 Welcome to Montpelier Civic Forum and no there is not town meeting coming up and I can assure you because John Odom our city clerk is sitting next to me, but we're going to talk about elections that are coming up. We're going to talk about August, we're going to talk about November, we're going to talk about voting which is way in the news these days and in this area John really is the authority. So John Odom thank you for coming and visiting us tonight on a July night. My pleasure don't oversell me here I don't want to let you down. What does what's the city clerk do besides elections? You issue a marriage license. Oh marriage licenses, vital records. What are vital records? Birth certificates, death certificates, marriage certificates. We license dogs, we license businesses. You've also got the the room with all the property records. Yep yep that's probably the biggest single thing we do is the you know repository for the official record of property dealings, transfers, mortgages, leans, that kind of thing. Those come in every day and that has to be available. How has COVID affected that? Well quite a bit. When all this first started and everybody shut down, we shut down too. In fact my office was the first one to start shutting down and we would only make ourselves available for title searches for access to those land records by appointment. But even then we managed to limit the number of appointments we had quite a bit because we have a pretty robust online system that enables folks to access that information remotely and occasionally when they would need other information folks at email or phone us so we could get that stuff to them get it scanned to them rather than have people come in. I think there were only a couple times. Well it's a fairly tight room to start with. It is it is tight and in the last few weeks before the general building opened up we started opening up two days a week two people at a time at most in two hour blocks to come in we could they could keep the distance that way we had a whole new traffic flow that kept them out of the middle of the office where some of the folks who work there might be vulnerable could be protected everybody had to have a mask we'd spray everything down afterwards so we're still basically doing that except that now Tuesdays and Thursdays we are allowing for walk-ins with the understanding that if you get there and you're the third researcher you're out of luck you'll have to come back later but rarely have we ever had more than two at a time so it's worked pretty well. Now during the shutdown we would pay our water bill in the back in the drop slot can we pay our water bill in the clerk's office these days? You can walk in there's X's on the floor so don't get closer and it looks like a check cashing place. Yeah yeah so walk-ins again Tuesday and Thursday which is when the general building is open. We're still encouraging people not to you know use the dropbox use the mail most people send them in by mail we have more and more people who have a you know automatically debited from their account so you know we are there for that and we don't see much of that traffic because I think most people have gotten that message and they're using one of these other three ways to get it. What's the recent automation that you guys have done you've been working on it for a few years in terms of automating your system can we pay for dog tags online? Renewals yeah but not new ones just recently tried to launch a an online system for working through business licenses and that kind of fell apart in my lap so we'll try that again next year but other than that that's automated as I say the land record access is pretty much all automated we're finally here in the next week or two we'll have all of the surveys digitized and they should be available remotely that's new you know there's always always something. Is there anything new on the city clerk's side you well you mean other than the land records? Other than the land records is there an area that you've been working on? Well right now it's all elections elections elections especially with the new just the new dynamics everything going on we're in uncharted territory with the August election coming up and it's made for some interesting it's made it very difficult to plan. The August election is actually the reason that you're sitting next to me right now it's been an evolving process explain to us what was the fight at the State House about it just seemed like it seemed like the Liliputians talking about cracking one side of the egg versus the other. Well and thankfully it didn't turn out to be much of a fight at the end anyways. Now what were Governor Scott had aside the legislature had aside could you explain what those two sides were and why they were hanging to those two sides? Well there was actually a lot more agreement than disagreement as I understand there were just a couple big points of disagreement the legislature was largely taking its cues from the recommendations of Secretary of State condos. You know we didn't know where we were going to be in August or November in terms of you know social distancing large gatherings and we didn't have time to sit and feel it out so there was I think universal understanding that we're going to have to be able to do things differently we're gonna have to be able to make changes fairly nimbly. The point of disagreement between the legislature and Secretary of State condos on one side and the governor on the other was that the issue of going to a full mail-in ballot election in November. Okay what is the difference between a mail-in ballot and an absentee ballot? Well absentee is just a word we use less and less these days because the implication is that you have to have a reason to request a mail-in ballot so we usually talk about early ballots now but that word absentee is stuck in people's brains so absentee early ballots so you know we've been doing absentee ballots seemingly forever haven't we? Absolutely they've been it's been a you know each state has different rules for doing it and Vermont is what we would call when I was in my little election administrator geek school there a democracy canon state where we really our default is to give the benefit of the doubt to the voter. You know the idea is we want to make as many people participating in the process as possible so our procedures including early voting tend to be very open very encouraging very easy as opposed to some other states where they may actively encourage discourage that. And that includes when I get my driver's license and registered to vote. Yes and that's also Vermont has done a lot of cool cutting-edge stuff with the election process not only do we have that robust early ballot piece we have automatic voter registration which I think only 11 other states do where you know it used to be when you go in and get your driver's license renewed or you get your first one you can opt in to be registered to vote. Now it's automatic so if you opt if you check in the box you're opting out. So it means we get more people on the rolls but even better than that it means that we in the clerk's offices are constantly getting rolling updates from the DMV when somebody goes and renews their license. So a lot of these address changes they're traditionally hard for us to capture. They come rolling in now somebody goes and gets a new license. How often do I get a new license? I mean it's every couple two to four years depending on how you do it so that bit for a lot of folks I get mine every two years I don't know why I think I'm just feeling too cheap when I go in and I don't want to give them as little money as possible but then every couple years we're getting address changes that we weren't getting otherwise until somebody decides maybe they want to come in and vote on a town meeting day and maybe they haven't voted on town meeting day and a few years and they find out they've got a few years old address on there. So what was the governor's position? Oh yes sorry we got off track with that. The governor was just uncomfortable with the idea of a full-on mail-in election which is how Oregon does it, Washington does it, Colorado where they have lists of all the registered voters everybody gets sent a ballot and you can... Now he wanted a notification that you could get a ballot? Well this is this is phase one and there was... In fact we got postcards you got postcards. So this is this was step one and this there seemed to be broad agreement on. There was a secretary of state sent out a postcard to every registered voter with their local clerk's contact information which was a reminder, an encouragement to vote early in a little form they could fill out and send back. There's a million ways you can request an early ballot already but this was to encourage it to make it easier to you know reassure people that they can vote even if they're worried about coming out you don't have to come out and do a big crowd on election day and their response has been tremendous and this has become step one and then step two if the secretary of state has their way is you don't even have to request it everybody gets an early ballot. But that means that means a lot of things that means we have to make sure our lists are tighter than ever. Our system for checking in... Tighter in what sense? Well you know there's always going to be folks on any voter list who are dead. There is probably going to be a few people who are dead just because of how those things get updated. People who've left the state? That's the big thing people who've left town and their registration may not have changed yet because if they don't let you know or they don't or the state they go to doesn't let you know if you re-register in Vermont from Vermont to Vermont it's automatic. If I... So if you move to Chittenden County as soon as your Social Security number will measure something... Well it's your driver's license and then the backup is the last four of your Social Security but yes you have that singular record so if you move to Burlington tomorrow and register to vote in Burlington you're automatically off the rolls in Montpelier. So it's all very clean within outside of state. You have to wait for notification from the other state but they're working on that too. That's improving dramatically through... How so? There is a growing network called Eric I believe which has now got about half the states involved where the different states are electronically transferring information for voters who've moved and were previously registered in another state. This stuff is tricky because there's obviously going to be security issues. You don't want to link everybody up into one big network because the weakest link. But they're very smart about how they do it and it's proven beneficial. Vermont is going to be in that. I don't know if they are already. I should know that but it's a it's a great system to get away from some of these concerns about somebody going and registering out of state and we don't hear about it. We received the postcard from my wife and one from myself. What happened if those were rejected and turned back to the Secretary of State? Well the bounces all come to us and that has been great because now we get a bunch of bounces coming to us. People who aren't there you know forwarding orders expired things like that and that gives me a big stack of returns so that I can go into each of those voter records and and tag them as challenged. Which means we have a reason to believe that this person no longer lives here but they have to wait two election cycles before they can be formally purged. Now that doesn't mean those people don't get to vote. It means if they show up or they contact us and we say you've been challenged they just need to sign a little affidavit that's basically says no I swear I really do still live at this address. That's you know it's an old perjury attaches and then we give them their ballot. Now if they were to try to be sneaky and get their early ballot say you know today and then run off and go and move to Burlington and register there and try to get another ballot it's the same record it follows them. So the Burlington clerk could register them there but then if they tried to give them a ballot he would beep beep beep beep this person's already voted. We have a primary coming up on what date? 11th. Which is Tuesday. On Tuesday the 11th we have a primary. When did voting commence for that primary? I don't know it feels like it's been going on forever. I don't know how long several weeks back it's been going on for a while. Now how long have you been city clerk? Oh I'm starting to head towards nine years. Have you seen mail-in ballots increase as a percent? Well before all this it was interesting they were on this steady increase we had a spike and then they dropped again which made no sense at all and they've been creeping back up since. Now this time around like I say the rules are completely different it's a whole new ball game. We are going to end up with more than quadruple the early ballot requests that we had for the previous August primary. Now I got that postcard in the mail what is the process for me to actually get an early mail-in ballot? Well the easiest thing if you get that card is to fill out the card and drop in the mail to us. And if I threw out the card what what's the process? You can give us a call you can stop by. What are your hours? 8 to 4 30. Well we're in the office 8 to 4 30. For in-person yeah Tuesday and Thursday you'd have to come by. But you're in the office 8 to 4 30. You can request it online through the Secretary of State's webpage. We make it as easy on you as we can. And a ballot will come to me? Yes. I want I fill out the ballots at this is a primary election do I have to say whether I want the Republican or the Democrat or the progressive primary ballot? Well this is our weird crazy election right you know the regular your traditional election one ballot fill it out put it in the machine have a wonderful day even when we have the presidential primary you go up and you say I want the Republican ballot I want the Democratic ballot. Well for the statewide primary it's very important to people that no one know which party you voted on which of the three major parties you know Democratic Republican or progressive. So what you do is you get sent all three ballots with two envelopes and a little instruction sheet on one of the envelopes. What you're supposed to do is you pick the one ballot the one party ballot you want to vote on fill that out you put it in one envelope fill it out sign it with your signature. The two rejects that you don't vote on go into a separate unvoted envelope and both envelopes come back to us. What if I don't what if I don't pay attention and I don't send back the unvoted envelope? Then your ballot will not be counted. Say that again for a ballot if it is considered a incomplete ballot. It's an incomplete ballot basically it's a we have to reject it which is terrible we don't get that many of those but it's I mean it's heartbreaking when you do it's you know there's different criteria for rejection of an early ballot if the of the unvoted ones don't come back as one if the form isn't filled out as another if it's not signed that's another if there's anything on the ballot sign this anonymous no the ballot itself is anonymous but you have to sign when you send it back you know this is for me this is my ballot I sign it away and it's then you know we open them up and we run them through and we don't know who's is who's but that way we can check your ballot you know we check it in when it's requested we check it in when we issue it and we check it in when we receive it back so that loop is closed but after that the only thing that would get your ballot rejected would be and I had one of these today it's the first one I've ever had where on someone's ballot they signed their name you can't identify yourself on a ballot when I send this in what is ballot harvesting oh I mean that's a catch-all term that folks who are opposed to the the concept of mail-in elections have thrown out there they use it in various ways you know somebody trying to collect ballots meant for other people put in requests for ballots on behalf of other people that they would then try to capture you also hear it in the context of you know a political candidate or a political party you know they don't have ballot harvesting in Vermont no that's nothing like I say that term means different things to different people anyway okay I'm gonna send this into you and it's going to go in a stack along with a mess of others for election night right yes although one of the changes we have now in that special dispensation to allow the Secretary of State authority to make quick needed changes to the election process is that we now under very strict chain of what am I trying to think chain of possession chain of whatever the word escapes me today I'm under caffeinated we can start running those through we can activate one of our tabulators that we keep in our vault and we can start running through those early ballots as early as now so we've actually started running those through that way we're not nobody's watching the tally that there will not be a tally until election we have to match up at the end right oh you mean that the total for the camp yeah exactly no no no yeah that doesn't happen until everything's done when the polls are closed seven o'clock on the 11th then we shut those things down and they give us the final tally the only counts we're watching right now is are we checking in the same amount as we run through and is then we then put in the ballot back those that's that's the verification we're doing right now so we're seeing a spike in the in terms of the numbers that have returned right now oh yeah although I tell you I'd like to see a lot more returned we're gonna end up with about 3,000 early ballots out there what what do we normally do for a August primary you know seven seven thousand seven hundred something seven hundred so and the August primaries in general are usually the turnouts usually around 24-2500 so we're gonna have more early ballots out than we have for turnout normally for this election so well when we when we come to the to the fall will we actually get the ballot this year come fall election if everything goes the way the secretary secretary of state is planning and I have no reason to believe it won't then you'll you'll get the ballot in the mail you just will get the ballot and then everybody will just send it back so you anticipate that participation in this a lot well being a presidential year it has a broader participation anyway but you anticipate that this will really be a deluge of mail-in ballots this fall well you know it's really interesting because there's been enough time with these mail-in elections now you can actually see the results there was a lot of expectation that it would really increase turnout and it was being done in states like Oregon Washington where they're already very high turnout states so you look at the numbers over the years and on those you know general elections it hasn't really increased turnout that much a little at best but what it's done is the intervening elections the more local elections the lower turnout elections it's brought them up to that same level so you know general election with the president huge right town meeting turnout down here August primary election maybe turn out down here so now when you switch to all mail-in election you still have the general up here town meeting goes up here August goes up here they the variation it all evens out at that high turnout level so if we stick with this and I think we're already starting to see that happen with the August primary because participation is already up before we even open the doors on election day for the August primary I think that's that's the effect you'll see happen is it partisan at all or in terms of who returns those ballots are progressives more likely or Democrats more likely or Republicans more likely well of course we have no no party registration in Vermont everybody's an independent right but you could look at the number of ballots that come back I was about to say you know of each one you know I would I'm gonna be surprised if that's the case there are some hardcore voters who always turn out they're gonna vote one way or the other even if they come out on election day and the spread you know Montpelier is an overwhelmingly Democratic voting town so you'll see you'll continue to see and I don't think those numbers are gonna change what about people in the armed forces or expats who are living abroad when do they have to get those ballots back when do they have to be postmarked well it's not a postmark issue in Vermont which is something of some discussion right now right now unlike a lot of other states we got to have that ballot back one way or the other by the time's polls close on election day so which means that if the postal US Postal Services overwhelmed it will have an impact on our election yeah it means and I'll be honest with you because I don't like this and I think I'm in the minority with clerks with this and I don't like the idea of giving myself more work God do I not but right now if you know you and some other person both put your ballots in say four days before the election one of yours could theoretically get there in three days the other one could get there in five days and only one of them gets counted even though you both did your due diligence and sent them at the same time that's that's not cool most states follow that protocol no I think most states I'm not for sure about this but I think most states are looking at postmarks which is why you get so much more of a delay on I was about to ask why are 21 why are over 20,000 bail mail in ballots still unopened in New York they I mean they have different rules sometimes there's there's no challenges with their infrastructure but I think in New York the postmark matters also other states still use provisional ballots we have a provisional ballots provisional ballots or something designed after the 2000 election debacle it was part of the election reform the bipartisan election reform that passed after the Gore Bush election there was a lot of concern about people not being able to vote about disenfranchisement so provisional ballots were created as sort of a last resort a stop gap here if somebody is feeling they're being disenfranchised if they're like no I should get to vote I don't care why you've taken me off the list or why I don't appear on your list you know I was purged unfairly whatever you could get a provisional ballot in which you vote you put it in like a special envelope that basically puts it aside as and it's adjudicated later it's right and generally the you know the election administrator can put a recommendation on there I recommend this would be accepted or this not but then they get counted they get adjudicated later and they get counted after the fact so that can really matter doesn't matter if somebody wins by 10% it can matter down to your answer right so that's that's why you you'll have these scenarios in other states where you know like the Elliott Engel election where we didn't know for two you know speaking of New York we didn't know for two weeks who won because you know early ballots still coming in provisional ballots that need to be counted now in Vermont we have basically done away with provisional ballots it's still on the books so what happens if I do have a challenge if I believe I should be able to vote you know do you sit with your staff and work with it on the spot on election day well yes we do actually the Board of Civil Authority has ultimate say and if it's something sort of easy and paperworky the Board of Civil Authority may make a decision but if not if it's unclear you can still get a provisional ballot it's not unheard of that provisional ballots are cast in Vermont it's just that the system is now I think robust and open and consistent enough that the need just doesn't arise with all these absentee ballots or mail-in ballots whatever you want to call them early early ballots will we have the results at about 8 o'clock on election night or 7 30 as we always do well I mean that's an interesting question that's the next big piece of unknown territory we're in we're supposed to but we could be up a very very long time if of these 3,000 ballots of these 3,000 requests that are gonna be out if 1,500 of them don't show up until election day it's gonna be a while before we can get them all through even if we're up all night so I think there's a little unknown territory here it's been very unclear how workflow is gonna go with you know switching to a virtually all-mail so you're gonna stare at the camera and say please return this quickly before the election day as soon as possible it's been it's been really difficult we I mean we've got a fair amount of volunteers who've been coming in to help out and it's been feast or famine for them either they come in and we have a ton for them to do or they come in and we don't have much for them to do and if we could get so we're looking for that consistent return you know we had one day where two you know post office you know Pallity things got brought in and we're like oh look at all these ballots it begins and the next day we had like that man it's very hard to go live you're at City Hall it's election day we were all married wearing masks and the like do you have enough volunteers they're normally people my age who are kind of leery about sitting and facing that many people in the public well we're gonna do things really differently there's gonna be can't come into City Hall without a mask we will have masks available for people and we will be prepared in case there's someone who's like I want to vote but I refuse to put on a mask you know we can get a couple election officials to bring them out a ballot you know right there or to our curbside voting exactly I mean we'll be prepared for that but you'll come in one part of the building unless you need the accessibility entrance in the back in which case you come and go in the back we'll be voting because we expect far fewer people we will be voting downstairs in the council chambers the way we used to so this it's got a door towards the front end of the building it's got a door towards the back end of the building so people will come in socially distanced with masks there'll be a table at some distance set back chatting checking them in they'll be let in I believe six people at a time is how we're gonna do it and then each voting booth will then be sprayed down by another volunteer as they leave then more people can trickle in and then they'll go out the morning before work will be hell with six people coming in and at a time well six people being allowed in right being allowed in and with social distancing I'm thinking more the general election in August when it's a bit colder see I don't think so because we're also gonna have a drop box out front now come the general election everybody's gonna have that ballot so the only ones are gonna be coming in are gonna be people who are like I brought my ballot with me in which case we'll have a drop box they don't even have to come in or I lost my ballot and I want I need another one I want to vote in which case you sign an affidavit swearing swearing that you actually lost it we check in the machine and make sure we haven't checked in a ballot for you and then you can give in one and vote there but those are gonna be the only people coming in on election day in November so it should be should be pretty dead theoretically let me ask a couple of national questions what is the big hoopla over mail-in balloting anyway people are concerned that of the increased opportunity for fraud what is the increased opportunity for fraud from their perspective somehow intercepting a ballot or as it's mailed as it's mailed on the way back you know taking it from a mailbox putting it out of a mailbox sending out is there a signature that has to match we don't do matching signatures in Vermont but we're also very small and we have a pretty good idea of where everybody is small communities the concern is that you know somebody could find out somebody dead who's still on the rolls and somehow order a ballot on their behalf this kind of stuff you know voter fraud is not unheard of it but it's just that it can the system it's just very rarely heard of and when you do hear about it it's there's a couple ways it's somebody often trying to test the system improve that they can cheat the system and we hear about it because they catch all those people and those people get busted and they get in a lot of trouble so okay that's one kind of fraud the other is more large-scale like you had in the congressional election in North Carolina a couple years ago and there was another recent one that escapes me right now where you had a candidate who had operative actually going out filling out false requests for people and interfering with their their ballot reception you know something like that on the macro level you're gonna get busted but those are the only kinds of things and they basically people either get caught in that case they held a new election or these little ones that pop up so rarely that the result is negligible and I you know I want to say it's part of my job to be worried about voter fraud it's part of my job to be worried about voter fraud it's part of my job to be worried about voter participation right now the scale of those problems are way over here we need participation fraud almost non exists if that ever changes you start seeing more fraud you're gonna see me and a lot of other click clerks flip to that other side and we will be pounding the tables about doing something about voter fraud but the truth is it's just not happening is there any way possible that a third nation party could hack into the system in Vermont oh that's a very big conversation in fact I'm gonna be presenting at DEF CON the biggest international hacker conference which is every year in Las Vegas I presented out at last year now it's virtual and I'll be talking about just that kind of thing because I'm also a certified ethical hacker and have been a network admin in various contexts is it possible in Vermont in Vermont it just seems how do you convey this to Secretary of State's office well the Secretary of State's done a pretty good job with election security it was something when Secretary Kondo's was the head of the National Association of Secretaries of State it was a big priority of his on you'd never say when you're in you know penetration testing like I have been you never ever say something's unhackable and that's not just but it's extremely low probability that the count that goes in down the street is doesn't match the count that's coming in from Wyndham County from the towns of Wyndham County or the towns of Orleans County well here's what I tell people about that nothing can ever be 100% guaranteed is unhackable so you take steps you have backups you have redundancies you have chain of custody if you do everything right then an election hack is not a problem it's in fact I tell people it's the modern version of the old classic problem that you have where the suddenly the election final results are thrown into question because some clerk found five boxes of early ballots they didn't they didn't count right then we're like oh god we got to go through the process we got to have our mechanisms that take care of things step in and then we get the and yeah and then we get the final result but we get it two or three weeks later if we're doing everything right everything we're supposed to do and we're doing a pretty good job of that in Vermont that is the worst case scenario there's a hack there's an issue we go through all our backup systems and we just get the final result delayed two or three weeks and we it'll still be a result we can count on but it's the modern version of oh we got to wait two or three weeks because somebody left some ballots in the vault Congress is looking for more money for elections to make this election cycle smoother what would more money mean in Vermont what what would that be spent on well we're in a really good place right now because the money that has been allotted and you know a large amount has been just you know we're at a good position for a couple of reasons one is just that a little goes a long way in little Vermont right we and these machines last for years yeah we're using you know machines that are 30-year-old tech and I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world why they are incredibly difficult to hack and the technology is incredibly established you run samples of before you do the election yeah we run test runs through them to on all the different machines to make sure that they're counting correctly and no this stuff is great when I tell you when I was at the Defcon voting village last year and you had a whole room with all different kinds of voting machines spread out and hackers getting into them taking apart you know getting into you know everything the software the firmware and we had some of the ones that we use these these optical scanners were there and people were getting into them and you know I'm playing around with them and the other hackers who are much better than me are playing around with them they're saying oh well you could do this or you could get into the chip here and you know we're all talking about ways we would we would if we had the chance but to a person I said you know but I would rather have these machines far and away then you have other you have a piece of paper that you can audit against well even the other ones that produce paper backup and paper backup is the gold standard right even the other machines that produce paper backup I would rather have one of ours than any of the others in that room and to a person every hacker I talked to agreed so the election system from your perspective you're studied this perspective you've been at this for 10 years are nearly 10 years and Vermont is sound I think it's pretty sound a one final note get out and vote for that August primary it's important democracy is important when you get that ballot for November return that ballot well ahead of time there you go by the time people hear this the way we're going everybody will probably already voted thank you so very much