 Good evening. Welcome to the Secretary of State Candidate Forum. This program is part of a series brought to you by The Bridge and Orca Media to help voters get to know their candidates better. I'm Cassandra Hemingway. I'm the managing editor of The Bridge and this evening's moderator. A little bit about these forums before we introduce the candidates. These forums were intended to provide the candidates an opportunity to share their views and explain why they think they should be elected. It is not a debate, so candidates will not be asking, questioning each other. Before introducing the two candidates we have with us tonight, I will review the format. We have asked the public to send us their questions, so we've incorporated some questions from the community into our list here tonight and we'll get to as many as we can. During this program we'll also be taking call-in questions and if you would like to call in, call 802-224-9901. That number is 802-224-9901. Each candidate will have two minutes at the opening of this program to introduce themselves and explain why they're running. After that they'll have a minute and a half to answer each of our questions. And if there's a need for a rebuttal, that's at the moderator's discretion. For the opening statements I'll call candidates in alphabetical order by last name and then we'll switch back and forth between who starts first. So I'd like to introduce Sarah Copeland-Hanses, the Democratic candidate for Secretary of State and H. Brooke Page, the Republican candidate. Welcome, both of you. Thank you for coming. Thanks for having us. Sarah, would you like to start with your opening statement? Great. Thank you so much. So I'm Sarah Copeland-Hanses. I hail from Bradford, grew up in Corinth, graduated from Oxford High School and the University of Vermont. I spent a couple years as a middle school teacher before I had the wonderful opportunity to stay home with my kids for eight years. During that time I stayed involved with young people through coaching and volunteering in the community and then a group of community members asked me to run for the house. So I ran for the house in 2004, was sworn in in 2005 and have served in the house representing Bradford Fairly and West Fairly for 18 years. My committee background in the house was a decade or so on the health care committee and most recently as chair of the government operations committee and the government operations committee oversees all of the functions of the Secretary of State's office. And so it was through the work that we've done in streamlining the Office of Professional Regulation in putting voter accessibility at the forefront of our election reforms that I got really excited about the role of Secretary of State. And so when Secretary Kondos announced that he was going to step down, I started thinking about it. Thank you. Brooke. Yes. Time for your opening statement. I'm Brooke Page and I'm from the town of Washington, Vermont. And my wife and I moved up to Vermont, oh my gosh, 1987. And I wanted to get her away from the big city life. We lived outside of Philadelphia and we had been married, I guess, about 10 or 12 years at that time. And things were really not going well where we lived. We lived in an isolation apartment building. We had been saving all our money up to eventually move up to Vermont and had been buying property in Washington. We'd bought it a couple years sooner or so. We were very glad to get our home up here to Vermont, but unfortunately I was working in Philadelphia. And so for the next 27 years I commuted back and forth every week. I've been involved, especially since I retired. I retired because I almost died from congestive heart failure, which is now fully resolved. But anyway, so since I've been moving up here, I've gotten involved a little bit in politics. My main concerns were the problem with open primaries and all the mischief that that causes in our elections. And that's how I became interested in the Secretary of State's office. And so I've run for Secretary of State in some other offices along the way in a large part trying to make the point that we should have closed primaries where the parties get to make their own choices for their candidates rather than having it be this kind of roughy and fight where everybody gets to vote for any party in the primary and anybody can run for any office in the primary. And so I guess that's it. We'll get to more of this later, but I'm excited about becoming Vermont's next Secretary of State. Okay. Thank you. Well, let's get into the questions and maybe some of them will touch on that topic. Okay, so we're going to start this next question with Brooke and then Sarah. And first I'll give you the context of and then the question. So election integrity elections have been under scrutiny here in Montpelier, a citizen recounted election results from the 2020 general election just a few weeks ago, almost two years later. The Secretary of State's office has had a large number of records requests, not only for recounts, but also and primarily for voting machine data just recently in the late summer early fall. So my question is, is election integrity under attack? Do you believe the Secretary of State office needs to focus more attention on election security? And if so, what actions do you propose? I think nationwide, there's a lot of outstanding questions about exactly what's going on. And I think 2020 election created additional problems in that emergency activities were begun because of COVID that in many states weren't even constitutional under normal circumstances. And that may be said of some of the things that happened here in Vermont. But as far as the integrity of the election, fortunately for us, the most important people involved are the town clerks and the members of the Board of Civil Authority. And it's under their scrutiny that the election is actually operated. And I think almost universally that the local people voting have confidence in the members of the Board of Civil Authority and in their town clerks. So I don't think we have the kind of problems that go on elsewhere. That doesn't mean that there's a perception, not a perception that there's a problem. And in my mind, that's the biggest problem with this is many people hear about the larger issues nationwide and somehow attempt to place them, you know, as being problems here in Vermont. And Mr. Kondo is by saying, oh, we never have any problems here. There's no election fraud in the Vermont. Instead of trying to prove the point, only fosters the concerns. And that's the biggest problem now is folks are becoming dissuaded from being involved in the process or and voting. Okay. Thank you, Brooke. Sarah. So I remember the the run up to the question. But could you repeat the two part question that you asked? Yes. And is election integrity under attack? And do you believe the Secretary of State office needs to focus more attention on election security? And if so, what actions do you propose? Great. So, yes, it is clear that election integrity is under attack and watching the the competitiveness of this message over and over again about stolen elections and and and misinformation about voter fraud really does play into that narrative. And what I know in Vermont is that our elections are kept safe in part because we have 246 duly elected or appointed town or city clerks whose job it is to uphold democracy and to conduct elections that that I think have very clear procedures and very clear guidelines for what to do in the event of an irregularity. Now I'm I am not at all going to rest on my laurels about whether our elections are secure. I will bring together a town clerk advisory committee in part so that I have a collection of town clerks from different parts of the state from big towns and small to to give me sort of a front row view of how elections are working for them. I will also bring together a cyber security task force that Montpelier City clerk John Odom is helping to advise me on and we will make sure that we kick the tires and make sure we do everything that we need to to keep our elections secure. Thank you. Okay, this next question, Sarah, I'll ask you first and then Brooke and the context for this one is voter turnout. Vermont looks like it's doing pretty well with voter turnout when you compare it to voter turnout nationally. In the 2018 general election, data on the Secretary of State's website says that 54.6 percent of voters turned out in Vermont compared to 53.4 nationally and in the general election and 63.3 compared to 61.4 nationally turned out for the 2016 election just for comparison. So the question is do you regard those numbers as adequate and even though Vermont only slightly surpasses national voter turnout averages and please explain why or why not? So you know when you live in a democracy the point of a democracy is that everyone gets to have a say, right? And so ideally we would have 100 percent participation and I know that there are a lot of reasons why sometimes people don't participate. Many of them I've heard from voters over my 18 years running for my house seat. So that kind of feedback informs what I will do if elected Secretary of State and you know the first thing that I want to do is make sure that when you receive your November general election ballot in the mail, you also get a voter guide. When candidates register to be on the ballot, they already give the Secretary of State's office their contact information, their website, their social media handles. We can require them also to submit 100 words. Why are you running for this office and what will you do if elected? And I think that that will go a long way to empowering people to vote because you have 45 days with your ballot and you will have a voter guide and you can spend that time figuring out who you want to vote for. It's really intimidating to try to figure that out in three to five minutes in you know in the voting booth on election day and so I think that the opportunity for strengthening our democracy through universal vote by mail and a voter guide is going to be very powerful. Thank you. Brooke. Okay. I think the important part of democracy as we practice it here in the United States is the ability of people to vote or not vote as they see fit. You know Russia, China, they have elections where everybody is commanded to vote and so when I've been out and about there's a significant portion of the people that do not want to get involved in politics either just because they have no interest or in many cases because they've become dissuaded from participating. They think that something's wrong with the process or that the elections are rigged and so the biggest thing in my mind is to convince as many people as we can of the importance of their vote and the honesty and integrity of the election process. You know I think that citizens also have a responsibility to inform themselves through the media about who the candidates are and what the election is all about and to spoon feed it to them through Secretary of State's office may be inappropriate that the media at large, just like what we're doing here, should be the forum where citizens find out about the candidates and find out about the process and you know I think that's the most important part and I think it's very important to vote in person versus all of this universal mail going on that we have going on currently. Thank you. Thank you Brooke. Okay I appreciate both of your answers and we're going to move on to the next question starting with Brooke for this one. This question is actually about a comment you made Sarah during VT Digger forum in the primaries where you talked about wanting to hire an outreach person should you become the Secretary of State? There's a lot of misinformation circulating to the point that the Secretary of State website actually has a myth versus fact page to address some of that. So my question is for both of you do you think the Secretary of State does need an outreach person on staff and why or why not? Okay before we start my time an outreach person in what as far as elections I didn't see the article. Somebody who would go be an outreach do outreach to the community to schools to the around the state informing people about what the Secretary of State's office does. Okay I got you. I'm sorry that wasn't clear. Your question and and how I see the see the answers a little bit different I think that what Sarah may have been talking about is something I've talked about for a very long time and that's when Jim Douglas and Deb Markowitz were in the Secretary of State's office there was a specific education outreach individual who was responsible for trying to promote civics and governance instruction within the schools and I think you know if when I'm elected if I'm elected that I would certainly want to re-establish that a lot of the materials still float around from when Jim Douglas and Deb Markowitz were in the office and and they while they probably need to be updated a little bit I think it's very important for the Secretary of State in all of the all the hats that the Secretary of State wears not only in elections but also in the Archives responsibilities there's the Archives has a vast treasure trove of materials that are kind of locked away and I think that it would be important as part of that outreach person's responsibilities to try to circulate and and promote those materials and maybe have them restored and displayed thank you Sarah so yes I think it's really important for the Secretary of State's office to resume that education and outreach coordinator role the the idea that young people are graduating from high school without ever having had a a class in civics a class in how democracy functions is is is I think part of what plays into the misinformation that is running rampant if you don't understand how government works you're susceptible to lies about stolen elections and so I want to make sure that that education and outreach coordinator is somebody who can come in who can work with a group of teacher advisors teachers in the classroom now from pre-k all the way through high school who can say this is what a relevant curriculum would look like or this is what we need to to be helpful and accessible to to our fellow teachers and to our students that's phase one phase two though is recognizing that we have a whole generation of people who either didn't have civics or like me graduated long enough ago that they may have forgotten a few of their civics lessons I want to make sure that we're getting out and engaging with those people as well because the purpose of a democracy is that if you have a challenge or a problem that you see in that other people are also experiencing and you can't fix it on your own you should be able to petition your government to help with that maybe it's get out of the way but to help with that I want to empower people to know how to do democracy thank you thank you for that um I actually um well I was going to skip ahead to another question but um I think because most of my questions focus on the election I'm going to skip ahead to a question that kind of talks a little bit more about the other roles of the Secretary of State then we'll get back to elections questions um so Sarah we'll start with you for this question um so the Secretary of State oversees Vermont Archives as you mentioned Brooke um and records requests um oh my goodness I skipped to the wrong question here it is sorry about that um elections of course the office of professional regulation which is a whole other part we haven't talked about corporations etc um we have focused and we will continue to focus on elections tonight but I'd like to just hear from you both about um the specific functions in the Secretary of State role that you believe need changes or that you think are working well and you'd like to keep going the way they're going um in some of these other roles and Sarah will start with you broadly across all of the departments okay I'm going to start with corporations um because very early on in the campaign trail I happened across someone who started a business during the pandemic and so I said great tell me how the Secretary of State's business portal worked for you um and she gave me some really good feedback um and uh and that feedback was uh depending on the kind of corporation you are trying to register it goes really smoothly but in fact I had to drive to Montpelier in the middle of a pandemic um to to exchange my paperwork in person which just felt really weird um and so what I want to do in the Corporations Division is uh is get in there and get a listing of businesses that have started up because we've had a lot of turnover of businesses closing and new ones opening in the last two years I want to I want to talk with them and say how how's it working for you what can we do better um with respect to the State Archives it is a treasure trove of important and critical information um that that documents the history of the state of Vermont I want to make sure that we're giving our State Archives the resources that they need in order to be able to adapt to the digital era you know it used to be when there was a stack of file boxes you would say oh man I really need to go through those and and pull out just the things that are important to keep and and leave out the memo about the Christmas party um we're not doing that as diligently as we should be in the electronic era and so that's one of the reforms that I'd like to bring and I'll be happy to talk about OPR a little bit later I bet we'll get back to it okay thank you very good um I I kind of view OPR and Office of Professional Regulation and Corporations kind of in the same lens um I think there's far fewer problems in corporations than there are in OPR I have a number of friends of mine in the business community who have been damaged by OPR's regulatory um overreach if you like people who I know to be good honest business people one of them wound up having to retire because he became so mired in the process that he couldn't practice his trade which was surveying for over two years and eventually threw up in his hands and gave up I think a big part of some of the other problems I've heard beyond the fact that OPR has kind of become the sea creature with the tentacles weaving itself out into so much of the um uh commerce of the state that we really need to take a look at who's regulating those businesses over half the professions on the OPR list are in fact medical or health related everything from chiropractors and and nurse practitioners to barbers beauticians tattoo artists and it really strikes me that neither I nor Jim condos nor possibly even Sarah unless she has some additional talents I don't know about are really not the ideal people to be overseeing those offices and so I think that's a big issue to be looked at we'll talk more about archives where I've had some personal experience in a few moments and the troubles that are over there I'm sorry I have to stop you Brooke I know you're just going to keep talking until I was in about the rap until I saw the clock thank you thank you very much um and I realized that was a very broad question with only a minute and a half to answer so I appreciate that I actually want to skip over to a question that goes back to the town clerks you both talked about and not just town clerks but all of the people who are involved in holding elections we're going back to elections um so and we'll start with Brooke for this question and then go to Sarah um so given the violence and threats against election workers across the country how would you protect and maintain an adequate pool of non-partisan poll workers in our state okay well I think you know we can't really put vermonters in the same bucket with the folks from Philadelphia or Chicago or you know New York that I think we have a much more civil atmosphere here and in general and in additional in elections and so I'm hopeful that we don't have those kinds of troubles my biggest concern with poll watchers right now is that with the new universal vote by mail and the early opening of ballots and all of this there's so many opportunities where the ballots are being opened and separated that it's difficult for poll watchers from each party to actually be involved and watch the the balloting process and that's a problem you know we we suddenly instead of having an election day which is mandated by our constitution chapter two articles 43 and 44 if I remember correctly where it says the election shall be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November and so it doesn't say we can have an election season it doesn't have we can have election month it's a specific day and it's important to remember all of this early voting and people being excited to vote early get it out of the way really is really encouraging people to vote before they have a full knowledge of who the candidates are and what the issues are and I think that's somewhat toxic towards getting the best outcome as far as informed voters thank you thank you Brooke Sarah so um one of the first topics that I want to talk to my town clerk advisory group about is what are you seeing what are you experiencing and what do you need um I think it's very important uh in terms of protection of our democracy that these citizens who who've stepped up to run for the job of town clerk in order to help us safely conduct our democracy um they need to feel protected when they are holding elections I know they feel supported right now because by and large every town clerk that I talk to says yes I I get an email back immediately yes they answer the phone they call back on election day you know I'm getting the support that I need but I also want to make sure that we are giving these important civil servants any other support that they might need thank you okay so this next question we start with Sarah I'm just going to keep flipping back and forth the context first the context of this question is um this the organization uh campaign legal is the name of the organization has issued a paper addressing foreign influence on us elections in it they state that nearly one billion dollars in secret money known as dark money has been spent on us elections over the past decade the molar report which I'm sure we're all familiar with um found that Russian government the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in a quote sweeping in systemic fashion and violated us criminal law the question for you both is do we need to improve our existing cybersecurity measures to limit foreign interference with our elections and we'll start with Sarah um yes it is um a race without a finish line I think is uh is the way Secretary Kondos has always put it in and I agree because uh we might think we're secure today um but we don't know what's coming at us uh tomorrow um and so yes I will continue to focus on uh cybersecurity of our elections our tabulators are not connected to the internet and we need to make sure that uh we uh maintain the safeguards that we have in place uh that that give us a great deal of security and assurance that our elections are um that are that the integrity is intact you started your question though with uh with um one billion dollars in dark money and so I have 45 seconds left I want to talk a little bit about campaign finance um over the years serving in the House of Representatives one of the most frequent frustrations that I heard from house colleagues running for reelection is my opponent never filed um you know my opponent has signs my opponent has ads in the paper uh but nobody knows where my opponent is getting his or her money from um and so I want to make sure that we do a better job in Vermont of ensuring compliance with campaign finance disclosures because vermoners want to know who's paying for their elections thank you brook give me the initial question because I'm I'm she followed up on the little tangent there so what was the initial question so the initial question is do we need to improve our cybersecurity measures to limit foreign interference with elections very good I think in a little tiny Vermont that um that we are far off the radar of terrible uh influences from Russia or China or the Ukraine or wherever I think the most important factor that we have going for us in our elections is we're still basically running a manual system yes in big towns we have tabulators to to add up the vote instead of making everybody add them up by hand but in the end all that data only goes as far as a cf card that's in the side of the tabulator from there on it's all handled not over the internet but manually and so we don't there's no opportunity for interference in my mind the only concern I've had in there is during the primary apparently once he gets the secretary of state's office it's then being transmitted out of state to New Hampshire where at least in the primary this time something went very wrong and it took him over a week to come up with the uh before they could have the canvassing committee meetings in order to give the results um you know so like I said I think as long as we stay with we're small state you know the whole state has population of less than that of Boston for crying out loud quarter the size of Philadelphia and so I think that us remaining with um paper ballots and I think also importantly maybe we get back to more of voting on election day maybe make election day a state holiday thank you I'm gonna move back to talking about the archives um and we'll start this question with you brook um the secretary of state oversees the Vermont archives and record requests um I understand the original Vermont Constitution is among those archives um several states have or are creating a public records ombudsman office to deal with issues I might have I might have confused the issues with archives yes and records request um do you believe this public records ombudsman office is needed in Vermont to oversee state compliance with records requests why why not take your two parts and try to put them together here first of all as far as our archives I do a lot of research and so I've been up to the archives numerous times back when I was doing research on school mergers and things I was involved in in the records from uh the time of the brigham decision and act 60 and those records were all stored in the basement of the redstone building and are all infected with or infested with mold and so when you go up there to deal with them the first time you come back nobody tells you this and so you come back with a bad case of rash on your arms and hands and whatever and so next time you are smart enough to take some bed of drill and slather some on your arms to keep that from happening so there's problems in archives as far as things being uh tended to more recently I had to go and get my state charter for my little town of Washington and we're one of I think 16 towns that still has its original 1777 charter signed by Thomas Jittenden and so I went up there they bring this nice box out they opened the box and here's this tattered volume with a disintegrated leather cover and as they're part parting the pages trying to find the Washington town charter the pages are just basically separating and and so they scanned a copy for me neatly closed it back and put it away but I fear that many of other documents you know these are just the ones I happen to come in contact with aren't being treated much better and so I think it would be important to restore the volumes we have I'm going to run out of time I want another second but also importantly to have all the documents scanned so they're readily available instead of being tucked away up in middle sex thank you brook and page if you would like 10 extra seconds for this question I won't I won't take 10 extra seconds all right I'm just going to repeat it for the audience okay sure um the question is um do you think Vermont needs a public records ombudsman office to oversee state compliance of public records requests um I do support that concept uh and and I support it because I have seen many times over the years that somebody who who believes that they've not been given the information they want from their from a state agency or a municipal entity has only recourse they have is to take that entity to court which is a very intimidating thing for an ordinary citizen I think an ombuds office would would go a long way to helping make sure that we have best practices in place so that public records requests are being acted on in a timely manner and I think it will improve transparency and also probably make it easier for the uh the entity who's holding the records um to produce it thank you um I'm going to switch gears and talk about mail-in ballots which I heard you referenced earlier brook and we'll start I I lost track of who starts first um I think you would start first for this one thank you Sarah um okay so the state authorized mail-in voting in an attempt to slow the transmission of COVID-19 while ensuring stronger voter participation the question is should mail-in voting be an option in all Vermont elections including town meetings and primaries and Sarah so um I have been really impressed with how how positively Vermonters have embraced mail-in ballots um I think that Vermonters recognize that having a little more time with your ballot and the ability to to research um for a few weeks and mull over your choices is a is a really good thing there's a couple of challenges though with uh with extending universal vote by mail to either local elections or primaries um I'll take local elections first many of our communities in Vermont do not ballot voting for their town meeting so they elect their select board and their other local officials they adopt their budget um they they oftentimes debate and amend their budget right from the floor of town meeting town meeting is a really precious um opportunity for Vermonters to participate in direct democracy and I have seen so many times that people's minds have been changed my mind has been changed in town meeting because I listened to my neighbors talk about whether they wanted to do something or not um if we institute a you know a heavy-handed Montpelier based edict that we go to to mailing those ballots we will have done away with town meeting I don't want to do that without Vermonters engaging in that question and saying yes that's the way we want to go thank you Brooke okay um I'm not sure that any of the discussion that I've heard out and about was calling on mandating universal vote by mail for for state for um town and local elections I think at best there was a discussion about making it optional and I think it's currently under the law optional to those towns but the town would make that decision uh universal vote by mail uh for statewide elections has not been the wonderful embraced uh activity that Sarah would lead you to believe there's thousands tens of thousands of people who are very distressed about it and the fact that the ballots are being mailed everywhere I have people sending me information back or physical copies back uh images of their ballots that they've moved to st. Louis and the post office instead of being instructed by the secretary of state you know if undeliverable return to sender has been forwarding these ballots all over the place I mean I've seen of the people I know five people who have moved away and their ballot caught right up with them sadly three of them caught up with them before mine even made it to my house in Washington Vermont so I'm not quite sure what's going on but uh you know and they all have the nice neat little yellow forwarding sticker from the post office and um as I said the earlier you're voting Sarah really almost made the the point about town meeting the earlier you're voting there's less information you have just like heard the comment about town meeting the statewide elections on election day that's the day people should be coming to the polls to make their decision and if you know if they have problems and want to vote early or vote absentee good to go but a majority of people should not be you know wind up with their ballots really thank you Brooke Sarah because uh Brooke you did mention you used the phrase that Sarah led you to believe I would like to offer you 30 seconds to rebut if you would like to thank you yes um so there's so much going on there I'm not sure how to how to fit it to 30 seconds um so you know this idea that that that there's something wrong with forwarding somebody's ballot who has moved is you know is is frankly putting in in the front of a legal voter a barrier that doesn't need to exist you know I I think that the uh by and large Vermonters are um are really pleased with the ability to sit down with their ballot and um and yes we have some work we can do to to clean up our checklist and make sure that it's more responsive um but I I think universal vote by mail has been a success thank you Brooke and we're gonna start really okay you're right right thank you we're so we're gonna um uh we're gonna start this question with you and this actually this question came from a um debate or a forum rather that you were in in 2018 when you ran for secretary of state then um and in that uh forum then secretary of state Jim condos um said that he believes there should be a national voting day the same way we in Vermont um have town meeting day is a holiday for some people not for everybody um do you think there should be a statewide voting day um holiday um similar to town meeting day that would enable people who work um or who can't get to the polls for other reasons to um to go out and vote yeah I've openly said on numerous occasions that I think that election day should be a state holiday in Vermont without question now that's not everybody's not going to get the day off obviously uh people have wind up working on Christmas day for crying out but understand that it would focus attention on election day of course if you have universal vote by mail that makes less sense and I'm not really in favor of continuing universal vote by mail in 2019 Vermont was Vermont's elections were judged to be the most accessible and the most secure in the country and this with our um no excuse early and absentee voting and the laws that we have to permit uh the handicap and the home bound to request the justices of the peace to come to their home to assist them in voting uh we we certainly have the most had the most accessible voting process even before universal vote by mail universal vote by mail has just created issues and remember we were talking about people having confidence in the election one thing that it has done is given a lot of people less confidence as they envision 440 000 ballots papering the countryside being dropped in piles in the vestibules and lobbies of apartment buildings and uh dorms and uh just all sorts of other mischief going on I'm out of time thank you Sarah could you repeat the question yeah I was wondering I was wondering if you would want me to do that um now I've lost it in my papers here do you think we should enact a statewide voting day or a holiday for general elections similar to town meeting day thank you yeah the the challenge with that is always that not everybody has that day off because even your grocery store and your gas station um is open on uh on holidays that are much more universally observed than town meeting day uh I think what what we should think about if we're going to have that conversation in Vermont is looking at what some other countries do which is that they have voting day on a Sunday when many if not most businesses are already closed um and so it makes it uh easier for people to be able to take advantage of that voting day thank you um I just want to remind the audience that we are taking live call-in questions and if you would like to leave the numbers up on the screen um we'd love to hear from you um so now moving on this next question I'll start with Sarah we're getting close to the end of our time here we have about 15 minutes left um talk to me about the importance of the Secretary of State's office functioning as a non-partisan entity so you know there are a lot of um aspects of the Secretary of State's duties that are are are very ministerial um technical non-partisan um and so as far as how the office functions it needs to off it needs to function in a neutral non-partisan way um I want to talk a little bit about the office of professional regulation uh since that's the one division that we haven't gotten to yet um and talk a little bit about the the the function of professional regulation is really at its base about protecting public health and public safety now I don't need to be an expert tattooist in order to uh to be able to be the Secretary of State um and assemble a a board or an advisory committee of people in that profession who can help keep those uh regulations up to date and can indeed evaluate them to make sure that we are um doing the the lowest level of regulation that is necessary for public health but I don't think you want to imagine doing away with regulating amusement park rides we can all imagine the the you know terrible tragedy of um of uh poorly maintained amusement park ride um tattooists uh dental uh hygienists nurses all of these folks um play very important and critical roles in our lives and we want to make sure that we have a base level of public health and public safety in mind as we offer licenses thank you brook the question is uh talk to me about the Secretary of State's office functioning as a non-partisan entity okay well there's many there's several offices in in the statewide election that are really ministerial positions treasurer auditor of accounts um even attorney general as well as Secretary of State and I think our current Secretary of State has gotten a little bit too partisan on numerous occasions uh lashing out again at uh last president uh making other remarks uh supportive of the opponents of uh Justice Kavanaugh and those kinds of things are out of place for the person that's responsible one of primary responsibilities is chief uh election official one other thing I've gone to me I talked to a couple town clerks just yesterday many of the town clerks are upset that the Secretary of State has kind of imposed himself as the the principal election official statewide and in their town they view that it's their responsibility and duty to be sending out the election the ballots regardless of whether they have to send them out to everyone or merely on request um the other thing I just have a few seconds left I do want to address the the issue about um the OPR and the expanse of its regular reach I'm not saying that these folks shouldn't be regulated merely that especially in the healthcare profession that maybe the Department of Health would be better better equipped to do that thank you thank you I'm sorry to cut you off I'm trying to get better at that uh timing um so um we'll start this next question with you brook um what in your view are the elements of the duties of the Secretary of State's office that may need improvements or strengthening and how would you go about doing it oh lord in a minute and a half that's like impossible as I've said I think we need a good strong look at elections many of the things that we did as a result of covid which were supposed to only be temporary emergency orders um have now been morphed into permanent changes and everything from universal vote by mail to how we're treating the drop boxes and and vote harvesting which are the two evil stepchildren of universal vote by mail um are really problematic as I've said OPR I think needs a good looking over and to try to find out how to scale it back another problem is that Secretary Condos was real big on making everything paperless you know and there's many people that are in commerce many business owners and professionals who aren't really up to speed on you know on paperless on on the computer age and I've talked to a lot of people who have who have lost and then had to fight to get their fictitious aliases and and their their business licenses back because they thought they were getting notices in the mail we're never told otherwise and then suddenly you know they're they're not out of compliance and so I think we need a a a professional to come in and look you know take a global view of that office and figure out what's going on I've already mentioned about archives and the troubles there and and restoring this historic documents and more and just as importantly uh I know thank you um Sarah um do you need would you like me to repeat no no I'm raring to go in fact I think I'm going to buy a spack a little bit of time here because a lot of the things that I'm going to list again are are things that we've already talked about tonight um you know I think by and large the secretary state's office is very well respected and Jim condos has done a great job of making sure that we have made improvements along the way um what are the elements that need strengthening um I think the voter guide is uh is an important part of strengthening our democracy I think it goes hand in hand with the advances of Universal Vote by Mail um that education and outreach coordinator who will be informed by a group of people in the teaching profession how do we help create civics for young people and then how do we also take that to adults in our communities cyber security focus make sure that we're asking for good feedback good advice kicking the tires every single day in that town clerk advisory committee um so that we have a good link between the local communities who keep their own archives um and uh conduct their own elections and the secretary state's office thank you we got a call in question so I'm going to move to that um and we'll start with Sarah and then go to Brooke um seeing this for the first time so um okay the question is it was mentioned that there are cities that are less civilized what makes these cities less civilized in terms of the election can I after an interpretive moment I think that when we were talking about the fact that politics in Vermont is very civil compared to maybe the politics in Philadelphia I forget the other towns I mentioned Philadelphia Baltimore Chicago where elections becomes a real right okay adversary sport in that context I'm going to ask the timekeeper we're going to start with Sarah for this um to restart the clock for Sarah so that's the context that makes more sense okay so why would those um what the question is what makes those other cities outside of Vermont less civil with their elections than Vermont or do that are they you know I think I think what it comes down to um is what's unique about Vermont is that we um we have a live and let live attitude and and part of that comes from you know we're all bearing down to try to make it through the cold of winter you know if you need a cup of sugar you know you can run up to my house and and borrow a cup of sugar um but you also know that even if we disagree on politics and and you have a red flag and I have a blue flag you know that uh that that if you're stuck in a snow bank I'm going to help you get out in the dead of winter and and so you know in Vermont we still do greet each other as human beings first I may not agree with your politics you may not agree with mine but we're uh but we're humans and and vermonters first you know I I think that politics in Vermont and politics in some of these other cities that we've talked about our worlds apart we saw on election night 2020 uh the folks that were supposed to be observing for the parties having pieces of plywood put up against the windows so they couldn't view the opening and processing of ballots we saw people in parking lots filling out ballots and and all sorts of mischief and I think we should thank our lucky stars that we don't have that kind of incivility in our election process and I guess that's about it that you know just we're very blessed to have a degree of camaraderie if you like in the operation of our elections and and bless blessings that we have our wonderful town clerks and boards of civil authority who are from both parties yet work together to make sure elections go smoothly thank you looks like we're getting a couple more call-in questions and we still have more time so the next one we'll start with you brook for this one if mail-in ballots and early voting was scaled back how would you ensure everyone especially those that are systematically and historically marginalized has somewhere close to vote and lines aren't too long I think in Vermont we you know we have over 300 some odd polling places obviously every there's 252 now towns so every town has at least one polling place and many have multiple polling polling places so I think polling places are convenient for everyone for those that it is it's not convenient either because of location or because of their work requirements and things even if we got rid of universal vote by mail we still have the fallback of our early and absentee voting where and unlike sending them all over the place you know papering the countryside if you like with the system we had up until 2019 there's a chain of custody you call your town clerk and ask for a ballot the town clerk now knows you're expecting the ballot and you know that she's sending it one you get it and then she's expecting its return so there there's no question about where that ballot's gone and where it came back to beyond that as I said before we also have a secondary process for for shut-ins and and people that have handicaps to prevent them from getting to the polling place of calling the town clerk or the board of civil authority and asking that the justice of the piece be sent out two of them one from each party and that they bring the ballot if you need assistance in filling out the ballot they assist you in filling it out and then they return it to the polling place I don't think we have a problem here in Vermont thank you people being able to vote thank you Sarah how would you answer that question so when we enacted universal vote by mail in 2020 we did it primarily out of a concern for public health we didn't want people to have to choose between possibly being exposed to a pandemic virus and being able to conduct elections when we came back with more time and in being able to reflect on the 2020 election and those successes we really came at it with with a lens to let's make sure that this is the the best answer for Vermont and so we looked at all of the issues that that Mr. Page has talked about around ballot drop boxes and you know papering the countryside if that's the right phrase that you used and and we really wanted to make sure that elections were accessible to everyone and and particularly people who are who have been historically marginalized who are those people in Vermont well they're they're people who maybe English is not their native language they are people who are working two jobs and you know maybe they have to rush from one job to the next and they can't get to the town hall on election day or they can't turn their ballot in in person they need the convenience of that after hours drop box and so you know if you live in a democracy you believe that everybody should have a vote and that's what we were focused on thank you Sarah we have one more call-in vote call-in question and it looks like Jen is still typing it it might be finished and after that then we'll move to your closing statements and Sarah we'll start with you for this the question is disabled people could contact this is a quote I think they're quoting yeah disabled people could contact him and he could help them fill out the form was said by one of the candidates and the question is do they realize that effort and the lack of dignity and it sounds like he is well this is a comment it's not a question so I'll leave that part out um so Sarah yeah I mean I I think we need to stop and put ourselves in the shoes of of somebody with some sort of disability and and ask would we feel comfortable stepping up and saying no I want to exercise my right to vote I don't care if I'm inconveniencing you because you have to bring me the ballot there are so many organizations out there that are helping states compare best practices in terms of how to provide ballot access to people with visual imperities people with physical imperities and we need to make sure that we are adopting those and you know it's not always easy for for some of our small towns to make those accommodations but if there's anything that we can do from the Secretary of State's office to give that ballot access to folks I want to make sure that we're pursuing that thank you Brooke yeah um the tone of the question seemed to be that by having the ability of shut-ins and handicapped folks being able to request folks to come out and assist them with their ballot with somehow demeaning and I think that's far from the intent of the law or or the intent of the justice of the peace that are involved envision a blind person we don't have braille ballots and so the current only way that that's handled is the Secretary of State has sent out to every town and maybe sometimes got more than one but it looks like a little game console where the person's supposed to come in and they press one of three little buttons and the thing is interactive with them I know my town of Washington got one and the only person that's ever used it is the assistant town clerk to test it out it's never been used and it's minus thing in many towns that these this wasn't used whereas the justice of the peace one from each party goes to the homes of the blind physically impaired and lets them fill out their ballot and if they're unable to is when that the two just as the peace in concert will assist that person in filling out their ballot there's nothing demeaning about this it's it's you know it's something that we're treating the the blind in the handicapped in the shut-ins with with a great degree of dignity in allowing them to be or making sure that they're able to vote thank you thank you I think our timekeeper the timing got a little off no you didn't I think it didn't reset thank you very much both of you we are now at the close of the program so I'd like to give you each a minute for your closing statement or if there's anything that you would have liked to have had addressed that didn't happen and we'll start with you brook a minute is very short time so I I don't think I'll address the shortcomings of our discussions my name is brook page and I'm from the town of Washington Vermont and I very much look forward to being your next secretary of state if you privilege me with your with your vote and and elect me I'm there's concerns there's problems across the secretary of state's office but they're not problems that can't be addressed and resolved and that's really what I want to do I don't I'm not looking at this as being some sort of stepping stone to hire office I have no I'm 70 years old for crying out loud and and you know a couple years or maybe two terms in the secretary of state's office is as much as I think it would be necessary to resolve the issues that I see in that office and then I will happily go on to my somewhat belated retirement thank you for having me here tonight thank you look forward to seeing other people down the road thank you brook Sarah so thank you so much for having us tonight this has been a great conversation I I think just in closing I I want to say I'm really excited to bring my 18 years of public service experience to the role of the secretary of state's office I've led on many of the most complicated and complex issues that have come through the legislature in recent years including sexual harassment legislation modernizing our sexual assault statutes making sure that first responders have post-traumatic stress coverage when they get an injury coming to our rescue and of course on climate action and these are complex and thorny issues that I think are are most appropriately resolved in a robust democracy and that's why I'm so excited to shift my focus to the office of secretary of state to make sure that we continue to have free fare and accessible elections to make sure that our office runs smoothly and gives good customer service to Vermonters thank you Sarah Copeland hands us brook page thank you both for being here um and to our audience um election day is November 8th and you should have received your ballot in the mail by now if you haven't received one call your town clerk or city clerk and thank you for joining us tonight the best thing you can do to protect our democracy is go out there and vote good night