 on ongoing coverage of the primary election forums. Primary elections gonna be on Tuesday, August 9th this year. And we have with us today candidates for the Secretary of State running for the Democratic nomination. So these are folks that you'll see if you pick up the Democratic party ticket when you walk into your polls or, and it's important to know that if you want to vote by mail, you have to request that. And I think our panel here can attest to that because they will be familiar with election law rules and regulations. We're gonna start with opening statements. If you're watching this live, you're watching it either on TomMeetingTV channel 1087 on Comcast or Burlington Telecom channel 17 or TomMeetingTV's YouTube page. And if you wanna ask a question, we encourage you to join by Zoom webinar. And I think that you'll see the link to that will come up in the broadcast. So we welcome you on to the Zoom webinar and you can ask questions either by raising your hand and we'll call on you or by typing a question into the chat. So welcome panelists, thank you very much. And I wanna start by saying, I really appreciate you all being here and for putting yourselves out there to serve the state of Vermont or potentially, and it is serving the state of Vermont just to put yourself out there and run for office and bring up issues. So we're gonna start and we're gonna go in alphabetical order here. So we'll start with Sarah Copeland-Hanses. And if you can just give your introduction a one minute introduction on who you are and why you're running for office. Thanks Megan and thanks for hosting this webinar tonight. It's always good to give folks ample opportunity to get to know the candidates on their ballot. It's an important part of our democracy. I'm Sarah Copeland-Hanses. I am a state representative from Bradford. I've been 18 years in the House of Representatives and I'm running for Secretary of State because I'm really concerned about the threats that we see coming to our democracy from intentional misinformation to voter suppression and now elections deniers who are taking up the charge to try to take over our Secretary of State's offices across the country. I'm really concerned about the administration of elections in Vermont. I wanna make sure that we stay on the right path. In the House, I have most recently been Chair of Government Operations Committee where I have overseen the elections reforms that have been brought forward by Secretary Kondos and the team and I've been really proud to be part of helping to expand voter access and make sure that people can vote and that our elections are free, fair and accessible. So look forward to having a chat tonight and thank you very much. Thank you very much, Sarah. And John Odom, we'll hear from you next. My name is John Odom and I'm the city clerk in Montpelier, have been here for 10 years. Prior to that, I have several decades, too many decades, long history of working in activism for environmental groups, human rights groups and electoral groups. I think you got a great menu of options here and I'd say what sets me apart is first of all, as a clerk, I bring a unique perspective, a sort of neighbor to neighbor grassroots perspective on local licensing, on elections, on archives and I think that perspective would be terrific for the top of the totem pole. I'm also a nationally recognized election cybersecurity expert. I'm a certified ethical hacker so I have a firsthand understanding of how our elections can be attacked and will be attacked given the world situation and have I think some unique ideas for redesigning it from the bottom up. And I also think it's safe to say that I bring a more activist bent, particularly on elections. I spearheaded non-citizen voting in the state and I supported Winooski in doing the same thing in a way that I would support folks as secretary of state. Thank you so much and Chris Winters, thank you. Thank you and thank you to town meeting TV for giving us this opportunity today because community access television plays such a vital role in keeping us informed and it's been really important to keeping us connected and open and accessible throughout the pandemic. My name is Chris Winters, I'm the current deputy secretary of state to Jim Condos and when he told me he was retiring, I knew I had to step up because I know how much is at stake with this office. The challenges we're facing there today are nothing like we've ever seen before. Election integrity is under attack, just turn on the TV any day of the week this week and you'll see it. Nationally access to voting is being restricted in ways we couldn't have imagined just a few years ago. Yet here in Vermont, we've been expanding the right to vote. We're a national leader in elections. We're a national leader in many other important services that Vermonters and Vermont businesses rely on from our office every single day. And I believe Vermont needs an experience and effective leader with a track record of results. I'm already doing the job. I'm passionate about the work and I'm committed to using my experience, 25 years of public service in the secretary of state's office including the last seven as deputy secretary to ensure that we uphold that excellence and build on it. I'm the only candidate who can hit the ground running and I'll be ready to lead on day one. And I'm really looking forward to the discussion today. Thank you. Thank you so much. We're gonna start on the heels of the conversation on election security and threats to democracy with the question about what needs to be done and what specifically are the threats in Vermont. So the question is one of the jobs of Vermont secretary of state is to oversee election security. What more needs to be done to encourage widespread voting and ensure people's participation in the democratic process. And specifically, how do we do that while maintaining and safeguarding our election process? And so we're gonna start. Thank you with John Odom. Thanks. Yeah, I mean, there's a few different threats. Obviously the secretary of state is gonna have a little more impact on one or the other. There's certainly the challenges to the integrity, the validity of the election. You don't see that as much in Vermont, but the truth is the truth about the election. And I think that's just a matter of having a strong secretary of state to tell that truth. There is misinformation and since elections are critical infrastructure, there's a lot of resources out there to collect and keep an eye on misinformation, especially during the election. And I think the secretary of state's office can be a good conduit to that for the local folks. And of course, there's election cybersecurity. I think we've got a model now and Vermont's done great under the current model, but the current model I think is obsolete. There are too many ways that danger is going to increase. I think we need to get away from faceless corporations that are really managing our voter roles and our election management systems and turn it around and take some control. Move to open source systems that are collaborative, that increase security, that could be a model, that could be picked up and used for other states, even other countries, we could lead the world in this. And we should also create a dedicated network for all the town clerks to use during elections and only for elections. So nobody's checking their Facebook or their email on the same computer that they're running the elections on because 95% of hacks come from malware and software that hasn't been updated. So we can manage that at the Secretary of State level. We can rebuild a stronger system from the bottom up. We can support local folks in there in reporting and communicating misinformation. And I say just to increase trust in the system, we just got to get up and tell the truth, however much it takes. Thanks, that was two minutes on the nose. That was amazing, great. Chris Winters, you're up next. So this is addressing issues of cybersecurity and misinformation. And as John Odom referred to, there are sort of two tiers there. How are you gonna address this? Thank you for the question. I'm really proud of the steps that the Secretary of State's office has taken to encourage and strengthen democracy over the last several years while I've been deputy and while I've been leading the legislative agenda in both the House and the Senate, some of those things include voting by mail, same day registration, automatic voter registration, translation services for certain cities. Defending democracy is not just about cybersecurity and good law. It's also about re-engaging civic dialogue in this state. We have a full-time position set aside to dedicate to that work. We have to continue to push back on things like the big lie and these election deniers that were referenced earlier. As Deputy Secretary of State, I stood up to the Trump administration with Secretary Kondos. Vermont has been a strong voice on ethical and secure elections and it's something I'm really passionate about. I think we also ought to thoughtfully consider and successfully implement ranked choice voting because it increases trust in the political system and improves voter satisfaction. And I really think we need to reach young people, including helping them get registered. The younger people start voting, the more committed they are to voting as they get older. I've been working with the Vermont Humanities Council in the Center for Cartoon Studies on a comic book, which I hope to get into the hands of Vermonters of every age very soon. Great, thanks so much. Reps, Rep, Sarah. Hi, thanks so much. I'm gonna address both parts of the question. I'm gonna start with election security. We are a state that has a population that is smaller than the city of Boston. And we have town clerks at our local level who are the local elections administrators and the local keepers of the checklist. That is a tremendous level of election security that I think goes unrecognized when people talk about election security. Our town clerks are duly elected and sworn to protect our elections and they take that role very seriously. And so in terms of election security, I would look to the clerks to be a conduit for information about what they need, what they would like to have in the way of increased election security provisions. But I also wanna answer your question about participation. Increasing participation and increasing people's faith that their vote matters is really critically important. It's one of the biggest threats to our democracy right now, which is why I've been talking from day one about reinstating the Education and Outreach Coordinator position. This is a position that existed under Secretary Markowitz. This is someone who can get out into our communities and out into our schools, help to develop a strong curriculum of civics education so that young people coming out of school will have a better understanding of how to participate in their democracy. The other thing that I'd like to do now that we've moved to Universal Vote by Mail is when you get your ballot with mail, I think you should also have access to an elections guide. So it can be an electronic elections guide. Always wanna make sure that people have the opportunity to choose to have a paper version mailed to them for those of us who live out in the middle of the boonies that don't get good internet access, but an elections guide where all of the candidates and all of the issues that are on your ballot are explained so that people can research their voting choices. Over 18 years in the legislature, I have heard from many people who have said, I don't vote because I don't know anything about any of the people. Well, an elections guide can help with that. Great, thanks so much. And speaking of internet, I think we lost you for a brief blip there, but I think we cut the most of your message. And we'll just keep an eye on that and let you know if it happens again. You know, you all referenced relationships with the clerks and I think, as my understanding, it's really important for the Secretary of State to have a good working relationship with clerks. And those are from 251 or 252 towns, that's depending on how you count it now. Is that right? 246. What? 246. 246. Okay, I was adding the new city of S-Extension. Unincorporated gores, I think, is part of that equation. Got it. Okay, so tell me a little bit about how you're going to work to develop and communicate with clerks. You all referenced it a little bit, but maybe just to spend a little bit more time on that. Oh, and we'll start with Rep Housis. Oh, excellent. So constituent services really been such an important part of being a state representative. And so getting out and talking to people and asking them for their ideas and opinions is really first nature for someone who's coming out of the legislative realm. I've enjoyed during the campaign already getting out and visiting with many of the town clerks, asking them how things are going, what can we do for you? How, you know, how can we help you do your job? And the answers that you get to that question are as different and varied as the number of communities that we have in Vermont. So, you know, larger municipalities have access to, you know, a town or city attorney and can ask all of those questions of their own city attorney for the really, really small municipalities, a clerk who's maybe only open a couple days a week and doesn't have very much of a budget or independence from the select board that controls the budget. That can be a really challenging question for them to say, hey, I have an issue that I need to ask legal opinion on and I don't have access to an attorney. And so I think we need, as the Secretary of State's office, to be very customer friendly to our town clerks. And we also need to understand that the amount of help and assistance or guidance that we offer to different municipalities might be very unique. And I think that's important for us to help everyone where they are to be able to administer their municipality to the best of their ability. Great. Thanks so much. I do want to acknowledge that I messed up the order there, but we'll, we'll be next on the, on the go around Chris. Sorry. So John, I'm next on that question of how you're going to communicate with clerks and what are you going to do to build a good relationship with them? Well, since I am a clerk, this is the, my favorite question I've ever been asked. I mean, there's a lot of things you can do to help out. I mean, clerks, obviously you have to, you know, the Secretary of State needs to stay in contact with them constantly. And a tip of the hat here to Chris and his operation, the elections in particular, the elections crew, if there has been great talking with us. Now, having said that, I think there's some, some good two way stuff that can be changed. I think listening to clerks about, you know, maybe some of the, you know, there's clunkiness sometimes around elections that aren't necessary. I wouldn't say the Secretary of State's fault, but the Secretary of State could step up and help address those. We have a pretty complicated, you know, primary system with the primary ballot. I think that needs to be simplified, especially if, and I hope we do move to vote by mail for all elections, including municipal that works. There's no reason not to do it. I think we talked, I talked to them about cybersecurity. I mean, the problem with a lot of clerk's offices is they don't know what they don't know and we can provide support for that. We can provide support for them if they or their communities want to work on expanding the franchise through things like non-citizen voting or 16 and 17 year old voting. I think, I think the Secretary of State could really take an active role in supporting that. And, you know, something like archives, you know, we're the, we're the keeper of the archives. And when you look at a clerk's vaults, the utility of an archive is how useful it is. In a museum, it's how old it is. So I hit my vault 10 years ago, and some of the older stuff had just fallen apart. And I think, you know, Visar is so good. The Secretary of State's operation is really there. They get both ends of the spectrum. And I'd like to see them really get involved and help the clerks out with that. And I could go on forever. So I'll be quiet. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Chris Winters. So you got a shout out there for work that you've already been doing with clerks. How will you be? How will you continue the work of reaching clerks throughout the state? Yeah, thank you. And thanks, John. We do work closely with the clerks. I think as deputy secretary, I have in some way supported every town or city clerk in our state. And I feel really fortunate to have the endorsement of several of them. You know, most of them will not take the step to endorse in an election. They're overseeing, but a few have made an exception for me this year. And I appreciate that we've been through a lot together, especially in 2020 clerks were vital to being able to allow Vermonters to vote during the pandemic. And they really stepped up and met the call. And so we were more collaborative and communicative, I think than we ever have been, at least in my time at the secretary of state's office, I do think that most of them are well prepared and that we, we send frequent communications. We have that close relationship. And I think we would be that the first call, most of them would make if something went wrong. We do secure the human trainings, you know, to train about things like fishing, like what John was talking about. We have an election incident response plan that I author that includes a coordinated and swift communication with the clerks and as well, local state and federal law enforcement. If we need it in case of emergency. And really the clerks are the heart and soul of local government and they love democracy and voting. And that's why it really makes me upset when I hear that one in four election officials are resigning across the country. Because they're being harassed by election deniers. So that makes me want to fight harder to become secretary of state to fight against the misinformation. And the misunderstanding of, of how things work. Thanks folks. I want to remind you all, if you're watching live that you can join the webinar and hopefully you'll see a link to that below. And, or if you are watching the webinar now, it looks like we got a couple of participants there. Feel free to drop a question in the Q and a or raise your hand and you can unmute you and allow you to. Ask a question directly. I'm going to move on to the question, the racial justice question, because I think this is interesting when we talk about racism and systemic racism or any kind of systemic injustice, how organizations like the secretary of state. I mean, offices like the secretary of state can address those. And if you can be specific as you can, you know, we talk about elections, archives, records, regulations. We will start with you, Chris, mentors on this question. Sure. Thank you for this question. I, although I'm the first in my family to go to college, I'm still constantly learning and unlearning those years of training and understanding that I have privilege as a, as a white cis straight man. And in this process, I've been overseeing an agency with 80 staff and working really hard to bring the whole agency forward. I can speak in lots of detail about what we're doing. Division by division, and I'll try to do that quickly here. There are very concrete steps we have been taking and we can take in every division of the secretary of state's office. In professional regulation, for example, we've been working to reduce barriers and make sure the requirements for licensure aren't too burdensome or don't require excessive student debt. We know the criminal justice system has had a disproportionate impact on the BIPOC community. And we've implemented a streamlined process to evaluate prior convictions with the goal of getting folks licensed without convictions being a bar in elections. We can talk about that for a long time, but let's just acknowledge very clearly that voting laws have always been about race and I'll continue to fight for everyone to have equal access to the ballot box and reduce unnecessary barriers. Again, as I have my whole career in the business world, in the corporation sector, our new business portal is going to start collecting race and gender data and we can use that to target communications from the state or from nonprofits to inform consumers who want to patronize these BIPOC businesses or better inform legislative policy. And then the last one is our state archives and records administration records. As John said, it's an amazing and little known part of the secretary of state's office that holds some of our most valuable historical documents from decisions made many years ago, 231 years ago when Vermont became the state, all the way to the present, to what, you know, the legislature has now been contemplating things like a truth and reconciliation commission. We use our historical records to inform those decisions to learn from the past and to adequately address the mistakes we've made in our past. Sorry for going up. You're pretty much right on the nose there. Thank you so much, Sarah. Thank you. A lot of the work that I've done in the legislature has been around racial justice. When, when George Floyd was murdered in 2020, right at the beginning of the pandemic, the racial justice police reform bills came front and center in our committee. We slowed that process down and we took the time to hear from Vermonters, BIPOC Vermonters, from across the state to be able to give them the opportunity to inform how those initial steps on racial justice police reform would play out. I was really proud of that work. It was extremely difficult. It was done by webinar, just like we are here tonight. And, and facilitating a webinar with hundreds of participants and a legislative committee who needed to listen to and hear from all of these Vermonters and all of these different perspectives was really intense and it was very valuable. I would, I would say that first and foremost, I think what we need to focus on is making sure that people who move here not only from another state, but from another country with professional training from that country need to have a better crack at being able to become licensed in their profession. We have, I hear stories all the time about someone who, you know, was, was qualified to, to be a professor in, in XYZ. And when they came to Vermont, they were told they needed to go back to school and take those very classes that they had been teaching, perhaps in another country. I think there's more that we can do on that. I think that that is an important equalizer when someone already has the professional training to help and facilitate them getting that equivalent licensure here in Vermont. Thanks so much. And John, you on the question of how the, how the, this office helps promote racial justice and justice in general. Thanks so much. Well, this has been a very illustrative kind of brutally. So last several weeks in that regard from my perspective, our last city council meeting in Montpelier, you know, we have one BIPOC counselor. And she was the first and only in Montpelier and yet she was attacked loudly, angry, based on her heritage, which sent the message, okay, you can be on our city council as long as you sit down, shut up and pretend that you're white. It's all over the place. It is people, I think white Vermonters are finally starting to see just how pervasive this is. One of the folks marching with me in the maple fest, a young girl was called the N word from the crowd. I think, I think what Chris and Sarah are talking about are both great. I think, you know, we need to, the systems that the secretary state run do need to be sort of tweaked and managed so that information can be collected so that they can be more welcome. But we got to kick it up to the next level. This is out of control and we can't wait for members of the BIPOC community to tell us how not to be racist. One thing I will do is appoint a person of color to the deputy position. But also, when I talk about being more activist, I want to see the secretary state's office use this unique system we have, the licensing system, the corporation system. This is a direct conduit to business people, to license folks around the state. It's something we could use not just to push out professional development, but push out education on issues like this, talking about racism, talking about inclusion, and get a better sense not just of what the problem is, but change the culture in that entire community and by, you know, I affect the rest of the state. I think it's an extraordinary resource that can be used not just to push out that sort of information, but also, you know, climate pledges, equal peg compact pledges. Anyways, gone on too long. That was just about it. Thanks so much. I'm going to follow up on this and stay on this question just a little bit longer specifically on the question of language access, which you all alluded to. And certainly, you know, town meeting TV has a relationship in the city of Burlington and in the city of Winooski where we now have all resident voting and both of those communities and other communities around the state. And so, you know, it's certainly a first step. We, you know, some of those translated ballots make more or less sense depending on what the questions are and how easily they do translate into other languages, which also just brings up a question of sort of language access in general. How do people understand some of the ballot questions? That they're reading. So let's talk about that a little bit. Language access. And what the secretary of state's office can do is doing, should be doing. Again, to participate, to increase participation among all communities. And so we will start with, I think our next question is, John Oda. We're going to follow up with you. So go ahead. Well, this is a perfect thing for the secretary of state to work on. You know, I, as I mentioned before, I'll say it again, because it's self promotion time, right? I spearheaded non-citizen or all resident voting in the state after we got it going in Montpelier, Winooski city council reached out to me and, and we started, we started working on it. And what we found is that, and I think you can, this can be something to be promoted to is a lot of resource and information sharing. Myself and the Winooski clerk, we worked together. We learned from each other. I helped provide support for technical challenges. And honestly, she really helped me with, with, because she'd done a lot more work on this than I have to, to her credit in my detriment. I hadn't done enough on different language access on, you know, she plugged me into resources of ballots. I found folks in town who could stand by to be translators, had them on speed dial for a few different languages. I think clerks can resource share and coordinate in that way. And that coordination should happen through the secretary of state's office. And the secretary of state's office is going to be able to provide, you know, potentially real-time translation services that the clerks are not going to be able to frankly afford to do themselves because this is some expensive stuff. So the secretary of state could take point on that. And yeah. And it's another, it's another powerful step against racism. Right. The same question. We come right back to that. Thanks so much. Chris Winters. Sure. Thank you. Thanks for the follow-up. We do, we have been focusing more on language access. I think state agencies don't pay enough attention to it. There've been some, some statewide meetings where a number of, of leaders come to the table to pay more attention to language access. And I've been a part of those. As has been mentioned, we did assist the cities of Burlington and Winooski with some ballot translation services. We brought stakeholders to the table, the people who were really affected by this, heard them, did what we could to support them. I'll point out that we're a five person elections division. So we don't have a lot of resources either, but we did our best to pull together those groups that could help supplement the need in Burlington and Winooski. You can go to our YouTube channel at the secretary of state's office and find how to vote and what to expect. That you're pulling place in the six most frequently spoken foreign languages. Right there on our YouTube channel. We had a lot of fun shooting those and getting them translated with partners. We need partners in this. And we need funding. And we need support. But we have been doing a pretty decent job. I would say of reaching out to those communities and helping to create better language access. And make sure that every Vermont voter, everyone who wants to vote has access is not intimidated. Feels free to exercise that right to vote. Come election day. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. That's quite all right. I was already going to apologize. Speaking of foreign languages. It's Greek. Kansas. It's shortened from Hensaktos. So language access. Very important. And I think that John Odom sort of hit the nail on the head on this one that, that we need to take on that responsibility and that core role as a secretary of state. Because our individual municipalities. May not have access. To do what we can do collectively as a whole. I think we do need to tap into all of our. Multiple language speakers in the state of Vermont. To help do that because. Because crowdsourcing these things is. It's going to be more impactful. And I think we need to take on that responsibility and that core role as a secretary of state. Because our individual municipalities. May not have the resources to do what we can do collectively as a whole. I think we do need to tap into all of our. And that core role as a secretary of state. And that core role as a secretary of state. Is going to be more impactful. And I would just say. To add on to that, that our elections guide needs to also be available in different languages so that. When you get your ballot, your ballot is in. You can get your ballot in the correct language. And when you get your elections guide, you can also see who's running for what in. In your native tongue. You can also see who's running for what in the native tongue. So this is a partisan office. I've been working as a partisan office as a partisan. Office. And maybe we can just spend a minute on this. So this was the question. Why is this a partisan office? And do you think it should continue to be a partisan office? Because it plays such a. Non, very important nonpartisan role. So once you're elected, you really are working for all of the people. So let's start with. My order is off. I think we're starting with Chris Winters on this one. Sure. Thanks so much. Thank you. I really love this question. I'll try. I'll try. I've worked very hard through my whole career to be nonpartisan. I've been a public servant. I don't come from the political world. I've come from a family of wonderful people from all sides of the political spectrum. And I really think that government should be accountable and transparent and nonpartisan. But I do believe that the Secretary of State needs to be elected, because the voters should have a public servant who is accountable directly to them. So, you know, having the Secretary of State work for the governor or be appointed by the legislature, I don't think would be a good idea. We need that independence. So the Secretary of State's office touch every Vermonner's life and every Vermonner deserves great service from our office. So I plan to continue to run the Secretary of State's office in a very nonpartisan manner. And I've been a public servant and a problem solver, not a politician all of my career. Thanks. Perfect. Rep. Kansas. Thank you. So I think that there's an important distinction, as Chris said, between partisanship and accountability. And when we elect someone as a state, that person becomes accountable to us to all of us to the people who who elected her or him. And, and having served in elected office for 18 years, I know greatly the responsibility that you have to all of your constituents. And so it doesn't matter whether someone supported you or not whether they're a part of your party or not when you're doing the job, you're doing the job for the people who elected you. And, and so I think that's the important distinction that should be made here that we do have this electoral process that we use to choose all of our statewide leaders. At the end of the day, our statewide leaders work for all of us and I have a lot of respect for the, the, the institution of the elected office and, and I understand that being able to be accessible and communicate with people who may disagree with me and maybe never voted for me is an important part of the office. And it's one that I'm very familiar with. Thanks so much John Odom. Yeah, first of all, I want to echo everything Chris said about why the position has to be elected. And that's because as an election official, you can't be accountable to folks on the ballot. If you know if somebody's working for the governor. Yeah, they have that connection to the governor. They can't be, you know, they can't be objective. This is a song I've been singing at the clerk level for ages, and I get annoying about it, but the idea that even local election officials can't be accountable to someone on that ballot they should be elected. Now, as far as the question of partisanship, I'm going to be honest with you, I hadn't thought about this much until it started coming up on the campaign trail. In a sense, I'm agnostic about it, but I'm beginning to think it's not a bad idea. I think, especially I think if you went that route made it into a nonpartisan, like clerks are nonpartisan so there's certainly consistency there. But you get a big crowd running. And I think in a situation like that you really, really need to think seriously, it may be necessary to use ranked choice voting in an election like that. So you can, you can manage the different folks you get a better picture of the electorate and that's something I'd like to evangelize a bit as Secretary of State and go on tour about. Great. Thanks. That's interesting. Interesting to hear those different perspectives. The last question here is about complex systems. So, you know, the state is a wash in these complex systems around. We touched on racial justice, health care, climate change, education, housing. How does the Secretary of State interface with the rest of government specifically to help us pick apart and make some progress in some of these complex social issues that are facing us. And we're going to start with Rob Hansis. Two minutes on this. Thank you so much. You know, it's an important question. And it's one that that ties into the previous question, because to me it's all about beating with your values. If, if Vermonters want to be able to tackle the existential crisis of climate change, they need to elect more leaders who wake up every day thinking of ways to solve the climate crisis, and they might be ways that are new and different than anyone else has thought of before. If we truly want to tackle racial justice, we need to elect officials who have a demonstrated commitment to racial justice issues and have worked on them. If we want to tackle housing or education or childcare issues. We need to make sure that the people that we elect are are focused on those and I would just say that, while, while we might may not be able in this moment to imagine a way that the Secretary of State's office as the Sarah and corporations and elections and Office of Professional Education can have a direct impact on those, I guarantee you that somebody who wakes up every day, experiencing those crises in their lives and in the lives of their family will do a better job of finding ways to help solve those problems. Yeah, this is a tough question because you know the Secretary of State in so many ways stands apart from the rest of government. So, I think, you know, first and foremost you can talk about modeling. There's a lot of modeling of good government that the Secretary of State can do I think the Secretary of State should be the shining tower of good government that could be they could be looked at and and not just in how we do things but you know as Sarah mentioned values. I think there are small but symbolic leading ways that the Secretary of State's office could lead on values, you know, we could make environmental statements by by using on site energy storage something it wouldn't make a big deal, but maybe that's something we could encourage to happen in the rest of the of the state. It's an interesting contrast with the last question, because I think Sarah's apps also absolutely right that you got to get good candidates in there. But if you create a nonpartisan office. It's, you can't really do that as Secretary of State there's a sort of implicit assumption that you're going to support Democratic candidates. You're going to support Democratic Secretary of State. And in fact the candidates do that they go out on tour together they, you know, fundraise for the party. So, as it is. Yes, the Secretary of State can and should help support good candidates, if we go the other direction. Not so much. A lot of very, very good modeling, I think is going to be the biggest, the biggest answer for that and interaction where appropriate, and where possible, so that that direct influence can be felt in other parts of state government. There's a bigger budget on that question of complex systems, which is interesting. And but we'll have a little bit more time. Chris Winters, see if you can do the same. Oh, no pressure. Thank you. The father of four kids. These are, these are things that I worry about every single day. I know my children, especially my two older children in their 20s wonder, you know what's in store for their future. So, of course, there's no doubt we have we have a climate crisis we have a healthcare crisis we have a racism crisis we even have a democracy crisis. The cross feels like it's everywhere right now. And when I look at all these issues, I look at it through the lens of voting. I think protecting democracy and protecting the right to vote is a part of protecting the climate protecting reproductive rights fighting racism. The right to vote is the right from which all other rights flow. So that's the work that I've already been doing every single day for the last seven years to preserve that right and reduce unnecessary barriers to voting, so that more people will participate in our democracy more elected candidates will reflect that democracy and be impactful for the causes we all believe. There are some specific things the Secretary of State's office can and has been doing on climate we can we can reduce paper, we can reduce commutes and office footprints. We can continue doing a great job of doing things like regulating foresters or the construction trades or welcoming new green businesses on immigration reform we can help welcome new Americans by meeting them where where they are we have that potentialing power already in law. We're doing that for folks coming in from other countries with education and experience that ought to meet our licensure requirements on racial justice we can pay attention to the implicit bias in our systems. We can collect and use data on BIPOC businesses to make voting accessible we can fight back against racist voting laws on health care, we can do our part to regulate health care professions to protect the public but still reduce barriers to licensure to make Vermont an attractive place so that everyone has a seat at the table for the health care workforce and that's that's all for good reason so I'll wrap it up there sorry. Couldn't do it sorry John. Good, good try. We're going to, we're going to do our closing statements now I think we're going to go over in it or so. And so if everybody just wants to take a minute and you know this could be a good time to just say what's going to be different for the people of the state, if you're elected. What on the outgoing secretary condos heels. Are you looking forward to digging into. And this is your closing statement and we're going to start with Chris Winters, and then wrap hands us and then john Otto. Thank you in just a few weeks for monitors are going to start casting their ballots and with so many candidates running you're probably not going to hear a lot about the secretary of states race, but I really urge you to take a close look. You've heard about some of it tonight registering businesses preserving the archives protecting the public assisting municipalities campaign finance and lobbyist disclosures overseeing elections. The secretary of state's office is diverse and it's complicated with 80 employees and a $17 million budget it requires an experienced and hardworking manager. A well run secretary of state's office is going to make for monitors lives better and without the right person in there. There's no immediate impact in public safety and the economy and government transparency. I'm running for secretary of state to make sure our elections are safe and secure our voters have access to voting into their government, our businesses have the support they need, and our office is transparent responsive and helpful to all Vermonters at all times and those aren't just talking points for me, they're deliverables I think in these uncertain times for monitors want security, stability and experienced leadership, they can trust. I'm ready to lead on day one and I'm asking for your vote. Thanks so much representative hands us. Thank you. It's been great to be here tonight. I just want to say in my closing statement that my 18 years in the legislature. I have given me the opportunity to lead on many complex and complicated and politically fraught issues. And each of those I needed to take back home to my constituents and explain to them what we did and asked for them to vote for me for reelection. I think that that's an important skill in representing what people want, whether it is corporations and what they need to see in their Secretary of State's office, whether it is Office of Professional Regulation, and what the license professions need to see from their office, and, and certainly with respect to elections and how we can work alongside our local elections officials to make our elections work better for Vermonters. In the legislature I have fought for sexual harassment prevention legislation. I have worked on sexual assault prevention, post traumatic stress coverage for injured first responders. All of these issues are our heart and soul issues that Vermonters brought to me and I led on and as your Secretary of State, I will continue to listen to take your ideas and to lead with them in order to make the office work better for Vermonters. Great. Thanks so much. I hate giving the wrap up signal, especially when people are, you know, talking about important things, but John Odom, let's hear from you on this. Thanks. What would my Secretary of State's office look at when what would I bring. First of all, I have a grassroots level of connection with my community, I think is unique. Nobody has the kind of connection, the kind of face to face, working with folks on elections on licensing that a city clerk or town clerk does so I would bring that up. My number one argument for why I would be the latest in the pattern about every 10 years or so the voters bring in a Secretary of State from outside Jim condos 10 years before that Deb Markowitz. And I think my experience and my perspective makes me makes my case for doing that election security. I'm a certified ethical hacker. Made the point to the Secretaries of State around the country and the corporations of by hacking into voting machines myself I have a unique understanding of the needs of our election system. I've led on non citizen voting, and I just would bring a more activist approach to the entire office. And I would use the systems there to push out our values and make it a values office in a way it's never been before. Well, I want to thank you all for joining us tonight. This has been very interesting. And, you know, I think you all bring unique and interesting perspectives to this conversation. Thank you all for tuning in to watch town meeting TVs continued coverage of election forums. You can watch this and other forums at www.ch17.tv and don't forget to vote on or before August 9 2022 polls will be open 7am to 7pm. And if you want to get a ballot you need to request it if you want to get a ballot mailed you need to request it because ballots will not be mailed during the primary automatically. So thank you all for watching and good night. Thanks Megan. Thank you.