 Throughout its history, Santa Cruz County has weathered earthquakes, floods, landslides, fire, and even a tsunami. We are a community well-practiced in disaster, but this year, a pandemic with a side of wildfire is really putting us to the test. As if we don't have enough going on, we also have a national election. Joining me today is Santa Cruz County Clerk Gail Pellerin, who will share the county's plan to make sure voting is safe and secure for everyone, no matter what happens next. Stay with us. Every vote matters, so the county clerk and her team have come up with a plan for just about every obstacle to voting to make sure everyone who is eligible can cast a ballot. Joining me now, Gail Pellerin. Welcome, Ms. Pellerin. Hi, thanks for having me. Well, it's great to have you here. I know you're going to have a bunch of great information for people, and it's going to make it really informative. And I think it's a good time because you're facing the challenge of holding an election during a pandemic and a wildfire. And I know you've launched a new program called Vote Safe Santa Cruz. Can you talk a little about that campaign? You know, due to the pandemic, the state of California has basically authorized every county elections official to mail every active registered voter in the state a ballot. So ballots will be in the mail by October the 5th. And so just because we mail you a ballot doesn't mean you have to return it by mail. We're going to also be setting up 15 outside drop boxes that you can access 247 so you can vote that ballot and then easily drive up and drop a couple of them or walk up boxes. We'll also have in-person voting locations for people who do like to come in and get assistance or vote on the tablet. And the tablet does provide for an accessible ballot and a ballot that's in Spanish. And we are going to be mailing a Spanish facsimile to all of our voters who requested the Spanish language as well. But those voting locations, two of us will be opening up beginning October 5th. That's our office, the Santa Cruz County Clerk Collections, and the Watsonville City Clerk's office will be open starting October the 5th. And then on Halloween, Saturday, October 31st, we're going to have 18 other voting locations that will be open. And they will be open Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. Any voter could go to any location. They can go in to get a replacement ballot because they either lost or don't have the ballot we mailed them originally. They could register and vote on the same day. They can use the voting booths and drop off their ballot there, the one that we did mail them, or they can use the tablet to vote a Spanish ballot or an accessible ballot or if they just want to use the ballot. And then any other voter assistance that we need that they need, we're doing same day voter registration too for people who missed the October 19th deadline to register. They can go to these 10% voting locations and register to vote on the same day. So, and then on top of that, we're going to have a vote mobile and I'm very excited about this. We're going to have a trailer that we can take anywhere in the county as long as we have connectivity through our signal. And we'll be able to issue ballots and collect ballots in the communities depending on where we need to go. So, we're probably going to be looking at a lot of the fire areas, you know, for the summit as well, and our residential care facilities for our voters who are in residential care facilities so we're open to ideas on where people think we should go and we'll be able to be very mobile. Well, that's very interesting. So, when you say people, we're very interested in where people need us to go. Are you accepting suggestions and it's so Yeah, yeah, I'm open to suggestions and and if it works, we'll make it happen. So, yeah, we're going to hopefully be picking up this trailer in early October. I'm hoping after 12. We'll be able to start scheduling places and dates and times when we'll be out in the community, providing this voter service for anybody. You mentioned that most people will get, I guess everybody gets a mail in ballot, but they aren't able to mail it in. Now, what about people displaced by the fires who are no longer at their home to receive their ballot. Right. So, the thing is, is that even if they do a forwarding address through the USPS that does not mean that doesn't work for ballot cannot be forwarded. So, you still have to tell us where you want your ballot materials to be mailed and you could do that very easily on our website with a change of mailing address form. We also have these forms out at the shelter and the resource recovery center and just fill that out to let us know where you want to mail that ballot and we'll mail it in. So, when should people expect to receive their ballot in the mail and is there a date by which, if they don't receive it, they should call you? Yeah, so we are, you know, our plan is to get them in the mail by October 5th and then they don't get it in the mail by, I believe the 12th is a Monday, but I think it's a postal holiday. So next day is the 13th, the day so they'll get in the mail by that date. Give us a call, send us an email, let us know. We could follow up on the mail to see to make sure that things did get delivered because sometimes the trades missed, we're going to be able to follow up on that. But what's really cool and voters should really do this is to sign up to track your ballot. So just like you track a package, you can track your ballot, you sign up for it real simply at wearsmyballot.sos.ca.gov and you'll put in your name and you'll indicate whether you want text messaging or email alerts and you'll get an alert every time someone's coming with your ballot that's working through the mail. So you'll get an alert once it enters the mail stream, you'll get an alert when it's in your mailbox, and then you'll get an alert we get it, and you'll get an alert as good, or if there's some question with your signature, either the signature doesn't come there, or if you're missing, you'll get an alert to that and you'll be able to cure that. Okay, so now one thing we're hearing a lot about on television and in PSAs is make a plan to vote and I've never heard that before. Yeah, yeah, that's actually, yeah, I started that a couple years ago as far as making a plan to vote. So I don't want to question anymore, are you voting? I'm expecting everybody to vote. And with your plan on looking for that vote by mail ballot that's going to be sent to you and I tried to do something creative with it so it might stick out in that pile of mail that you get every day. So your ballot will have a big XO on it, so I'm sending every voter a hug and a kiss, so look for that in your piles of mail. And by all means, just make sure you mail it to you and you can have it back. You have those options of dropping it off at a drop box or a voting location. It do mail it, make sure that you get it postmarked on or before November 3rd and postage is paid on the ballot return envelope. So you don't have to hunt for a stamp and just make sure that is postmarked on or before November 3rd. And California changed our law, so now there's actually 17 days on the back end for us to get it. So if there's any kind of slowness happening with this office, there's no new grade because as long as we get it by November 20th, that's 17 days. As long as it is postmarked November 3rd. So if anyone's mailing their ballot on election day, I would not just drive it up to a drop box that the USPS uses. I would actually walk it into the post office and make sure it gets that canceled stamp on. So we know that it's postmarked on November 3rd. Okay, all right, so that date is important to make sure that you get the postmark you can just throw it in a box. Yes, yeah, our boxes you can and we will have our boxes will get cleared daily and on election night at 8pm. We're going to have people stationed at all those 15 drop boxes and they'll be looking at their clock. And at 8 o'clock, they will lock that box, close and secure it for the night, empty all the ballots that are inside and bring them back to the county elections department for processing and counting. So in addition to making sure we get it postmarked and we mail it on time, what other kinds of things should people be thinking about in to make sure that they vote? What sort of steps go into plan? So right now we want to make sure people register. So it's easy to register to vote. You just go to register to vote.ca.gov. And what happens then that that works really well when you have a California driver's license or ID because it will pull that signature on file with the DMV and that will be your signature for voting purposes. So you always know what that signature looks like. If you don't have a California ID or a driver's license, a California driver's license, you do have to print out a piece of paper that you need to sign and then mail it to us. If you want to vote using the voter registration card, you want to register to vote, voter registration cards are available at post offices, libraries, City Hall, our office, of course. We're hoping to get out in the community more so I believe there's an event tomorrow going on over at City Hall and we're hoping to have voter registration going on there. So there are cards available or I can mail you a card. You can call us and we can mail you a card that you can fill out and then return to us. So sign up is the first step. And then the next step time people to do is check up. So you want to check to make sure everything's correct so you can go to voter status dot sos dot ca dot gov and look up your your registration to make the correct name, the correct address and if there is an address that will be provided there as well. So you know that's where I'm mailing the ballot. So if it shows a PO box and you're like oh I canceled that last year. You know to let us know to get rid of that PO box so we can mail that ballot to your residents. So checking your status is super important. So the third thing you want to do is to sign up to track your ballot. So again that's where is my ballot dot sos dot ca dot easy to sign up and get those alerts. Those are three simple things to do sign up check up and track it. Yeah, I've also heard that pick the date you're going to vote make sure you have childcare get your ride to the vote if you're going to go and vote in person get a ride that sort of thing. I mean it's so easy to vote from home now and it's so convenient you could do it on your own time and and you are protected there so somebody comes to your door and voting here and up to the air. So you need to tell them I'm sorry I'm voting you need to leave. There is no electioneering around your home when you're in the process of voting people can't tell you how to vote. I'm going to send a ballot to a stranger if someone comes by says I'm collecting ballots I'll return it for you. Don't do it. If you need help with some with to return your ballot call us and we'll send someone to your home to pick up your ballot or to the assistance of somebody you're a family member or a household member or a neighbor, somebody to give you. That person returning their name and make their relationship to you. So I'll just give your voter ballot to somebody you don't know. Right. And but it's okay to give it to someone you do know. You can enlist the help of somebody and if you yeah but don't just give it to a stranger. All right so that so while we're on that subject. They also I noticed in your on your website you also talk about compensation for voting. Like people may offer you something to vote right that's illegal so you know people can't offer you a dozen donuts or a free cup of coffee. I feel like every elections somebody in you know with good nature says come in with your I voted sticker and you can get a free coffee you know that's illegal we cannot provide any sort of incentive for voting. Okay. Yeah. All right. I voted sticker so even though we're all getting about mail to us it's going to on the instruction sheet, there will be that I voted sticker that you get to where proudly when you go out and about in your community. Okay, so everybody should look for that and where it with pride. Yes. If you go to if they decide to vote in person if they decide not to vote at home they head for the about do they need an ID to vote in person. No, so what's going to happen when you show up and basically we're taking our office operation and we're duplicating it out in the community. So we will have connectivity to our election information management system. So when you do come in they will look up your name and their and ask you address and if it's a match they will go ahead and issue. So the California law does not require ID we do have 129 people who are in a what we're called first time federal voter category and we are not saying that there's an ID so have it. And we don't put on file for those voters when we mail the ballots out they're going to be getting an alert that they do need to provide a copy of their ID so we can verify them. And that does occur but but if you go and the other cool thing we're doing at the voting locations is in order to manage the line because we really don't want a lot of people congregating inside due to COVID. And we are going to be complying with all the public health guidelines we're going to be wearing masks we're going to have hand sanitation stations will have disinfectant to disinfect the surfaces will have shields and plastic dividers so and we'll be adhering to this physical distancing. But what we've got also is an app. So what we're going to have what's going to happen so remember those good old days when we went to a restaurant and all the tables were full, they would get your cell phone number and they'll say we'll text you when your table's ready. Same thing with voting so if it says if it looks like well it's going to be a half hour wait. That means it's your cell phone number and we'll text you when you're ready. You can sit in your car and you know listen to music you can take a little walk whatever it is you want to do and then you'll get that alert when it's your turn for your ballot, and you can come back and get in line and get your ballot. So that and I think we're also going to have it on our website where you can see which places have the longest wait time so kind of like the urgent cares do so if you if something happens and you need to go to urgent care you can go online and see what the time is. We're hoping to have that same sort of concept where you can say oh well it looks like Kaiser's got a 15 minute wait but Simkins has an hour wait we're going to go there and we're going to go and vote there because there's less wait time. And remember one you can go to whatever any voter can go to any location and and remember that voting is not just Tuesday Tuesday is the last day to vote. There's people to get out there and vote on on Saturday it's Halloween come in costume. Good chance to wear a mask right and then Sunday will be open as well so so Saturday Sunday Monday another good day and then Tuesday so we're trying to flatten that voting curve to make sure that people trickle in over all four days versus all coming in on Tuesday. So if you want to see that you know it's five o'clock Tuesday and you're like oh it's election day I haven't voted yet and you rush out to that voting location by all means you're going to get to vote but you might have to wait longer. But with our line app you can go wait in your car or do you know something else during that time you have to wait. And so I assume the regular safety precautions will be in place people should wear a mask nation stands six feet apart. Yes yes we're going to be adhering to all that public safety protocol guidelines absolutely yes. Now where can people find these voting locations is there a list someplace or will it be sent to them. Yeah so the list is going to be published in the voter guide and it's going to be in an insert with your mail ballot and and there's a little caveat that this is subject to change and no sooner than we sent the green light to print did we get a change. So we do have one change that we posted on our website the Soquel Center does not have good connectivity and AT&T is moving its whatever the device it has to provide for connectivity is getting moved to other areas of the state that are under siege with these fires so we're not sure we're going to get that back in time for voting. So what we did is just you know grateful to the Santa Cruz City School District and Chris Monroe and her team who now have said yes you can come to Soquel High. And so we'll be down the street at Soquel High for the voting location and on October 31st through November 3rd. So we did have that one change so people are getting that published in their voter guide and they're in their insert but we do have a change there where we're going to be moving down the street. We'll be posting signs at the conference center we're going to send out a postcard to people in the area and and then hopefully people will get the word that we're we're moving down the street to the high school. Okay. Well hopefully this helps. Yes. Can you, as the president has suggested, both by mail and then go to the polls and learn if your vote has been counted and vote again if it has not. So okay well voting twice is a crime. It's a felony so you don't want to vote twice. And you will be getting those alerts through your, you know, whereas my ballot tracking, you can always call us to find out if your ballot was received. So, you know, if you do show up to vote and the indication is you've already received a ballot and in this, if it hasn't been voted yet, what we can do is we can avoid that first ballot and then issue you a second or replacement ballot. That first ballot shows up in our office then it is voided and it's not going to get counted. And that second ballot that you voted at your voting location will get counted instead. But if you're if you show up to voting location and we've already received your ballot and you've already cast it, then we're going to say I'm sorry you've already voted. If you insist on voting, we're going to have you vote and put it in a pink envelope and that means it's provisional. And so that gets held and does not get processed. And so we will not be counting that vote so you would have to go to court to see what a judge would say and why you're voting a second ballot. What happens, it's not going to happen so much in November, but what happened a lot in the primary is candidates dropped out of the race, especially those running for president during the voting period, the early voting period. So we had a lot of people calling and saying, I voted for somebody who's dropped out of the content. And we don't want anyone encouraging anybody to break the law. And so, you know, that's just not advised. So your sound broke up a little bit there right at the end is there. So, so if you want to change your, if you vote for someone who drops out, what are your remedies are there any if you've already cast your ballot and it's already been received then then you cannot vote again legally you if you if you want to go through the process will give you a ballot and put it in a pink envelope and not count it. And you can go to court and see if you can get a judge to authorize us to count that vote. But I doubt there would be any judge who'd be willing to allow a voter to vote a second time. Okay. All right, so let's say there's a problem with your ballot like your signature doesn't match or you can't read the places you filled in will you be contacted or you just don't count those. So, no, no, so if if there is a, if the signature doesn't compare to what we have on file, or you fail to sign your ballot return envelope, we will contact you will contact you. First of all, we'll try to contact you through the information you gave us on the envelope because we asked for a phone number or email, which is nice and quick for us to call you and say hey, you didn't sign your ballot envelope and here online we have a form you can get back to us so we could match these up and get a process. But if we don't can't get a hold of you through a phone or email then we're going to mail you a letter with the form that you need to sign and get back to us and that you'll have to do that by November 29. Okay. Two days before we're going to certify the election on December 1. So that's why you have that much time. So, so since you're certifying on December 1, I'm wondering how long does it take now with all the people voting by mail and drop off ballots in the in your drop boxes. How long will it take you what's the process to count these votes. So yeah, it's a very tedious process because as ballots come in our first step is to peel off that tab to reveal the signature, and then they go through a ballot sorting sorter that will basically capture that signature digitally. And then I have clerks that are at computers that have been trained to look for signatures and do signature comparison. And they'll see five signatures at a time on the screen, the one that we have on file, and then the one on your envelope and it's either a comparison or it's not or it's unsigned. And then those get kicked out and then they're going to get processed. And, and the ones that do go to processing what happens then is that this ballot sorter has sliced the ballot envelope open. So we have teams that sit down and they extract the ballot and they do it in groups of 100. So they'll extract 100 ballots from the paper envelopes, they'll count up to make sure they have 100 envelopes and count to make sure they have 100 ballots. What does happen sometimes, especially in households, they'll have two people in the household, and they both return their ballot and one envelope. Don't do that. Each individual voter needs to have their own individual envelope and their signature on the envelope. So we, once that matches up, then we take those 100 envelopes, we take them off the table, and then we open the ballot and we look at it and inspect it to see if there's any issues with the ballot. Did a voter vote no on a proposition? Yes. And if there's voters telling us how they want to change their vote, we will have a two person duplicating team do that for them. And then the ballots, once they're flattened and ready, they will go into our ballot counting room and they get scanned and then they get batched up and stored in boxes and we just keep doing that process till every single ballot is processed and counted. And the ones that did get kicked out, get kicked out for no signature, that's, you know, we know we're going to have to contact that voter, we'll send them a letter or try to contact them, let them know we need their signature. For the ones that didn't compare, we're going to have two other clerks look at that before it goes into, yes, it's challenged. And at the point that it's challenged, we're going to try to contact the voter by email or phone or send them that form and the form will also be posted on our website. To sign up for where is my ballot, you're going to also get a text alert that says ballot challenge signature doesn't compare. So you can go online fill out that form scan it and email it back and you're and you're done. So we have lots of ways for people to rectify a signature if there's any question with it comparing. So, so this sounds like it's going to take some time and so what kind of results will we have on election night any at all. Well, the reality is election night is always a snapshot, we will have for the last six elections or more, we have counted more ballots than we've been on election night, because more than 70% of our voters have have opted to vote by mail so and but it doesn't take forever, I mean we will be processing it and getting through so it's probably a good week to week and a half, where we're going to have the bulk of the ballots in and election officials always love wide margins so certainly the wider the margin that the more people can feel assured that the winner is going to stay the winner and that will go in that direction but we do have this close contest it cannot be called until all votes are in all votes are audited and all votes are certified. So we do a manual recount recount process for every contest will be recounted and will be verifying that machine count against the paper count and balancing during the canvas period and that canvas period is what occurred after election day through December 1. Okay. Wow. Wow, that sounds like a lot to do it's very labor intensive and and and we're used to working close together and we can't do that anymore we need to space out so we're going to have to set out tables in our hallway and have people six feet apart doing these processes that we're used to doing next to each other so we're having to change the way we're doing business here in our office. Wow. So that sounds like that sounds like a lot of work but you've got a plan so I'm sure. Yeah, it says in our first rodeo we've got we've got a really good team of people who care passionately and deeply about the democratic process and making sure that every eligible voters ballot is counted accurately we everything we do is transparent and open to the public so people want to come up here welcome to do so all the time to put up some cameras so we can have some live streaming going of our processes so you can sit at the safety of your own home in front of your computer and look at what we're doing. So we're hoping to just make it as open and transparent so people know exactly the processes we're taking to get through so. Democracy takes time counting votes takes time you don't want to do it we don't want it done quick we want it done accurately and accuracy takes time. Now you've done a lot of work also to make voting really accessible so I wanted to ask you a little bit about some of the offerings that you have like curbside voting can you talk about that. Yeah, so if a voter for any reason cannot access a voting location and wants to be able to get a ballot there they just need to call us and set up an appointment really for us to know that you're going to be over at the Scots Valley Community Center at 12 o'clock on Sunday and I will make sure that I will make sure that you and get you signed in so we do not have to leave your car. Okay, so to talk a little bit about the touchscreen voting system what kinds of things does it have to offer. So it's actually a tablet. So it's very similar to like an iPad kind of thing it's it's a large tablet that's hooked to a printer. It's not connected to the internet. Unit it's only used to mark a paper ballot nothing is stored and so a voter will navigate through their ballot on the tablet. It has an accessibility component so it can be an audio ballot so a voter can put headphones on and have the ballot read to them and they can make selections through a tactile device kind of like a kind of like a Game Boy device where they can go ahead and navigate the ballot and make their selections and then when they're all done they act their ballots printed in the off the shelf printer that's right next to it and the voter can can read it to make sure that it has all their choices their choices are written on there. And so that's if you are someone who's visually impaired and you cannot read text mostly many of the voters have a reading program on their phone and the phone can read the text to them to verify their selections. And then that ballot is put inside the ballot ballot box and it's tallyed here at county elections. So and then the other option with the tablet is to vote a Spanish ballot. So again we're getting Spanish facsimiles of all of our our ballots and we're mailing those to all of our voters who requested Spanish materials. But then they'll also be the Spanish ballot available for them at the voting location on the tablet. So what about getting a ride to the polls. Is that possible. Yes. Yes. So we will definitely provide a ride to the polls for people who need that. I know that that Uber and Lyft were doing programs and other elections and we've been fortunate to use them as well. So, you know, we'll just have to see what voters need. And, you know, definitely we want to comply with all the safety protocols so anybody getting a ride will need to be wearing a mask and the person driving will be wearing a mask and you'll be keeping, you know, front seat backseat and limit it just to one rider per driver. Okay, so audio. The other thing that we do have to I don't think I've said this yet is we have a remote accessible vote by mail program. And what that is right now it's being used a lot by our military overseas voters because their voting began on on September 4 they get to vote early in an election. And what they're doing is that we are emailing them their ballot with an access or an access code. We email them an access code and then they can go online to actually open up their ballot and they can make their selections on their computer and then they print it. And if you are. So having that ability to fax it back is really, really important. If people don't have access to a fax machine, the Department of Defense operates the federal voting assistance program, and they have a method where you can email it to them and then they could fax it to the local elections official. So it's all very secure and monitor. And otherwise, the remote accessible vote by mail program is also used to be available only to people in the military and overseas voters with disabilities. So they were able to vote independently and privately from home using this, we call it RABBM, the acronym for remote accessible vote by mail balloting. They'd be able to vote that way. But during COVID, the governor and the legislature has now opened it up to any of the voters. So any voter who would like to take advantage and use this method of voting, they are more than welcome to call us or go to our website and request a remote accessible vote by mail ballot. And we can email you that access code. You can't do it now, though, if you're a domestic voter that's only for the middle class voters. But come October 5th, we can set you up and you can be emailed an access code and vote your ballot that way and then return it to us. That is impressive. Yeah. Can you talk to me about the audio versions of the information that you're talking about? Can people get a recording of their voter guide? So where I believe we're in the process of posting that now. So that is part of actually the RABBM system. You can get the ballot material read to you. So that is being built, I think, as we speak. So I know we have we have information going out in Spanish and you can receive a ballot in Spanish and you can receive a ballot in Spanish. Are there any other languages that you can get your voter material in? We have people who can assist in Tagalog and Chinese and if there's any other language needs out there, voters need to let us know and we will get somebody who can translate for you. Okay. So in Santa Cruz County, you have all these mail-in ballots, but when can you start counting them? So actually the law changed on that as well. So we don't count them, we process them. So as soon as the ballots come into us, we can do all that work to get them scanned. And into the queue, but we don't hit until after 8 p.m. on election night. So nobody knows any vote totals until after 8 p.m. election night. And that's when we will release our first result. So if you are one of those people who wants to be the first ballot counted, vote early. Use that ballot we mail you, return it to us, and then that will be in that first batch that gets released. Usually it's around by 8.30, I would say, on election night because if there's any voting here in the office, we don't like to release results while people are still voting because then people are talking about them while people are voting. Yeah, and sometimes people don't vote because they just don't think it's worth voting because they know the effect. There's a lot on the ballot. We're not just voting for president. The ballot contains contests. We have a superior court judge on the ballot. We got our first district supervisor and a runoff on the ballot. All four of our city can vote on the ballot. The ballot contains contests. We have a superior court judge on the ballot. We got our first district supervisor and a runoff on the ballot. All four of our city councils have contests on the ballot. There's school districts and other districts on the ballot. There's a lot of things on the ballot, not just the top of the ticket. We've got, of course, state senate, state assembly, two congressional districts. So there's lots for people to vote on. And the good news is voting is not just on the ballot. And so there's just a lot of things on the ballot, not just the top of the ticket. We've got, of course, state senate, state assembly, two congressional districts. So there's lots for people to vote on. And the good news is voting is not a test. You do not have to vote on every single issue in order to have your vote count. So you can pick and choose the contests that you know and feel comfortable with voting and you can leave the rest blank. And that works just fine. So you've got, you've given us a ton of information about voting. This is excellent. I appreciate you're giving all this information. I'm really impressed that you have this all at the top of your mind. Is there anything I didn't ask you that you would like to share about about the voting process in Santa Cruz or anything else people need to know? Well, you know, I mean, it takes an army to do this. We have, and I am so very grateful for all of our volunteers and poll workers who have helped us out in the past, and will continue to help us out. So for a lot of poll workers were in that vulnerable population that aren't comfortable working and inside the people coming and going. So a lot of them are not able to return to work in this election. So we're getting a lot of new people showing up and signing up. So we're very grateful for that. And we're going to be assigning people to positions later this month in early October. And we're going to be doing online poll worker training or election officer training is what we're calling it. That's going to occur in mid October and everyone's going to get trained on exactly what to do at these voting locations. So we're also very grateful. I mean, being part of this county family is a huge thing that I'm very grateful for because there are so many people in county offices who step up and help us during election time. And they're going to be being they're going to be leads out at the voting locations and they're also going to be staffing a voter hotline. So we're going to have operating for the four days starting Sunday of the election time and we're going to have county employees on the phones with access to election information management system being able to answer voter questions about the voting process and how to get their vote counted. So we're really grateful for all the people that are stepping up. And, you know, we've seen a clear indication of this may to serve during these horrible fires that we've all had to experience and see and and how many I mean how we all stepped up in our office of emergency services and our county office and our law enforcement sheriff's office and general services department our office of emergency services. Everybody has pulled together to make sure that people have shelter and that they have food and they have water and they have information about what's happening. So, you know, really great experience see county family pulled together in an emergency to make it happen and, and they'll do it for elections to they show up there they're there they're there to make sure that that this happens and they, and that people have a good voting experience. Well, county clerk Gail Pelerin thank you so much for spending this time with us and sharing your vast knowledge about how voting will work for us this year in a pandemic with a wildfire on the side. We appreciate it. That's going on. Thank you and people can call or email if they have any questions. Okay, thank you very much. And thank you as well. I hope you enjoyed this informational interview with county clerk Gail Pelerin. Good night.