State of Georgia Special Called State Election Board Meeting and Hearings 2-28-20

On 2-28-20 the State of Georgia Election Board convened a Special Called Meeting and Hearing. The following includes the agenda and extensive notes from the meeting transcribed by a Peanut Gallery volunteer as a public service. Contact the State Election Board for questions or official information.

Agenda State Election Board AGENDA SPECIAL CALLED STATE OF GEORGIA ELECTION BOARD MEETING AND HEARINGS 2-28-20

M. Calcagno- Students for Bernie GSU  “…health insurance companies are making them go bankrupt. The people who are going to vote want to vote for a candidate who is not gonna push U.S imperialism across the world and destabilize their parent’s country so they have to come here to immigrate. They want to be able to vote for a candidate that who’s not going to be doing the bidding of the fossil fuel industry and polluting our planet is actually going to invest in green jobs for the future generation, and they want to be able to go and vote so they’re not gonna go and have to live their lives pay off their student loans that are gonna be union busting and paying starvation wages. Now the 2018 midterms was a disaster with wait lines not even being casted in minutes but in hours and across many of the precincts in Georgia and because our elections are so dependent on technology Georgia voters are especially vulnerable to longer wait lines because of equipment malfunctions and lack of equipment in general. 17 counties have tried out the new equipment so far but these were small turnout elections as one of my fellow students said before, the Georgia primaries are the 3rd populous turnout with over 2 million votes casted in 2016. So here’s my question, why are you considering a rule with putting (less) voting booths on election day instead of more? There are about 18,500 voting booths in the election of November 2018 and under the proposed rules there would be a thousand less. Secretary Raffensperger promised wait times of 30minutes or less and this would actually increase the waiting times. For working people across this state, they may not necessarily have time to wait a long time in line. They have kids to feed, (and) work just barely making it by. Most people in this state cannot afford to live in a decent standard of living because they hold under their capitalist bosses and don’t have time to waste time waiting to vote. Georgia deserves a state election board that doesn’t silence the working people of Georgia. We demand that you do better, we demand that you do your job,“

M. Green – Students for Bernie leader at GSU  “Good Morning my name is Malcom Green and I am a Cherokee county voter and like some of my other colleagues here, I am a proud Students for Bernie Leader at Georgia State University. For the past year or so we have spent more than hundreds hours organizing and spending our time really experiencing student activism. For the past two weeks in fact we spent our time to get people to register to vote before the deadline came and I would be extremely disappointed with you all if all of that was for waste. We spent time that we could’ve spent studying or going out with friends , trying to do our civic duty to get people engaged in the democratic process. I would be ashamed if my first encounter with democracy in this country turned out to be a sham and a lie and a waste of my time.For many college students absentee mail voting would be the best option. We have very busy schedules, we don’t have time to do much, so when we are registered in our home counties such as myself we don’t have time to actually go back there and vote on voting day. For others, they enjoy being able to vote in secret. You have already seen the problems at the actual voting polls the day of so being able to take that ballot that absentee ballot look it over and research it in real time and secrecy. Not to mention people in this room as already expressed don’t trust electronic voting. Absentee ballot works it works only when it works as it was designed to. Unfortunately for  many voters because of “postal delivery problems” or “office processing issues” they are finding it nearly impossible to actually make sure if their vote is counted. So, today I believe your voting will be discussing the issue by the Coalition of Good Governance that will allow voters to take their absentee ballots and simply go to their polling place hand it in as long as they have a form of ID with them it will be counted. All they have to do is go in there at any time that is available to them which will be of great help to me and many of my colleagues here and their vote is going to be counted and accepted. This rule as you already know will be a huge time saver also for election staff. It takes a significant amount of time to go over hand ballots…in the elections offices and will be a huge time saver for you and remove the burden of having to go through that process and it will make it more convenient for voters.

J. Aza- Georgia voter in Fulton County-President of Student Center for Action at Clark Atlanta University  I am originally from California. One of the most progressive states with high turnout for voting and voters who trust their election. so I’m a Georgia voter now but just having that background and seeing all the dissatisfaction of it is ridiculous and as a young voter in this country I  am very disappointed. The model for the new election system is to Secure the Vote with nearly 90,000 tables, printers, scanners, routers and other electronic devices along with data cards moving in and out of them—-we can talk about the absurdity of that model all day long. An alternate model needs to be proposed. Trust the vote. This is what Georgia voters truly want. We want to trust that when we vote those votes are counted. Whether our candidate wins or not we want to trust that the outcome that truly reflects the actual votes of the people. Right now here in Georgia, trust in election outcomes is lower than any of us want. You will be considering a rule today to define the vote that an actual human can read and numerated duties and of course to define the vote. You have proposed many rules for this new voting system including rules about tabulation and recount but you have failed to actually define the vote. After your last meeting David Woley told some of us that the QR code is the official vote of Georgia which is safe to say the least completely absurd. Humans cannot read QR Code. As young people who study technology, economics, and poly sci in the state.. We know humans cannot read them.. If you want voters that trust the election outcome. The official vote must be something that humans can read. Georgia deserves an election board that doesn’t silence Georgia voters. We demand that you do better and we demand that you do your job.

O. Adeniji–President of the Residence Hall Association  at Georgia State University.  It is my job to ensure that I advocate on behalf of the five thousand students on campus and advocate for their wants and needs and anything they want us to provide to contribute to a positive experience on campus. My responsibilities to residents at Georgia State University are quite similar to your responsibilities to the people of Georgia. Our local election boards make decisions on where you can vote early, how much equipment will be available on election day, and where your polling location will be. You are responsible for organizing an election that works for all people in the state of Georgia and to be quite frank,  you are not doing that. Georgia needs a better system that allows voters to cast their ballots in the comfort of their own home and bring them to the polls on election day. As a college student with two jobs, I understand what it means to be busy. Standing in line for hours in 2018, waiting to vote will not fit into my schedule. This is true for thousands of Georgians. Does this mean our voice will not be heard? Or that our votes will not be counted? Voting absentee is supposed to be an easy process but postal delivery and processing issues and so much more silence Georgia voters whose ballots are never received. In order to prevent this issue we ask to allow voters to submit their absentee ballots on election day with their ID to confirm their votes will be counted. Georgia doesn’t trust easily hackable machines and why should we? Experts on election security don’t even trust these machines.  Voting absentee and delivering on handmark ballots they can trust. We understand the concern regarding such short timing and we demand counties have an option whether or not to implement this rule in next month’s election but we demand it must be mandatory in all counties by November. This will give Georgia an increase in the accountability it deserves and ensure not only get to vote but also know their vote will get counted. Georgia deserves a state election board that does not silence voters. We demand you do better and we demand you do your job.

G. Balbona: Concerned Georgia voter – I would like to ask why we have 12 seats reserved for the Secretary of State and no one is sitting there. Are you allergic to your people? Representative Flemmings, the author of HB316 spoke with the state ethics committee about HB316 very stated  ‘the bill is required when the audit occurs that the audit gets eyes on paper and when you count what’s written on there. That’s why the audit is so important to this provides the assurance that I guess you could say our voters need it.’ In stark contrast, deputy elections director Kevin Raper, this guy, told commission that current technology they can create an image of every single ballot passing and I quote, ‘we are pretty certain no one has modified these images’ that’s not good enough. You’ll never hear me say this again but I agree with Berry on this, if the state election boards approves, democracy killing rules the state will not look at the papers at all  and instead rely on unverifiable QR codes. Why the hell are we purchasing a voting system and not paper at all? …A Georgia superior court told me this week that sunshine is the best disinfectant. I agree with that. I would like to know why the state election board (SBE) does not. SBE is actively attempting to break Georgia law to hide election activity from Georgia voters. Proponents of code 12-12 calculating results, state specifically (only) poll watchers are permitted to use photography after the close of polls. This is flat out misdirection code 21 02-406 public performance of duties of official states superintendents, polls officers and other conducted in the elections under this chapter shall perform their duties in public. SBE is trying to take away the right to peacefully observe and record post election activities from the entire public and is surprised we won’t say thank you for giving that right to no more that 25 poll watchers statewide. That is not what anyone considers in public. Lastly, we have a big problem with proposed rule 15-.03 (Optical Scan Recount Procedure) which states the superintendent may designate a viewing area by which not those of the public are eliminated for the purpose of good order and maintaining integrity of recount. My problem stands from a fulton county marshal evicting us from the building and blatantly disregarding his command and commanding officer. I submitted a complaint (11 pgs) and I was told by Fulton Marshalls that they would implement mandatory training regarding the rules of the election process. This was never done and i have the incredibly lacking 15 slide powerpoint entitled “the do’s and don’ts for deputy marshals working elections”. It mentions 21.4.13 that prohibits photography while elections are taking place yet it fails to mention 21-246 a mere 7 codes and 8 pages away. In short, I am sick of all the state election boards munevering to strip rights away from GA voters under the guides of making things better for them, do your job. By the way I have got copies of what I have handed to them and also have an official SOB complaint which I will be giving to Francis.

Adam Hinchlift- Center of Visually Impaired  – Clearly there is a lot of passion, comments, and I’ll keep my comments rather brief. A lot of people in the visually impaired community have already outlined some of their concerns and critiques of the system. I am going to limit my comments on the proposed rule of the assisted technology devices. The mission for the Center of Visually Imapired is to empower people with vision loss to live with independence and dignity and clearly a common thing we have all heard today is the ability to vote independently. If you could drive your attention to “rules 183-1-13.02” (audio muffled) I think I got it backwards but I think you know the one I am talking about. Clearly, we have heard that some consider it to be broad in nature but it’s a first step. Allows blind and visually impaired voters but also voters with various levels of disability, the ability to use such technology devices and their vote selection choices on the printed ballot which is a change from previous versions of voting. We think that’s a first step, it’s just the first step of a long conversation we and others hope to have as this process begins to unfold throughout the year. Hopefully….by next election in november. The Secretary of State’s office released a press release this week which altered my comments a little bit stating that in the press release in the Atlanta Journal Constitution that the Secretary of State’s office to expend between 1 to 4 million dollars between now and the main general election to ensure all voting precincts have a dedicated device with headphones will allow blind and visually impaired voters specifically but in… (inaudible) generally the ability to independently  verify the selections made on the printed ballot before it is entered in the tabulation machine. We again, think it’s a good step and hope the Secretary of State office and the election board will continue the dialogue and all voters in Georgia regardless of ability have the right and ability to vote independently…

J. Dufort- Georgia voter from Morgan County – An inconvenient truth came to life this week in Sumter county when faced over a legal challenge over protecting absolute ballot secrecy, local election officials got serious about reconfiguring the early voting polling place. Voting for the runoff election on Monday morning with 6 voting booths lining the perimeter and facing the center of the room. The lawsuit was filed Monday afternoon. They reduced it to 4 and then 2 and still could not protect absolute ballot secrecy in that room. In the end just one voting booth can be deployed in a matter that fits the law as demanded by Judge Smith. This story will be played out in polling places across Georgia as counties prepare for election day March 24th. Problem is, many polling places are filled with capacity with the old DREs. The legislature didn’t like the long lines of 2018 so, they made a law that precincts must have one voting booth per 250 electors. That’s a 35% increase in voting booths on election day state wide. The new voting ballot marking devices are bigger than the DRE’s on a six foot table. You can only fit two of them instead of three. They need 50% more space and the design flaw that exposes our vote. The state advises counties to pull booths away from the perimeter and turn them to face the wall and spread them apart which also takes more space when every polling place set up to protect absolute ballot secrecy and allow anti tampering monitoring. The real capacity of polling places state wide will be far less than actual places on elections 2018 and less than half of what is required by state law. Secretary Raffensperger told us over and over again that lines should be less than 30 minutes. We totally agreed about that. It’s appalling that we are less than 4 weeks away, before millions of voters head to the polls march 24th and this is where we are and continuing denying the truth is a disservice to all Georgia voters.

A. Nakamura- Fulton County voter – Three days ago in an event I asked the Secretary of state how he is going to address our problem with the new oversight and ensuring that voters absolute secret of ballots while also voting systems are always secure to prevent tampering or hacking. The answer given by him and Georgia election director, Chris Harvey was absolutely astonishing. Talking about ballot secrecy and keeping equipment secure. I heard this from Harvey, I don’t think they are completely equal values. I think that privacy is more important. Let me remind everybody that the Secretary of State’s motto is: election security is our top priority. In rule 183-1-12-11 part 4 says, it must be set in a manner that assures the privacy of the elector and the security of such unit against tampering, damage, and other improper conduct. Georgia code 21-2-267.A also says that it must be arranged in a manner to allow monitoring of the devices by the poll officers and yet on tuesday Mr. Harvey the election director actually said that this law does not mean the machines are viewable by election officers all the time. Just when they are not occupied. Does that make any sense? This raises huge alarm bells for all Georgia voters. Does Mr. Harvey not know how easy it is to hack a BMB or a printer when poll workers can’t see what they are doing behind the screen or curtain. Or is he so desperate to give voters ballot secrecy because of the reason lawsuit that he is willing to sacrifice election security to do that. We voters just want to be able to vote knowing that our votes are secure, secret, and will be counted as casted without having to wait for long lines. If the dominon voting machines cannot provide all of those things for Georgia voters then we beg you, please send the machines back. The contract says their system will uphold all Georgia laws and they don’t even comply with ADA compliance. They do not provide absolute ballot secrecy and so because they don’t let’s send them back lets get a big refund and redo the evaluation process much more methodically and thoughtfully using the time that is needed to do so. Counties are ready now to use emergency handmark paper ballots that are secure, secret, and fast and will even save tons of money. So please do the right thing and do what’s best for Georgia voters.

 

J. Wasson-Dekalb county voter – The state gave counties layouts to address their dilemma: how to fit in all their equipment while guaranteeing the right to absolute ballot secrecy and observing the equipment to prevent tampering. SOS shouldn’t downplay the need to observe the machinery as its critical to security. In our drawing even enlarged the room to fit a scanner at the station. They are not to scale drawing left out. Wheelchairs will have near an impossible time to angel around the polling station. The scanner blocks the door and if poll watchers show up, where can they stand? In fact, this (room) is bigger than many polling precincts. If the precinct has more than one thousand, many do, by law they have to give a voting booth to every 250 electors. Where could that possibly go? The proposed rule to reduce election day machines based on early voting is an attempt to go around  the ratio because it is physically impossible to make polling places to be legally compliant. This reduction of equipment will cause long lines which the ratio is trying to avoid. Here’s the SOS alternate layout: it only shows three voting stations so it has more space for wheelchairs but it’s still too crowded and more importantly people seeing other people voting. A state judge told the county this week, “I am dealing with the secrecy of the ballot and it may be hard to remedy, I’m sorry guys but it’s your problem to find the remedy,” -This board and Secretary of State should give guidance to counties struggling with this. Don’t make this risk violating the constitutional rights of a secret ballot. Don’t make this breaking of a rule concede to get equipment to guard against mischief. Tell counties they can use hand mark paper ballots if they cannot comply with these requirements. That solves this dilemma.

L. Throop- Dekalb County – There is a link between ballot secrecy and space for machines. I observe pilot elections at Trinity polling place in Lowndes county last December. The 18 voting machines filled the room. Yet they were far short from the 44 machines that should be provided for 6 thousand voters in the district. The room didn’t provide any privacy for voters and there wouldn’t be anyway to pull the machines form the walls and turn them around for more privacy. I have observed the polling facilities and I know that many can’t accommodate the Secretary of State’s suggested room adjustments for privacy. That office has not been forthcoming about the feasibility of the recommendations. And Now (he’s) trying to manipulate how the machines are counted instead.

Sofia M. – Southern P Law Action Fund Lawrenceville in Gwinnett County – Submitting the following remarks on behalf of the Southern Poly Law Center Action Fund. SPLC is concerned about proposed restrictions for voter registration and private entities. I would like to join and support the sentiments proposed today by other voters concerned about the election machine. First I’d like to begin by addressing the proposed provisions around voter registration drives and the locations where the  primary purpose of that place is the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages. Not only is the definition vague but we fear further limiting locations where groups are conducting voter registration rights setting a dangerous precedent. Community members, third party voter registration groups, and political partners alike with festivals and others alike with public outings where alcohol is sold to reach potential new voters. We believe infringing on that right in anyway and the right of voters to register their peers is undemocratic. Further, we believe in amending the rules of the state of election board to require private entities to inform all new applicants of registration and voting ID numbers is unnecessary. The official state of Georgia for voter registration clearly states the requirements for voter ID numbers in both the instructions and again on line 5. The State Board of Elections should be working in concert with community groups to increase voter registration and mobilization. Instead of implementing regulation  preventing the horrendous process. We would like to state our concerns about the implementation of the new voting machines and we cornered concerns of other organizations in this room and raise the concerns about security and number of other issues. Considering the astronomical weight times in 2018 election, we strongly oppose any proposal that will significantly limit and necessarily reduce the number of paper ballots and voting machines available in each precinct on election day. We ask that the state board of elections build on the successes such as automatic voter registration and instead worked on re enfranchising our returning citizen population to ensure that all eligible Georgians are able to participate in a direct democracy.

Joseph Kirk – Elections Supervisor of Bartow county – Here today speaking in favor of proposed recount rule. Anyone who knows me knows I’m very excited about conducting audits moving forward. I can say right that my staff will be conducting an audit for every election moving forward before we certify, but a recount and an audit are two different things. We conduct a recount when the results are so close that an error in tabulation could change the outcome, usually because of voter intent with hand making ballots being similar to that. I’m comfortable with those being conducted with a scanner knowing that we will go back later and look at human readable text and compare those with the results as part of the audit

G. Favorito- Cofounder of Voter GA – I have a handout for you on the same rule you consider with rule number six on the recount rule. As you all know, 18 years ago I began advocating for verifiable auditable, and recount capable voting, that was three months before the current DRAs were installed back in 2002. Do you know that last year those were banned unconstitutional for those same reasons, they cannot verify audit or recount an election properly. Legislators nonetheless, after hundreds of people have joined us, some as members and others as citizens, to advocate for the same thing; verifiable, auditable and recount capable elections. With the legislators as you know, they advise the secretary of state’s office a hundred percent unverifyable voting system that accumulates votes that are hidden in barcodes. Is there anybody in this room that can verify their vote if they cast it on this machine? Of course not, it’s 100% unverifyable. Now we heard, they’re gonna take care of this by audit procedures, yet they’re not gonna audit the presidential preference primary, there’s no plans to audit state senate races, state houses races, county wide races, judicial races, other nonpartisan races, or municipal races. And even though the races that you’re gonna try to audit, the inventors of RLAs (Risk Lifting Audit procedures) have said you cannot use those properly for RLAs. So you have no audit procedures in place that are going to work, you have an unverifyable voting system and now we come to the recount procedure, which according to the current way it is written; it’s going to rescan the unverifiable barcode. So essentially that’s going to reprint previous unverifiable results, so this is a complete sham! How can you really believe that this is proper. So i’ll understand that the legislator and SOS office already disenfranchised us with unverifyable not audible voting, but at least on rule 6 you can vote to recount a race properly by manually counting the votes that the voter actually verified those summaries. If you don’t vote for that, you will be complicit along with the legislator and the secretary of state in disenfranchising almost every georgia voter, and certainly everyone in the room. So again i’m gonna urge you that a recount has got to count verifiable votes not anything that is in a barcode. So for these regions in this sham, we urge you people to vote by mail and we will be discussing these issues tomorrow morning at 9 oclock in Marietta.

S. Draper- Director of Voter Protection for Democratic Party of GA – For the last two years we have run a robust voter protection program assisting over 80,000 georgians through the process of voting, regardless of political affiliation, and advocating on behalf of georgian voters. I have two requests for you today. The first is that you assure that each polling place has enough equipment, this certainly goes for BMDs, the minimum number of which are required by statute, but it also goes for pollpads. Based on our observations, the check in process can take a very long time, this results in a bottle neck at the check in. I saw sights where the BMDs remained unused because the check in was backed up, the number of pollpads on sight needs to correspond with the number of registered voters, the way BMDs do. Second, I want to request an increase in the number of technical assistance from dominion, who will be onsite at polling locations. Poll Workers simply have not had enough time to be adequately trained on the new equipment. DPG has monitored two elections where the new equipment was used,and almost every poll place we monitored, poll workers had issues with the new machines. We observed every piece of equipment go down for some period of time, the pollpads, the BMDs, the printers, and the scanners. In many cases, the poll workers were unsure of what to do, and voting was put on pause until a technical assistant from dominion could make their way from the polling place and resolve the issue. We watched voters leave the voting place, because they didn’t know when voting would resume. And none of these workers that left, were offered an emergency backup ballot to vote on, even though we were told that emergency ballots were available on site. It is critical that for every election this year, there is dominion technical assistance at each and every polling location. It is not enough to have technical support on call for these high turnout, nationwide elections. The need for technical assistance will be critical beginning next week. As we learned from 2018, long lines and other delays contributed heavily to voter disenfranchisement, and as the eyes of the nation turn on Georgia this year, we cannot allow history to repeat itself.

E. Cortez- Former Commissioner of Elections in Virginia, Brenner Center of Justice  – Here on behalf of Brennan Center of Justice, a National Nonpartisan law and policy institute focused on reforming and revitalizing our country’s system of democracy and justice. We appreciate the efforts that the boards have been taking to continue to improve the processes and procedures here in Georgia through this open dialogue and kind of continual revisions to what is in place. We provided extensive written comments on this latest round of revisions including support for some of the amendments. 37;23 I wanted to focus today on two rules. First, we continue to have concerns of the requirement of one machine per 250 voters. If you take a look in our written comments and conduct an analysis using available tools for polling places provided by the… and the Georgia voter registration turnout numbers from previous election and reducing the numbers of machines could impact wait times. We encourage you to take a look at the significant wait times that can occur. Simply from shifting from 250 voters to 400 voters per machine. We took into account early voters in Georgia. We do encourage you to stick to the 250 voters per machine. The second thing I would like to discuss is that we are appreciative of the fact that you have provided a minimum number of emergency paper ballots. We do believe and we have provided an analysis prior georgia turnout numbers and registration number we do believe a 25% minimum is what should be required for emergency paper ballots and ensure specifically since you validated? a requirement which we applaud of lines exceeding 30 minutes which you have said that voters will be allowed to use emergency paper ballots. Those instances because of the emergency potential increase and first time this equipment is being proceeded that a 25% minimum is the best approach this year as you’re preparing for the largest turnout in the cycle.

GSU Student- Voter in Fulton County – I am here like many others to discuss the new voting machines. 2020 is an important year for Georgians. We are electing a new president, new senators, representatives and many local elected officials. I am here this morning to raise concerns on behalf of Georgians to the state board of elections and the SOS to do its job and prepare for the 2020 elections. Georgia is attempting to implement an entirely new voting system during a presidential election year. The state must do everything in its power that Georgians who chose to vote in the comfort and privacy of their home should and do so for third parties and dedicated to participating. Requiring absentee ballots to be substantially in the same form as the SOS application creates an unnecessary burden on the applicant and does not  solve legitimate problems. If and when these election systems fail, should not fall on the voter. Poll workers must be equipped and required to offer voters with provisional ballots and redirect them to their proper precinct location and practical. Given that this is a new election system Georgia voters directing and reviewing their ballot in order for poll workers gives clarity and ensure every vote is counted and should not be removed. The state is expecting a record turnout at the polls in 2020. The state elections board should be following the guidelines of HB316 voting machines in each precinct. Rule 138-1-13-.01 is not in compliance of HB316 as it allows polling places to be used instead of precinct when requiring the number of booths or enclosures available to electors in a precinct, the calculations should provide minimum of at least one voting booth or enclosure for each 250 electors therin or fraction thereof. The board should also clarify if the new requirement that a circular notify the voter to use driver license number will be included in the state created poster for third party registration drives. And that displaying each poster will meet the notification requirement.

Johnathan Graham – Dekalb County Voter – I run a blog called criminal man. I’ve been monitoring the Delkab board of elections for the past two years, and I’m also a former state government spokesman for an agency that has faced public hostility so I feel for you today. I used to work for the public service commision. My problem is, I wrote about the rules and sent in my comments and all that, but I have a different problem that I don’t think anyone is addressing. It is a structural problem and I think it comes from my background as a state government official. We have a problem in Dekalb county with an ethics board, the way that it was setup was declared unconstitutional. A slam dunk 8 to nothing, just an absolutist supreme court opinion which said, ‘it could not be constituted with members that were picked by non-public entities.’ In other words, everyone that sits on these agencies, should under the Georgia constitution and  be put in there by an elected official or an elected body. Now, I think there should be some alarm bells going off because we have a non-zero number. I checked through about seven county election boards and I found enough to tell you that there is definitely a non-zero number. I wouldn’t be surprised if the number went to 50-60 maybe even more give or take boards that are mainly picked by Democratic and Republican parties. I don’t have a problem with the Democratic or Republican parties nominating members for the board, that’s probably the best place to pick them. But, if they are not ratified by an elected official in Dekalb county, that was fixed by the way because Senator Tillman, the chairman of the Dekalb County board of elections, who has connections within the legislator moved through immediately to get a fix for Dekalb county. I’ve brought this issue up to the Dekalb county delegation. They say ya it’s an issue but not in Dekalb county anymore it’s a local government issue and most of these fixes are made in legislation. I am bringing it up to you to tell you that you may have 50-60 boards that are illegal. That makes every decision that they make illegal structurally no matter how good or bad it is, and they are subject to challenge on everything from hiring, staffing, to certifying elections. In other words, the whole system could get kneecapped  just by some lawsuits that’s like a 8-0 supreme court decision. You could have to do redos on elections, you might have to have a special session of the Georgia General Assembly. At any rate, im telling you this because no one else is telling you this I think, I could be wrong, I hope i’m wrong, prove me wrong. But crossover day is March 12, there’s some boilers laid out there, I suggest you get it fixed.

Other public comments speakers – S. Tindall Ghazal -Cobb County Voter- Former Voter Protection Director of Democratic Party of GA; D. Housley; A. Goldline, G. Toodle – VP of National Federation of the Blind of Georgia

R. Martin- Atlanta Georgia Voter- Petitioned six proposed rules to the state elections board:   “I will be speaking for a proposed rule number one Protecting Ballot Secrecy….There’s a saying in business that even though you always want things faster, better, and cheaper you can only pick two of the three. With Georgia voting we have three requirements: One to provide the voter absolute ballot secrecy, two to ensure machines are secure from tampering and three to control wait times by providing one voting machine for every 250 voters. I am afraid given the size of existing polling places, the counties can only achieve two of those three other requirements simultaneously. This point it is too late to find polling places for the presidential preference primary for the May elections so, which law will become the kind to be forced to violate with respect to law number one absolute ballot secrecy on wednesday Judge Arthur Smith, Chief Judge of the southwestern circuit of Georgia presided over an emergency hearing on this very subject. The judge was very clear: absolute ballot secrecy is the law. Period. Full stop. Further, it is clear that the Secretary of State is trying to figure out how to provide valid secrecy. Although we appreciate his recent suggestions of the preferred piece of layouts and recognize parts of the layouts may help but they do not provide absolute secrecy. Now onto law number two: ensuring the machines are secure from tampering. SEB rule number 183-1-12-.11 part four states that the electronic ballot markers shall be set up in a manner to assure the privacy of the elector while casting his/her ballot while maintaining the security of such units against tampering damage or improper conduct. Let’s think about what tampering, damage, or improper conduct looks like. Suddenly I unplug the cord and plug it back in, they might remove the security tag, open the door to the USB drive, remove it and possibly replace it with something else. They might put their driver’s license instead of the card where the voter card is supposed to go. All of these things can occur when interacting… hidden behind the privacy screens. Poll workers must be able to monitor the system while voters are interacting with them. Tampering is a contact sport. If you cant see the vulnerable areas of the equipment , you can’t maintain the security of units. Checking the machines from time to time when voters are not around is like shutting the stable door after the horses… the damage has already been done. Onto law number three. One voter machine shall be provided for every 250 electors. There is a rule provided that the new voting system requires more space than we can always get. After all each BMP is accompanied by a printer so, even ignoring all the other associated equipment more space will be required to accommodate similar numbers of voting stations as provided in 2016 and 2018. Do you remember the long lines from those elections? Again, we are stuck with the polling places and dimensions we currently have. For Harry Potter fans, the polling places are not like Hermione’s bag that magically holds everything she placed in it. I spent time observing the use of the voting system in…sumter counties during the HB 171 and the SB 13 special elections. I saw standalone cinder block buildings  which serve as dedicated voting precincts. Please refer to the photos I have provided. Those are of the… precinct of Sumter county. There are the poll managers so concerned, please look at them, please look at what these buildings look like. There the poll manager was so concerned about seeing elector’s votes, she took the initiative and turned two of them to the wall just before receiving the guidance from the Secretary of State. She felt bad that she was unable to do with the station designated for handicap voters but there just wasn’t room for the wheelchairs to maneuver around the stations and the wall. Bottom line, we haven’t solved the absolute secrecy ballot, we haven’t solved the machines security problem, and we haven’t figured out how to get everything in the available space. Our proposed rule addresses this: in the event the ballot marking devices touchscreens cannot be reasonable positioned to ensure both ballot secrecy and monitoring of each component by poll officers the superintendent of elections shall require the use of hand marked paper ballots and provide privacy screens or other loading conditions to ensure the absolute secrecy of hand marked ballot. I hope you carefully consider the proposed rule as a way to satisfy the applicable laws in the short term giving counties time to explore and create acceptable long term solutions. Thank you.

A. Nakamura –  Definition of Vote – Hello again, I’m A. Nakamura from Sandy Springs. I’m speaking to propose rule 4 which is an amendment to add the definition of a vote for ballot marking devices. So the SEB has yet to define what constitutes a vote. RIght now Georgia is holding elections in violations of both state and federal laws that require a definition in each new voting system prior tot he conduct of an election using the new voting system. We have already started elections using the new system and there is no definition of what constitutes a vote. OCGA 21-2-2 part 37 and 52 USC 21081 part A part 6 mandate that it shall be the duty of the SEB to promulgate rules and regulations, ot define uniform and non discriminatory standards what constitutes a vote and what will be counted as a vote in each category system used in this state. Without this mandatory determination election controversies are sure to occur. There are other laws you must consider. OCGA 21-2-498 requires that post election audits be performed with manual recounts. Which obviously means manually counting human readable text printed on the ballot cards. If human readable text is the official vote for  audit purposes, it follows that it must constitute the official vote for all county purposes. To count barcodes as the official vote for some contexts for those that have not audited and then the human readable texts other contexts invites other legal problems. Secretary Raffensperger talks about how safe it is to use the analogy of how homeland security has used barcodes on boarding passes at airports. Sure, but i still can’t read that barcode and I depend on the human readable text telling me where to sit and I am really not worried about someone hacking my seat assignment but the barcode was gonna fly the plan, I don’t think we’d get on the plan. The Help America Vote Act requires that voting systems permit the voter to verify the votes selected by the voter on the ballot before it is cast and counted. Since humans can’t read barcode and therefore can verify barcodes-this federal law puts the fact that human readable votes must be the official vote. Also, OCGA 21-2-397.22 abides no electronic ballot marker shall be adopted or used in primaries or elections in this state unless it satisfies the following requirements. Part 6 says produce a paper ballot that marks elector’s choices in a form readable by the elector. The choice made by the voter is the standard terminology in Georgia election code to define what constitutes a vote. The general assembly has instructed that the format readable to the voter be the official vote. There can only be one official vote. Legally you simply cannot have a barcode be the official vote for some counts and the human readable vote for others. The offical vote must be consistent for any official, recount, and post election audit. We strongly urge the SEB our proposed rule 4 which reads: for vote printed by electronic ballot summary card and cast on an optical scanner a human readable text shall be the choice made by the voter.

L. Throop with Coalition for Good Governance Speaking about six methods of recount –  You have now received a deluge of comments about the proposed recount rule and we have heard a lot of passionate comments today. You may already have plans to modify to withdraw the proposed rules so I’ll be brief. With proposed rule number 6 we are offering ways to modify that recount rule to minimize 2 of the more problematic features. First, public observation of recounts must be meaningful public oversight is integral in building trust in elections over the past month. It’s been my privilege to observe elections across Georgia. It’s been a delight to meet election workers and officials who are doing their very best to run elections in a fair and efficient way. I hope you’ll trust me and believe me when I tell you the public observation is more effective in some counties than others because the barriers some counties put in place that prevent observations. This must end and rules must enable public observation for recounts where the stakes are very high. Second, because most Georgia ballots are printed by machine and not marked by hand. It’s crucial for any election to have a meaningful recount, it must be preceded by a meaningful audit. You’ll be introducing proposals for audit rules later this morning but ill wager that you’re not proposing audits for every election. This proposal is very straightforward. If an election is close enough to warrant a recount, there must be a thorough audit prior to the recount.

Another proposed rule, rule 5, concerns the retention of memory cards covered in 183 112.13c election data on memory cards is the key election record and should not be destroyed prior to the 24 month requirement under federal law. If there is a potential of electronic tampering, evidence can be present on the memory card that is preserved nowhere else in the system. The proposed rule also states that after the period of requesting recount of expired memory cards may only be reused after taking all necessary cyber security hygiene precaution. Thank you.

IV. Presentation of Rules Petition

• GERMANY—
  • I believe the guidance of the secretary of state’s office has sent out as well as many counties are using third-party Solutions they’re buying to help that process. There was a court case, as the presenters have mentioned in Sumter county, the judge found that you could use the machine and still protect voter privacy, and I think that’s what’s consistent with what we see as well.
  • .Potential layouts that Chris Hardy sent out to the counties. I think we prepared some additional guidance to send to the counties along those same lines along with some other options that they can do to provide for privacy. I think it’s correct that what we said that you could turn the machines around; poll workers I think still have access to see what they need to see, especially with the rule that we recommend to adopt today that we posted last time, and that we are now requiring a poll worker not just stationed at the scanner but another pool worker to be available for voters with questions in the enclosed space. So it’s kind of roping a poll worker in the enclosed space, which is a new requirement. So I think that would help proven that they can see what’s going on despite which direction the screen is facing.
  • Proposed rule number two permitting voting in the my voter page published precinct. So the my voter page website and the data that’s loaded into the poll pads both come from the same place, so there should not be any discrepancy in those two places. Frankly if there is, I would have more trust in the data that’s loaded on the poll pad that comes straight from the voter page system. I don’t think that’s something we need to do in terms of adding a new thing for poll workers to check on election day. Mail ballots returned to polling places, i think as similar to where the board was last time this proposal was made, i think thats something we should look at. I think the most prudent course of action is to not do something like that this election cycle, even waiting till November. There’s other things to consider, you know in some states instead of allowing you to drop it off at polling places, use drop boxes. One of the benefits of absentee ballots is the voter doesn’t have to go to the polling place. That’s less people in the polling place on election day which is helpful for getting more people through.

• SOS
  •  Believe that’s what they do in Colorado correct?

• Germany
  • They use dropbox yes sir.

• SOS
  •   another question that just struck me is that last fall we did six pilot counties when we were getting these machines under speed. Something we might want to consider here also instead of doing it statewide just try some select counties almost as a pilot at some point in time when we have the resource to be able to handle that I see how that works and then we look at maybe statewide implementation.
  • I think that’s the prudent way to proceed we might need some enabling legislation to allow us to do pilots like we’ve had for them voting machines and we’ve done that for Yoacoba…? Electronic dial delivering type solutions in the past and it has led state wide adoption of that thing we tested.
• SOS
  • will you share that with rules working group, to be able to hear what the counties, with what their take would be on that.
• Germany
  •  I would say I don’t think this year is the year to do the pilot, I think this election cycle we have enough changes that we’re already dealing with. The definition of the vote I will be presenting some recommended changes to post today to the definition of the vote, that I think could get at some of these concerns.
  • Proposed rule number five, retention of memory cards so this proposal would require that all memory cards used in each Scanner retain for two years. The way that we currently handle that is that of the results the data is uploaded to the election management server of each county and then they take all of that combined data and retain it for two years and that’s why the individual memory cards can be used after that. Data is still retained, it’s just not retained on the physical medium, so it can be reused and frankly not doing that would greatly increase the cost of counties of running an election. So, I don’t think that something that we should change.  Proposed rule number six amend the recount rule as we learned when our group discussed on Friday, that was out of the comments we received, certainly the most comments were about the recount rule. We’ve made some changes that I’m going to recommend we pose for public comment today, and I think that will get to some of these concerns. We have done in the past given the timeline that we’re under, I’m going to recommend them that we adopt the rules that we posted and then vote to post a change to them that we could consider at our next meeting. Then the next thing that I will speak to, is the rules that we posted last meeting that are up for adoption today, if that works for you mr. chairman.

• SOS – It does please proceed
•  Germany
  • The first rule that we posted is in tab number two of the board… Is rule dealing with third party registration….
  • Would you like me to go through each one and then i should also say i do think the board needs to take action on the rules presented in the petition… should adopt before moving on to…

• Chairman
  • —>Motion for petition of the proposed rules

• Mashburn
  • I would like to motion to vote on the proposed that were included in the petition..perhaps we can just go through them one by one?

V. PRESENTATION AND CONSIDERATION OF STATE ELECTION BOARD PREVIOUSLY PROPOSED AMENDED RULES

Proposed Rule 1 – Protecting Ballot Secrecy

• SOS
  • Proposed rule number 1, do we have a motion, or do we want discussion first?
• Worley
  • I would like to table this proposed rule, ithink petitioners raised some good points about how secrecay will be ensured in various places around the state. And given Judge Smith’s ruling,I would just like the opportunity to revisit this once we see how this election and the primary election go.I just think it would give us the opportunity to consider it with that information, without requiring petitioners to come back and propose a petition. So I would make a motion that we table proposed rule number one.
• Germany
  • I would just have to say, as rowly mentioned, there is litigation out there about this, and i think there will probably be more. I think it’s proven to keep an eye on that litigation, I agree with what Judge smith said in sumter county but the existing structure already adequately allows for both to be protected. So i think the board could deny this rule, while still doing all the things mr. Worley mentioned putting an eye on it and taking further action as needed based on what we see on the election cycle.

• Le
  • Mr. worley when you say yo wanna table it, do you wanna represent it or how?
• Worley
  • I think if we table it, it gives us the opportunity to bring it back at our discretion without requiring petitioners to file another petition and come back to us and make another presentation. Of course we can always come up with their own rule, that deals with these same concerns if we do find out it is an issue after we see the results of the election .

• Sullivan
  • I haven’t recently reviewed the rules I don’t have a copy in front of me but is there a time consideration of the rules where we have to take action on a petition.
• Germany
  • In thirty day after submission of petition, for the promulgation of a rule or the next determining the board shall decide upon the action to be take, so I guess that’s up to the action to be taken.

• Sullivan
  • So action to be taken could be to table the ..
• Germany
  • I would agree with that

• SOS
  • The action to be tabled again would end.
• Germany
  • I think once its tabled, it’ll be tabled until you bring back up

• SOS
  • Does that extend, for the general assembly it was just last for the biannual,
• Germany
  • We don’t really have that on the state election board

• SOS
  • Exactly so this would continue in perpetuity
• Germany
  • I think it would do that, i don’t think it has same effect as GA where it would just go away at end of session

• SOS
  • But the proposed rule that’s here before us today, if the rules working group wanted on that that’s something that could still be free to use whether this moves forward or gets tabled
• Germany
  • I think that something rules working group should do as we continue the year with what we’re working on additional rules as well

• • SOS
    • All those in favor of tabling

 

• –Proposed (#1)rule is tabled 

 

Proposed Rule 2 -Permitting My Voter Page Precinct Voting

Proposed rule number two is permitting voting and my voter page published presinct.

• SOS
  • Any discussion or do i have a motion
• Masburn
  •  Move to reject, Le seconds
• SOS–Any discussion?
• Worly
  • I’m gonna vote against this rule because I do think there really is no discrepancy between the my voter page and the poll book. And if there is discrepancy the poll book should be default option
• Germany
  • I would like to add to that that there are procedures in place to deal with that through original ballot rules that this board has already adopted
• SOS
  • All those in favor of denying proposed rule 2

• • No opposition ? proposed rule is denied!

Proposed rule number 3 -Mail Ballot Drop Off

• Worley
  • I Would make a motion that we table this rule. I think the last time a similar rule was proposed I indicated that I thought it was a good rule but needed not to be done in this cycle. And I think, at least for me, it’s something we should continue to consider as we see how primary, and presidential primary, and general primary go, and the turn out that were going to have. So i can understand all the reasons for rejecting the rule this cycle, but i would like to tabel instead. Il would make a motion for it ot be tabled
• SOS
  • Do we have a second? Do we have a second? Hearing none, that motion dies for lack of second
• Mashburn
  • Motion to reject proposed rule three
• SOS
  • Do we have a second?
    • Le Seconds
  • All in favor of denying rule three
    • Everyone in favor besides Worly

Proposed Rule 4 – Definition of a Vote

• SOS
  • Rule number four, do we have a motion?
• Mashburn – Imove that proposed rule number 4 be rejected by the board
  • Sullivan seconds — I believe that we have new proposed rule on subject matter that will be posted today
• Worley
  • I’ll vote as I believe we do have changes that will accommodate these concerns
• SOS
  • All those in favor?
    • None opposed? proposed rule 4 Denied

Proposed Rule 5 – Preservation of Memory Cards

• SOS
  • Proposed Rule 5, do we have any motions?
• Mashburn
  • Move to reject rule number 5
    • Le- second the motion since data will be retained
    • One of the primary concerns I have about this was stated very well by Ryan and says the memory cards will be preserved without alteration for no less than 24 months so that means you constantly would have to be buying new memory cards and you can’t reuse them so that’s just gonna be a burden some expense of the counties to just keep piling on there.
• Chairman
  • Any discussion? Call the motion all those in favor of denying proposed rule number 5 signify by saying I
    • No opposition ? rule number 5 is denied

Proposed Rule 6 – Methods of Recount

• SOS
  • Proposed Rule number 6, method of recounts, do i have a motion?
• Mashburn
  • Motion to reject rule 6
    • Sullivan seconds
• Worley
  • I’m going to vote against this proposed rule because I think we have made some changes I can’t procedures but I just want to say on record I think that I would like to work on in the working group. Concept of requiring an audit before any recount and any recounted election I think is a very good idea, and I think we should institute a ruel regarding that going forward.

• SOS
  • Mr. Worley make some very good points as did some o of the people on the issue when elections are that close the procedure in place so please encourage the working group to welcome that and come back with something as quickly as possible
• Germany
  • That came up in our meeting last Friday as to whether or not we should. I Think that’s a very good point about doing a pre recount audit and it also came up whether or not we should provide a post recount audit of the recount. I think that’s something that we can look at in the auditing rul as well, and were still trying to determine based on the pilot projects were doing, the best way to put that process in place.

• SOS
  • Yes just encourage you to dig into the merits of that thank you
  • Any further discussion, hearing none I’ll call it all those in favor of denying proposed rule number six?
    • No opposition? rule six is denied

Consideration of SEB Previously Proposed Amended Rules

• SOS
  • All those in favor of adopting the rules as presented in chapter six

• • • Motion carries no opposition
• Germany
  • The next rules that we proposed in our last meeting are in chapter 12 and what these are I will go through each of them briefly. We adopted the rules and then after we received some comments that we thought made sense so at the last meeting we voted to post these changes based on comments we received at the first post committee rules. The comments came from the counties political parties and other interest groups the change that comes regarding tab three of y’all’s binder change .04 just takes out and loosens up restrictions on how counties have to store the components as opposed to requiring that they are stored in their packaging boxes and just allow counties to store them in a manner that ensures their protected. I made a change in 12-.06 paragraph 3, page 6 taking out there’s a procedure in place of what counties have to go through if they have to move their election management system. The election management system is the air gap server in each county and it’s really only going to be relocated in emergency circumstances. So we are taking out the senates,, so it’s a bit contradictory. Also incorporating changes in 12-.08  notice that these are based on comments that we received notice at this point it will not only be required on newspapers but will be put on county web pages. Also clarifying that this will be posted on the homepage and won’t be lost on the Internet. I think additionally we made changes requiring reporting to the superintendent regarding any failures for issues, and that’s something I do wanna clarify. Also made some changes, one change in 12-.09 rewording to make more sense, 12 – .10 adding that credited poll watchers must be able to observe the pool place set up process without interfering in the set up process. The changes in 12 Dash .11 are significant these are what we discussed in our last meeting there was some concern originally with having someone at the scanner remind every voter to review the Val about it could be burdensome and I think it will be burdensome but there was a paper that came out that showed that if you want people to review their ballots that’s where the point of reminder should be. So we’re removing enter from the beginning of the voting process and moving it to the scanning process which is consistent with the study from the University of Michigan. This is also where we’re putting in place the 10% emergency paper ballot requirement and we’re also putting in place what I mentioned earlier about there now has to be a pool officer by the scanner but also a pool officer assign to assisting voters who have questions while they are in the voting booth. Point of that is the poll officers stationed at the scanner needs to remain at the scanner, so if as a question at the poll please there is someone else available to help them. We make similar changes in the next section 12.12 adding poll workers shall be allowed to observe process described in rule in manner that doesn’t interfere. We added something to provisional ballots which I think is something we talked about at the rules working group how we can prevent the available votes from being recognized and it could be difficult given the factual determination required in provisional voting making sure poll worker is always giving accurate information to voter so were trying to standardize that so come up with sheet of paper to help voter with their options. And I would recommend we have one additional change that Ill vote to post in the provisional ballot section but I would recommend the committee adopt these rules and then we’ll post the additional change as a new rule. I’ll go through the changes on chapter 12 and additional one that Mr. Whirley suggested at the last meeting I would recommend that we handle these first and then handle that proposal separately.

• SOS
  • On the board have a question for Mr. Germany on tabs 2 and 3, any further discussion, hearing none do we have a motion rules on rules 183-1-6.02 (6) to 183-1-12-.20 as is presented by Mr. chairman.
  • Motion to adopt as presented
    • All in favor—no opposition
• Germany
  • Tab four is a change that Mr. Worley suggested to rule 183-1- 12 – .12 I’m happy to speak to it so early you can speak to it would you ever.
• Worley
  • I’ll speak to it, this allows information relating to provisional ballots to be photographed by credited call watchers after the results have been tabulated and allows them to photograph the provisional ballot recap sheet, the numbered list of provisional voters and the form, a related form. What’s this at the last meeting and put it out for, especially at the last working rules meeting and if she was raised as to whether posting the list of provisional voters might conflict with provisions set in HAVA and in state statutes relating to keeping some information related to provisional ballots only accessible to the voters who voted for the provisional ballot. We spent time this week looking over HAVA and the relevant statues which set up free access…..to make sure their ballots are counted. Satisfied that there aren’t any requirements from harbor or Georgia state laws that prevents the numbered list of provisional voters from being photograph because the only thing that that contains is the name of the voter. So I think this proposed rule is consistent with state law and HAVA and has the advantage of allowing poll watchers to just take a picture of the names of those voters who voted provisional ballots so that those persons can be assisted right away in the three days after the election when they had the opportunity to cure the provisional ballot without having to wait for an open records request. I think it’s a benefit and we should go ahead and pass it
• Mashburn
  • I strongly support the first sentence of this rule that credited Pool watchers must be able to observe the entire process described in this rule, and I am strongly opposed to the second sentence of this rule in the November 2000 there was a big controversy about poll watchers having cameras and just poll watcher having a camera especially is inappropriate behavior, despicable, and even un-American. So for 19 years we have been training poll watchers that they are not allowed to have cameras anywhere in their possession and I’m afraid that first of all the people we’ve been telling for 19 years that they’re going to be accused of civil rights violations if they have a camera in their possession are going to be very angry that all of a sudden it’s now a rule that’s different because one side Cesar helpful for their cause. So the against and the second thing I’ve been a poll watcher for years I was a statewide poll watcher I’ve watched hundreds and thousands of people vote I’ve been a tabulation the watcher and I watched millions votes be counted. In one of the polls I was in, a fellow was standing at the voting machine with his phone and he was asking the person on the other end of the line how he should vote and that causes problems. So I think that a zero tolerance policy for cameras and phones has been trained very well and people are following now so I’m afraid if we open the doors we’re going to have ballot selfie being taken we’re going to have it’s just going to get out of control and your poll manager is overwhelmed dealing with phones so I strongly oppose any photography at a pool location whether you’re voting or pull officer county so I’ll vote against the rule with the second sentence in, but ill strongly support the first one.
• Germany
  • OK I would just add that the first sentence is included in the rules that was just adopted so it saidin the same section credited pool watchers are allowed to observe the process described the rule however they must do so in a manner that does not interfere with poor efficiency.
• Worley
  • If I could just respond to some of the points that Mr. Nash Berg raised the rule as we have written it makes it absolutely clear that the photograph should be taken only after the tabulation of results on election day have been completed so not only after the votes have been closed but after the votes have been counted. So I don’t see any problem with that we pass the rule last meeting when Mr. was not on the meeting board and I don’t see any reason why we can’t pass the rule today.
• Le
  • Concerns me is names of provisional voters made pretty much immediately almost to persons of the new voter my one big concern where some groups need to be protected but we have legislation that protects domestic violence victims on our shoulder, theyre information cannot be disclosed and things like that. So, because this is made immediately where is open records where every case can be looked at, I am not going to support this rule.
• Worley
  • Well if I could just reply to that, this is information that’s public information that anyone can get and its required by statue to be made available, the question is when we make it available. So to make it immediately so that those people cast het prov ballot can be helped, or do you make tit three days later under open records request when it’s to late for that person to cure what was wrong with their provisional ballot. So, if you really wanna help people use the provisional ballot system, you really need to make the list available. The list is available to everybody it’s available to the Democratic Party poll watchers it’s available to the Republican party pool watchers and truthfully, it’s not only the Democrats who vote provisional ballot. There are Republicans that vote provisional ballots and they are to have the opportunity to participate also so I’m gonna again move that we pass the rule.

• Germany
  • I would just make one technical point, or office at least, has always treated that information is not public based on a different understanding of HAVA and state government requirement about privacy from what Mr. Whirley stated. I think he makes a reasonable argument I think the other argument is reasonable. So just to state that for instance when we have an open record request for those documents that we redact the names of the voters, so Im not sure that its correct that they’re always public.
• SOS
  • We have a motion before us do we hear a second,
  • Motion failed for lack of second

• Germany
  • Tab six is the change we posted last meeting 183-1-13-.01, election day equipment allocation, this is rule that would allow county elected officials to subtract the number of people who voted early in allocating their machines in particular with one voting machine per 250 collectors requirement. We had some discussion about this in the rules working committee as we reviewed comments Mr. Cortez from Brunei center, those were helpful. And we discussed that there really needs to be a statutory fix to this while we do need to make sure there’s an adequate amount of voting booths and voting machines in each precinct. I saw some commenters correctly point out earlier today that the voting system does have a different footprint. I think it will require some changes to voting places as we move and I think it would require more voting places. We have been working on a legislative fix that will keep the 1 to 250 requirement in place for November general elections and frankly for those elections I think that we should not subtract any voters because they are the elections where we have the most election day turnout and we have the heaviest early voting turnout. So the legislative fix that we’re proposing is you keep the 1 to 250 requirement for November general elections but allow flexibility for other elections, recognizing the fact that not every election is the same. The number of people coming into vote on election day in particular including early voting and absentee is vastly different in November general election then what’s happening in district 13 election on Tuesday. I think the county perspective of this is that if she has to put out the same number of machines for each election without allowing her to take into account the realities of the election she thinks would lead to problems and I agree things like equipment allocation when should be focusing on other things. One commenter specifically pointed out is that lines are always caused by number of voting machines there’s a lot of other things that can cause a line, particularly the check in process the ballot scanner process the provisional voters all things like that. This statute does require that 250 numbers stay in general and allows flexibility in others. So basically let you guys know what we’re trying to accomplish in the General assembly and also as Mr. Worley pointed out in the last meeting we don’t know what lawmakers are going to do so given that happens one thing we could do is adopt this rule for now and if that decision passes we can likely repeal this rule. That would give the counties the flexibility for the large election and the legislation would allow them to kind of staff up and do what the adjustments they need to make to prepare for the November election. If the statute does not pass, then under the provision we would have to revisit this after the session. One more thing the Attorney General’s office made a good proposed change to this rule that I think we should adopt and the problem is of course we would have to repost it to adopt that. That change is the rule that now says the term electors shall mean those electors on the official list who have a vote. Another change points out that electors have already defined, let’s not re-define it, let’s just say when calculating the number of voting booths/enclosures the calculations may take into account the electors who have voted as of election day. Think if we do want to have an effect on the PPP we would need to adopt this rule we could vote to post the attorney general’s office change and I’ll submit later and then we can meet again after the legislative session.
• SOS
  • So we would vote on this today, the attorney general’s wording is not here for us and well post that change..?
• Germany
  • Well post that change and well consider it and depending on what happens with legislation we might have to repeal or take no action.
• SOS
  • Any further discussion
  • So to make sure I’m clear, the recommendation of councils office is that this rule  pass this today as others
• Germany
  • Well if we want to provide the counties with any flexibility in the upcoming election in regards to equipment allocation and as some of the commenters have pointed out there are issues for them thinking that number is state law…Traditionally PPP doesn’t have very heavy early, its not like November so this gives some flexibility but not significant affect on actual requirement
• SOS
  • Move to adopt
    • Sullivan seconds …
• Mr. Worley
  • Im gonna vote against this proposed rule, I did support it and vote to publish it, but now I understand we can vote to publish a rule and vote against it. The reason but I’m going to vote against it I found missed 2/4 comments persuasive on this issue. Also particularly among the comments that were received on this rule was detailed analysis from the Brennan center setting out in great detail how does rule had applied to a number of precincts based on the 2018 voting where we saw a very long lines waiting in a many precincts, and I found that analysis to be very persuasive so I am not going to vote in favor of this rule.
  • All in favor
    • Four nos.. denied
• Germany
  • Next rule is Tab six similar to other, but regarding assistive technology devices at each precinct. I don’t think we can have that available for March but we can have it available for May. We’ll be searching for devices and cost so, I think that’s a much better solution long-term the question though is what are we gonna do for March. This could be a banded potentially like the last rule, for the March election but I would recommend if the courts wants to put that Band-Aid on and adopt it; I think we should repeal it once we provide all the devices at each precinct.
• SOS
  • If it’s Band-Aid what do we do for PPP that makes sense in giving some assistance given what heard today, there has to be some device. If it’s audio that needs to be heard voters vote needs to be protected and not affect around. Could we add in there we are voting today and a man today since we are doing for others at least for this round….
• Germany
  • Unfortunately cant, there is not time. Envisioned device with headphones…
• SOS
•  We heard some very valuable comments that are grateful for that and reach out to the community to find a solution that works. Do we have a motion to adopt us?
• Motion …seconds
  • Adopted rule no opposition
• Germany
  • Tab 7 in your binder is changes we proposed in chapter 14 Richard things one advance voting we make changes here to the rules we adopted last time based on comments we received. One thing we do is clarify what was made to sound like municipalities cannot continue to have dissolve paper elections like we do, not intent can do that. Similar changes as chapter 12…. Also puts in similar changes when problem while voters voting and election day instructions to review paper ballots. Other change deals with Prompt Notification of Absentee Ballot Rejection what this does is it leaves and plays the requirement that counties have to notify elector of rejection of absentee ballot within three days and particularly bye-bye telephone or email, with this change does is basically the Friday before the election forward you have a 24 hour turnaround on getting absentee ballots the rejection notice is out. What this rule does is that it moves that 24 hours means the next business day,esentially less than 24 hours. So we extnd time that it’s required, ….. We basically extend that time by a week where counties have to give out notice within the final business day after they reject the ballot… I recommend we adopt both these changes and will  say that i will be presenting an amendment to this that right now so that county has to notify elector by telephone and email if the telephone number is on voter election or registration and we’re gonna add absentee ballot application.

• SOS
  • We have motion…
    • Approved no opposition
• Germany
  • The next rule is — recount procedure … the rule that we published that by far has the most comments.. I think it has been adequately explained What this rule does it does say that contrary with what you say happened with DREs the recount will be consist of scanning and rescanning of all ballots, you can use central scanner or toher scanner if that’s not available. I’m going to vote that we adopt his rule and then I’m gonna recommend we publish some amendments to it that speak to some of the comments that we’ve received. One, that test that you do before the recount is of actual ballads voted in the election from three different precincts and that would be including absentee ballots as well. So that’s an even better test than Plus we do before election which shows that machines work as they should, this test actually shows the actual ballots that are about to be re-counted which of course is an allowed in real election but in recounts they are. We also while we keep the concept of rescanning allow for rules and procedures for what if no scanners work and emergency type scenarios what would it do to have to do a hand recount.
• Worley
  • Why do we need ot pass rules that we adopted last time when we have entire rule, which is your amendment that we could pass from gecko..
• Germany
  • Taking into account that I think it’s unlikely but it’s possible that there will be a recount in March
• SOS
  • Motion that rule be adopted as published –>Adopted no opposition

 

Presentation & Consideration of SEB Proposed Rule

• Germany
  • The first world that I would like to publish is a change to the provisional ballot rule pointed out to us by some counties that the current rule requires a provisional ballot station, the polling place shall require an electronic poll book that includes a master list of registered voters. Included change was to make it mandatory to have a list of registered voters which has been for a long time but that list is not in the provisional ballot station but the regular check-in station, so all we’re doing is striking at the provisional ballot station leaving the requirement that the polling place shell have an electric mobile that has master list. The change to 183-12-18
  • Motion proposed rule be posted
    • Adopted in favor
• Germany
  • Next rule is proposed amendment to rule 193-14-13-.13, prompt notification of absentee ballot, only thing adding is that county has to give email or telephone notice if on voters registration record or their absentee ballot application.
  • Motion proposed rule be posted
    • Adopted in favor
  • Next rule is on rule 183-16-15-102 this room was kind of changed around after comments today and point of what we’re trying to accomplish is to make it absolutely clear that in the event of a discrepancy, the printed text on the ballot controls. Want to make clear that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with counties should in tabulating ballots using electronica scanners which reads a QR code in the case that ballots marked by electronic codes or reads coordinates in case of ballots marked by hand. This does two things: it adds a section where it says… if there is a discrepancy between the tabulated result and the result on the ballot, then voters mark on ballot shall control. Nothing here be deemed to disallow the use of electronic ballot tabulation to …
  • To clarify, in reviewing the vote cast on the optical scan marked ballot by electronic ballot marker shall be choice indicated by printed ballot and tabulated, the text controls..
• Worley
  • There’s a difference in section H in section J, section J… im all for that, but section H says that a vote cast on an optical scanned ballot marked by a ballot marker shall be choice indicated by printer paper ballot. Printer paper ballot includes QR code, wouldn’t it be better to say a vote cast on optically scanned ballot marked by ballot marker shall be choice indicated by printed text on ballot, while make it consistent with section J.
• Germany
  • Obviously that would require hand count, which would be less accurate and much more time consuming way to calculate results. When the scanner tabulates an absentee ballot marked by hand, it’s not reading the votes, it’s simply reading coordinates…so QR code reads coordinates… exact same program, certainly no reason to not allow for electronic tabulation….
  • Move be posted as presented  whorley opposes

• Germany
  • The next rule is 183 -1-19-.03 for recount procedures to changes made to this rule with one clarifying how the test ac…recount by manual hand count …who elects the manual counts and specifics to how process works
  • Move that rules be posted for public comment
    • Motion carries no opposition