- It is 1.30. The September 3rd meeting of the Monroe County Election Board is called to order. First
- business is to approve minutes of April 9, August 6, and August 12. I move approval of the minutes from
- August 9, August 6, and August 12. Second. Discussion? No.
- Thank you, Mr Chair. Last month I hosted a. Roundtable take slash tabletop
- friends to us through elections, such as the Secretary of State, the Association of Indiana Counties,
- someone who used to work with CISA, but now they're with a lobbyist, the election director from another
- county, EMA, legal women voters, and we did some tabletop exercises in the new space at Election Central.
- They went very, very well. We got
- that we need to know. I got a little bit of feedback on things we could do to improve, and I actually
- it was. Just having a pre. This is a weird word. Pre prepared message. Um to send out via text. Should
- we have any issue that we need to know? Notify voters of and so the feedback that I got from that. I'm
- going to do an X. I'm just
- 2026, Monroe County conducted a tabletop exercise to assess abilities to deal with possible emergencies
- on Election Day. The test was conducted at Election Central. Clerk Nicole Brown hosted the exercise.
- Seven members of the public representing various perspectives were invited to observe the test. The
- participants discussed how to respond to example emergencies in three areas, polling sites,
- Election Central, and natural disasters.
- The observers were invited to contribute to the debriefing after each scenario and the exercise concluded
- with a general discussion of what went well and potential problems that were not included in this scenario.
- The collaborative, sorry.
- The collaborative relationships among the participants for evident and the discussion of potential new
- problems demonstrated the ability to work across jurisdictional lines. So I'm incredibly grateful to
- my staff, incredibly grateful to our friends. We had a really, really positive experience.
- I already felt as though our plans in Monroe County were good, but this kind of reinforced that and
- just gave us a little bit of feedback on something we could do to improve. With respect to the upcoming
- tabletop event, the Secretary of State. Is there any discussion on the tabletop? Just an update. Well,
- I would like to know why I was not invited. Neither of you was. It was my event. Neither of you was
- invited. I had proxies for you.
- you did not have a proxy for me, not one that I appointed or that the Democratic chair appointed, and
- how you could claim that a proxy who does not live in Monroe County and who, although is a wonderful
- young woman, how you can claim that she is the Democratic representative when she votes in Republican
- primaries, I do not fathom this. I was incredibly, incredibly shocked since I'm the one that asked last
- winter, well, before the primary, multiple times for a tabletop,
- and was turned down and then to see that one was held here in Monroe County and I was not included.
- That's very disrespectful. Neither neither board member was included. I did not want to publicize that
- I was having a tabletop exercise. We picked people to role play. They did very well. You do have an
- opportunity to attend the tabletop exercise that I am getting ready to read if I can finish my update.
- Well, but again, to claim that somebody was
- the Republican, I'm sorry, the Democratic representative, who is not even a Democrat and who does not
- live in Monroe County, is an insult to the Democrats in Monroe County. It was my event. It's done. We
- had an incredible exercise. And if I can move along to my next update. Again, I requested that last
- before the primary, so I think that
- and you are allowed to hold events. With us here under certain circumstances with both Mr Shields and
- me present under certain circumstances. Wrong move. Was the right move for my office. Thank you. So
- the Secretary of State is hosting four tabletop exercises across the state to strengthen election security,
- preparedness, coordination and response capabilities.
- these exercises will offer an opportunity to work through real scenarios, identify potential gaps, and
- improve coordination among agencies to support secure elections. And so I think most everybody affiliated
- with Monroe County elections were invited to participate and sign up. And so that will be within the
- next couple of weeks.
- Okay. Moving to new business. We need to approve some equipment to be tested. That sounds like Miss
- Kylie. So in your guys this packet, you will have a list that was submitted to us by V stop. Um, the
- is a randomized list of all of the optic scan devices that we use in Monroe County for the elections.
- You will see that some of the
- some of them are highlighted. Those are the ones that we are suggesting be tested, because they are
- most likely to be used on election day. And then the rest are followed in order. So if there's one that
- you would like to remove, we would just move to the next one, which would be Bloomington High School
- South, number one. Anybody have anything to say? I don't have any problem with those being chosen. Oh,
- Molly, you got me.
- And I did prepare a resolution for the board that references the statute that says no later than 74
- days before election day for each county planning to use electronic voting systems at the next election.
- V-stop shall provide a randomly sorted list. And then pursuant to that statute, after receiving the
- random list, the county election board is tasked with starting at the top of the list and selecting
- machines. And then it cites the code
- identifying what kind of machines can be selected. It acknowledges that we received the list on August
- 24th and that the contracted vendor responsible for election equipment and IT and setup looked at the
- list and made the recommendations, which is highlighted in what you have. And then the now therefore
- clause says that the election board identifies the highlighted machines listed within the exhibit as
- the machines to be tested and directs the election staff to provide notice of the public testing in
- accordance with Indiana law.
- Do I guess I need a motion that we accept this? I will make a motion that we accept the recommended
- equipment. My mic's not working. I'll second. Sorry. Check it. Go ahead and check it again. No, no.
- I wanted to make sure it got picked up by the recording. That's okay. We have a motion and a second.
- Then I guess we'll, do we need to call the roll on this or can we just? You can voice vote.
- Those in favor, aye. Aye.
- Okay, motion carries. I will send out the public notice for the testing. Okay, and we've decided to
- table the general election staff. To a later meeting, which we think is September. Did you say the 24th?
- We will look at doing the 24th at 1 30. And do that. First I've heard that date. That's the first we
- Again, that is one of the items that is a majority. So if need to be, we could have either a proxy or
- we would have quorum. All we're doing is approving the workers, correct? Yes, approving the workers
- prior to them having training the following week. These are just people submitted by the two chairs.
- So I don't think this should happen.
- So can you send a proxy for that? I'll have to find out. I've had a death in the family. And so I have
- to travel that day at that time. Molly, talk to us here. I think that we were just looking at scheduling
- a meeting after the deadline for the party chairs to nominate. And I think the deadline's September
- 18th. Ideally, in talking to Ms. Ferris,
- the special meeting to appoint them will occur before September 30th because that's the first day of
- training. So I think you have any we could look at any time the week of the 21st. On the whole way I
- can do I can do a proxy. I've gone Thursday and Friday that week.
- I'm good most of that week. Except Friday. Is there a day that we you say you're going Thursday and
- Friday? Is there a day that week you were? About that week other than. So I will appoint a proxy for
- myself. This should not be a difficult thing to do. We're approving workers, so.
- I'm good with the 24th. You send a proxy. Do we have to make a motion to that? Or can you set that?
- No, I can set the meeting. We just need to confirm a date. All we're going to do is say these workers
- are OK or these workers are not OK. Yeah. That's kind of easy. Are we allowed to operate with two proxies?
- This is a general question, not just for this.
- I would have to look into it. Nothing comes to mind that I think prohibits it. Would we have two proxies
- on the 24th? She won't be here and she won't be here. I can do Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday of that week.
- have to look in to see if there's an issue with having two proxies. Nothing comes to mind, but I don't
- want to give you a confirmation that that's not a problem without looking at it. We have three weeks
- from today to get to that date. And how much time do you have to have to publish it? You have to have
- four. You have to publish the note meeting within 48 hours. Why don't you look for dates we can get
- rooms that work and set something? Is that OK? Does that work for you two ladies?
- Okay. That's fine with me. All right. Um, now it looks like we're, we are tabling that part to that
- meeting. So, uh, we're going to move into old business. Uh, before I start this, uh, part of the old
- business besides Mr. Crider will be the, uh, complaints that need to be reviewed. Um, I did not seek
- this position. I was chair.
- I will not be terribly sad when it's somebody else's. It takes a lot of time. But it seems to me that
- one of the things of dealing with this is you always have to have a villain. Sometimes all that villain
- has to do is disagree with them, regardless of what it is over.
- I think it's important to realize that when you try to make someone a villain, you have to be careful
- how you do that. You need something besides things that are just made up or being mad at someone just
- because they disagree. So as a result of that, all I have been interested in
- in these complaints is that if a law was broken, and that's with any of the complaints we've dealt with,
- then we pass it on and let the prosecuting attorney make the decision about whether or not something
- should happen. I don't want this to become a circus. We've seen it happen. So what I have decided to
- do is for the old business and the remainder of the meeting,
- I have assigned proxy for Mr. Jack Schmidt, Dr. Jack Schmidt, to come finish the meeting and handle
- the complaints. That way we don't have any of the arguments that you and I are biased against someone
- before it even started. I just, I want the truth to come out and I want the law to be followed. So,
- Dr. Schmidt, the... Are you leaving the meeting? No, I'm going to go sit with, sit back and
- So you returned because I've got a couple. I'm sure the balance. I'd like sure. So Dr Smith, the position
- is yours. Do you have a copy of the. I've got you. Are we going to have Mr Crider speak so he can. Just
- of his duties. Yeah, he's the next item on the agenda.
- Good afternoon, board members. Richard Crider, Monroe County Building and Fleet. I'm here to give you
- an update on the election central space today. Currently, since the last meeting, we've received the
- proper door handles. I'm happy to announce that they've all been installed. We've received the keys.
- I'll work with maintenance to get those cataloged, and we'll distribute those to Ms. Ferris soon.
- What else? A project I'm particularly excited about is the reception space and early voting. Let me
- back up a little bit. A little while back, after we finished this space, I received some photos one
- morning that the air conditioning unit above where the staff sits
- the condensation pump had failed and water poured in all over our brand new staff work area. And that
- was troubling. We got that fixed. And when we thought about it, we thought, you know, this is kind of
- a silly place to have this air conditioner. And coincidentally, right at the same time, I received a
- notice from HFI that that air conditioner had a bad coil.
- And then those units are old enough that if you're going to take it out of the ceiling to replace the
- coil, you're just going to replace the unit. And we thought, OK, if we're going to replace the unit,
- let's put it out in the lobby. That way, any time it has a service or needs repair, it doesn't interrupt
- staff. So that's what we're working on right now. They got that removed, the new one installed, and
- they're buttoning that up this week. And we are having the
- the teller windows installed as well at the same time. When I first asked if we could get that done
- this week, they told me they could. I was skeptical. It seems like a lot of work to do in a five-day
- period, but they're moving right along, and I think that's going to happen. I'm going to order, as I
- mentioned before, some additional furniture for the election central space.
- some things for the staff coming in next week to improve their little work area. So that's what I have
- for you. Any questions? I was over there this morning and walked in for the ballot review and saw some
- of the work being done, so yeah.
- We're excited to start seeing the additional work be completed before the general election and making
- sure that we're staying in communication with Richard to get anything resolved that we're finding as
- things come along.
- Being in a new space is always difficult, trying to find places for things to go. But it's even more
- difficult when you don't know for sure what that space is going to look like yet. So everybody working
- in the office is working really good together to make sure that we are finding spaces that are temporary
- that will hopefully eventually become permanent locations for things. And no delays as far as meeting
- your timeline? There's been some delays, yeah.
- I don't have any delays for what I'm going to accomplish before the general election. Oh, and then one
- more thing to note, recently at a commissioner's meeting, it was approved to have access controls installed
- on the IT maintenance room doors and some security cameras in that room as well. So. Any questions?
- No. Thanks. Thank you, Richard.
- Now at a point to review complaints. Can people come forward who have complaints about election? So
- there is one complaint that the board has previously discussed, and that is the complaint made by Ms.
- Sharp against Ms. Trimble. And then I think the idea today is that we would also, the board would receive
- a complaint made by Ms. Trimble against Ms. Sharp and decide how to proceed on that complaint. So if
- you're OK,
- I will go ahead and address the first complaint and kind of recap who we left off. So at the last meeting,
- the board had tabled the complaint asking for further direction from the Indiana Election Division about
- a specific statute. Sorry. I reached out to Mr. Coach of the Indiana Election Division. And in the email,
- I provided him the background. And then we discussed Indiana code 314215.
- which would make it a level six felony for a person to knowingly pay or offer to pay an individual any
- property based on the number of signatures obtained to place a candidate or public question on the ballot.
- I was asking Mr. Cotravar to provide some guidance on the statute as to what situation that might address.
- And his response was, I can only give you a plain reading of the statute.
- The courts have not taken this up, so I do not believe there is any judicial interpretation of the statute.
- I can also tell you that the General Assembly added this to the statute primarily to bar the payment
- of petition circulators based on how much signatures they created as at the time there had been a circulator
- that was charged and convicted of forging signatures on a petition.
- If a county election board member fills that not enough information or facts have been provided for
- them to make a reasonable leap that an election law has been violated, then they can vote not to proceed
- on the investigation. So based on that, I didn't get any further interpretation of the statute, and
- so I think it's up to the board to decide if you feel as though
- there's a reasonable belief to conduct a hearing to determine what to do with the complaint, specifically
- looking at Indiana Code 314215, which is the statute I just read. And inherent is that statute is the
- definition of property. Oh, I do have one more addition.
- At the last meeting, there was a discussion on, well, if the election board decides not to do anything
- with this complaint, does that allow the complainant, which is Ms. Sharp in this case, to contact local
- law enforcement directly? And what Mr. Cotravar had said in response to that is, yes, even if the county
- election board dismisses or didn't take up the complaint, the person making the complaint could still
- report an alleged election crime, as it is a crime to proper law enforcement agencies.
- for the board. I don't know if you had an opportunity to look at the meeting that we had last month
- about this. My position has not changed. Oh, I am not here to vote to move this forward. I believe that
- the violation has occurred and would be voting to move it forward
- But now by moving forward, that means for us at another meeting to hold a hearing and then to decide
- whether or not to forward that to the prosecutor for prosecution. We don't make a decision legally on
- whether or not a violation occurred. Our responsibility, if I understand it, and Molly, please correct
- me if I'm wrong, our responsibility is to determine whether or not this is something that should receive
- further investigation.
- I think that is, and I can pull up the investigation statute, if the election board did have a hearing
- to determine if there was substantial evidence to believe the violation occurred, one option would be
- for the board to forward it to the prosecutor for further review. So this board would not then do anything
- in a hearing outside looking at the facts and saying,
- the hearing. Correct So if there was if the board were to conduct a hearing, what would occur is that
- the complaint and so miss Sharp in this case would have the opportunity to present evidence. The candidate
- in question Miss Trimble would have the opportunity then to present evidence. Um and then the board
- would decide based on the evidence if they how they wanted to proceed.
- Yes, it would be just a presentation of evidence, and then the board would decide thereafter how to
- proceed. The board members also see the severity of this across the board here, or is it just because
- from what I read from what I understood, it was the appearance or at least the sounding that somebody
- would give you a free assessment if you signed a petition. Is that correct?
- I think that's a fair assessment. Um, but for We had something from Mr Coach of our saying that it did
- not is not illegal to offer property in exchange for signing. We do not have a law that makes it illegal
- to offer property in exchange for signing a petition. So even if she offered consultation services,
- And that is an item of value that is not illegal. That's how I read what he said. And I have not been
- given anything in the last 30 days to indicate that that has changed. Would counsel agree with that
- interpretation? Which of the spot, but I will.
- I don't know that I can offer opinion on what Mr. Cotravar is saying without seeing exactly the question
- as asked to him. And I'm not sure we might have talked about it at the last meeting. But I do know that
- I am trying to find it. There was an email. Can I have a second, please, to look at?
- If I may, I'm going to read Mr. Kothravar's response into the record. He says, while it is a crime under
- the election law to give property to a voter in exchange for registering to vote, applying for an absentee
- ballot, and voting either generally or for a specific candidate, we do not have a law that makes it
- illegal to offer property in exchange for signing a petition. But it would be up to the prosecutor to determine
- if they read one of our election crimes or find some other criminal provision in a different title of
- the state code and have evidence the candidate violated that law. So to clarify, the signing of a petition
- is the issue here, not somebody deciding I'm going to vote for something or register to become a candidate
- because of that exchange, correct? I didn't read the complaint exactly that way. Maybe I'm wrong.
- be happy to be corrected. But what I saw on Facebook was that the person whom the complaint is about
- offered her services to the folks that brought in signed petitions. It wasn't for a given person to
- sign the petition. It was for her work in getting the petitions signed. So yeah, if I were to go out and get
- if she had 10 signatures, then she would offer service to me. And it just didn't feel right to me. We're
- talking about signatures. We're not talking about votes. So I go back to what I said last month. Even
- if she did, there is no law. There is no statute that makes that wrong.
- you know, the optics, whatever else personally, I'm saying leave it to the voters. I'll state in the
- email from Matthew Coach of our after the second portion of highlighting, it says the subdivision does
- not prohibit payment for gathering signatures, not not based. So for that, again, that's where I see
- this was gathering signatures.
- So it's not prohibited to pay somebody to gather signatures. So if this board decides not to move forward,
- the complaintants still have an option of going to the prosecuting office to see if the prosecutor wants
- to move forward. If the complaintant wanted to, they would report it to local law enforcement and then
- they would forward the report to the prosecutor to see if prosecution would be warranted.
- And it seemed to me also clear that with the election supervisors, our election, I forgot his. Mr. Cotravar,
- he's one of the co-attorneys at the Indiana election division. And he suggested also what you read that
- we don't really have any adjudication based on the law that was passed. So it's still kind of unclear
- what is in statute and what the judicial process would allow.
- Yeah, as far as adjudication if it would be up to the prosecutor if you forward it to that far Any other
- discussions I just I hark back to a movie. I used to watch as a child that People were offered liquor
- on election day to vote for a given candidate And so that was for a long time liquor stores and bars
- were closed during the hours that elections occurred so I I'm not sure
- This is not the same. It's truly not. But I feel like there was an exchange, in this case, for getting
- somebody on the ballot itself. Otherwise, the person could not have been on the ballot. And so it is
- a fine line here. But it's to get her on the ballot. It's a signature. I realize.
- It sounds like clarity hasn't come at least to the full board between now and then. However, in looking
- at the facts that were described, stuff that I read before from last time, can we go ahead and table
- any further discussions or? Discussions to do what? So we can vote. I have no further discussion. We
- need a motion. Okay. Vote on this particular issue.
- Can you make a motion to vote? Yeah, I would move that we hold a hearing on Ms. Sharpe's complaint against
- Janee Trimble. And then with the understanding that we are not the ultimate decision-making body. Do
- I hear a second? We're allowed to second. But that's up to you. Yes, I think I'll pass. Thank you anyway.
- So motion fails.
- to vote on this particular issue. I was able to go to the prosecutor, so you want a motion to. Make
- a decision for the committee. The committee has I am going to make a motion that we move forward. Pass
- this without. A hearing and. If the complainant wants to take it to the
- And for clarity, I think what Ms. Brown's motion is effectively doing is dismissing the complaint. Then
- I'll make a motion to dismiss the complaint. Seconded. OK. Any further discussion? Here. Aye. Opposed?
- Yes. Is there a second complaint? I understand. Thank you. So the second complaint has not been formally
- received by the election board. So my first recommendation is that you formally receive the complaint,
- which was provided to election office. Do you know the date? I think it's August 6th, but I'm asking
- Ms. Kiley. August 6th. August 6th. The complaint is made by Ms. Trimble against Ms. Sharp.
- So I think the first step is for the board to formally receive the complaint. I will make a motion to
- formally receive the complaint. A single citation that listed an election violation in what I read.
- Okay. Okay. Well, then I will second. Yeah. Thank you. Second. All the papers. Yeah. All right. Good.
- All right. Complaint is received, and I think the next step would be for the board to have a discussion
- to determine if there's a reasonable belief that an election law has been violated. It's been a while
- since I read the
- citation of a single law that was violated. I didn't know who the pictures were associated with. I didn't
- know when or where they were taken, but that did not, to me, link it against the person the complaint
- was filed against. I had an opportunity to read it. Given that we just dismissed the other complaint,
- I am of the same vein. Let's move forward. We have an election. I am going to make a motion to dismiss
- this. We've read it. We acknowledge it. But I am going to make a motion to dismiss it without a hearing.
- Second. Motion made and seconded. No further discussion? Motion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed?
- Unanimously.
- I will state there was somebody with their hand up earlier. Um, but I had caught it right around before
- we started discussing the, um, complaints. I never saw a hand, but I don't want somebody to feel that
- they didn't get an opportunity to speak. Is there, are they still on? No hand raised.
- We go to the public comment section. There's there's some other things that I would like to add to today's
- agenda. And I'm sorry, I didn't do it at the start. But when I reviewed the ballots this morning, I
- think that there was a major. Question about some stuff in Richland, and I want to make sure that we
- get that resolved. The ballots can be printed on time and ready to go.
- I will add to that, so I was reading through some of the emails, one that you, Ms. Giffin, had sent,
- and then some that was in response from the IED. I'm going to move forward with requesting a certified
- statement from the group proposal that has put together the
- question for Ellensville, and then I'm going to move forward from there. Once I receive that, stating
- exactly which precincts they would like to have the question on, then I will send that to the election
- board, make sure you guys are all informed as well, and make those changes. I didn't have much time
- after, and this all happened very quickly from, I think, 11 a.m. on. Yes.
- there were portions of the voters in Richland Township, correct me if I'm wrong, because I wasn't super
- clear, that would not have an opportunity to vote on the merger between the township and the town of
- Ellitsville. And it was, I tried to get back through the nice notebook that you put together for all
- of us, and I did not see anything in the resolution
- that would indicate that anyone was to be excluded from that voting. So also in that proposal, there
- wasn't anything that specifically says which precincts that they would like to have this question appear
- on the ballot. That's why we held off until we have that specific language from the proposal group,
- the committee. So I'm going to reach out to Darla Brown, the attorney who's taking care of that, who
- presented me with the
- of the proposal and ask them for a certified statement from them stating which precincts they would
- like that question to appear on. So I may ask, you're saying that this would go to a body that's not
- an elected body for an answer? Or would it go to the Ellsfield Town Council and the Richland Township
- Board? So our communication with
- The proposal is through Ms. Darla Brown. She is the one that has presented us with everything from this
- proposal and has been our communication. If we have questions, we've reached out to her as well. So
- in instance, with the statement from the DLGF, they had issued that to us. It did not get sent to us
- directly from the DLGF. It came from Darla Brown. That is who we've
- had our communication with. So that is who I will be reaching out to to receive that. And my assumption
- is she will be reaching out to both town of Ellsville and the township of Richland to get a confirmed
- answer on that. How soon do we have to have ballots approved? Once I make the edits and I send them
- off, they're
- going to start being processed onto the V drives. And then that will be back to us probably early next
- week. So I am going to reach out to her. And as soon as I get a response from the town of Ellsville
- and the township of Richland, then I will make those changes on the ballots. And it will be sent off
- to be uploaded for us to have that test in two weeks. So please correct me. And I mean this sincerely.
- way the ballots look right now it would exclude certain voters who live in the Richland township but
- not in the town of Belletsville? Right now that's how it appears on the ballot the way that I sent it
- to Hart which I can provide a copy of that to all of you shows that it was to be on the ballot for all
- of Richland one through nine but since it is a town question that's why it was left off of any
- of the Richland ballots that were not considered the town of Ellitsville. I didn't read it as a town
- question. It's a merger between the two. And the reason that I'm advocating to have it for all of Richland
- is because their tax rates are going to go up if they approve this merger. And to not have a say in
- whether or not that occurs is sort
- What our Revolutionary Wars fought over was taxation without representation. I will add, so like I said
- earlier today, I believe that it should be on all of the ballots. That's why I set it on our report
- sent to Hart to be on all the ballots. But since the title of the question is Town of Ellitsville
- Reorganization, I believe that's why it was stuck on just the town splits of the Richland districts.
- I will send that to the full election board so you guys can review what I sent versus what came back,
- which is what you reviewed today. And then I will wait for response from Darla Brown and then move forward
- from there.
- I'm sure you all gathered that I am in favor of making sure that everybody gets to vote on this. There's
- not a person on this board who is not in favor of everybody getting to vote. I think this will be resolved
- quickly. Yes, and that's I'm just taking the advice from Miss Angie Nussmeyer of the IED where she did
- state in her email back that she thinks that to have the county election board or the town and township
- to confirm in writing what their intent is with the public question, and that's why I want to go ahead
- and have that in writing so we have it on record. I've got a couple other questions, but perhaps it's
- I understand that more communication is going back and forth. I think the election staff as well as
- the board is on the same page as far as making sure everybody is representative. I think that's a good
- question to ask. Yes? A different question. I've seen stuff in the news recently about Postal Service
- perhaps disrupting some of the mail-in ballot process.
- What are the concerns for all of us and our voters? And is there anything in place that? I mean,
- I've just. Of course, we'll take our guidance from the Secretary of State. Once I also saw that footage,
- I reached out to the Secretary of State's office and there is nothing at this time. I'll stay also that
- with the our specific carrier for our office, she is very
- hands-on with making sure that we receive our stuff in time. She makes multiple stops within our office
- throughout the day. When we get closer to the election and on election day, she'll come by our office
- two or three times with mail for us. So we just have a really strong communication with the U.S. Postal
- Offices here in Monroe County and have had conversations with them to see what we can do to make their
- job easier and what they can do to make our jobs easier as well.
- I agree the local carriers are really, really good to work with. It's when things go through Indianapolis
- or go through Louisville or wherever they're going through. I recently sent something, priority mail
- to Baltimore. It took two weeks. I mean, there are just huge holdups going on right now and it's not
- clear what's going on at the federal level. Every day something new seems to change.
- and it just scares me. You also take things to Indianapolis, but there are other folks that get their
- hands on these ballots, and that's what frightens me, not what happens locally. Another thing, I,
- last spring, prior to the primary,
- We all had talked about Kylie keeping a log of any kinds of problems that occurred with the election.
- And I had emailed you and asked you if you would provide us with that log. And I haven't seen it. And
- maybe I missed it. Like Mr. Shields and I both made quick runs out at 5.15 on election day to go deliver
- some things that were missing from packets and stuff like that. And you had runners that took care of
- things too. So I wondered.
- if there we could see it and because I do want to make sure that we have things go as smoothly as possible.
- The board directed her last spring to keep a log. I'll find it for you but that's what we directed.
- I am only aware of the one issue
- was quickly resolved, where there was a small delay with respect to people being able to cast a ballot.
- Our IT person resolved that very quickly. And that was something that we discussed with the election
- board on Election Day. That's the only issue that we had come up. All of the things that got sent out
- first thing.
- Tuesday morning on Election Day was phone calls from the day prior, and that was as they were setting
- up stuff, they noticed that they needed a couple of extra things. And then there was one precinct that
- needed, I believe, oh, it was the forms that we sent out due to that error with the poll books that
- we then fixed.
- things are couriered out on Election Day. That's part of why we have couriers. That's why we have that
- role is that anything that was not ready to roll out the night before as polling sites were being set
- up in preparation are couriered out. That's not a problem. It's not an issue. It just is. It's a regular
- part of Election Day.
- But these were things that were left out of the packets. Those were in the packets. It's just there
- was a small number of them because they're not generally used. But due to that issue on election morning,
- we had to increase the number of those at every polling location. Also, I had thought that you were
- going to be showing front and back of ballots at every polling location. And in fact, at several of them,
- at least that I went to, and this was at Mr. Shields' suggestion that we go out and check with some
- of the polling places, that there was only one side and people had to turn over the ballots so that
- I would hope in November that both, that there'll be two copies of each ballot so that people can quickly
- review the front and the back. I mean, we can do that. It's always been that we just send the one copy
- of each of them so it's front and back, and then they tape it onto
- the wall on the left-hand side so that it's easy to flip it over like we do for the review of the ballots
- as well. We can go to printing two single pieces of paper. I will say that this is something that we're
- already starting to try to figure out how
- It will look in the fall because our ballots are larger than we've ever had. We do not have paper in
- our office that is 8 and 1 half by 17. So all of the ballots that were on display today were shrunk
- down to fit on a legal size piece of paper to be viewed. But we are looking to see ways to make that
- work on election day.
- And also, in one of the recent meetings, you gave us the training schedule for things. They're just
- listed as training days. Would you please send out who's going to be trained and the times for the training?
- Because I would like to attend again. I don't know if Ashley's set that up yet. Was it for the early
- voting training? Yeah, it was in our packets here. Sorry. No, you're fine. I just spent a month.
- Yeah. Yeah. All right. That's early voting training. October 30th is the training for all of the leads.
- And they have a full day of training. You mean the 30th of September? Yeah. OK, you said October,
- I think. Sorry. September 30th. So their training will be on September 30th. And theirs is a all day
- training. They're there from, I believe it's 9 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon.
- And then the rest of the trainings are just the rest of the early voting workers. They all have the
- same position. I can say both October 1st and 2nd for the early voting poll workers. But again, I don't
- know the time. It's the same as the time for the inspectors. It's I mean the leads. We have them the
- same time.
- as what we did in the primary election. Once we have a finalized schedule, I will have that sent over
- to the election board. But it's something that we're still working on is the scheduling for all of the
- trainings, as well as our spreadsheets, getting them ready for them. Thank you. Thank you for
- your indulgence, sir. I believe now it's time for the public comment.
- your name when you get up there. Thank you.
- Hello, my name is Joe Davis. Thank you for allowing me to speak today. Just quickly, I wanna referring
- back to the proposed creation of a hearing against one of our candidates who was alleged to have
- broken the law by offering a service. I'd just like to mention that two years ago when I was trying
- to collect signatures to get on the ballot, I encountered in front of Blooming Foods a gentleman who
- was collecting signatures for Robert F. Kennedy who was trying to get on the ballot. And Robert F. Kennedy
- was paying $7 a signature.
- This guy was making big bucks. He was so excited about $7 for every signature. You could just see the
- dollar signs in his eyes. So yes, people can offer property or service or consideration in exchange
- for someone collecting a signature. This is within the law. So thank you for not creating a hearing
- unnecessarily for this.
- Second, I just wanted to update you on my lawsuit against the board, against you all, to in my request
- or my quest for relief to get my write-in candidacy back upon the ballot and that anyone who writes
- in my name will be able to have that vote counted. But at any rate,
- Uh, the, uh, the county has retained outside counsel. Uh, Clark Johnson and Knight, you might have heard.
- I'm unsure whether, since you have a lawsuit against this board. I'm just updating you. I don't know
- if this is an appropriate forum for that. Well, I'm just, as a courtesy, I'm just updating you. I don't,
- I don't think. As if I were. Well, again, here's the thing is that it's an active lawsuit.
- Yes, of course. But I'm just I want to allay your fears that nothing is happening. I don't think anything
- prevents Mr Davis from providing information as an update pending on the pending litigation to the board.
- I do think that I would advise the boards to not respond to the update because as Mr Davis is about
- to allude to, I believe the election board does have outside counsel.
- for this matter. It was turned over to the county's insurance company, the insurance company, then assigned
- counsel. So the board does have counsel. And so I think you can hear Mr Davis's update, but I would
- caution the board from responding without advice of counsel. Thank you, Councilor Turner King.
- So at any rate, they have asked for an extra 30 days to respond to my original petition. But I just
- received as well today, during the noon hour, an appearance by Todd Rokita, his office attorney general.
- One of his deputy attorney generals is made an appearance on behalf of the Indiana Election Division.
- and Diego Morales, Indiana Secretary of State. And with that, they provided a motion to dismiss, but
- I'm going to amend my original petition to address some of their issues that they brought about. And
- soon I will have an injunction filed timely enough such that I'm hoping the courts will be able to order
- the reinstatement of the write-in slide and then
- you know, we can get to court and get whether or not a write-in is going to count for me. But the slot,
- I'm endeavoring to have that restored. So anyway, this is just an update. I just wanted to give,
- let you know. And thank you for this wonderful opportunity. I am so excited about my impending victories.
- Thank you very much.
- Anybody else from public comment? No hands raised on our virtual attendees. Do we have a motion? Motion
- to adjourn. Second. All in favor? Aye. So moved. It is adjourned. Thank you.