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.