 Good afternoon. Good afternoon. I'm Jenna Bednar, professor of public policy and political science at the University of Michigan and the EDN Goldenberg Endowed Director for the Michigan and Washington program. On behalf of Dean Michael Barr, who is watching here with us today and the faculty and students of the Ford School, it is a great pleasure to welcome all of you to this policy talks at the Ford School event with Secretaries of State Jocelyn Benson of Michigan and Frank LaRose of Ohio. I'll be talking with Secretary Benson and Secretary LaRose today about a timely and critical topic ongoing election preparations in Ohio and Michigan. This event is part of the Conversations Across Different series at the Ford School where we try to highlight for our students and our community the kinds of discourse necessary for creating constructive policy across various spheres of difference. I would also like to thank the Center for Local, State and Urban Policy for cosponsoring this event today and for our partnership with Detroit Public Television. Before we dive into the discussion, I'd like to very briefly introduce Secretary Benson and LaRose. So Jocelyn Benson is Michigan's 43rd Secretary of State. She's the author of State Secretaries of State, Guardians of the Democratic Process, the first major book on the role of the Secretary of State in enforcing election and campaign finance laws. Prior to being elected Secretary of State in 2018, Benson was Dean of Wayne State University Law School and Associate Director of the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights. Frank LaRose is Ohio's 51st Secretary of State. Prior to being elected also in 2018, he served two terms in the Ohio State Senate. He's also a decorated combat veteran and a former U.S. Army Special Forces Green Beret. He earned a bronze star for his service in Iraq. And finally, a couple of quick notes about the format. So unfortunately, for family reasons, Secretary Benson and Frank LaRose will need to leave today at 345. So we're going to close the discussion a bit early. Rather than waiting until the end to take audience questions, I'm going to try to weave them in throughout the discussion. So we've got a couple of questions in advance, but you can also submit your questions in the live chat if you're watching on YouTube, or you can tweet your questions to hashtag policy talks. There's a great team working backstage keeping an eye on your questions for me. So welcome, Secretary Benson and Secretary LaRose. Thank you so much for being here today for this important conversation. Good to be here. Thanks for having us. Glad to be a part of it. The election's underway. We can no longer talk about election day, but instead it's an election season, and we're in the midst of it. Everywhere I turn, I hear so much worry. People are worried about the outcome, of course, but also about the process. They worry that their mailed ballots will be lost or arrive too late, or if they're voting in person that they'll catch COVID, or that the lines will be too long, or most frighteningly that people bearing arms near the polling places will scare away those who try to vote in person. So I'd like to begin by talking about some of these worries and how you're managing them. You both have already run an election during COVID, and that experience with the primary has no doubt informed what you're doing now. So let's first talk about mailed ballots. Given that processing mailed ballots takes time, I've heard from many that they fear a reprise of Bush v. Gore. That is, the delay in declaring a victor in the presidential election will call into question the legitimacy of the election. Do you have an estimate of how long it will take to count the ballots and be able to certify election results? And do you have the time and the resources that you need? And Secretary Benson, you've been vocal about talking about the time and what you need, so maybe you could start first. Sure. And thanks again for having us and hosting this important conversation. This very topic is something that Secretary LaRose and I have talked about often, as his state's in a very different place. They've had vote by mail, expanded vote by mail for many cycles, many years. And as a result, they've really expanded and allotted a lot of time for clerks to process ballots. I'll let him go through that. But in the beginning of this year, as we work to plan for, and this is actually our fourth election here in Michigan that we've had this year, this November, it will be our fourth. And you're right, we have honed our process and piloted different things throughout. And to answer your other question, yes, we very much are ready for November. We are prepared. We have doubled, in some cases, tripled machines for high-speed tabulators and envelope openers. We have recruited close to 30,000 new election workers far in excess of what we need to accomplish our goals for election day. So I'm very optimistic. And I think it's important that even in this time of great uncertainty where people are anxious and fearful about so many things that we let them know, they don't have to be afraid about whether their vote's going to count. It is. And as we work to tabulate those ballots in Michigan, we can't begin counting absentee ballots until 7 a.m. on election day. We anticipate that 70% of citizens voting this fall will vote earlier absentee, and that means that the vast majority of ballots aren't going to be voted and counted in precincts as we go through the day. They will be tabulated on bulk, in mass, beginning at 7 a.m. on election day itself. That's going to take time. We'll have three to three and a half million ballots to get through across the state. And as we have increased the number of high-speed tabulators and people, and we're trained to process securely those ballots, it's still really not possible for anyone to any state to go through that many ballots securely and methodically and safely in 12 hours. So we're, and we've consistently said you can expect results in Michigan or a full count to be completed by Friday at the latest, hopefully sooner. But in regards to the certification question you asked, we have a two-week certification period, which has always been the case. And at that point at the end of that certification period is when our clerks will finalize and certify the full results. Thank you. All right. So Friday is setting expectations Friday and with certification two weeks later. Secretary LaRose. So in Ohio, we've had absentee voting for close to 20 years. It's been embraced by both Republicans and Democrats and for good cause. It's a convenient and secure way to cast a ballot. We also know that we're going to see a higher volume this year than we've ever seen. In fact, I just reported recently that we've already had 2.1 million absentee ballot requests. I know Jocelyn is smiling because Michigan is currently beating us on this, but we're going to over send you. But we've had 2.1 million absentee ballot requests and that's a good number. When, if you look at past years, we would normally be right around a million at this point the second week in October. We're all over already over 2 million and have doubled that number. And so what that tells us is that Ohioans want to vote this way and they trust it. Our boards of elections are also ready to handle high volumes of absentee voting. Even in a routine election, we see 20 or 25% of our ballots come in by mail. And so the boards of elections are equipped for that. And you know what? There are some times that errors get made. We're dealing with an issue right now here in the Columbus area where an unacceptable mistake was made by the county board of elections and there was a number of voters that received the wrong ballot. They're in the process of remedying that now and sending replacement ballots to the voters that received the wrong ones. Those kinds of things can happen, but certainly that should not decrease the trust that people have in this process because it really is a good way to cast your ballot. And we know that millions of Ohioans are going to vote this way. Now, as it relates to election night reporting, this is just an opportunity for a civics lesson in many ways. I get the question a lot. Will we have final results on election night? And the honest answer is we never have final results on election night in any election. It's just not the way that elections work. On election night, we report the unofficial results. And that's normally in the past been conclusive enough that people can look at those unofficial results and make a prediction about what the final tabulation is going to be, but it's never the final story. And one of the reasons is because in Ohio, our absentee ballots can continue arriving at boards of elections for 10 days. As long as it's postmarked by Monday, November 2nd, the board of elections can receive it up to 10 days later. And it will count as part of that official tally of ballots that we certify just about three weeks after the election here in Ohio. Now, here's something that we're doing in order to be fully transparent on this. This is something that I think other states should look at as well. And this is making sure that people are armed with the full set of data on election night. And that could go, by the way, into Wednesday morning for us. We're able to process absentee ballots as soon as they come in. And so that means today, as we speak, boards of elections are receiving absentee ballots. They're proofing the identification information, making sure that name and address and date of birth and all of that all match up. Make sure that the last four of the social security number or other identification number matches check the signature against the signature on file. So all of these things are done in real time here in Ohio. So that on election night, at 7.30, we hit the tabulate button, if you will, once the polls close. And in every one of our 88 counties, almost invariably the first ballots counted are those absentee ballots because they're in already. So on election night, we're going to report all the absentee ballots that have come in so far, all the election day votes that have come in so far, as well as the early votes. We have a whole month of early voting in Ohio. And that will be an unofficial number. But here's the other thing that we're going to report. We're going to report the number of outstanding absentee ballots. It's a knowable number. It's a number that our boards of elections have always tracked, but it's never been publicly reported simply the boards keep meticulous tally of how many ballots go out and from whom and how many ballots come back. The delta there, the difference is the number of outstanding absentee ballots. So that's going to be highlighted right at the top of our election night reporting website. And here's why that matters. Imagine a hypothetical where your favorite candidate on election night when we report those unofficial results is the head by a million votes. And there are 200,000 outstanding absentee ballots. In that hypothetical, you can say, well, that's a conclusive result. We know who's going to win that one. But on the flip side, if your favorite candidate's a head by only 100,000 votes and there are yet 200,000 outstanding absentee ballots, then simply as a matter of mathematics, you can't call that race yet. And it would be ridiculous to declare victory in a race where there are still 200,000 outstanding absentee ballots and your margin that you lead by is only 100,000. So we're trying to empower people to be well informed as it relates to the way election night reporting happens in Ohio. And by the way, that's the case in I think every state. No state will report final results on election night. That's just not the way elections administration works. Yeah. That is very interesting. Secretary Benson, is Michigan in a position to be able to report the numbers of mailed in ballots that have yet to be counted? We have been doing that. And again, a lot of what Frank and I are doing is very similar. And you can go to michigan.gov.slash vote and see the number of people who've already requested ballots, who've already returned ballots, and amazingly, over 800,000 Michigan citizens have already voted in this poll, which is extraordinary. And extraordinary numbers that are growing every day. We expect to cross a million early next week. So that's very exciting. And it really underscores the incredible amount of enthusiasm that voters have for the election this year. Yeah, absolutely. All right. So there's so much focus on voting by mail. And at times, even worry about the capacity of the post office that perhaps we haven't paid sufficient attention to in-person voting in a pandemic. And as one political scientist put it, in some of our minds, the nightmare scenario isn't about voting by mail. It's a meltdown at the polling places. So are we ready for in-person voting during this pandemic? And what has your team done about the concerns that we've been hearing either about COVID contagion or long voting lines or about voter intimidation? So in Michigan, we do have options to vote this year. And of course, you can vote early by mail. You can vote in-person early at your local clerk's office between now and election, the day before election day. And then you can vote at the precincts, at your local precinct on election day itself. And one of the benefits of now this being the fourth election that we've run this year in the midst of the pandemic is that we've been able to, in each one, really improve upon and perfect the in-person voting option to ensure everyone's health, safety, and security. Number one, all election workers have PPE, masks, gloves, and sneeze guards. And polling places are set up with social distancing guidelines intact to ensure that no one's health is at risk and that our CDC guidelines are followed in every precinct. And that is not unique to Michigan. I know Frank's doing the same thing in Ohio. Paul Payton, Iowa. And in fact, Anheuser-Busch has just delivered gallons of hand sanitizer to every Secretary of State today to help with that. So we've got the sanitation and health of our precincts intact. The second thing and the reason why I mentioned all of those options is because we're on track to have more citizens vote in Michigan's election this November than ever before in any election in our state's history. By the way, Frank, we're going to win our bet. We'll get to that in a minute. And so because of that, the question is, well, how do you run a remarkably high turnout election in the midst of a pandemic? Well, you do that by spreading the vote. And of course, everyone knows their options. They can choose the one that's best for them. But when we have record numbers of people voting absentee in Michigan, record numbers of people voting early, we're expecting about a third of turnout will be in person at your local precinct on election day. That means, and again, we've tested this already over our three elections this year, minimal crowding, minimal lines, if any at all. In fact, we have not had any lines at precincts this year because we've been able to ensure people can take advantage of all these other options as well. And only a voting person on election day, if that's the option they choose, and about a third of the voters typically choose that, although notably in our May elections, only 1% of voters chose to vote in person on election day. So we're ready. Again, we built the infrastructure for that. And finally, the third question you mentioned was about safety and protecting the safety of our election workers. I'm fortunate enough to have a really tremendous Attorney General here in Michigan, and we're working, we're basically joined at the hip for the next week and weeks ahead as we work to develop safety protocols and working with local law enforcement as well. We have to strike a number of balances there. We have to ensure transparency of our precincts and polling places because we want people to have faith in the process and be able to observe, as poll watchers always have, but observe from a designated spot in the precinct, not removed from it, not talking to voters, wearing masks, and also abiding by the health protocols we've put in place. And on top of that, drawing a very direct line between observation and disruption. And if anyone crosses that line and becomes disruptive, they will be held accountable and removed. And, you know, we can go into more details, but that's the basic essence of it. And no voter should fear their health or safety if they do choose to vote in person on Election Day in Michigan. A couple things on this. We've been really working to encourage absentee and early voting specifically to help make sure that we don't have lines or crowding on Election Day. And so that was a clear objective from the beginning. That's why we're so excited to see the record-breaking numbers that we have of absentee votes right now. We sent out this envelope just a couple weeks ago, which is an absentee ballot request form to every registered voter in the state. And I've been really happy to see a large and enthusiastic turnout this week. In fact, I'm predicting that we're going to break the record for early voting in the first week of voting this week as well. And in some cases, we have seen lines on the first day and second day of early voting. But really, that's not because there need to be, it's because there's enthusiasm. People have 27 other days that they could go and do early voting, but people are enthusiastic to get out and vote. So first of all, we're really happy to see high numbers of absentee and early votes. And again, what that helps facilitate is to make sure that we can have that smooth experience on Election Day. In Ohio, we operate close to 4,000 polling locations. They have to be staffed by 37,000 Election Day volunteers. And so one of our main thrusts has been recruiting not only those 37,000 that it takes to open the polls, but an additional number. We've actually been aiming for 55,000 poll workers and we just went over 50,000. So we're gonna get there and that makes sure that we have that reserve force trained and ready to go in case we need to call them in on Tuesday, November 3rd, in case there are folks that don't come to work, for example. As it relates to the health scenario, we've been very clear and I've been very clear, if you feel comfortable going to the grocery store, you should feel comfortable coming to your polling location. And that's because we've instituted a 61 point checklist. And maybe this is my military background, but I'm a big fan of checklists. I like to take a complex set of tasks and put it into a sort of well-organized checklist. And this 61 point checklist, which you can find on our website, votohio.gov, was developed with the CDC and with the Ohio Department of Health and in coordination with our local elections officials all throughout the state. And what it lays out are the standards that we have to protect public safety. And it's the things that you would expect. It's masks, it's shields, it's having one door in and a different door out. It's maintaining social distancing by separating the machines by at least six feet. It's wiping down commonly touched surfaces. It's all of those things. But also making sure that we've surged the supplies to our boards of elections that they need. That started with the $12 million in federal CARES Act money that we got, which I pushed out the door, almost the entirety of that money out to our local elections officials so that they could use it to hire extra staff, buy extra mail handling equipment, and also purchase personal protective equipment. But as Secretary Benson mentioned, we've also seen a lot of great patriotic companies that have stepped up with donations. We had a mask manufacturer here in Ohio that donated close to a half million masks. And just like in Michigan and Ohio, we've had Anheuser-Busch donate 3,000 gallons of hand sanitizer, as well as many other folks that are donating supplies like that. And so as far as the health scenario at our polling locations, we're going to be ready here in Ohio to make sure that it is a healthy environment for both poll workers and elections officials. Finally, on the security environment, just like Michigan does, Ohio allows credentialed elections observers. Those are individuals that are in Ohio nominated by their party or by their candidate. They are credentialed. They're not allowed to carry firearms. They're not allowed to wear uniforms or any other kind of paraphernalia that identifies a particular party or candidate. And they're very strictly governed in Ohio as far as what they're allowed to do. They're basically allowed to be a fly on the wall and to observe the things that are going on in that polling location. If they see something they don't like, they can step out and call the board of elections. They can bring it to the attention of the person in charge of the polling location or they can call the legal counsel for their campaign or party. But under no circumstances can they interfere with the voting process or with the poll workers and the work they're doing. Additionally, in Ohio, we established a 100 foot boundary around each polling location, which is a buffer zone. No campaigning can be conducted within that 100 foot boundary. Of course, the First Amendment is in full effect just outside of that. People can wave signs and pass out flyers and express support for their favorite candidate. But what they're not allowed to do in any capacity is intimidate voters or obstruct voters or impede voters. And the law is very clear on this in Ohio. That's why I had a conference call this week with the county sheriffs all throughout the state of Ohio. And I sent them a memo clearly laying out our expectations for what local law enforcement will be doing to enforce the law in Ohio. There will be no tolerance for intimidation or any kind of impeding of the elections process by anybody outside of a polling location or inside to that matter. I think that that will hearing that will reassure people because it's just become quite real here in Michigan for us yesterday's news. And so I think people will be happy to hear that both of you are on top of it and thinking about the concerns that they might have about voter intimidation on the outside of polling. I should mention, and this has been on my mind ever since I read this and I know for Jocelyn as well because she's obviously very close with the governor, I am absolutely appalled by what we've all come to learn and political violence is never, ever acceptable. That kind of thing, thank God, law enforcement did what they're supposed to do and has unwound the conspiracy and apprehended the bad guys because the safety of our public officials should absolutely never be in jeopardy in that way. Thank you. All right, you know, Secretary LaBrose, we brought up the word earlier trust. I'd like to turn to that and think a little bit more about trust in these elections and because we've heard some concerns about the legitimacy of the voting process and these concerns boiled down to two types. On the one hand, there's worry that those who should not be allowed to vote will try to vote. And on the other hand, there's concerns that those who ought to be allowed to vote will not be able to, along the lines of what we've just been talking about, whether it's because of suppression or fear. What problem most concerns you and what are you doing to prevent it? Go ahead, Secretary Benson. Yeah, I mean, I think we both always say we want to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat, which really captures we think and I think it's possible to address both of those things and in fact, that's what election administration requires. You work every day to make the process accessible and secure and you put security protocols in place to protect the system against any who would seek to undermine the will of the voters. And that is what our work is every day as election officials as secretaries of state. And I feel, in my view, I'll say this to take a step back. I started this work now I'm ending my second year as Secretary of State in preparation for November's elections over multiple elections. We had three in 2019 and we've had three already this year we're about to have our fourth in November. In each one, we really build a process along three vectors. Number one, the infrastructure itself, making sure we've got enough machines, enough ballots, enough poll workers, essentially that we've built the election infrastructure, the voter file is secure to ensure it's accessible. We have options to vote in Michigan that I've mentioned. You can vote from home. You can vote at your clerk's office early. You can vote in person on election day making sure each of those options are known by all voters. It's why I sent an application to vote by mail to every voter in the state of Michigan, which I believe Frank has done as well. And also I've followed his lead by putting vote by mail applications in every Kroger throughout the state. That was something that I was able to do really because Frank did that in Ohio with Kroger's there. We were able to just import that idea here and Kroger was easily able to adjust and expand. So my point is, I've worked to educate voters and build a system that works and then the second vector is voter education, making sure voters know about all these options. And the success of those two first vectors really depends on the third which is misinformation. And will voters actually know about the system or the election security aspect of undermining the infrastructure that we've built. So with that in mind, I'm proud that we built an infrastructure to ensure that every vote cast will be counted securely, that will catch fraud if it happens and it happens rarely. But when it does, we catch it and we prosecute it. And that we built a system that voters can get information about through both michigan.gov slash vote, which communicates all your voting options and michigan.gov slash election security, which communicates all the security protocols and things we're doing to protect the integrity of the system. But that third vector, the one with misinformation and false information and really any information that is inaccurate and designed to sow seeds of doubt amongst our voters about the truth and integrity of our elections process, that's the vector that's the hardest and really where I'm focused right now on so that we can ensure come election day, voters not only have an infrastructure that works and are educated on how to vote, but also that they are confident that their vote will count based on their knowledge of accurate information that has been given to them and provided to them in light of the inaccurate or misinformation that others may try to infiltrate into the system. I just want to build on what Secretary Benson said because she's right that elections are very well run in states like Michigan and Ohio, the infrastructure, the security, the people involved, the very bipartisan oversight of elections administration that occurs, the fact that we've put into place great cybersecurity protocols I know in Michigan and also in Ohio that's been a big focus and so it's a matter of again making sure that people have that accurate information and know that they can trust elections and again this is to me something that's really fundamental to our way of life I mean the idea that the only legitimacy that any elected official has comes from the consent of the governed is a well accepted principle if you don't have the consent of the governed you're just a person with flags and a seal you have no legitimacy or power to actually govern the only way that we really establish that legitimacy that consent of the governed is through a free and fair election that everybody knows can be trustworthy and honest and so that's where that combating disinformation is so important and here's where it doesn't just come from foreign disinformation that is a very troubling thing that we work to combat it is real and it's something that we take very seriously in Ohio foreign disinformation is ugly and it won't be tolerated but it also comes from partisans on both sides that want to as I say push the hyperbole button over and over again because it excites people it elicits a response it makes people want to come to a rally or push the button on the website to donate money or whatever the thing is and that's I guess good news that we're still really emotional about voting rights we still really care deeply about this but politicians do a disservice when they constantly push that hyperbole button when folks on the right claim that there's widespread rampant voter fraud it's not true and they shouldn't say that likewise when people on the left claim that it's hard to vote because there's widespread rampant voter suppression I would also submit that that's not true and people shouldn't say that let's be honest neither of those are ever tolerable you can't tolerate fraud in any form and you can't tolerate suppression in any form and you should put smart policies in place and carry out the laws of your state to prevent either of those ugly things from ever happening but here's the net result when politicians over here say there's all this fraud so you can't trust the result and when politicians over here say there's all this suppression so it's hard to vote when neither one is true the net result is it makes the average person say why the heck would I want to participate in a system like that I'm going to set it out that's what really bothers me and that's why I want to make sure that we're getting accurate information out there pushing back on disinformation and being that trusted source for our state along with our local elections officials to make sure people know your vote really will count it really is easy to vote in our state and you should participate well thank you I mean you know as a social scientist we think of these in terms of type one versus type two errors that is to make an analogy to criminal law in the one case the standards of evidence are too lax you convict the innocent in the other case the standards are too strict you let the guilty go free that is we see it as two sides of the same coin and I know that we want we want both but we see this trade off when you focus on one you make a sacrifice in the other so how are you working to ensure that the measures that you put in place don't inadvertently exacerbate the other problem and maybe Frank sorry excuse me Secretary LaRose I'm sorry if I might put this question to you that came through you know something that's been in the news this week about your office's decision to have a single ballot drop box location one of our audience members says well how does that make sense when you have Cuyahoga County with almost a million registered voters and Benton County which has about 8,000 registered voters is there some equal protection issue here and so is it this trade off that is in your mind as you're making that decision well first of all it's the the basic idea that you can be for a public policy and also for rule of law right so I've long said that we should work with the state legislature to expand the use of drop boxes in Ohio but those kind of decisions should be made at the state house not the courthouse right and there's also a principle that goes back to a case in 2006 called the Purcell case that you just shouldn't be making last minute changes as it relates to elections that kind of thing sows uncertainty it actually can create a pretext for future lawsuits that are meant to sort of after the election call in to question the results of the election so what the law says in Ohio and what I've been very clear about is that absentee ballots are returned in one of three ways the vast majority of voters return them by mail that was the case in 2012 we ran a fair election in 2012 that was the case in 2008 we ran a fair election then 2016 and so the vast majority of voters return their absentee ballots by mail and that's the the main way of doing it but in Ohio the law says that you may also personally deliver it to the director of the board of elections and then the law also says you may have a family member personally deliver it to the director of the board of elections and those who drafted that legislation from long ago it actually ends with the words ballots may be transmitted through no other means they actually restated it at the end of that code section and so for me to just sort of say hey let's put them everywhere and see how it goes would be deeply irresponsible and by the way a last minute change in the way that we administer elections we've already started early voting here in the state of Ohio for four days now as you can see by the countdown clock behind me 24 days and 15 hours until election day comes the time for making those kind of changes has passed and here's where it's a little bit disingenuous by some of those litigants where were you six months ago when we could have actually worked in the state legislature to get something done instead of filing an 11th hour lawsuit why not let's work to get some actual changes made in the legislature and I've already talked with our senate president and our house speaker about doing just that next year I appreciate that and thank you very much for addressing it I have a couple of very quick questions I'm so sorry that we're running out of time because I feel like so here's a quick one for you both why is the secretary state a partisan position you both have professional backgrounds that are very non-partisan right I secretary Benson you were dean of a law school secretary Larose you're a decorated veteran right non-partisan why is this position partisan and would the electoral process be better served if the elections to secretary state were run with absent party affiliation well interestingly and I think this is a really important question and you also have this question of how do we choose our secretaries of state should they be appointed by the governor should it be a board of elections like you have in Wisconsin an appointed governor's position like in Florida and Pennsylvania or elected position like you have in Michigan and Ohio and what I actually wrote about this issue in my book and this gets professor back to your your previous point about you know can you have both a yeah can you both make it easier to vote and harder to cheat I actually define non-partisan election administration which I think can be pursued by an elected Democrat or Republican secretary of state through that vector that every time you do something to expand access to the vote you are correspondingly also doing something at the same time to increase the security of the process and that is you know it's a it's a good public policy move and you make data driven decisions in that vein but when you look at secretaries of state and try to evaluate those who who seek to have a non-partisan approach to this office as as as we have it's secretaries who strike that balance as many of our colleagues have worked to do and then also make data driven decisions and steer clear of partisan agendas and and and you know political approaches to things it's not easy to survive in a political ecosystem where we do have to get elected through a partisan process when you're simply just trying to do your jobs as a professional but I found you know to in my view the person really and if you have the non-partisan background that you just spoke about it's the person who occupies the position that can ultimately define it as non-partisan even if they're elected through a partisan process and that's what I've tried to do I know Secretary LaRose has worked in that end as well I agree with Secretary Benson that it is the person who holds the office not the letter that comes after their name that really matters when we take this oath of office we aren't wearing a red jersey or a blue jersey we effectively put on the referee stripes and I think that really around the country we've got a lot of very good secretaries of state and other chief elections officials even those that are elected very clearly on a partisan ticket who do the job in a very non-partisan way and other few exceptions here and there but it really genuinely is one that most secretaries carry out in a truly right down the middle manner I also think that trying to force this idea that you're going to have a non-partisan person doing it really just requires somebody to conceal their partisanship I mean let's be honest anybody that's going to devote their professional life to this work is probably going to have an affiliation with one of the two major political parties or at least a leaning or a set of ideological beliefs that aligns them with one of the two major political parties so why force people to conceal that just so that we can say this is a non-partisan person you can elect a principled republican or a principled democrat to do this job and to do it well and I think that Jocelyn and I have found a good balance on that in that we've done some work together to make sure that people in our state know that she's a democrat from Michigan and I'm a republican from Ohio you would think that the two of us could never agree on anything based on that but we actually have a great partnership on the fact that the work that we do is not about partisanship in any way and the commitment that we've both made to not endorse candidates for example not to speak at rallies that kind of thing I think that's important in that regard as well that transparency makes a lot of sense I want to take the last minute that we have available to give Secretary Benson an opportunity just to give us the quick minute on what's happening with the Independent Districting Commission my heart yeah I mean gosh go to michiganredistricting.org to find out everything that's happening but essentially we are you know deep now in the third phase in the final phase of the process we have through a selection process that was random and went through nearly 10,000 applicants selected 13 commissioners who have now begun the process of educating themselves and building out the commission learning everything they need to do due to once that census down is available next year draw the next generation of districts in our state we can have and come back and you know actually Secretary LaRose can both talk about redistricting in our states as well but I can say I have enormous confidence in this commission and their members because each one of them regardless of their party affiliation is truly just committed to ensuring independent fair districting that's citizen led and we're going to have a transparent process and again I encourage everyone to go to michiganredistricting.org to stay in touch and get a breath of the process because we will need your input they will need your input submitting maps submitting suggestions drawing your community in what district should like to be in and they'll take that data and that voter input and you know draw I believe very fair and competitive maps throughout our state I am very excited to hear about that work I'll go and read I'll send my students there as well and I think probably we're going to need to you both have so much work to do over the next couple of weeks on our behalf which we're so grateful for and maybe after the election at some point we can bring you both back to Ford to talk some more about some of these topics and about your project on restoring civility which I am deeply interested in but anyway thank you both very very much for an engaging an important conversation and to our audience who submitted such interesting questions I'd like to say to you all please stay tuned to our website and social media pages for more information about upcoming virtual events at the Ford School and please be sure to vote thank you everyone awesome thank you bye have a good weekend guys