actually serves as the instructor of the SEAT
- program, and she also administers training for our statewide voter registration system. I, of course,
- am the election systems audit specialist, and I do election audits, and I also track voting system anomalies.
- So when something goes wrong and it gets reported to us, I track and investigate those.
- And then Peyton is our graduate assistant. She helps Lisa and the rest of the team with really whatever
- we need, but she also really helps administer the VRAPSA program, which is that statewide voter registration
- system training that all election administrators are required to take. Next slide. So I know it may
- be hard to see up here, but I'm going to walk through it just so you are aware. This is what VSTOP does.
- So we actually began in 2007, and we started out actually
- doing an election systems inventory. So when they originally approached, the state legislator approached,
- saying, we want a program who can build us a database to hold all of our election equipment,
- serial numbers, brands, what they are, how many they have, when they were utilized, how often they're
- utilized. And that's what V-Stop began as, is the development of the election systems inventory. So
- since 2007 and the beginning of that, we've acquired now eight different functions which we run.
- We certify all of the voting systems for use in Indiana. We currently have four certified vendors for
- use in Indiana. We certify those systems every four years. We also were the first, actually we were
- one of the first states in the United States to certify electronic poll books, which is really exciting.
- And so we handle all the certifications for our three electronic
- four, actually four now, we have a new vendor, four electronic pull book vendors here in the state of
- Indiana. We do random audits in the off year, which is where we basically request. We give the counties
- their randomly selected and we say, hey, you have some voting equipment, take it out, inspect it, make
- sure it turns on, let us know if there's anything wrong with it, and kind of allows us to check in on
- the life cycle of the equipment. Post-election audits, which I'll talk about briefly here today, and
- then training and assessment, all of our conferences we go to.
- and then, of course, seats. Next slide. So what are post-election audits here in Indiana? So we began
- doing post-election audits, and again, the state entrusted VSTOP to do this work. So it was never a
- state function. Before, it was a VSTOP function. It has always been a VSTOP function. In 2018, when
- we piloted doing post-election audits with Marion County. Give me just a second here to help me see.
- My screen's a little bit bigger. And so that's when we began doing post-election audits. Now, into 2026,
- I'm very proud to say that VSTOP has conducted 38 post-election audits in 35 counties across the state.
- Lake, Clark, and Marion were audited twice. So that's why we have 38 audits, but only 35 counties.
- The reason that the state legislator passed this law and wanted to do post-election audits in the first
- place was because the way Indiana code is written right now is that there is actually no voluntary way
- for a county to check its election results outside of certification. So when Kylie and team and Nicole
- and team come in and they do their first round of tabulation, their second and third and fourth and
- 10, 12, however many checks they do of all their different ballots,
- and they certify those results, there's only two people or two
- organizations that can actually file to challenge or check the election results, the candidates themselves
- and the political parties in which those candidates run. And so this gives the opportunity for what
- we consider to be a voluntary or optional check on the election systems. Again, this is the only way
- in Indiana that counties can voluntarily say, we want somebody to come in and check our elections.
- And so as you can see here, we've been all around the state. Last year, we completed 13 post-election
- audits, or not last year, in 2024. We completed 13 post-election audits in 2025. We audited Clark and
- Lake special elections, their school board referendums. And so we got the chance to go down there and
- do those again. The post-election audits and the style of audits that we run have been widely tested
- and widely accepted across the country. It began in Colorado in 2017.
- as really the leader of statewide auditing. But it goes all the way back to about 2012 when the research
- started coming out about these kinds of post-election audits that we run. But NASA, the National Association
- of Election Directors, National Associations of Secretary of State, as well as the National Conference
- of State Legislator and others have found that the way we audit is considered the gold standard
- of post-election audits. Next slide.
- So what are we doing, and what is a post-selection audit? So this is the Indiana code definition of
- post-selection audit. I'm actually not even going to read it, because it's hard to understand. It doesn't
- really make a lot of sense. So on the next slide, I have a much better definition that I think encompasses
- what a post-selection audit is and what the goal is. So basically, what it is is we are taking a random
- sample of ballots
- And for example, here in Monroe County, since you all use paper ballots or paper ballot cards specifically,
- we will take a random sample of ballots and we will hand tally the results of those ballots until that
- sample can give us statistical evidence that the election outcome was correctly reported. So that's
- what we're doing here. We use a methodology called risk limiting auditing. And what we're doing is,
- It centers around a risk limit. And the risk limit is that percent chance that our audit would not catch
- an error if there was one. So if candidate A was the tabulated winner, but actually candidate B was
- the winner because there was some kind of voting system malfunction or something like that, it centers
- around a risk. What is the percent risk that if we were to do an audit, it would not catch an outcome error?
- Okay, and so that's the kind of methodology that we utilize surrounding post-selection audits. On the
- next slide, I do go into a little bit more detail.
- you'll be able to see. It'll be hard to read, but I want to kind of go through some terminology and
- talk a little bit about this voting system. So they use Heart InterCivic here in Monroe County, and
- that allows us to conduct that ballot polling audit. So like I said, this is where we are going to take
- a random sample of ballots, and we hand tabulate the results of those ballots until that can give us
- confidence that, again, if we were to continue this hand count and go 100% of the way, all the way through
- the hand count, that we would be X amount percentage. For us, we try to shoot for 95% to 99% confidence
- or 1% to 5% risk, which is above the industry standard of about 9% is the industry standard. Until it
- gives us that level of confidence to say with 95% confidence, we would state that
- we would be certifying the correctly reported election outcome. Or on the flip side, we have a 5% chance
- that today's audit wouldn't catch an outcome error if there was one. On the next slide, I actually detail
- a little bit about
- that risk limit and a little bit about the confidence level. So I said risk limit is that 1% to 9% margin.
- And that's, again, that would be the risk that the audit wouldn't catch an outcome error if there was
- one. On the flip side is that confidence level. And that's the percent chance that we can be confident
- that our audit would have caught an incorrect outcome error if there was one.
- The audit hinges on a few things, but what it really hinges on and what makes our audit so great is
- that in other states, they do what's called fixed percentage audits. So that's where no matter what,
- whether the race was won by one vote or the race was won by 10,000 votes, they would take, we'll say,
- 5% of the audit, the ballots, and they will retabulate those ballots to ensure that those ballots had
- an accurate count. That's what a fixed percentage audit is. But when we do risk-limiting audits,
- The audit scope, so how many ballots we sample and how big the audit is, is heavily dependent on how
- close the contest was. So the closer the contest margins,
- the more ballots we're gonna need to sample to give us that level of confidence. And that makes sense.
- That's actually a really great thing that you're saying, the closer the race is, we need more evidence
- of these results to showcase that our audit is actually gonna tabulate the correct election outcome.
- And so that's what that diluted margin is, if you can see it on the screen. The closer that diluted
- margin is, the more ballots we're going to need to sample. And that's pretty standard across the board.
- We use what's called the Stark audit tool. It was developed by Dr. Philip Stark from the University
- of California, Berkeley. This tool that we utilize, he was actually one of the lead researchers on risk
- limiting auditing. He developed this tool to be utilized. And so we utilized that tool or that software.
- The pluses, anybody can find it. You can go into Google and you can type Stark audit tool, ballot polling
- audits, and the tool will come right up, which is really great for public transparency.
- We will need, and what Kylie knows very well is the biggest lift from the county is we need what's called
- a ballot inventory. This ballot inventory lets us know exactly where all the ballots are. Okay, so as
- you all may or may not know, ballots, absentee ballots and such are all sorted by precinct. So there's
- a lot of bags and a lot of boxes in which these ballots are in. And if we're gonna pull a random sample
- of ballots, we're gonna need to know how many boxes of ballots there are
- how many ballots are in each box. And that ballot inventory is what helps us do that. And so that is
- really one of the biggest lifts of the county in this process, is a ballot inventory. But I actually
- got the opportunity to see your ballot storage facilities last election cycle in 2024. And I have no
- doubt that Monroe County will be up to the challenge to complete a ballot inventory without much trouble.
- We will also develop what's called a random seed number.
- This is a critical part of the audit process because it helps us pull that random sample of ballots.
- So if you know, computers are not inherently random, right? They run on a standard set of code. And
- so what we do, and this is the really awesome part of the audit, and I'm really excited about it, and
- I brought some with me if you want to see them. But we actually take a 10-sided die, and we roll that
- 10-sided die 20 times. And it gives us a random seed number.
- That will help us determine what the sample of ballots is and what it looks like. And when we do it,
- we draw that seed number live time the day of the audit. We don't draw this seed number weeks in advance.
- So Kylie and her team or the county election board is going to know what ballots are subject for audit
- and which ballots are going to be hand counted. We actually on the day the morning of the audit we invite
- members of the public to attend and you help us draw that seed number to get that random sample of ballots.
- So that is a really unique and exciting part of the process is that nobody knows what ballots not even
- myself are going to be selected for audit until the morning of the audit.
- And so that is a really unique thing. It also, should anybody call into question our audit practices
- later on, we would be able to take that seed number and enter it back into our audit tool. And because,
- again, it's not inherently random, at that point we could recreate it. So it actually becomes an experiment
- that could be recreated in its entirety, which is really exciting.
- Last thing that I'm going to talk about that's an important part of this process is when the audit tool
- develops our sample of ballots, we'll just say, for example, it's precinct one, and we have to sample
- ballots. There's 15 ballots in precinct one. There's going to be a lot more, but we'll say 15 for the
- sake of this example. And we have to sample two ballots. So maybe we have to sample ballot one and sample
- ballot 12. Well, it can be really hard.
- If with 15 ballots, it's really easy to count to ballot one, and it's really easy then to take that
- stack of ballots and count to ballot 12. Now imagine a box that has 2,500 ballots in it. You can't really
- count easily to the ballot that's gonna be selected for audit. And so we've worked with the team at
- UC Berkeley to develop what's called the six cut method. And it's where we actually take those stack
- of ballots and we cut them like a deck of cards six times. And then we pull the top ballot for inspection
- That's the ballot then we use for inspection. We then mark it with a sticky note, and it goes back into
- that bag. So if we did need to recreate the audit, we would know which ballots we polled. But it can
- be really hard. And you'll see later on, if you have any questions, I can show you what that polling
- of the ballots looks like. And then you could see just kind of how difficult it may be to find those
- ballots and why we do that six-cut method. Next slide.
- So this walks you through the process. It looks like a lot of steps, but it's really not too bad. But
- where it starts is here. It starts with a conversation with the county election board, the county clerk,
- and the election supervisors of each county to talk and really figure out if this is a process that
- they would like to move forward with. The moment that they move forward with that, we actually begin
- establishing audit details. So date, time, location.
- And this is where the county election board in coordination with the election office can determine how
- they would like to run this. It can be two different ways. We've had it where the county clerks have
- selected which contests they would like to choose for audit. You will choose the county will choose
- up to three. And typically we choose down ballot contests. So they must be county wide.
- So all ballots in the county, so it can't just be a city council race for this one city, because again,
- the ballot inventory has ballots in which all the county votes. So they have to be county-wide contests,
- but we typically have counties choose one at the top or middle of the ticket in a federal contest, one
- in the middle of the ballot, and then a county-level contest that may fall near the bottom of the ballot.
- The reason that we do that is because even though we're only tabulating those three contests specifically,
- down ballot,
- If the tabulators, or if there was to be a significant problem with the voting systems, there would
- be a good chance that it would mess up up and down the ballot. So the fact that we allow them to select
- a contest at the top, near the middle, and the bottom of the ballot allows us to then say, even though
- we're only checking three contests, we would have the ability to infer that the other contests were
- correctly tabulated.
- So then again, the county election board can choose those contests or the county clerk. It's whatever
- they kind of work together to determine how they would like to choose those contests. For example, I
- will say we just audited St. Joseph County in 2024. It was the largest county audit we've done to date.
- We hand counted 1,761 ballots.
- for three contests, and it was a lot. But they wanted to do President of the United States. Well, that
- race in St. Joseph County was lost by like 600 votes, I think it was, and the sample size was going
- to be like 28,500 ballots.
- Unfortunately, as much as I would love to do a hand count of 28,500 ballots, that's not feasible. So
- then I did work with the county election board and the county clerk's office to actually choose a race
- that was a little bit further down the ballot. So again, we will work with you all to determine and
- choose races that we believe are reasonable. But again,
- If there was a significant tabulation error where the voting systems, because that's what we're looking
- at. We're really not looking at anything else besides saying, did the voting systems function properly
- to generally and correctly tabulate election results? That's what we're doing. And if there was a massive
- problem where they were tabulating a contest incorrectly, we would be able to infer up and down the
- ballot that that voting system was not functioning properly.
- Okay, so the county election board gets to choose those three contests from there.
- actually, I will say, back up one step before they choose their contest. The county election board is
- required to unanimously approve of this. So VSTOP cannot just come in and run an audit, as much as I
- would like to just have Kylie come in and say, yeah, we'd love you to run an audit. It requires the
- elections board unanimous approval. So after this meeting, probably later on in the month, probably
- towards the end of February, I will be communicating with all counties who, like you, have expressed
- interest in conducting an audit.
- And then I will send you all a county election board resolution, which then can be reviewed and then
- must be adopted by the county. That then goes to the Secretary of State's office, where the Secretary
- of State puts that final stamp of approval and is like, yes, Monroe County can absolutely do a post-election
- audit. Then that's when we can start working with the county election board, county clerks, and the
- election team to choose the contest, choose a location. Sorry, I did forget about that resolution. And
- it's really important, because that ultimately needs to be approved by you all.
- From there, we will do a pre-audit meeting with the county election board and everybody participating
- in the audit. That typically takes place about a month before the audit. Hey, you're good to go. We
- have your ballot. You have everything you need to do your ballot inventory, everything like that. The
- date time location's confirmed. We're ready to go. From there, the election will happen. Kiley election
- board teams will run a wonderful election. Ballots will be tabulated and ballots will be, and the election
- will be certified.
- Once the election is certified, that's when Kylie can get that ballot inventory together. She can't
- get that ballot inventory together until all the ballots have been accounted for, cast, and are now
- properly stored post-certification. That ballot inventory will come to me. I will make sure that it
- functions properly. So just making sure that it functions in our audit tool properly and that it matches.
- So if you have 10,000 ballots cast in the election and that's how many is on your election report,
- on your ballot inventory, there better be 10,000 ballots accounted for in that inventory. We go through
- that, and then the day of the audit happens. What we'll do is we will come in. All of the ballots will
- need to be readily available because, again, we don't know which ballots will be selected for audit.
- All those ballots will need to be readily available.
- I will give a public audit presentation, so similar to what I'm doing today, but it actually describes
- the process, so members of the public understand what's gonna be happening today, because I realize
- that that's the value. The value is showcasing for the election board, for Kylie and team, it's showcasing
- that you all run fantastic elections. That's the point of the process. That's why we do these post-election
- audits, is to showcase that the counties in Indiana are doing a great job at running their elections.
- And so we'll give a public audit presentation, and then we'll draw that seed number. Again, we recruit
- members of the public, the election board, you roll those dice. We generate the sample of ballots. Once
- the ballots are
- the list is generated and we know where the ballots are, we begin this massive process of ballot labeling.
- So then all of those ballot boxes, we have special labels that actually state how many ballots need
- to be sampled out of that box, and we will go on and we will actually put this label on those ballot boxes.
- For your records, ballots will remain sealed until the audit begins. So for chain of custody purposes,
- there will be no handling of ballots until the audit begins. We also have a sign-up sheet where everybody
- who is handling the ballots must sign in, just so that way we create accountability of who will be handling
- ballots. We will then go in and we'll label the boxes that were selected for audit and how many ballots we need.
- And then we will go in teams. Typically is how you do it. It will be teams of two. Counties can do bipartisan
- teams if they'd like. Because there's no actual tabulation of election results, it does not need to
- be bipartisan in nature. Again, it's a public transparent process, so anyone could watch it. But what
- we'll do is then we will then take that ballot box, bring it out, stack those ballots up,
- and we'll begin the six-cutting process in selecting the ballots for audit out of that box. When that
- box is done, those ballots, before that team is done, they will come over to a tally team. They will
- bring those ballots. So we'll say it's two ballots. They'll bring them up to us at the V-stop team and
- say, we'll just use, you know, we'll use House. What House district are you all in? Who's your
- representative? House district? Nine. Nine? Okay. So House district nine. So we'll say we're doing the
- House district nine contest.
- And then you would come up and you'd say, this ballot voted for candidate A. And we would mark that
- in the candidate A column, or this voter voted for candidate B. And we'd mark it in that column. And
- we do that for that box of ballots. Those people then take those ballots back. Those ballots go directly
- and immediately back into that box. That box then goes away and is sealed. So that box then will never
- then be handled again as a part of the audit. So we move through them one box at a time.
- We can do multiple boxes, but each team of inspectors and counters are only working with one box of
- ballots at a time, and that's also to ensure then that ballots from one precinct don't end up in another
- box's precinct, right? So again, we've done this 38 times. I've done these 15 times myself. So I say
- we got a pretty good show running, but we want to ensure ultimately that these ballots are handled as
- least as possible. That's our goal.
- We'll do that for the sample, so we'll get all of those three contests, we'll hand count for the sample,
- and we will continue to sample, so we will continue to pull ballots and continue to count ballots until
- we reach that confidence level. Again, most of the time that confidence level is set anywhere between
- 95 and 99 percent. In St. Joseph County, because the audit was so big, we dropped that down to 91 percent, but
- through our sample and through our audit, we ended up at a 99% confidence level anyway. And so that's
- the process. That's the process in a nutshell. From there, we will leave. I will write up an official
- audit report. That audit report then will get reviewed by myself and the election director for the state
- of Indiana.
- That report will then come back to the county election board and the county clerk's office to post on
- their website. It'll be posted on the VSTOP's website, and then it will also be posted on the state
- of Indiana's secretary of state's website. And so again, I appreciate you allowing me the time to come
- and present and talk about this process and what it would look like. I do have brochures on post election.
- I have those dice in the sticky notes that we utilize, so you can see those if you would be interested.
- I'm happy to take any questions at this time. And I will admit, I do have an additional portion of this
- presentation. I didn't want to get into it unless there was a need to, but it actually does walk through
- that process step-by-step. So if you would be interested, it would take me about 10 minutes probably
- to walk through that. That's up to you all if you would like me to proceed and actually go through it.
- the audit that we did in St. Joseph County for reference. If you do not need that or you would rather
- wait, then the plus is they have this presentation so you can look through it. But if there was any
- interest, I can't go through what we did in South Bend so you would be able to see what an actual audit
- looks like. I will also say that I added this presentation to the county website so it is there as a
- link and any putty of the public can access it as well.
- Can I ask a question? Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, anybody can ask. Yeah. So you'd pick three different races.
- Yes. So you're going to have three different sample sizes, correct? Correct. So you're not going to
- use this, you're not going to pull a ballot and then look at the three races you're interested in. You're
- going to pull a separate ballot. No, we will actually, we will use the same ballot for inspection.
- So say, for example, actually in St. Joseph County, the first contest needed 966.
- or maybe it was like 750 ballots, then one of them needed like 960 ballots or 980, and then the other
- one needed 1,761. So what we do is we start with the lowest contest, so with the contest that needs
- the fewest amount of ballots polled,
- and we will go with those, we will go read down all of those contests for each ballot. Once we get to
- the first contest and we'll say it needed 10 ballots and the next one needed 20 and the next one needed
- 60, once we hit that,
- that ballot sample size, we will check the confidence level for that contest specifically.
- So we'll stop. We will look at that contest specifically. We said, hey, we've sampled the 10 ballots
- we need for this contest. Let's check and see if we've reached our confidence level for that contest.
- If we haven't reached the confidence level for the contest, the plus is we still are going to need to
- pull more ballots for the next two contests.
- Say we reach our confidence level and we don't need to sample anymore for that contest, we then will
- just start tallying the two contests after that. And then for the one that needs 60, if we reach our
- confidence level for the one that needed 40, we would just look at that one contest at that point forward.
- So we do go down the ballot for those single ballots. So if you're pulling from box one for the first
- example that you gave, you've got to keep that box open to then look at race two and race three.
- is what you're saying. That's correct. But once that ballot is sampled, it won't be sampled again. Right.
- So the pluses is that once that ballot is sampled, once that box, if it's 10 ballots for sample, we're
- going to sample all 10 in that box no matter what. So even if we only, you see what I'm saying? So if
- there's 10 ballots that are required for sample, we're going to do all 10 of those ballots
- on all three of those contests. And we continue to just go down. It generates a long sample list. So
- I can just generate it to be almost infinite. I can generate a list for all the ballots. And we just
- go down that list of those boxes for all the contests. And so yes, we will check all three on a single
- ballot until we don't need to. Now, for example, in one county, they were all within 30 ballots of one
- another. So the contests were all within the sample size.
- So the greatest sample size I think we needed was 39. It was a very wide margin contest, so you won't
- see that here in Monroe County, but it was a very wide contest margin. I think one of them needed 12,
- one of them needed 22, and the other needed 39. We decided to go ahead and just do 39 ballots for all
- three contests because there's not a problem with sampling more.
- You just have to meet that minimum sample number before you can check for the confidence level. So we
- decided just to do 39 for all three contests. So if you were to choose contests that are relatively
- similar, you all and your team could decide, hey, we want to go ahead and we just want to do a sample
- of 100 ballots for all three contests, even though they may be only needed 50, 60, and 95, right?
- So it is up to you all, but the one in St. Joe, I was like, we're going to save a lot of time if we
- don't have to go down the ballot for three contests for 1,761 ballots. So that's why we dropped off.
- So once that second contest was done, we checked for the confidence. We reached the confidence level
- on that ballot. So then we could just pull the ballot and start saying the one contest that we needed
- for the greater sample size. Yeah. Any other questions from anyone?
- I don't have a question, but I first thank you again for coming down. And I know that I feel pretty
- confident that we'll be seeing you again here in Monroe County. And when we have an amazing audit, thanks
- to your guidance, I promise you I'll take you to get the best french fries this side of heaven while
- you're here.
- I love some french fries. I actually just, I stopped at Mother Bears for lunch before I came here. So
- I love coming down to Bloomington with all the good eats. I can do a little better than Mother Bears.
- Okay. All right. And second, second. Okay. Did I understand you to say you were provided with a car
- and a gas card?
- Yes, yes. So through the university, we are eligible to receive a university vehicle. And so it's nice
- that I didn't have to worry about putting the miles on my personal car today to come down here. We had
- a university vehicle. So they have a motor pool. And so we get the opportunity to. It's the same car
- I drive. I drive a Ford Fusion. I got a Ford Fusion out of the motor pool. So nothing too special. Every
- once in a while, though, we get to drive the new RAV4s. Those are really nice. It must be nice.
- I just caught that, held on to that. You got a company truck. We have a motor pool, so anytime we do
- official business travel, we get to use the university's cars for that travel. Okay. And I just want
- to say again, the reason that we do this, and I think that many of you, Monroe County has also been
- under a spotlight in recent elections as well. Maybe not for the right reasons, but
- you know, nonetheless. And we are in a time where even the most confident and the most accurate elections
- ever could be called into question. And I'm really, really thankful that in our state and under the
- Secretary of State and General Assembly's authority that we have the opportunity to do these voluntary
- checks because
- I know and I work with these people every single day. I see the kind of operations that they run and
- I know they run fantastic elections, but I get to come in as a third party, not associated with the
- county at all and run this audit and then affirm the work that they're doing. And so I just want to
- thank you all as the election board and your elections team for the work you all do, the pressure that
- you're under each and every election is immense and it's only getting greater. And I don't want to add
- you know, an audit to add to that level of stress. And so that's why I pitch it as a way to just highlight
- the amazing work that you all do and to affirm the work of our county election officials across the
- state. It truly is an honor for me to do so. And so should you all vote at a future meeting with that
- resolution to designate for an audit, I look very much so forward to coming back down to Bloomington
- and working with you all. So thank you so much for your time.
- And Mr. Matt, when you explained it to me that day, you and I have had conversations in the past about
- this. And when you explained it that way, that helped me feel better because when the term first started
- making its way around it, it really felt more like,
- a finger-pointing expedition. And as we talked about it, you really helped me feel better that it more
- or less showcases the good work that is going on. And for that, I'm incredibly grateful. Thank you so
- much for coming down. And I will just make one final comment in relationship to that is I am here to
- affirm the work, but I'm also here to point out things that could be improved. For example, there was a county
- and their audit report is online so you can read it, where we went to that ballot box and there was
- two ballots that were not there. There was supposed to be four ballots for sample and we were required
- to sample two and there were only two ballots in that bin. That was a reality where it didn't impact
- the efficacy of the audit, right?
- those two ballots weren't going to change the outcome of the audit because it was correctly tabulated,
- but in their report I noted that unfortunately we went in and there was supposed to be four ballots
- in this box and there was only two and it had to be noted in the report. And so I will just say that
- while I'm here to affirm and I'm here to do that work, it is my job as the audit specialist to
- point out and to document where there could be things that have happened in the election. Now, again,
- that's not saying that it's changing outcomes or something illegal or nefarious happened, and I never
- accuse anybody or anything like that. I just stated that we went into the box and there were supposed
- to be four ballots in the box and there was only two. Now, there's 2,000 ballots in the box. I'm not
- counting all 2,000. But for that one, it was easy for me to catch. So I did let the county clerk know.
- I have to put this in my report because I've now witnessed this. I said, there's nothing that's going
- to happen to you. There's no wrongdoing here. It's OK. Human errors happen. Those ballots could have
- been in another box. And so I didn't point any fingers. I just stated there was supposed to be four.
- There was only two. So just as a heads up, should there be anything like that, I will.
- I will note that in my report out of public transparency and efficacy for what I do. So while I'm here
- to affirm your work, I am here to also be nonpartisan and nonpolitical and do that work. So just wanted
- to let you all know that, I guess. I was like, maybe I should let the county election board know that
- should anything come out of the audit that could be of concern, it will be noted in the report. Absolutely.
- So sorry, just wanted to put that in there. I didn't want you all to be blindsided if something were
- to happen at the audit and then be like, I'm going to report this in my report. And then you guys would
- be like, oh my gosh, what? So just wanted to be aware.
- That we've never had anything come to the point of an audit where we felt like there would need to be
- an investigation of any kind or anything nefarious that's never happened in the 38 audits we've ever
- done. All of our audits have always affirmed that the election outcomes were correctly tabulated as
- well. So we've never had anything otherwise of the sort. And don't expect that in 2026 either. Thank
- you very much. Awesome. Thank you so much. Any other questions? I'm pretty hearing from us.
- OK, so just so you're aware of next steps, come the end of the month, I'm planning to send a recommendation
- memo to the Secretary of State's office. With Kylie's good graces, she has expressed that you all were
- interested. So in this memo, it is not confirming, and it is not guaranteeing you all basically locking
- you in. I will be recommending you guys to the Secretary of State, basically saying, should the county
- election board send a resolution to the Secretary of State requesting designation?
- that V-Stop has talked with the county and believes that they should receive designation, okay? So I
- will be sending that memo out probably at the end of this week or early next week. Once I get approval
- to move forward, the county election board will receive a notice from me letting me know, letting you
- all know that you have been recommended by V-Stop to the secretary of state to receive audit designation
- should you all approve to want to request that designation. It basically is a fast track to the process.
- So it's like you guys sign the resolution
- then the Secretary of State already knows that Monroe County is interested, so they'll be expecting
- your resolution, and they can send that approval right along quickly. So just want to let you know that's
- what the next steps will be in the process. All right, thank you. Awesome, thank you so much.
- Thank you. County Council Meeting Update. All right, County Council Meeting Update. I was able to go
- to the County Council Meeting on
- I can't think of the date right now. A couple of Tuesdays ago, we did get 27th. Thank you, Molly. We
- had two of the requests voted down. The third was tabled until the next meeting, which is next week
- on Tuesday. I will be there. And I believe Nicole was also going to be in attendance. I will be in attendance.
- I want to know if the two of you would also like to be in attendance. If you do plan to be in attendance,
- I will send out a public notice. If you would prefer me to just send one out in case if more than one
- member is able to attend. And I did add into the packet the same numbers that you guys received back
- in November, December, and January. Those are all the same numbers that
- You guys have seen multiple times. They are the same numbers that were sent to the county council. Yeah.
- Because I remember that Ms. Skethens had stated that she did not receive the numbers. I did send the
- numbers. They were the same numbers that were received by the election board at previous election board meetings.
- Where's that in our packet? It is going to be directly after the documents of the statewide
- voter registration system from the Jeff Ellington. These handwritten notes? Correct. They don't translate
- easily for me into what the county council sees. It's the same things that were submitted.
- But again, they do not translate easily for me. And reviewed with their liaisons. Correct. The liaisons
- received them multiple times. Both Henry and Peter Iverson received them. And then we also had a meeting
- with a commissioner, and they received them as well. It's the same numbers for all of those individuals.
- The plan is to make another presentation at their meeting next. Yep. Molly had a hand. I did receive
- an email from the council president that she asked me to read to you when appropriate. Appropriate as
- far as I'm concerned right now. So this is from
- President, Council President Jennifer Crossley as Council President. During the budget meetings last
- year, the council made some tough budget decisions across the board and county government. Critical
- moments such as ensuring all voters of Monroe County have uninterrupted access to voting in the upcoming
- primary is a concern for the council.
- As a reminder to the clerk and the election board, during our budget discussions, we made it abundantly
- clear that should the clerk need additional funding to run the primary and general elections, that the
- county council would welcome her back to hear about this ask and to consider. However, I want to mention
- that I've been a bit dismayed to hear in our recent council meetings that the personnel numbers that
- were presented to us were not being presented to the election board for a vote. Additionally, nothing
- has yet to be spent in these lines.
- It is an uncommon to have a department ask for additional appropriations, but have yet to use any of
- the funding that was initially approved by the council. I want to repeat again, once the board has approved
- the voting hours for the primary, I welcome the clerk and the election board to come back to the council
- for additional appropriations. If time doesn't allow for attendees to come in person for the ask, I
- surely hope you consider participating via Teams. Best, Jennifer Crossley, President, Monroe County
- Councilmember, District 4.
- So that sounds to me like what she's saying is we need to say these are the hours we're going to do,
- and then we have to say this is what it's going to cost, and you've so far offered us A, and we need
- A plus B. Is that kind of where we're sitting on that? I don't want to speak for President Crossley
- or interpret her email.
- because I don't want to interpret it wrong. But typically what happens before a department asks for
- an additional appropriation is there's expenditures out of the line. So I think what she's indicating
- is that it's unusual to be asked for more money before the current funds are spent. What we need to
- do, it seemed to me, is set the hours for early voting and then
- We've now got something set that goes to the county council and says, this is what we need to pay for
- this. But there is enough in there to pay for early voting already. It's also that there are a lot of
- other lines in there that we don't know how much will be spent. It's not just personnel from what I
- took away from the meeting. Mr. Chair. At the recent election meeting, which
- the election supervisor attended in my stead, we were invited, as I understand it now, we may be about
- to discover that there was an egregious lie told, but as I understand it, one of my liaisons came in
- to file candidacy papers and told my election supervisor that they were expecting us, that they had
- been expecting us, that if we
- because they knew that we were saying that there was not enough money to run two elections at the level
- to which Monroe County has become accustomed. My understanding, again, unless an egregious lie has been
- told, is that my election supervisor was told if the clerk gets the ask-in with the request for additional
- appropriations by the next day, which was the deadline
- if you wanted to appear before the council, that the council was ready, willing, and waiting to receive
- us to consider those additional appropriations. So... Which was the same thing that council members
- told me at a Chamber of Commerce event that I was... Well, thank you for verifying. So, my team and
- I got together and this is not...
- This is not rocket science. I looked at what we had been appropriated. I looked at what we used for
- comparable elections, took a couple of haircuts, gave those updated numbers in a request for additional
- appropriations to meet that deadline. So it was surprising to me when they pretty much asked, why are
- you here when you haven't spent any money? We haven't spent any money because
- we're getting ready to prepare for those elections, but we know in advance. You know if your Duke Energy
- bill, if it's $500 and you only have $300, you know you don't have enough to pay your Duke Energy bill.
- Now, we can do as you suggested, which is to establish the voting schedule and polling location and
- the hours, but here's where we are. The minimum
- As we've discussed in previous meetings, the minimum is the hours that the office is open, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- So we don't even need to vote about that. It at a minimum will be 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. What we have to vote
- on today is whether we want to extend the early voting hours to the hours to which Monroe County
- has become accustomed. That vote has to be unanimous. Now, Mr. Chair, I would never step on you as the
- chair. If you want to hold that vote right now and find out whether you have an unanimous vote, you
- go right ahead. I can tell you, and I'm only speaking for Nicole Brown, that vote will fail today, which
- means that we would have 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. If you have another suggestion, because right now, I do not
- even have the manpower
- to have those extra hours. The overtime line was zeroed out. I have no employee, and you're welcome
- to go and do a poll of my office, no employee who is going to work 12 to 16 hours per day to do what
- we need to do in the 60 days prior to election day for early voting and preparation for early voting.
- I do not have anyone who is willing to work for less than one hour of comp time per day.
- to make that happen because you're asking them to give up their dinner time, bedtime, homework time,
- and come stay extra, come on weekends. It's not there. And so without that, there is no way that we
- can do what we need to do to have that 28 days of early voting at the previously accommodated hours.
- because I do not have the manpower to do it for less than one hour of comp time per day for your troubles.
- You can take that vote if you want, sir. Thoughts? If I remember correctly, Kylie, you have said at
- previous meeting or meetings that we will not need as much staffing just in terms of the number of staff
- for early voting in 2026 as we
- used in 2024, is that correct? So that was what I was hoping until we have started to see the number
- of candidate filings that have came in over these past couple of weeks. With us being at 199 candidates
- that have filed with 16 contested races at this point in time, there is no way that we can make four
- check-ins, three printers, two checkouts, and one greeter work. It's just not going to happen.
- That was us cutting it back and me trying to cut back as much as possible so that we weren't spending
- as much money. But with as many contested races as what we are looking at for this primary election
- alone, that will not work. Well, the number of filings reflects the people that are running for precinct
- chair. And a lot of those are uncontested. And it also looks at the number of people who have filed
- to run for state
- Delegate and I know which three of those are contested. I know that which will have to be printed on
- the ballot And what does printing on the ballot? You're just saying that that slows down the printing
- that increases the number of people that do show out to vote during the primary election And do you
- have any projection on what that would look like? I
- In your packet, I give you guys early voting check-in. There is a single sheet of paper that is an added
- edition paper that we added in. This will show you that in 2024 for the general election, we had 10
- check-ins, six printers, five checkouts, and two greeters. That had us checking in a maximum of 36 voters
- per hour. Now, if we have
- the number that I have projected for 2026, we would have to check in 120 voters per hour if we have
- the same turnout as we did in 2024, which was 30,625 individuals. I don't feel like you answered the
- question. Maybe I didn't express it correctly. But what makes you think that because there are more
- contested races, that that will drive out voting more? They're local contested races.
- That has been shown in the past with going back to past records of elections, the more contested races,
- the higher the turnout was. Okay, and do you have numbers that are firm numbers you could use for projection?
- Yes, I can pull that, but I've also been stated and have said in past meetings that other counties are
- telling each other that we need to prepare for a presidential election turnout this year.
- That has been a thing that I have said since the beginning of these meetings, since the three of you
- were on the board. We can't look at a midterm election the way that we used to. We just can't. I'm not
- in disagreement, but I'm asking
- I don't want just a dart thrown at the wall here. And that's what this number feels like. We also have
- to remember we're going to be in a new location. This is a new location that we're going to have to
- learn. So learning through these curves of being in a new location, figuring out how things are going
- to work and how the flow is going to work in this flow in this room is one of many of the things that
- we have had to take into consideration. And right now, I mean, we have
- the move that we're preparing for, and it doesn't help that we've had an increase of people coming in
- and amending their documents that were already approved, already processed, put through the system and
- had been accepted, and now they're coming in to change small things that are being nitpicked. That is
- not helping us. It's putting more work on my staff
- And we are in the middle of moving. We're in the middle of the last couple of days of candidate filing.
- We have an increased number of people coming in. And we've already had 18 additional people that should
- not have had to come in that came in today to make amendments. And why is all your staff here,
- pretty much? I only have two members of my staff here. The other two are in the office. Good. I only
- have four. I don't have anything to do with that. That's for sure. Two part time, two full time. Right.
- And if we're expected for them to each be working without overtime is absolutely certain. So I do have
- a question then that relates to what you just said about the photocopying. Does the staff not check
- for accuracy.
- We do check for accuracy and the thing is is most of those had not been processed yet. We went ahead
- and got copies made for what we thought was Chrissy and then come to find out was not for Chrissy because
- the email came for Chrissy. Chrissy has seen them. But we have candidates coming in saying that you
- are the one that have been emailing them and then they've called our office asking for Chrissy's number
- because they're concerned why it's Penny Githans reaching out to them not the party chair.
- I work with my chair the same way that Mr. Shields works with his party chair. As I'm saying, this is
- increasing more work in my office for my staff that's not being compensated the way that they should
- be compensated, including myself. But thank you for reaching out to the Indiana election division. As
- I understand it, there is no county election board member, including myself, as secretary of the election
- board that should be
- rejecting candidate filings, contacting candidates, and asking them to come. And as I also understand
- it, at least one of those persons is an elected official whose address would be better protected based
- upon the job that they do. And they certainly can choose to do that. We certainly do have elected officials
- whose residential addresses are protected. But this one elected official, as I understood, was ordered
- to come in and switch
- I did not order anyone and I was not challenging them. I was trying to protect them as I told them.
- As I will say, I think it would be better clarification if it's coming from the party chair themselves
- and that there is clarification that it is an opinion of the individual who is stating it and not being
- told, hey, you need to go make this change.
- because that is what the candidates are coming into my office saying. That's the way that they
- are interpreting it. They have came in and I mean I have one of them here that's been dealing with all
- the candidate filings themselves along with another individual and that's all it's been today is them
- coming in and saying, hey, I've been told that I need to fix this and that it's not valid if I don't
- and it is valid because it has been accepted by my office. It has been processed through and it is through the clerk
- and her office that is the ones approving these. Well, what I've heard is in the past there was somebody
- that would check things carefully, but also in the past and past elections that the clerk would stagger.
- And you and I have talked about this in the past too, that person A that works in your office would
- start at eight, person B would come in at 10.
- Everybody comes in at eight. I have always said that on election day. No. Well, that's what we're all
- in there at 5 a.m. That's what has happened in past elections. And I've heard that. No, no, no. I've
- heard that from people that worked in the clerk's office. No, no.
- We do everybody reports to work at five a.m. On Election Day, including the election board. And I miss
- I misspoke. I apologize. And the business of the business of the clerk's office, voter registration
- and election continues to go on while we are preparing for early voting and Election Day. So there is
- no staggering. There will be no staggering.
- And my state statute, we can't stagger, especially for early voting. You have to open at 8 AM. You have
- to close at 4 PM. If you choose to open earlier, you may. If you choose to stay open longer, you may.
- But they must be open 8 to 4. We cannot open at 10 o'clock and go till 6. We can't open a couple hours
- earlier and go till 4. It has to be at least 8 to 4. In the past, for early voting, the election office
- staff had staggered hours.
- They always come in at 8 a.m. Now, one of them will stay till 6 p.m., and the other one will stay till 6 p.m.
- the following day. That is the way it has always been. Nobody comes in later in the day. No, it's not.
- Yes, it is. I was here last year in 2024, and that's exactly how it was. I created a schedule for all
- of my staff members. One of them is here, and she was one of the ones that stayed till 6 o'clock each
- day. That's fine. That does not go back past 2024. I was here in 2023, and it was the same way as well.
- before 2023, yeah, that's not in my area to say yes or no, but 2023 to 2024, that's exactly how it's
- been, always has been, and is the way that it will continue to be because there's no one to cover the
- front office if we have one person come in at 10 o'clock. We have nobody to cover voter registration
- at early voting if somebody comes in at 10 o'clock.
- Early voting opens at 8 a.m. Somebody has to be at early voting. Somebody has to be at the voter registration
- office. How could one person come in at 10 o'clock if both of those offices are open at 8 a.m.? The
- voting passed before the Napa building. It all occurred in one location. But I'm saying even with last
- year and 2023, so where is the data that you have collected and who was it from in order for us to be
- able to tell if that was accurate information or not?
- I'll be glad to get in touch. What do you need us to do? If we're going to approve polling locations
- and if we're going to approve early voting hours, we don't have a resolution. We did not expect that
- to be something that was voted on today. We figured it would be waited on until we figure out what's
- happening on the county council side. And then I was going to suggest to call special ordered meeting
- next Thursday after the county council meeting.
- Well, we could just... Go ahead. We could... What's the word, Molly, that I'm looking for? We could...
- Recess. Yes, thank you for the meeting so that we don't even have to notice a new meeting. I would recommend
- noticing it though, just as a courtesy. We'd have to make sure that the room is available next Thursday at 1.30.
- Looking at the online calendar, I think it is. But I would want to double check with the commissioner's
- office. There's no reason for us not to, well, I guess where we are is early voting schedule. So there's
- no reason not to close this one, call a new one. That's not a big deal. We can do it. But we're going
- to have to.
- Well, we haven't got to that whole thing yet. It's all kind of been pulled in together. I will call
- a special election board meeting if the room is available next Thursday at 1 30.
- I will have a proxy here. I've already reached out to that person and they're good for that because
- I'm going to be gone. This is a person who I guarantee you can handle what's gonna happen. Molly is
- running now to check the office. So we can, can we, I'm gonna pause this while she checks on that and
- bring that back and we'll go ahead and if there is public comment on
- this or other items. We will do that now. I just want to state, it's going to be Thursday the 12th at
- 1.30 p.m. Yes. As long as the room is available. Yes, if the room is available. So is there public comment
- while we're waiting for her to check on the room? Oh, is there a hand up? Yes, can you hear me? We can.
- We can't see who you are, so please state your name. My name is Susan Brackney. OK, go ahead. I just
- wanted to thank you for the work you're doing. And I'm not sure how many people are fully aware of this,
- but we are smack in the middle of an authoritarian takeover of our democracy. If you haven't already,
- acknowledged this reality and considered what it may mean for you as members of the election board and
- as individuals, I urge you to do so. I hope you'll meet with one another and with other local officials
- to plan for scenarios that could happen here, particularly relative to attempted voter suppression and
- intimidation.
- For instance, what if ICE or DHS sends their masked squads to protect our polling sites during the upcoming
- midterm elections? Are you putting plans in place to manage this contingency and to ensure that the
- vote is not suppressed? Would you put some kind of voter intimidation reporting pipeline in place? And
- how will you stress test that?
- before election day? Also, would you be willing to post large signs at polling places that say voter
- intimidation is a crime? The DOJ has been weaponized to do this regime's bidding. And I'm just wondering
- if you've considered what you would do to protect poll workers, county officials, and yourselves in
- the face of
- bad faith legal challenges? Also, what about putting extra protections in place for poll workers in
- general? What would those look like? Those are just a few examples I could think up, but I am sure with
- your experience and expertise, you would be able to anticipate many others. I hope you will lead by
- proactively considering what you'll do to help protect our community and our democracy.
- Thank you. Thank you so much. Um, I want to say caller like I'm on a television show. Sorry about that.
- Um, ma'am, first, thank you for your very thoughtful, insightful, poignant inquiries. Um, and I can't
- address all of those because some of those protections that you ask for, um, or, or visibility will
- likely involve
- money and that's where we are now. But I want to reassure you with a couple of things. For the last
- number of elections, but I especially want to speak to the fact that I have the most amazing election
- supervisor this side of heaven. We have been extended the opportunity to meet with both the sheriff
- and the chief of police prior
- to election day to talk about the plans that are in place. We can't exactly have police cars roaming
- around election sites as far as visibility because it looks like you're trying to suppress the vote
- and of course we would not do that. But both the sheriff and the chief of police for the city of Bloomington
- have been very generous with their time telling us behind the scenes how it is that they are going to support
- our efforts to make sure that it is safe for you to show up at the polling sites without trampling on
- the rights of people who might be protesting in some of the groups that it sounded like you said. Signage,
- ma'am, my budget was cut. That's just the truth. If you want huge big banner signs, it's a conversation,
- but I don't see that.
- happening today. Right now what I honestly to be honest what I want to do is make sure that we have
- the manpower to staff Monroe County early voting and elections in the manner that it has been accustomed
- to and right now I don't have that. I don't have the manpower. I'm certainly willing to sit with my
- team and brainstorm ways to do that but it will not involve
- It will not involve staggering. It will not involve asking my staff to work 12 to 16 hours per day for
- less than one hour of compensatory time and call it good. That's just not where we are. I don't know
- anybody who would do that. And as I fight for this, none of the election budget goes into Nicole Brown's
- home pocket or otherwise. Any money that is not spent goes back into the election
- budget. I'm sorry. Are you telling me to wrap up? It goes back into the election budget to be used at
- a future time. And one of my own liaisons last year when we reviewed the budget that I was presenting
- actually said, looking at previous budgets, you seem to have a hold on how much it takes to run the
- election. The bottom line, Mr. Chair, and to the caller again, thank you so much. Here's the bottom line.
- Do you consider elections to be as critical to Monroe County's infrastructure as you do your highway,
- your police?
- your fire, because here's the truth, when we had that disrespectful weather, oh my goodness, I don't
- know how we made it through it. When we had that disrespectful weather, the highway department received
- double time, they received overtime, and they received a snow bonus. All I am asking is what is fair
- for people that I am asking to work 12 to 16 hours a day, and it is not, it is not fair.
- less than one hour of compensatory time. And then if you go over 40, I'm getting a nasty gram from this
- building, you know, saying your people are, you know, too much over 40 hours. So what do you, do you
- want the infrastructure of a full out Monroe County election? And if you do, you're going to have to
- pay for it. Mr. Chair, I defer to you. Nicole, I was going to say in regards to the having signage about the,
- it being, sorry, a level six felony if you intimidate a poll worker that is posted at every polling
- location. We have a big board that says voter information, and we have that in there for part of that.
- Well, thank you also for pointing that out. But the reason that we have poll worker protection is in
- place is because I am the person who went to the State House on behalf of all 92 clerks
- asking for poll worker protection so that it is not legal for you to intimidate, harass, threaten, or
- harm a poll worker. And that was my efforts and I didn't get a company car with a gas card from the
- county. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Anyone else wish to speak? Molly, are
- we good on the meeting? You're good from 1.30 to 3.30. I got you. Thank you.
- I will call a supplementary election board meeting on February 12, 2026, first time I've written five
- all year on that, at 1.30 p.m. in this location. Okay, now go ahead. Thank you. So my three minutes.
- I'm here to report what Legacy Media refuses to report.
- A network of NGOs that support a sophisticated rioting industrial complex has been exposed. It's not
- just Billionaire Soros Open Society Network, it's the Arabella Funding Network, now the Sunflower Services,
- which was founded by Eric Kessler, which funds the Hopeful Fund. It also funded seemingly independent
- news outlets on Facebook, on digital ads in 2018, targeting Trump and his supporters, conservative American
- voters, with that dark money.
- And how about the Tides Funding Network, also known for its dark money out of San Francisco that pushes
- overt racist narratives against white Americans. Then there's billionaire Neville Roy Singham and his
- network, Foreign Cash Dark Money, that pushes Chinese communist propaganda into the terrorist ecosystem.
- Singham resides in Shanghai. How apropos.
- And how about left-wing foreign terrorist organizations such as Hans-Jörg Weiss of Switzerland, the
- founder of the 2022 Weiss Foundation and Berger Action Fund, two Washington-based groups in which Weiss
- also tried to purchase a national newspaper chain, Tribune Publishing. Or how about mega donors like
- Radical Lies, Democrat Tom Steyer, with financial power in the beneficial state bank merger, originally
- One California Bank.
- A radical Democrat who was going to run for president in 2020 but dropped out after pouring $191 million
- into his own campaign. He supported California's Prop 50, and he's now running in that governor's race.
- That is a dangerous man. These are dangerous people pouring dark money into
- the entire terrorist ecosystem against the American people. I want to share two money facts concerning
- Riot Incorporated. Number one, like any corporation, Riot Incorporated has many divisions. It has boots
- on the ground, PR divisions, marketing teams, and a well-funded legal division. This is very dangerous
- to our republic when operating dishonestly navigating around our laws. Second, the flow of over $100
- million of American tax money has been funneled into the terrorist organizations.
- Four million was funded in the Atlanta stop cop city protest in which the billionaire class and some
- of the taxpayer dollars funded the rioters to disrupt the right to domestic tranquility. As well, there
- are foundations like Mellon Foundation, Ford Foundation, who are cleverly engaging in dangerous racist
- propaganda that intentionally create
- violence against innocent white Americans instead of framing the truth with honesty. And I say one last
- thing. Mike Pence is a traitor. And down with the British empire if they want to overthrow our government.
- Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? OK, so we will deal. We will attempt to deal with the planning next
- Thursday at 1.30. If you've got any objection, I will
- Adjourn the meeting. Make a motion to adjourn. I'm sorry. Do you want to adjourn or recess?
- I think you said, Mr. Chair, that you wanted to go ahead and notice. So we may as well. We'll just adjourn
- this and have a special meeting just to talk about early voting and schedule stuff. OK. Also, the poll
- location list. There was one location that has backed out.
- not going to be able to be a polling location this year. They were also not able to be one in 2024.
- They are still going under some remodeling right now. So they have decided that they will not be a polling
- location again. My question is, do you want me to look for an additional location or relocate those
- two precincts to two locations that are close? Which is the easier?
- It would be easier to relocate. I believe so. And I will make that motion, Mr. Chair. I will second
- that motion to have her take that one and move it into a closer. All right. Motion. Second.
- Those in favor, aye. Aye. Take care of that. And then in favor of adjourning. I have one question about
- this. No, no.
- Sorry, I didn't see this in my packet earlier. I apologize. I had looked at it when I was at home. We
- haven't heard yet from two of the locations on here also. Is there any chance that they will back out?
- I don't believe either of those will back out. Those are two locations that one of them is very, very
- excited about being a location, and the other one has been a location for a really long time. I think
- it's just some miscommunication getting phone tagged, basically. How many live churches have been run for?
- Oh, yeah. Ever. All I was going to suggest is if there's a glitch and something happens where they do
- back out, can we also authorize Ms. Farris to seek an alternative? We can. We can. Yeah. Are you making
- that a motion that Ms. Farris has the right to do the same to those two issues? She has the authority,
- yes. OK, second? Second. OK, those in favor, aye? Aye. Aye. OK. That's good. All right, so are we good now?
- As good as we can be right now? Yeah. All right. Then the meeting is adjourned.