 Good afternoon. You are with the Vermont House Government Operations Committee. We are gathering this afternoon to take a look again at S-15. We've had a couple of folks suggest some amendments that we will look at a little bit later on. But we've also had some requests for more testimony and I had reached out to our Secretary of State's office folks this morning to see if they might be able to, I don't know, use some connections to find us someone from Oregon and I gather that hasn't yet happened. But Chris, could you just update us on where you are with reaching out to Oregon folks so we know whether we might still expect someone? Sure. Thank you, Madam Chair. For the record, Chris Winter's Deputy Secretary of State. We had reached out to them early this morning, but of course they're on a three hour difference in time. But we still haven't heard anything back yet. I've got the Secretary of State working on it. So as soon as he hears something, I'll be sure to let the committee know. Thank you. I appreciate it. In the meantime, Committee, I hope you've had an opportunity to look at some of the resources that Rep Higley had researched and found for us. And we can certainly have some committee discussion about what was contained in those resources on the election guide to Oregon's election procedures. So that was very interesting. First, though, I would like to, I'd like to ask, Amron, if you can share with us the proposed amendments that are sort of on the table and we can go through the language on those and have some committee discussion and some straw polling about what is contained there. So committee members, your documents under today should have that proposed changes. Is that the title of the document we're looking at? Yes. Okay. Super. All right. Why don't you take us through this language. Certainly for the record, Amron Aberjaley Legislative Council. We have here six proposed changes. These were, for the most part, all brought up and discussed, at least a little bit in committee discussion with the exception maybe of the last two, which are two that I added. So for the first proposed change on number one is concerning the voter checklist. This would be a new bill section. It is not presently in S15. It is in around Title 17, Section 2154, the statewide voter checklist. And you'll see if you scroll down to the bottom of page one, highlighted in yellow, this would add a new responsibility in statute for the Secretary of State's office to make reasonable efforts to compare the information on the checklist with data or information contained in any state of emergency database, a database administered by the federal government, or any database of another state or consortium of states, where possible, in an effort to maintain the accuracy and currency of the checklist. And this is as a result of Representative Gannon's request that the section be amended to codify some of the practices that the Secretary of State's office already has in place. So the general language to describe the Eric system, is that right? Director Sending, you had spoken to us about cross-referencing our voter checklist with other states. Right, and that more generally with the Will Sending Director of Elections for the record. I would say it's broad enough to include both the Eric activities and other things such as comparing the records to the Department of Health records, death records, and the potentially Social Security Administration records. That's why the reference to federal agencies for the SSA. Yeah. Any committee members questions for either for Amron about the words on the page or for Director Sending about the, about what this means? Rep LaClaire. Thank you Madam Chair. Good afternoon. Will, how much of what you just said is new compared to what you were currently doing. Almost none, only that by our participation in Eric, we're going to be able to have better comparison against Social Security Administration. Okay, so of all this, the Eric is considered new compared to past practice? Yes. Okay, very good. Thank you. Thank you Madam Chair. I guess this question would be for Will as well. Is there a timeline on this or is there a time it should be addressed in this as well? How do you mean Rep Higley? Well, just like maybe. Well, just as it says make reasonable efforts to compare the information when, you know, so long prior to election. Before the election. What, what's, what's the, what's the process now? When, when is it, when does it look bad at certain time before the ballots go out? It's a good thought. I would read it as that it should be happening on an ongoing basis all of the time. And as of now, that is really how it happens. Other with the exception that federal law doesn't let you do a systematic review of your checklist within 90 days of a federal election. So that there's kind of a stop when they have to stop doing this kind of activity. But otherwise they're doing it on an ongoing basis. And I, and I realize that you say that it is on an ongoing basis, but should, should that be included in this wording? Does that make reasonable efforts on an ongoing basis? For instance, I just, to me it's kind of open ended as far as when it happens and, you know, I, I certainly understand that you do it now but just just wondering if that wouldn't tighten it up a little bit. Just just a thought. And that was the overall intent was to sort of formalize and codify what we do now so I understand that. Rep Hooper. Thank you madam chair. Well, Eric is a particular one how many varieties of these statewide comparison facilities to exist and what's the level of complication that's involved in them I was under the general impression that when people talked historically about purging that it was based on John Smith lives in California and also lives in Vegas so John Smith doesn't vote anymore. Do those are there different gradients of information that is made available to make them more reliable slash accurate slash less punitive. In a couple of ways I would answer that to your first question really they're the only entity of their kind at this point. There is not any comparable effort. There was a predecessor effort, known as cross check that was built in Kansas long ago, which has essentially been discontinued at this point. That the mechanism that was being used to eliminate people, as opposed to verify people I would have to probably characterize it. I don't know that I characterize it that way just to want to be completely fair. What I would say is that the reason that it sort of went away is because over time the member states found the data to not be reliable. They're identifying bad matches, and that has been the opposite with the member states and Eric who find the data to be very reliable and they're out matching algorithms to be much stronger. And to the second part of your question it's, and it's good because I wanted to touch on it anyway. Based on law, based on current state and federal law. There will be different actions taken on different parts of the data that we get from Eric, and that is to say that if we get their file that identifies folks who have died and or duplicates. Those are ones that clerks can act on immediately, but for the two reports which are really the biggest most substantive ones for the in state and out of state moves. I think as I said yesterday actually all that those will result in as a challenge letter to that voter you still can't remove simply based on that indication that they may live somewhere else now. Alright, other questions on this first amendment, we had talked about this as a group. I think we can tighten up the language I think a bit to to indicate that this is something that happens in an ongoing basis. All right. So, I'm seeing some thumbs up so let's go ahead and do a straw poll about including this in the bill. People comfortable including proposal number one. All right, great job. Let's go on to number two. All right, propose change number two beginning on page two is about the use of affidavits to cure certain defective ballots. I would amend two sections that are presently in S 15 section 13 which you'll see on page two and if you scroll down to page three you'll see some new language and some change language in yellow. So first, there was the change of the word postcard to the word notice and you'll see that in Roman at three and then also in subsection be on page three. In addition of this sentence in yellow, if the ballot was deemed defective because the voter failed to sign this return certificate, or to place the voted ballot in the certificate envelope. The clerk shall include a returnable affidavit designed and provided by the Secretary of State's office with the notice so the voter may cure the deficiency in accordance with subdivision to five four seven D one C. Moving down on to page four, you'll see the second section where it would be amending with this proposed change section section 16 of S 15. And if you scroll down on to page five. This is the section that was just referenced previously. This is a new subdivision C, which is a B and C are ways that a voter may cure a defect subdivision C says for a voter who failed to sign the certificate envelope or failed to place the voted ballot in the certificate envelope. Moving the signed affidavit included in the notice under subdivision to five four six a to be Roman at three, either by mail in person or electronically provided the affidavit is received by the presiding officer prior to the closing of the polls. I will note that the term by the presiding officer you see in subdivision be that is changed language from the previous version in discussion with the Secretary of State's office. We decided that the term by the presiding officer is more accurate. This previously said, provided the new ballot, or in this case the affidavit also is received by the town clerk, or delivered to the polls by the end of the election day. And that's really what it needs to be is that it needs to reach the presiding officer prior to the closing of the polls, whether it's delivered to the town clerk's office, which then has time to bring it to the presiding officer or whether it is brought directly to the polls, and gets to the presiding officer before the closing of polls, which one to make sure that that language was clear. And then in subdivision to a you'll see added a reference to this new subdivision C. And those are all of the changes for proposed change to. All right, so before we go to rep the house key to talk briefly about this I just wanted to orient Carol Dawes who has joined us that we are taking a look at proposed amendments to the bill that can be found on our committee page under today's date and and we have strapped hold our acceptance for the proposed change number one and we're now discussing change number two so representative the house key. Thank you so much. I actually was going to ask a question about the presiding officer piece but I might let Carol Dawes do it instead because I was voicing her concern with that being the presiding officer and not any sworn election official so I would just love to answer that. And I know you got to it a little bit, but that was a concern raised in my email about that particular change. Yeah, thank you rep for host key actually sent me the proposed language and I had an opportunity to review it beforehand. Forgive me I'm by myself in the office today so I'm dealing with customers and will be popping in and out on my concern with with specifying presiding officer is that it leaves no opening for other election officials if the presiding officer wants to be busy at the time, but we do have other sworn election officials in the building and so I don't know whether, perhaps presiding officer or their designee or, or something along those lines I just felt that putting just presiding officer was a little too narrow. Director sending do you have thoughts or a strong inclination when we're the other on the question of presiding officer or designee or some other term. Now makes makes sense to me and I'd be fine adding either designee or other sworn election official. And then it was Carol so that people wouldn't be bringing it to the clerk's office at 6pm and expecting it to get acted on. So it was that it needs to make it to the polling place by the end of the polls. And just for everyone else to any that have been returned throughout the entire 45 day period up until the close of the clerk's office on the day before are going to be accepted by the clerk and, and brought with or communicated to the presiding officials. And so then it just says once you've gone to election day we don't want people going to the clerk's office and thinking that that will be sufficient so they have to come to the polling place so in that regard it would be fine to add election officials to that language. Thanks Carol. I'm not me to orient people to this change I'm certainly happy to, but I'm also happy to let other people ask their questions whatever is your preference. Yeah why don't you go ahead and take a first crack at it and then we'll go to questions. Yeah sure thing so this was a change that I brought up yesterday to expand and make the language around defective ballot curing a bit more person permissive. So there are potential future changes as well as not having the ballot curing process only include people voting again and it was in response. Initially came because I know there's other ways that we could possibly explore to cure ballots and track ballots in the future and then Carol Dawes actually also brought up some concerns around the narrowness of the ballot curing process so that's where that this came from and what its intention is representative Leclerre. I'm just a question about the section C there the electronically getting back the signed affidavit. So we're talking about actually scanning and submitting the actual affidavit and then it can be received back electronically. I guess that would be the will. Yes rep Leclerre I saw I met rep the host you want to speak to this too but I saw two sort of goals from including electronically they're just what you say that it would allow when there's say day before the election or day of the election for a scan and an email of that affidavit to work. And also if we get to a point like we were discussing with rep the host yesterday where we're using one of the ballot tracking services such as ballot tracks or or anything like that. That have a text communication ability that you could then text your response to the affidavit potentially through that kind of technology. Okay, I'll wait and listen for more. My intention was to keep it open for the that possibility I know right now you know it's bank use technology like this where if I go to make a big purchase that's out of the norm I get that text message that said hey did you do this. This is the fraud department and I can text back and say yes and they're like okay great. Go on your way and I know that the various I did some research since yesterday to and I know that there's three major ballot tracking programs out there that do allow some immediate capacity if you get that alert to respond really quickly which hopefully would allow for more engagement more security and less work on our town clerks down the road and so it was really meant to leave it open for the possibility of employing the many technologies we have at our disposal in the future. You know what I also just thought of too is this will and this may be the most important it will allow for. If I can build it with our current software vendor. A response to happen from the my voter page. Place the affidavit on the page say electronically signed here. It's fabulous. Other committee questions. All right temperature check how we feeling about the usefulness of including this in the bill to. All right anybody want to give me a thumbs down. All right straw pole says we'll move forward with this. So back to you and run. The proposed change three is on page six. This is concerning ballots for first time voters. This would amend a bill section that is already in s 15 section eight concerning the delivery of early voter absentee ballots. You'll see if you scroll down to page seven. And then you'll see that the vision B would now read if a voter registers to vote for the first time in Vermont, following the time when the Secretary of State's office generated the address file to be used for the mailing of ballots to all active voters by the Secretary of State's office, the clerk shall either issue a ballot to the voter in person at the time of registration or mail a ballot to the voter, not later than the next business day. This previously required the, the first time voter to request a ballot. And now a ballot would automatically either be issued to them in person or sent to them by mail. Rep the host key. I again wanted to hop in but I'm going to let Carol do it as well she made the suggestion that we change that from one business data three business days. The suggestion had to do with the three business days. Thank you. The three business days that is allowed in statute for data entering voter registrations. It seemed that it made sense to have them mirror each other. And actually one other comment that I had is that similar to the, to the, the deadline with regards to curing defective ballots where it says that we don't have to send the postcards during the five days preceding the election that perhaps a similar language should be added here that we would not mail absentee ballots out in the five days preceding the election associated with when someone registers a new voter registration. That makes logical sense to me. Well sending thoughts on from your perspective on that. That would be fine with both of those amendments both make sense to me Carol. Okay. Representative Anthony. Thank you Madam Chair Carol and will that that's exactly what I was going to ask whether there was a do not send window, just because if it were stuck in the mail, it would create again unanticipated problems. If the party would know it was coming or arrived or hadn't arrived. My point is is five days enough, given the USPS for it to get there upon request. Carol, I think five days is adequate we actually will mail absentee ballots out until the Thursday or Friday before elections we make sure to tell people. It needs to be returned to us by close of polls and frequently people will then hand deliver them on election day. But I think five days is is a good number. All right. Representative Higley. Thank you Madam Chair will is. Is there always going to be those ballots in the town clerk's office at that time. Again, I just, I'm trying to figure out the time frame here. Secretary of State's office generated the address file to be used. And then, if it's after that time, the clerk shall either issue a ballot and I are those ballots. I think there's going to be there for the town clerk at that time to issue one personally. That's a good thought rep Higley. I think there's probably about a week period there where they're they may not have received the ballots yet. And I think we can address that with language that appears other places in the statute that will essentially say, they will say they only need to do that at such time as they have the ballots. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. We've touched around this issue a lot, but you know, we say mail for the postcards and a lot of other stuff. I think we learned this election cycle that mail is not necessarily a concrete sort of concept. It could be something that allows a new technology or something that could come in without coming back here. And if we can't send a ballot, but you could certainly send the postcard or some other thing by electronic means. If you had that available. Do you are you directing that question at anyone in particular? Well, I suppose it would go to will to say, what about the future maybe. You know, at some point, the state of Vermont is going to have a my voter page that has everybody in the state an email address assigned. Do we do communications through that then relying upon the post office for something like your, your ballot is spoiled or some other. So it's going to communicate. And it's at this point, just food for thought, I suppose. I understand the thought I for one hope that we have some form of functioning mail service into the pretty indefinite future, but I hear what you're saying. I've discussed that a lot in the Senate as well about the method of delivering the notice and the and the consensus was that the fairest way and the information that we have for every individual in this situation is an emailing address. And that's why to make that the baseline and then to allow for the clerk to do other forms of notice. Thanks. Representative Bihowski. That was really just going to be my thought that was really the what I was trying to get at with with the previous thing is just allowing for the other opportunities but not necessarily mandating it because we don't we don't. I think there's predictions about where we might go in the future but we certainly don't know so I do love the idea of just allowing for other potentially electronic options. Representative look there. And so where you say notice will is the understanding that it's going to at least be a postcard. But what I'm getting at is where the representative Brogdon's coming from let's say that I had a good address I was a town clerk and I had a good email address for a voter. Couldn't I just send along an email with that affidavit and not have to send the postcard. I'm scrolling back up to the to the language. I'm on page. Oh, but I'm in the changes. No, but it doesn't have the basic language about the initial contact I got to get back to the bill itself. Oh, sorry. Second, or somebody can help me out to I think it allows for the clerk to use other means. So when I'm looking particularly in the defective ballot section it says not later than the next day by mail so I wonder if we could say send instead of mail which would allow for mail or electronic like I wonder if we can just change mail to send or redefine mail, or potentially redefine mail but I do see that it is specific that it is mail a notice. Because I mean along with that that thought process if they can email you back the affidavit then what would be the harm in emailing it to them. I agree. Oh my goodness Tonya. So how about deliver. Sure. Okay. I mean, without going too deep here I mean I've signed a lot of legal documents through this thing called doc you sign. Is is that a viable option for something along this lines. That is up to you to decide. I think that was a pun. I mean is that. Is that a viable alternative I mean is there do you have the capability and I guess the latitude and authority to use something like that. I believe the electronic signatures act would allow for it also which Vermont is pursuant to. I would be curious if Carol has any thoughts on this discussion right now because she was deeply involved to in the Senate discussion about what was the best baseline way to provide this notice. The biggest concern that that we had was just making sure that whatever is done is equitable and is being applied across the board. Yeah, I have an email address for half of my registered voters but don't have it for the other half. So how do I do I make sure that I send half of them email and half of them a notice a written notice. Is that really equitable is it is it easier or more equitable to send everybody the same format. I certainly wanted to make sure that whatever we were doing was going to cover everybody the same way, or whether it was different delivery options, you know that would be possible but but we just wanted to make sure we weren't missing people or or didn't want there to be the appearance of like cherry picking people based on the information we had. Because I would look at that a bit differently that if you have the information for people let's say, you know because the other concern about this is, is, if you have a ballot, and I live locally, then you can send me a postcard and then I can come in and resolve it that way but if I live out of state, and say your first contact with me is via an email, it could be almost instantaneous, and we could resolve it within a fat matter of a few minutes, even. The other challenge that plays into this is how deeply our clerks going to go into exploring what they have for different contact information, or ways per voter. You know, are we going to have to search our email inboxes to see if we've got an email for somebody, is that going to be expected. Having the option to look at different ways of reaching out to people is great but if the expectation is that I'm going to do everything that I, you know I'm going to search the online white pages I'm going to have it you know it just I think you create an unnecessary burden to clerks to to say, you know that we would exhaust all opportunities to to contact people. No I get that I'm not advocating for that but I would much prefer to give you the option. Yes, where you don't have to send the postcard if electronically or smoke signals works better than do that. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. So we're comfortable comfortable with the concept of sending notice. Is that what I'm hearing. Okay. Representative Anthony. I'm just searching as per will and Tonya and Bob for general term and I came to the conclusion that transmit was probably as good as it gets, because you could transmit by mail electronically smokes, smoke signals, whatever you want. So if we're comfortable then the elections division can figure out as technology evolves how in essence it wants to flesh out the meaning of transmit representative Colston. Thank you Madam chair. I think it's important that we keep this as flexible as possible because the one reality we haven't really touched on is the digital divide, and it really impacts. I think a year ago, state officials estimated about 60,000 residences have no internet or very poor internet. So we just can't think electronic. Thank you. Representative. Thank you Madam chair. That was part of my, my fear is that just, you know, relying on that sometimes people go days or weeks without checking their email or don't have service at all. I was just going to ask Miss Dows, you know, if she felt comfortable that she thought it was fairness by leaving that open or if she thought that clerks were going to start to feel they had to pick over one another but she kind of cleared that up herself. You know I just want to make sure that we are being clear and, you know, it's frustrating for me that you got, you know that quick to me clerk should not be required to have to contact voters through data you guys might not have obtained but you do have mailing addresses but the rest is in lingo if you limbo if you have it, you might not have a phone number you might not have email, but you do have a mailing address. So to me, it would be a little frustrating to require you to contact them through a way that you might not have the data about. But again, you clarified that. So, I was just looking to see if you were comfortable with the language we were changing for your position. Yeah, as long as it's as it's allowing different opportunities. You know that I think that makes the most sense representative Cooper. Thank you Madam chair, representative Anthony we landed on the same word. As a matter of response to Carol's question about where do I have to, how much do I have to do the town clerks have access to the information on my voter page. So that's sort of the authoritative source to some degree. Thanks. All right. Are we feeling ready for a decision. And moving on. Can I ask a clarifying question Madam chair. Yes, I just wanted to make sure I understand where people are landing in terms of exact terms here there's been discussion of what's currently in Roman it three on page pages this page 20 of the bill itself. And I believe it's page three in the proposed changes is it currently says mail a notice designed and provided by the Secretary of State's office to the voter at the address where the ballot was sent. And so my question is are we changing this to deliver. I also heard transmit, and I also heard send. So, I was wondering whether people had a preference between those terms and also whether. Whether the committee is comfortable with saying something like send a notice informing the voter. And then leave it up to the Secretary of State's office to provide, you know, guidance to clerk says to what those options may be. Will does that seem to make sense to you that you're watching the wheels turn in my head as much as they can to try and remember we have a very similar discussion over in the Senate I know that that doesn't have any bearing on what we're doing here now but it's because it's an important issue and it's. There's some. There's a lot to think about when you're thinking about it and I'm trying to remember why we decided that it really was best to have a baseline requirement to send the postcard one thing I would point out is just keep it in context there's the paragraph below makes really clear that once again when you're within five days of the election. They're not required to send a postcard, and then specifically says they can use other means to contact a voter. Earlier than that, there's, I hate to say but there's not a big rush, right, you can you can send this postcard it can get to where it needs to go in a couple days and then the voter has all these different methods to respond to it through the voter page or electronically or send the affidavit back. The idea was picturing the clerks sitting at their desk in their office, processing the ballots that have come in that day and a stack say next to them. They're sitting there with the ballot they determine it's defective they've got the envelope it came in with the return address right there they've got a little stack of postcards on their desk they pick one off of it fill in that return address and drop it in the mailbox that's on the other side of the desk. As opposed to looking up the voter in Vems, seeing if there is an email or phone number sending an email that may or may not be looked at for the next week I have stopped looking at my Gmail on any regular basis my wife hammers me about it because I do still get important stuff in my Gmail. I think that's a question that went on but sitting here now I can't really think of why it would hurt to have to have it be an option for the clerk to look up a different mode of contact. And if Carol is comfortable with that too I think I would be. And will you would know better with regards to the vendor for Vems. If there was a way, as were, you know if I'm data entering something as defective into the system. If there's a way to then click into a, you know, an email, send email to that voter. If the information is all contained in there, that certainly would be an easy way to incorporate email as an option. It's true. And I think that would be doable, Carol. And we're requiring you to go in and enter them as defective now within the three days so. Yeah. I think I'm okay with that madam chair. Hey, Amron does that give you the clarity that you need. I believe so I think what we're looking at now is send a notice, and I will transmit transmit. Why use one syllable when you can use two syllables. When I first came to the legislature, I, I had the sneaking suspicion that legislative council got paid by the word, because it always seemed like, no matter what we were doing that was words being added all over the place. More obscure the better. So Amron I will leave that to your discretion. I think transmit and send seem to mean the same thing to us and the same thing fits as you're doing the redraft. Yep. Sorry. No, we'll go ahead mine is on a slightly different my questions on a slightly different topic so I want to finish this one first. I'm remembering and it's just important for you guys to consider I think part of the part of the discussion was when you're talking about emails and especially phone calls. And what do you consider as having effectively communicated through those means so does leaving a voicemail count. Do they have to keep trying if they've left a voicemail and haven't heard back from the voter. You can't tell whether an email has been read or not is just the simple act of the clear kidding send sufficient. And that's where it was all of those questions I think they came back to you know why don't we make sure everybody gets a postcard sent to them. So if I could be clear about the legislative intent and be able to train my clerks as such, it would be nice to know that the intent was a phone call and avoid one phone call and a voicemail does it. What if they don't have voicemail like me at my house right now again, comparing my own life. Or in his sentence is hitting send on the best known email you have whether that may be out of date now or not sufficient. Whereas the mailing address on the return envelope you know just effectively transmitted a ballot to that voter at that address. Anyone want to weigh in and offer an opinion on that. Okay. So Josie are you on this or are you on something else. Both, but I can weigh in on this too. Go right ahead your hand is up and we'll get back to you on the other. I mean my intent here really is to leave an openness and if the clerks want to mail a postcard. Fine. It's that attempt to make contact I really just as we're thinking about potentially having a my voter page that could do this all within the my voter page I don't want to have to come back. I don't want to allow for but no I should be on our clerks to call a voter every day if they've left a message they've left a message. You know there is a level. I don't want to see our clerks having to do that or having to send 27 emails until someone gets back to them. I think that that, you know in the same way that you wouldn't go to their house if you didn't hear back from them from the postcard like you would send it and assume that they got it. Rep. Claire. Again I think I have a tendency to agree with a member from Essex here in that. I don't know that sending a postcard gives you any more assurance than leaving a voice message or sending an email and having it come back and tell you that the sender isn't there. As a former ups person talking about service levels. I'm not sure that I have a lot of confidence in the post office as far as getting stuff anywhere timely these days and I still go back to I think we give the town clerks the option because I'm not sure that I have a lot of confidence in the post office. I think that she knows a lot about her constituents as far as who's around in the wintertime and who isn't. And you know she may make that choice knowing that somebody is out of state and a postcard won't get there, but she may have a current email address or access to one, and I just, I just think if we give them the option. I don't know if this thing work and not cause any additional burden. I think that's reasonable and ultimately that it's probably advisable to leave the options open for the future to. All right. Representative Lefebvre. Thank you madam chair. I would just like to echo that I do have well many concerns but just one of, you know, how do you know that you have reached the voter. You know the same remarks that representative of Claire has said you know you can send an email that might not work you can send the postcard right back. So having the control of that option as local as it can be down to the town clerk I think we've found that that has been the most accurate you know even doing that for town meeting day on legislation that we have passed you know they made their decisions that worked best for their office. And I, you know I trust them enough to make the better judgment of what they're going to need so not forcing anything but giving them the options. I would feel more comfortable with. I just want to make sure we're done with this conversation before I take us to a new one. Okay, my question around the ballot curing and I apologize if I missed it or misread it but one of the things that's come up repeatedly that creates a defective ballot that we saw a lot in the primary was not all three ballots being returned and I'm wondering if in the way the language is written, signing an affidavit that you didn't vote on those is an acceptable cure for that. And if not if we can have a little conversation. So from an elections administration perspective, will. Do you have an opinion on affirming never understood why not returning those two ballots makes it effective in the first place. So I would be comfortable with that. Carol does from clerks perspective. I'm sorry. The, from a clerks perspective, I think of two things not returning the two unvoted ballots I can I can see being able to cure that through an affidavit. What happens for us more often is that we get multiple voted ballots. I don't see how that could be cured through through an affidavit process, but just something because usually the reason we don't get to unvoted ballots back is that they've decided to vote all of them or more than one so that creates a bit of a problem now doesn't you can't tell me you can't limit me to vote everything. So just as a follow up so. Yes, it would be okay to cure by affidavit if only one is returned would if you see that all three are voted and said you can't do this do you want to pick one and vote again would that be an acceptable cure process for that. Or are we just saying that's too much like that's that's too far I'm just trying to figure out where we land here. And what you learn is if you get, if you get that far into it you're now looking at somebody's voted ballot. You know, when I get the ballots and I, I, I examine the ballot as little as possible to determine whether it's been voted, whether it's defective or not because I don't want, nor should I know how a person voted so. That seems fair to me. Representative Anthony. At the beginning, it seems like we're adding layers of potential problems. Why are we instructing people to return anything but one ballot that they voted. And if they return more or less, it's defective, but at least we're making the initial attempt in the instructions to make it as simple as possible and eliminate or reduce the number of defects committee discussion on that point. As the person who has a lot of thoughts on ballot curing, I don't I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other I just want to make it so as many people's votes that should that should be counted are counted. So if it's eliminating the process at the beginning fine if it's signing an affidavit to cure it on the other end fine I don't really have a strong feeling one way or the other. What I'm thinking about to fill the void here. Since Carol mentioned and I think she's correct that what we most often see is the case of multiple voted ballots. Then that's not an explicit defective reason, but it's the one that we've always put it in is well you didn't return to unvoted ballots in the unvoted primary envelope. I'm trying to envision the language in the affidavit that would allow for that cure, and it would kind of have to be unique language to that situation. That would essentially allow the voter to tell the clerk which ballot they intend to cast and which to should be the unvoted that that the clerk is sitting there with. And even that gets a little, a little messy in terms of what Carol was talking about in terms of looking at the two ballots. I think it's probably the cleaner approach in that case to send them a new packet and say only vote one of these and return the two unvoted in the unvoted ballot and I know that presents the difficulties we talked about with voters who are further away and may not have time to do that. But I think that's a best is the enemy of the good situation like I've said before, keeping in mind that we're starting from a place where you can't correct your ballots at all. We're addressing most of the scenarios you can think of to allow people to make those corrections. Other committee discussion on that. Representative Ganon. Well, what director sunning said makes a lot of sense to me I mean I think that's the way to do it based on what Carl said of not wanting to look at the ballots too closely. Just require them to vote. Again, but only one ballot this time. I assume most people know that they're only supposed to vote on one ballot. I mean so somebody sort of bending the rules a bit to submit three, three ballots. So Carol, how often does that happen. For Berry City for the August primary 10% of our absentee ballots came back as defective over 100 of them. And I would say that the that 80% of those were it fell into that category. It happens all the time. And I have fights on the phone with voters who are you cannot tell me you cannot limit me, I will vote who I want to vote for that's what it is. And, and they and I try to explain to them this is a primary it's a different animal. You know you can only vote in one primary in November you'll be able to vote for whomever you want whatever party combination you want, but they, they don't understand that it's the only election that they have to make this limitation for themselves and they don't like it. Yeah, I would say that in my experience it is not correct to assume that people know that they cannot vote in all three primaries. I think we need to this is a whole different can of worms about how we need to do better at educating people about how how the process works. I am perfectly fine with the idea that if multiple ballots were voted on revoting being the process but I would like to find language that would allow for a single if only one is returned for that to be accepted or curable by affidavit because I think these are two different situations, and I certainly know of a handful of voters in my district that that did happen to them that they ripped up and destroyed the other ballots they only returned the one they voted on and then their vote wasn't counted so I do think that these are different animals and should be approached in different ways. Thank you Madam Chair, a concern of mine is while these are all different animals of their own nature the biggest one being that I'm fearful that the accountability of a voter is going to be gone, you know, going to be less than this is a big responsibility that people have and it's an honor that we, you know, we are in a situation where we can cast a vote and voice our vote for who we want. And when you go, and you know, people, their instructions instructions are clearly written on what we are supposed to do and I know it's a great testimony that maybe we didn't make the instructions more accessible for those that, you know, have different languages and read different read in different languages and I support that. But I mean how many times are you going to let somebody make a mistake on something where you know the phone number for your town clerk is accessible if you have questions regarding how to fill out your ballot. Talk with your town clerk of, Oh, is this the one where I fill out one is this the one where I fill out to if, you know, I know some people struggle with reading and some people struggle with instruction but they are, they're their JPs that it can help you. So I definitely feel that the voter accountability that some ownership you need to take upon yourself as well. Representative Anthony. I deeply apologize for being repetitive but nobody has explained to me why the Secretary of State's office or elections needs three ballots back. Filled out or not filled out. Cool. Go ahead well. Sorry representative Anthony because it's in the law is my, my honest and only answer to that. Well, that's what we're talking about but so my response to you was going to be what you are suggesting would require a much more fundamental change to the law in a number of different sections. Oh, okay. And would has been discussed before. And for whatever reason is not an easy discussion. Okay. In the context of this bill I would love for us to be driving towards a common understanding of what form of defect on the primary ballot related to those three ballots we want to designate as curable and how that can be cured. So, that's what I'm hoping we can come together around. And so we'll continue talking about this representative Hooper. But quickly, I sort of agree with representative Anthony that, although it does help our recycling efforts I'm sure it, we should deal with that at some point. Rep Fihoskey is correct. I think if you get a ballot back deal with that ballot, the number of calls that I got from people saying why did they send me three ballots they know I'm at this party member was mystifying and none of them had read the instruction smart people. I know how to vote. I'm not bothering to read the instructions that was the problem. So, maybe that's something that gets taken care of, you know, sort of at your level will where it says just vote one ballot a big black indication across the top but it was amazing to me the number of people that I considered to be very intelligent that didn't bother to read this tab A and plan tab B thing. Rep Fihoskey. I just want to say that it is a right to vote whether you can read or follow instructions or have the executive functioning to be able to remember to return three ballots it is a right protected by our Constitution to vote and I think we need to be doing it in our power to make sure people's votes count. And again I come back to, if a one ballot is returned, and the others are not it should be curable by affidavit and if people have voted on multiple ballots we should offer them the opportunity to redo it on one, and be done with it it is in the law that people can only in this proposal of law that people can only cure a ballot I think twice. So it is not open ended that they can do it as many times as they want. But it is a right that people can vote regardless of their ability to follow directions read the laws or, or remember to return all the ballots and we need to protect that right. And then we agree that that if a voter returns only one primary ballot that they can cure that by affidavit. I'm seeing some nodding some thumbs ups, I see a majority of the committee. And we agree that if all three ballots are are filled out that the voter gets a notification that they need to come in and vote again for receive another batch in the mail and give it a second shot 123. All right, so representative Anthony you're not voting is that mean you're a no. I've sort of reached the outer boundary of personal responsibility and workload of the clerks, if they send big fat envelopes of three which I've been convinced can't happen because in quotes the law needs to change, then we're going to send it twice. You know it's just piling on. If you like multiple layers of problems. So, okay, I can tell them to come in, if they can't come in or don't come in it's defective. Well, I've just been dancing around the, the issue it takes five days for me to get a birthday card from Burlington, Vermont to Altoona, Pennsylvania. I don't know how long it would take for a military person that's living in Waco, so that five day window sort of bothers me and I think we're legitimately focusing on people that are living in town but as the representative from Barry said there are a lot of Vermonters that go south for the winter to and it's just as big a problem so we have no cure for it right now but that mail back and forth scheme is not necessarily the best one either. Well, did you want to add anything to that. I generally I think if Carol is okay with that approach I would be she just probably had to step away to a customer. It makes me a little uncomfortable to make a distinction. And how we're treating certain ballots that isn't that isn't in the defective law itself. There's no difference in the law between returning just one or returning multiple voted. The law only says that just like I said that the two one voted need to be in the envelope and in any case where that's not the case it's defective. That would be probably some difficult training and it's in it. It leads to a lot of questions from the clerks who get anything else other than a single voted ballot back from the primary. But I think if I'm envisioning a clause in that same section where it says you can cure the, the two instances that you can cure by affidavit, comma, or in the case of where only a single ballot is returned like Madam chair said in the primary. I think that that could be cured by the affidavit as well. I think I'd be okay with that it makes me a little, a little nervous, in terms of confusion on the clerks part, like was just said by rep Hooper to make that distinction themselves. And to treat those sort of very similar situations differently. Yeah, um, well, I am sort of going back to something you said earlier about sort of crafting an affidavit statement that would allow someone who had voted three to say count that one as an option, because my understanding in the way that we're crafting someone could cure it by affidavit or could say no I'm going to come back in and revote. So if it does that feel more comfortable to you to craft that affidavit statement as a way of saying they can buy affidavit say, Yes, I got rid of the other two, or please count this one and get rid of the other two. Does that feel better or less confusing. Like I'm not trying to be a pain I'm just trying to count as many votes as possible. I'm not sure I have to think about how these affidavits would be structured a little more. So Carol, we are still trying to understand the most user friendly and acceptable way of curing the couple of kinds of defects you might see in a primary, either not returning on voted or erroneously filling out all three Yeah, I think the, I think being able to cure by affidavit online option, the fact that we did not get the two unvoted ballots I think that makes perfect sense I can't quite wrap my head around what the best way to deal with, you know, multiple voted ballots is short of sending a new packet of ballots. I'm not sure what, you know what other to me if we if it gets more complicated than that it then becomes I can imagine of, I can imagine phone conversations with voters. You know, which ones did I vote which ones did I, which one has Joe Smith on it because I really like Joe Smith. Yeah, exactly. That being the kind of conversation we might have. Right. Yeah. Representative Anthony. The answer is obvious and I just, I missed it but I know from what will said, obviously the obligation to send three. He's saying is a complicated removal is a definition of defect. Also embedded such that you couldn't excise the failure to return three and not call that a defect and so frankly when somebody sends one voted. I don't know where they are in the statute so I don't know whether this is parallel complications, sending out versus accepting back. Am I making myself clear. The reasons that a ballot is defective are certainly in the statute they're actually in the section we're talking about amending, and you could do what you suggested, wrap Anthony. But it is no longer a reason for about to be defective if you don't return the two unvoted ones. I think that would raise a lot of discussion about other issues that people have with that. Well, yeah, I, I understand the sort of the history of the collision between trying to be anonymous versus party registration but there's, we've got a hybrid system, and we keep trying to cure it and we're trying to get the next necessity for affidavits and all the stuff we just talked about. And, you know, we either live with it or we go one way or the other party registration or not. I would love for us to be able to put that question to bed once and for all but that's not going to happen on a Friday after. So, let's see if we can focus in on on what level of ballot curing we want to add here for the primary. If I may if wills willing to do it. I think that at least eliminates one of the why should we send in that affidavit, because then the question boils down to how do you want to cure. If someone has sent multiple filled out ballots, if there's only one filled out, you simply trash the other two, and there's no defect. It's only in the situation where there are multiple ballots that are filled out that you get into this discussion. Okay, hold that thought. Representative Colston. Thank you Madam Chair will Carol mentioned that 10% of the ballots were deemed effective. What does that number look like statewide. If we found it was around six in the primary isn't that right Chris for the primary the general being much lower. Okay. And it's because of this three valid issue that you see that increased. Issues in the primary. Oh it seemed like sending out a new packet may not be such a tall order if there's only. What was it 3% statewide you said, six, oh six. Okay. And just trying to keep it simple. I was just thinking about the other issue rep Anthony it's not. It's not only the priority registration debate, which is certainly the fundamental kind of issue that that will raise, but just the simple solution that you're talking about which is to make it. Not defective if the two unvoted ballots do not come back. That's sort of the easy fix in the defective section you were talking about. So that raises is fraud concerns about the two unvoted ballots that are left behind. But don't they have to come back in a sign sealed envelope and so you're back to those are my concerns but other people's. Okay. I just want to clarify if I may on Will's testimony he was remembering numbers I just got a note that it was a 6000 total, but about 3%. Thank you for defective ballots for the August primary. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I just wanted to check in with Carol because it sounds like what I hear you saying is what's the least complicated for you is to have an affidavit if one is returned and mail a new packet if three are returned voted that that is actually the least complicated for you. And will I heard you say you're okay with that but are worried about it being complicated for the clerks. I take all the calls. So which are the three reasons that I can accept an affidavit for and which are the reasons I can't. But that's my job so if, if that's what makes sense to the committee and the clerks are comfortable with it. And I go ahead Carol. I was going to say, you know, I'm imagining whatever the notice is or whatever is is available to us through VMS really very clearly identifies. These are the things that are curable by mail a ballot these are the cure things that are curable by affidavit that you know so that hopefully there except for the learning curve there wouldn't be that repetitive bunch of questions. Okay. I think we have concerns about that. All right, so rep the house key you are you is your hand still up on. If we're good. My second question is irrelevant because it was around not returning the other ballots and if they're barcoded wouldn't we be able to see if someone had already like that barcode is to a person. So if every ballot is barcoded and a second ballot comes in with the same barcode wouldn't we immediately be flagged that they've already voted. We still need an affidavit for that. No but my point it's the fraud concern so if we may change the law and said only one you only have to return one and all of them are barcoded that we would, but if we're agreeing affidavit and re vote then it doesn't matter it's irrelevant. So I don't want to go there. I take it back. And you know the exit checklist has to match the number of voted ballots total anyway and so there are other ways of indicating if somebody were to try to fraudulently cast one of my unvoted ballots but but as I've said before that you know this whole question of one ballot versus three ballots is a is a much bigger conversation and I'd rather see if we can just focus on the definition of defective and how we cure so representative Leclerc. Wonderful I'm just somebody tell me where we're winding up here because I'm a little confused on who's on first and who's on second. I think where where we're ending up is that if a voter accidentally returns only one voted primary ballot that they will need to cure that by affidavit. And if the voter returns all three ballots voted or more than one ballot voted or some other combination of putting the three ballots in the wrong place that that will will trigger a re vote, a new packet being provided. And so from Will's perspective and Carol's that is doable. Okay, I just didn't want to get a lot of correspondence from a lot of clerks that are unhappy. Don't worry they're all going to call will first, which I think is why he's trying very hard to keep us focused on what is, you know what is the most streamlined way of accomplishing this so I appreciate your perspective on that and Carol I appreciate you being here for all of this replica fave. Thank you madam chair. I would like the question to represent of the host is answered to her question. So, all of the, all of the ballots we are sent our bar coded. And so if someone only sent in one and someone grabbed the other two and sent them in and they were scanned wouldn't we have a flag of all this persons already voted. That is a question that either Carol or will would have to answer. It's not the ballots themselves that are bar coded. It's the envelopes that are bar coded. So the, the return envelope that comes from the voter has the bar code on it, not the individual ballots. Is there a way to change that. If you bar coded the the ballot you would now know who voted the ballot. Yeah. I understand. I understand that, but is there a way to do it to have it go back but not tell you, is there a way for, is there a way for in your system for it to go back and to tell you that I'm sorry like this has already been used like you know you try to do create a user name for somebody else already has this user name. Is there a way to say somebody somebody's already voted through this account. Like keeping it anonymous not pulling up that you know Joe Smith from, you know, Smith Street voted, but that someone's already voted that is attached to this. So I could imagine that we could think of ways to develop a technology that that simply puts a unique stamp on all three ballots so that if you have processed the progressive primary ballot the other two matching ballots can't be can't be read but but I don't believe that we have that technology within the system that we're using right now and I also worry that we're getting lost a little bit in the weeds on this because we do have a bit of an agreement I think here between our elections officials on how to move forward with curing these so I, I would like to be able to put those larger questions of how to eliminate the annoyance of three primary ballots, needing to go out and come back into another conversation on another day in another year because we're not going to get to that right now. Is there anyone who has figured out how to how are there other states that that do primaries this way and have they figured out a different way to do this do you know offhand. I've never heard of that kind of tracking system or pretty unique in the way we do the primary there are a few others I think who similarly send multiple ballots to single voters. I've never heard of that. Great. So we have a hand raised from a rep from the vote at home Institute so Audrey Klein do you have information to enlighten us on this question. Hello ma'am thank you, Audrey Klein from the National voted home Institute for the record. Just to the question on primary ballots here in Colorado, unaffiliated voters are actually sent both the Republican and the Democratic ballots. One piece to understand is that when a voter is getting credit for this interaction, the ballot and the envelope working tandem. So the envelope is what identifies the voter and you get the vote credit for that, and then the ballot is separate so if you get something back with two voted ballots similar situation here that is rejected. So actually here on my desk somewhere I have my wife's primary ballot from last year. So if this were to show up at the clerk's office in a regular envelope or in a drop box or a ballot box of some kind, because it is not associated with the envelope that identifies her and the barcode that is also isn't assigned to her. So there is no way to to sort of have a ballot and the voter identified at the same time so there's that is the security process that is used in other states that have a similar sort of setup. I hope that's helpful. Thank you. So committee. I think the instructions that we are leaning towards giving Amron are around. Single ballot can be corrected by an affidavit swearing that they did not execute the other two ballots and multiple ballots need to start over from scratch are we are we in agreement that that's what we're working towards. Anybody want to scream. No that's not what I wanted. I'll go for it I just thought the color or I don't know solution solve the fraud problem but maybe I didn't I missed something. All right. Amron, let's look at proposed change number three. I believe we're down to number four for four. Excellent. We're cruising. All right. Is that right. Yeah, four. I scroll back up because somebody asked a question about something higher up on there. I need to propose change for which is on page seven would add a new bill section to s 15 amending section 2531 of title 17 application for early voter absentee ballot. If you scroll down to page eight, you'll see some new highlighted language this would add a subsection D entitled permanent absentee ballot list. The town clerk shall maintain and regularly update a list of qualified voters who have applied to receive absentee ballots for any election in accordance with subsections a and B of this section. In each presidential primary and state primary election, a voter who wishes to automatically receive an absentee ballot for each presidential primary and state primary election without making an annual application may apply to be on the permanent absentee ballot list for those elections by so noting on his or her application for an early absentee ballot filed in accordance with the application requirements in subsection a and B of this section. In the presidential primary and state primary primary election, the secretary of state's office or town clerk as applicable, shall mail an absentee ballot to each active voter on the permanent absentee ballot list in accordance with the procedures and deadlines for regular absentee ballots under this chapter. Okay, questions from committee members. Everybody understand what the purpose is of that. And I guess my first question is Carol does how does that. How does that feel to you from a clerk's perspective of maintaining an automatic absentee ballot list for the presidential and state primary. I actually voiced a concern back to rep for husky my my concern is that we're, we're creating multiple systems that it's that there is going to the potential for voter confusion for local elections they have to make annual requests for the general election they don't have to request it all and now for the primaries they can sign up for a lifetime request and it just felt to me like we were creating some confusion. All right, rip the husky. Yeah, and Carol thank you I did I had hoped that this had come a little sooner so we could have connected ahead of time a little bit more. My hope in doing this is actually to decrease confusion as and move towards a more general just general system where we all get ballots and this was sort of an intermediary step for me from. Get one in the general but because I actually heard a lot of in in this last election a lot of people who were waiting for their primary ballot and didn't know they had to sign up for a primary ballot, but we're fully aware that the town ballot was going to be different and so for me this was sort of the intermediary and making the primary and the general, a little bit more similar in that you could want sign up and just always get that primary ballot. Because I did actually have a fair amount of confusion in the in the these this last election where people thought they were going to get a primary ballot, and then didn't and then had to go vote in person or it so so that I was actually hoping to decrease confusion with the town and local thing being one thing, and then the primaries and the states and the generals kind of being their own thing. So that's my thought process. Representative Higley. I have to agree with Carol I think this does make it confusing I know that a lot of my voters were confused with that first postcard that came out that asked to check a box for do you want to receive an absentee ballot and you know they said I thought I was going to be getting mailed one, or everybody was going to be getting mailed one. So again this is kind of along the same lines it's like, you know you request one for the primary. You don't have to for the general so. Yeah, confusing if you ask me, thanks. Committee discussion. See anybody diving into fill the silence on that's rep the host key. And just rapidly I heard the same confusion and that was my hope in this is that it would eliminate that confusion in that. Once someone signed up and opted in they would no longer get the postcard and they would just get one in the mail. Because I heard a lot that I heard a lot of that same confusion where that postcard came and they were like I thought I was just going to get a ballot and this is a means for someone to opt into just getting a ballot. My concern is why, why would you even have to do that then why why wasn't it just everybody will receive a ballot in the primary as well. Well that's what I would like to but this felt like an intermediary step. Yeah, I, yeah, I'm, I'm not sure. I don't understand but what, what's the additional cost as well for the primary ballots being mailed out to everybody. Yeah. And then, and then Carol. Thank you madam chair I think the discussion that we just had about the three ballots that the defective rates on the curative provisions. There are a lot of differences for town meetings annual meetings and the August primary. There are complicated areas of discussion so you know there was an amendment on the Senate side and attempted amendment to include the primary and and all local elections to be universal but vote by mail. But that's a much deeper discussion and there are a lot of different issues that you need to take into consideration, including cost, the cost of doing all of that so we think it's a great discussion to have for the future, but for now, vote by mail for the general election is what makes the most sense to treat things in the way that we did in the in 2020 and we think that works well as a first step forward. Carol does. Yeah, my other concern is the proposed language includes the presidential primary which is held in conjunction with the local town meetings. So, so we would potentially have people signed up for absentee receipt of the presidential primary ballot but they would have to remember to sign up for the town meeting ballot and that would certainly create confusion with voters. I did not even think about the fact that we have those two different primary I wonder if it would feel less confusing to pull the presidential piece out and have because if people are going to town meetings, they'll get that anyways and to keep it at the state primary, because I just want to be clear that this language doesn't automatically mail everyone a primary ballot it allows them to opt in to only and only have to sign up once. So those people theoretically are people who have said yes I want to vote in my primaries please mail them to me. So do you have thoughts. I don't, I don't feel strongly either way and I indicated to rep the house key when she was talking about this idea that I that I wouldn't oppose it and that I remain that way I would just pause it that I get to yours trying to strike a balance that I see it and the voter confusion thing is very important, and we're trying to address that as as much as we can through our communications of course from my office. To me the easiest message out of all of these various scenarios we're considering is that the only election you will have a ballot proactively mailed to you for is the general election in November. So make sure all other elections make sure you request about it. I think that's the least confusing message that we can have as a starting point, until we get to the place where we're mailing out ballots for the primary which is where I would like to get. Okay, I'm seeing a couple. And also I'm sorry not I'm chair, just in the language and this did this came to us. I'm sorry for the meeting and forgive me ever and if I missed this but I don't see any scenario where our office the Secretary of State's office would be mailing these ballots. So I would, I would suggest that our office be taken out of the language. Yeah. Representative Danon. I'm just concerned. I mean, I think we're taking tremendous step forwards with with mail and balloting for the general election and I'm just concerned about making too many significant changes, especially here where there's been some note of that there could be potential confusion. Well, I, I, well, I understand this and like director setting I had hope we could, you know mail everybody a primary ballot at some point, I just worry about causing too much confusion with all these proposed changes. Rep Colston. Thanks Madam chair. Yeah, I agree with this train of thought, I think, you know, think big but act small how do we perfect this. You know, with the general election and give it some more time, get, get some other bones worked out. And then we expand down the road but let's, let's take it on in a way to make sure we're not overloading ourselves and confusing people. Right, I'm starting to hear consensus that this is not quite ready for prime time. I have two more changes that I don't think we necessarily need amaran to run through with us because they're pretty straightforward. One is simply deleting the elections position that was in the bill because it is now contained in the, in the Senate version of the budget, I believe, or both versions of the budget. It is in the Senate version. Excellent. I would like to propose a proposal to amend the title of the bill because the focus of the bill has changed since its introduction back in January. How, how do people feel about proposed change number six to amend the title of the bill. I'm not seeing a majority yet. Anybody want to recommend a different wording representative Higley. What's the title now. An act relating to correcting defective ballots I think an act related to mailing out ballots, correcting defective ballots and miscellaneous changes. That whole thing would be the new title. Okay. Yes, because they get paid by the word. No, I'm just kidding. It's more accurate to what we're doing in this bill which has it's brought in in scope since it was introduced. Madam chair I think that's what they call a call back in comedy. What you just did there. All right representative Leclerc. I agree that it makes it much clearer about what the intent of this bill is. Okay, so we're, we're good to go on the title change. And so then we would be asking Amron to to incorporate changes one through three and five and six with some slight tweaks. Okay, so I'm going to let Amron go ahead and, and you know, stay off camera. You know, hopefully working on incorporating some of these changes if that's, if that's something that she's able to do while we take a little bit more testimony. I have been diligently working to see if I could find someone from a universal vote by mail state who would come and talk with us about some other details about vote by mail. We have not yet been able to find someone from Oregon but we do have Audrey Klein and and so I do want to take a moment to to have some more conversation and this is the time for committee members to you know to ask questions of Audrey about what she could do. But in particular I had asked Audrey if she could help enlighten us on what what it looks like to implement a signature verification program because that has been one of the issues that I have been approached by several of you committee members with an interest in exploring a little bit more and so Audrey thank you for being with us and and I was hoping that you could help up enlighten us a little bit. Hello ma'am thank you for excuse me thank you for having me again. For the record Audrey Klein with the National Vote at Home Institute and coalition. Thrilled to take some questions here if I if I can. So verification is a is a pretty common means of verifying that the ballot that is received by an election official is is the one that is actually sent by a voter. But it can also be quite complicated so I understand there's some there might be some questions from the committee, and I'd be pleased to sort of make myself available to answer what I can. And if I need to, I would be more than pleased to help the, the chairwoman to find some other expertise around some of the other areas that might be a little more more technical if we need. Okay, questions representative Haley. I guess I'll start it off. Looking into the Oregon signature verification process and some of that information that was sent there was an actual video of how they do it. I just want to run this run this by folks and see if I'm correct or see if there's another process as well but you know through the Secretary of State's office they have a signature page. And from the registration process that the voter goes through that is sent out to all the clerks that they actually do compare that signature on a screen on a computer screen with what's there now. My understanding is, they look at a lot of different things there has to be training. That's, that's true. There's a lot of different things and I believe that if there, if there is a concern. There is actually a second person that's that's involved and now that may not be able to be the case in Vermont just because of the limited number of folks that work the polls but there is also a curing process as well and I'm not convinced that I appreciate the organs process of actually going 14 days after the election for a curing process as well. But anyway, that's that's that's my understanding. And it's similar to the curing process for other defects that we're talking about looking at the ballots currently so I guess, and I don't know if Carol is still on or not. I think she had to step away. Okay, but I would, I would be entered to ask Carol if the town clerks were asked at all about some sort of a signature verification or rather verification process and what their, what their comments might be if there was any, any polling or any, any questions asked about that but Yep, we'll flag that and, and we'll definitely ask Carol's perspective on that. Any other questions that you wanted to ask of Audrey, while we have her. Let me see, I think. Hang on just a second. We'll go to anybody else. There's a couple of the hands I'll come back with some other questions. Okay, representative Shannon. Yes, Audrey. I understand there was a lot of litigation around signature verification in the 2020 election cycle. Can you discuss what the number of lawsuits that were brought and what why they were brought. That's a, that is kind of a, that's a big and loaded question because there was so much litigation last year. And as far as I can remember signature verification was actually sort of on the lower end of that scale for, for what I had been paying attention to. And it was mainly because most of the litigation was actually around signatures for for witnesses and notaries. And I can go ahead and check my math on that one. But as far as I remember there wasn't any. I certainly don't think anyone was ruled that any of their processes were ruled as unconstitutional or, or anything like that. But I can certainly check on that. But I do feel pretty strongly that most of the litigation was actually around whether or not you were requiring people to have witnesses, multiple witnesses or notaries, especially in a pandemic sort of situation asking someone who might live alone to go to someone or worse yet have to sit down with a notary and, you know, have some safety issues. That was where a lot of them were about, but that's not to say that it wasn't litigated I just don't remember off the top of my head, any states that had their signature verification systems struck down. Now, I am not a legal expert. And that is sort of just off the top of my head so I hope that is that is enough. Okay, and I have a follow up question. It's my understanding from reading is that that signature verification rejections of balance disproportionately hit certain demographic groups. And those include elderly voters young voters and voters of color. Can you speak to that. Thank you for the question. I think I've seen some similar data I certainly don't discount it. What I think is important is that across states you see varying levels of rejection rates and a lot of that is because of the processes that are put behind some some system like that. The process that representative Higley described is is similar to the one that I'm most familiar with in my home here at the great state of Colorado. But it is intensive to keep those those rejection rates low. So what that requires then is technology investments so that could be software and hardware. And then there's also sort of a multi step process for a ballot to be rejected. So you're actually the representative mentioned it's, there's like one election judge here there's technically three so the machine might reject something, saying that it's not as similar as it should be, and then it goes to a team of bipartisan judges that are trained by the Secretary of State here in Colorado there's a free extensive program for that. And then those bipartisan judges have to agree that the signature is not substantially the same with anything that is on file so even inside of this process you are reaching back in time to all of the other signatures that the Secretary of State, the local clerk, and other government entities are sort of aggregating. So there's a there's a lot of technical processes in here. And because Colorado is making lots of investments in this kind of technology, we do keep our reduction rates quite low. But I actually I can't wait to get the data on to look and see if these disparities still remain some states that don't have all of these layers and layers of protection for vulnerable populations, you see much higher rejection than others. So it is my emphatic hope that any state that is looking to implement something like this would also be making the quite large technical and training and institutional foundational investments that are necessary to protect folks that might be disadvantaged. Thank you. Absolutely. Representative Higley I see that Carol Dawes is back so and I know that she has to wait on on folks coming in the office so why don't you ask her while we have her for the moment. Yeah, thank you Carol. My question was, were the were the town clerks asked or pulled it all about what their thoughts are on any voter verification process whether it be a signature verification or other. We haven't done any kind of formal polling I certainly have been involved in a number of conversations with with clerks. And I, I'm pretty comfortable saying that universally clerks are not are not in favor of any such verification requirements, mainly because of the amount of time and training that would be necessary and the that's something we would be called upon to make a judgment that we wouldn't feel equipped to make, and that that could, could nullify somebody's right to vote. And that's one of our biggest concerns. Well it's amazing to me that the state of Oregon has done it for 20 years with 2.15 million votes just this past election. Thank you. Representative with faith. Thank you madam chair and thank you miss time for being here. So my question is. There are other states that do the sorry I haven't written down so I spent a while to ask this question that we know that other states have done the all male in elections with no problems for fraud like the rates are very low. Other states do employ some sort of their full ID process. If it's not signatures or there is something that they do signature matching driver's license number last for digital security number. And they ban large scale ballot, ballot harvesting. Is that correct from my recollection of what other states have in place that do all male and voting. That's a great question. And if it's all right with you I'm going to use my cheat sheet that I have up on a screen right above this and look up a little bit of that information. As for a ballot collection or a ballot harvesting. I don't have that on hand but I do know that here in Colorado. The sort of standard on that is that no one person can can receive or turn in more than 10 ballots per election. And let me tell you as a former sort of campaign pack pack you know back in the day. Because it is not easy to get people to cough up a ballot even if you are, you know, just sort of a normal person on the street just trying to help people vote. So, I know myself, I have knocking thousands and thousands of doors. I only ever turned in three ballots total that were not my own, and two of them were somebody who drove up to me on the street and said, I don't know where the drop off box is, are you, are you going by one sometimes that I can see that you're like a wearing like a campaign t shirt, they gave them to me. So it's, it's sort of an interesting issue to talk about because it is quite hard to do in the first place, and we don't see any rates of fraud, increasing or decreasing based off of how those, those policies are implemented across the country. So, I'm not sure if that's actually helpful and then as for signature verification, it is like I said it is a very common piece of policy, how well it is done is sort of the real question. There are states that when you are having your signature evaluating. It's not just the signature that is up on the screen. It might actually include something like your precinct or your, your party affiliation or any demographic data that might be attached to your voter file, which we do not recommend that is actually a bad process. And so we just want to be really, really clear that it's generally a process that works pretty well when it is done well, but it does take a lot of work. And it does take a lot of investment to get that done. Thank you. So what about other options like last for a social or even driver's license number I mean I don't know how many people around here have a like a price shop or card but you give them your driver's license number to obtain that card. So it's not like, you know, people give this information out for things, much less than your right to vote. So have you seen other states implement that type of safeguard with implementing all mail and voting. We're just starting to see that as a policy that is is being implemented in other states. Georgia is one that is that is sort of working on something like that. Florida just had something similar for requests. I don't think I have a fully rounded view on it I haven't seen data as to how it might affect someone, but I can tell you a story from literally yesterday I was at the Department of Motor Vehicles here in Colorado getting a new driver's license. Mine expired, which is, you know, just the thing that happens everybody, but the woman in front of me in line had just moved to Colorado from, I believe it was Louisiana, trying to get a driver's license. She had her Social Security card, but what she didn't have was a passport or her and she's new to Colorado so she actually got to the place where she also couldn't find her birth certificate she was an elderly elderly woman and she was not eligible to get a driver's license. And it was it was just kind of an incredible experience because we hear about it. For myself but I wasn't having any trouble with the process but I watched somebody right in line in front of me that that couldn't even get something like that so it is a very real issue of can everyone get a driver's license. I'm not going to say that there aren't massive barriers to certain populations to that kind of thing so. It is is my personal belief that a lot of these systems are going to disenfranchise voters. No matter how well it is written into law and no matter how well intentioned. I'll set rep the face. I'll be coming back thank you. Thank you. It's my recollection that the ACLU did testify. Was it just yesterday. It's so hard to keep track of the days but yesterday that in fact there are lawsuits pending. One is as close as New Hampshire on on signature verification I believe there was also a case in Pennsylvania. It ultimately came down to due process for curing and the length of the curing process and the, and it would impact clerks having to positively engage with a voter so it would very much change what the curing process would look like for that due process to be enacted in order to be considered constitutional so that's my understanding of the the pending lawsuits the two I know about our New Hampshire and Pennsylvania but they did testify there are more. So I know that the ACLU is in opposition to this I also know that the Vermont NAACP is in opposition to this and that there are multiple studies across the country that showed that signature verification. Absolutely and ordinarily impacts communities of color young voters first time voters women trans voters. So I think that we need to be really really careful in looking at potentially impacting communities who have previously. Already been impacted by by our country is flawed just flawed attempts at. So I guess what I'm getting at his voter suppression is a much bigger problem than voter fraud. And I think that we need to really be thinking about if we are going to go down this road the incredible financial and time investment in making sure that it is done institutionally without silencing one vote from a disenfranchised community or anyone else. So I guess that's not really a question so much as a statement but I don't know if you have anything to add or I just think it's really important that we be really careful. Thank you ma'am. I, I know what you said about cures is actually is really important. Right now even just with the sort of ways you can reject about it in Vermont you have you can have these very small windows to cure something like that so if you start adding length and time and more processes to what a clerk is working on. Now we're at a place in my understanding of Vermont law that you can't extend the cure period after the election, especially because you're going to run up against certification deadlines, then you also aren't going to be able to report full results. So there's kind of a domino effect there that could actually hurt more voters than in a place that that has that extra time after the election to allow for anyone who has a signature mismatch or a deficiency to cure that balance so these shortened timelines can actually they can backfire in some ways so if that is just another thing to sort of be aware of. Rep Colston. I would like to share. I like to expand on what rep you just shared. And because this is such an issue that impacts so many different voting groups. I think this conversation really requires a much more expansive input, especially from those groups who are impacted. I guess my question for you, Miss Klein is one other strategies have been considered or been taken on to mitigate the disparities that are created by this system. That's a great question. And I think that those conversations are ongoing. I know that my group, the voted home Institute. We've been proactively working with folks like the disability community to understand how these, these policies can interact with a community like that. Also, any language access. There's lots of different ways that this can be an extra challenge for folks. And I'm not sure if we've come up with a perfect way to do it quite yet. But I think those conversations are going to be deeply important, especially in this interim between the biggest vote by mail election in history. And you know what comes next. There's lots of states and certainly for mine is not the only one that has been contemplating large changes. And we're here to support that. But there might be some magic solutions out there that I have not quite found yet. But certainly coming at these issues with an equity lens first is, is, is what I hope and I think that Vermont is doing right now so I want to continue to applaud this, this committee and this legislature for being really thoughtful on the issues and we're going to be here a partner on that and I'm sorry that I don't have perfect solutions for you quite yet. Thank you. Rapidly. Thank you madam chair. I guess listening to the conversation I'm really sorry that somebody from the state of Oregon the Secretary of State's office out there couldn't be here to answer questions because these have all been good questions I tried to ask as many as I could. And again I just have to say 20 years of doing this process, you can't tell me that the state of Oregon is experiencing all kinds of disenfranchisement with this voter signature verification process. So that's the question. I mean I'm not saying that there's not some problem that there's always going to be some problems. But these are the sort of questions that they could answer specifically as as to what they're doing. As far as folks with disabilities and all that there was examples of signature stamps there was examples of people that have disabilities that that might have cerebral palsy other things like that they even have a process that you can vote through an iPad. I mean these are questions that they can answer for you I, I don't feel that I should answer these questions and I, you know, 20 years ago they felt that it was important to reach all the registered voters in the state but they also realize that it was important to have a sense of security around that and for for us not to be able to talk to a state that has done it for 20 years, I think is a disservice to what we're attempting to do. And just for Deputy Secretary Winters and and will settings information again we you you had mentioned it as well as far as what's happening across the country, we're in it, we're in a different era, and I mentioned it in the other. The other day in committee. And I think it's important for you to hear as well I'm sure if you didn't hear about it, you need to hear about an issue where a group of individuals stifled a member of the, the councils in Burlington ability to speak at a council meeting. These are the sort of things that concern me going forward in the future that if groups like that would be willing to do that at a meeting they they were caught. They have to go through diversion whatever it is. I can guarantee you that if things get more politically aggressive and contentious that things are going to happen with a ballot harvest or an issue around. I all you want that it doesn't happen and and I certainly appreciate and and believe that this word to one year into it. And I just think that it's it's more important than ever to to look at it the way that Oregon did I mean I can't believe I'm supporting something, you know that or Oregon past 20 years ago and and I'm coming around to this. And that's something that I talked about months ago here saying that I don't think it's the right thing to do I think there's voter responsibility. There's a process already for it. I'm coming around to this, but the way I'm coming around to it is some sort, some sort of, of verification that, you know, sure it's going to be a lot of work and it may cost more money, but going forward, how important is this process. You know, Sarah Bucks and David Ainsworth races twice within one vote. So one vote does count. And I don't believe that the state of Oregon would disenfranchise a whole group of folks regardless of who they are without a total outcry. And if we can't talk to them I guess you're not going to hear that. So I'm sorry that we're not going to be able to hear that. Thank you for your comments I do have a little bit of information trickling and I have my researcher pulling up some of our notes on our end. And it looks like in the 2020 general election, there was 16,680 rejected ballots in Oregon for signature reasons alone that's a total percentage of point 69. And we're looking into the other sort of percentages for any other ballot defect reasons but that's 16,680 people that had to go through some sort of a pure process, which is substantial. And it's also, you know, that's a lot of work on clerks. Yeah, it isn't valid. But that's just what the process is. And, you know, as some of the other representatives have brought up the, it does trend to be younger voters and people of color that have their signatures rejected and they have to go through a pure process so. And once they make it through the pure process, what that actually means is that they had to take an extra step to have their vote counted in their voice heard for their government. And so it, I don't really want to sort of get into the larger issues on it but I think that's important to know that that that's a significant amount of people that have to take one more step to have their voice heard, while other people did not. So, I think there is, there is some validity to the argument and we need to continue to refine processes. And it, it just takes investment it takes a lot of time and a lot of work. So I will continue to sort of like beat on that drum. It does work for states that have been working on it, as you said for quite some time. So, I'm wondering if your researcher has the ability to, to, to shed a little light on the geographic distribution of those 16,000 votes that were rejected for signature match where they coastal Oregon where they interior Oregon, a little with, you know, of sprinkling of one or two here and there, or, you know, one election official who was really diligent. I appreciate that question. I will take a look. Certainly, we're kind of gleaning from what's called the ease report. Obviously the 2021 hasn't come out we got that somewhere else and I'd be happy to send you a citation on that. But the ease report, if you're interested in these sorts of things is something that's put together by the, the EC, and it comes out about 18 months after every major election so it's going to be a little while so we see 2020 data but if you want to look state by state as to how many absentees versus how many rejections or there's all kinds of really fascinating tidbits in there and I'd encourage this committee and anybody who works in elections to sort of dive in there and see what you can see because it is. It's really interesting to see how these numbers change from state to state. Thanks. Thank you, Madam Chair and thank you, Miss Klein. So I just had a clarifying question that I asked people and they first came in to testify at the beginning of this about how all these implications took place that my fear would be we would be the least secured voting system in the United States. And so I would say I got asked, you know, why do I think it how could I think that I'm going to ask you what we specifically have for accessibility to our voting and if through your to help with the team you have working you can find any other state that has all of these accessibility without the safeguards that they have put into place. I'm not sure if you would like to write them down or Yeah, yeah, I would love that. What in particular are you looking for. So what other state has mailing ballots to all active voters. The honor system of the absentee ballots and by that I mean no requirement for any verifiable information to confirm the identity of the voter. So in the state of Vermont, we can just call our town clerk say hey this is Sam with a could you please send my ballot. I'm going to be out of town. So it's just the honor system of sending it back. And then the 45 days of early voting, the same day voter registration automatic voter registration and legal large scale ballot harvesting. So if you could, if there's any other states out there that have this. So, I know there's five other states that have the all mail and voting so I guess would be one of those five that also implement this with no safeguard. I think that's an interesting question I can absolutely take a look into it. I think the five that you're contemplating all have some kind of signature verification system. One that I thought was interesting is that in Maryland in 2020 for their primary. They also mailed ballots to all voters with a sort of with a signature present requirement so that's one that would be very close to what you're looking for here. But I'd be happy to sort of continue to take a look. Actually, here's an interesting parallel. Nebraska actually has 30 counties, most of Nebraska actually proactively mails ballots to most if not all voters. The only ones that don't are actually the largest counties there. There's a cap on how many voters your county can have in order to send a balance proactively. So most of Nebraska is working under sort of a similar sort of setup, but they actually don't have some of the other things that add, you know, lots and lots of security to the system like same day voter registration, automatic voter registration, things like that. So there's a lot of or the early mail in voting, I mean the early I'm sorry the max of the early voting. And so I appreciate you looking into that and I, I thank you for your input and I just have one question for our committee. I'm sorry I know you've been in the hot seat for a while. I was just hoping if our committee could take serious here of my concerns and at least see if we can have a consideration of banning ballot harvesting, making it in, you know, just something I understand that we have the concerns and I do not at any point want to disenfranchise someone from their right to vote and that is something that I think I've made very clear from the very beginning of this. I do not want also the integrity of our voting to go to go away. I do know that more people, you know I have read many studies also where if people feel their vote doesn't count and they do not cast a vote. And that's their right to vote. So it might not happen next election it might not happen to elections from now, but it's going to be very sad with three elections from now we're having surveys of people not voting, because they don't think their vote counts. And that's something that I met out on the trail is people said oh you know I love to support you or I'd love to support that candidate or this candidate, but I don't vote because my, you know, my vote doesn't count, and that's that's sad to hear. Like, at least like to hear from you know our committee what their thoughts would be of getting the language put in of banning ballot harvesting, or collecting, please. I can answer, because I believe I have a fully formed thought on that. If someone is concerned that they shouldn't vote because their vote isn't counted why would we give another reason for that vote to be rejected by saying the clerk can reject a ballot because somebody else dropped it off. I mean to me that that is an arbitrary reason and in a state like Vermont where, you know, my 90 year old neighbor might have trouble even walking to the end of her driveway to put her ballot in the outgoing mailbox. You know, I don't see why she couldn't send it to the dropbox with, you know, with her neighbor who's going there with his ballot anyway so I'm happy. There are numbers that there's numbers you know like limit of 10, you know that's not going to shut down anyone from walking down their main driveway to pick up your neighbor's ballot. It just is going to, it's going to help make sure that down the road when more things might come about as other members have mentioned that we're not seeing things that we wish we had put language in for. You know, I think capping at 10, you could go collect, you know, even if you had four people in your house you brought their ballots they're still, you know, six other ballots you could go help out. We just heard testimony that there is heart you know if someone was volunteering go to door to door for thousands of people and they only collected three to which were given to her for help. So, you know, I'm not trying to disenfranchise anybody but also I'm asking for some sort of safeguarded please put into this language. Rep the host key. My comment was not on this subject so I'm certainly happy to wait if there are comments on this particular subject and come back to mine. Is there anyone who wants to jump the line on this particular topic of returning more than 10 ballots rep Higley. Thank you madam chair. Miss Klein I think you had mentioned that Colorado has a limit. What was that. I believe it is 10 for election, I can, I can look that up as well. If you'd like. Okay, and as long as I've got you for a second on the signature rejections in in Oregon. Was that the initial rejections or was that after the curing process. That is a good question. Let me see. I do not have an answer for you. I'm happy to, I know we have the chat here on the zoom that we're all on to just send a quick link to the new story where we're able to pull that one. There's some other more extensive data that I think will be released. Okay, thank you I think that would be critical because if it's if it's after the curing process that's a little more concerning than prior to the curing process. Yeah, I think it's important to note that even sort of within these. The ballot cures are often affected by how sort of competitive a state can can be. And I think that that's important to know that then you would sort of see a disproportionate effect as you get further down the ballot as well so I have anecdotally seen folks say, as I was working here on campaigns in Colorado, say, Obama one, I don't, I don't need to like, I don't really care if my vote counted at this point. And so that was actually disproportionately affecting things that got all the way down to the bottom of the ballot, like a county commissioner races that is actually the one that I was working on at the time and so the margin out of 350,000 votes in that county got down to I think was about 600. My vote was really counting in that specific race, but then you'd be talking to folks maybe like I don't really want to do that work anymore. So I don't need to sign this like this affidavit. It can just there are just lots of disparate effects. And I just want this committee to be aware of what can sort of happen downstream. Miss Klein if I could I guess going back to the other question around the 10, the 10 max votes that can be turned in by any one individual I guess, what was Colorado's reasoning for passing something like that. I, I don't know I don't, I'm not sure if I was around when that particular piece of the law was written. I don't have the first hand knowledge on that, but it's also important to know that like there's, there's actually not an enforcement mechanism to that either. There's not anybody standing around there's no you know exactly have a punch card that you like take to your clerk and you know they say okay well that's for for you this year, it's really is some some call it unenforceable. We do that a lot around here as well. Anyone else want to weigh in on this question. All right back to you. Wonderful thank you so it's my understanding that in Oregon all election officials are trained in forensic handwriting analysis Miss Klein do you know how long that training takes or does anybody here know how long that training takes. I don't first hand and again this is another one of those things that changes from state to state so usually you're looking at a Secretary of State to codify or not caught by promulgating some rules. That would sort of make those declarations I'd be happy to look into what the differences look like. And again that goes back to some of the points that I've been trying to make is that states very widely on what kind of training they require. And are you going to bring in someone from the FBI to do forensic handwriting training with all of your clerks. That is absolutely an option. It may not be feasible and it may not be advisable but it's certainly there. Then there's other states that just don't have any rules around this whatsoever. If I'm remembering correctly every county in the whole state of Florida, sort of does these things a little differently. And that's another way that you sort of see disparate rates of you know there's a 12% rejection rate in this county and there's one that's under 1% in this county. What's the difference. It's all in the training and the rules and the processes that need to be really well refined to make sure that you're not you're not disenfranchising voters. It's also my understanding that in Florida younger first time voters, people from racial and ethnic minorities and women are almost twice as likely to have their vote rejected because of a signature mismatch than other than other individuals so I think that you're pointing to something really important about the importance of really in depth training. And so I think that that raises a pretty big concern for me I also know that in many that it and I'm not a lawyer so I'm, I'm sort of synthesizing information in my non lawyer brain but it is my understanding that a court case cannot be decided on a forensic handwriting analysis. And so if we are going to say that we're going to deny someone their constitutional right to vote on something that wouldn't hold up in court to convict them of a crime. That feels to me pretty problematic and I don't I don't know if anyone want like I don't know what your thoughts are on that or I don't know. I am also not a lawyer. I just sometimes pretend to play one on zoom. But I, I think that is a is an interesting point and then the data does show that that there are disparities and especially places like for as you get out. And we've at the National voted home Institute, we try and design policies that sort of reduce that kind of disparity or any harm that would come to a voter. But as I've also said, there is not really a perfect process for this and so you can be affected by something like I had a broken hand two years in a row. And I was really concerned that my ballot would be rejected. Thankfully I have a very distinctive a. So I think that that got me through the process here in Colorado but I also had been concerned about my mother, my late mother had Parkinson's and so we didn't know what she was going to have a good day or a bad day. And I think those are valid concerns I don't want to, to say that something like that might not get someone have their ballot rejected. And I also do know that there are, there are times very, very few, I will emphasize very few where people have have tried to submit a ballot on behalf of someone else and they got caught by this process. They are just exceedingly incredibly deeply rare. The one that I'm thinking of here in Colorado was that actually a husband signed a ballot for his life. I don't want to say that that does not happen, but it could also be mitigated by a similar processes to the one that you had recommended representative where if you are getting proactive ballot notifications, and someone, you know, you get that text message on my phone that says, we received your ballot Audrey, congratulations here your digital I voted sticker. If you received that text message and you didn't turn in a ballot, that is probably the best way for someone to proactively contact the clerk and say something's going on here. So, there's a lot of different ways to ensure that you have a secure process. I recognize that you probably don't have the exact numbers in front of you but what I hear you saying is that the instances of legitimate voter fraud that these methods have caught are far fewer than the instances of disenfranchised votes and votes that have been prevented because of the input implementing these things. I feel like I can say that pretty confidently. I'm sure as you heard the heritage foundation actually keeps up an extensive database of voter fraud cases. I kind of actually enjoy reading up on them every once in a while and, and just an incredibly small few of these entire things like 1300 cases over decades. And so very few of them had to do with absentee balance in the first place, and then even fewer have to do with outright fraud in the way that we're speaking about it right now. Great. Thank you. Right representative look Claire. Thank you madam chair I am. I guess I heard several comments made about certain groups of people being disenfranchised by these different things but they all seem to be personal beliefs and assumptions. There's so many data out there that somebody could look at and actually ascertain that this is really what happens if you have central verification by age group by race by age representative again you just popped your hand up. Does that mean you're the data guy and you have data. Okay. I'm going to go back to Alexa. And then analysis the 2020 Florida primary primary by the Stanford MIT healthy elections project. They found that black and Hispanic voter ballots were rejected at roughly double the rate of white voters. The same was true in Wisconsin in 2018 in County in Atlanta. They rejected more than 7% of mail in ballots. And then when they looked at the race of those people, only 3% of the ballots that were rejected were for white voters 5.1% for Hispanic voters and 10.3% for black voters and 13.9% for Asian Americans. And was there any sort of analysis done on that. I mean, assuming that whatever software they're using. It doesn't. It's not able to ascertain a person's nationality. So, well they may not. That's part of the problem, not all states use software. Some just use a manual or I should say visual count but by two election officials typically different parties. Not every state is using sort of software. But, but even given that as a scenario, the two people that are looking have no idea the nationality of the person or the sex or age of the person that's signing that right. It's just a matter of comparing what they have for signature on record versus the one they're looking at. I believe you're correct, but it does raise concerns about the disenfranchisement of certain voter groups. Okay, and there is evidence that are rejected for signature, signature verification much often older voters, as well as people. Sorry, I'm sure that Audrey was going to maybe jump in and remind the committee of what she mentioned earlier, which is which was news to me but speaks to your question replic layer mentioning that some of the software itself I think or systems. When the signature comparison is presented to the person contains voter information. And that, that she would advise against that if we were to implement any such system. Yes, absolutely. Good point well and it's also there's the software itself is is software and it's a lot of in how you use it. So you can, you can kind of set the dial to how sensitive you want it to be. There are no federal guidelines around these things there's no, you know, sort of coming in of how different states do it. So it would be up to either the Secretary of State, or, you know, maybe even the town clerk is to like, how, how much do they want to scrutinize. What is the criteria for that. I mean, those decisions are the ones that that sort of lead you to either a good process or a bad process or more rejections or less. How sensitive do you want that to be is is really important. And it oftentimes goes wrong. Deputy Secretary Winters. I think there I think Audrey may have mentioned it before but another thing that we would need to think about in the state of Vermont is that we don't have central processing like some of these other, like I think all of these other five states do where elections are administered either by county, or they have these big vote centers where all the ballots go so you can concentrate more of that expertise for signature matching. And I think it would be it's worth repeating would be a significant undertaking for us to train 246 clerks to become some kind of handwriting experts. And I don't, I don't think we're saying that that the Oregon system doesn't work well. I think I'm sure it does work well, after many years of training, and a lot of investment in equipment and people. What struck me was that I think Audrey pointed out there were something like 16,000 rejections but she's also talking about how there's such a small instance of voter fraud. So, you know, just think about that many signatures getting rejected that many follow ups that many curative processes, and no actual fraud or very very little actual fraud coming up it. Thank you. All right representative with a thank you madam chair. I apologize I had to put my hand down before my dogs thought they heard a monster, so it was not fun here. So I'd like to go back to my, I hear the concerns and again I do not want to disenfranchise any voter. I want every voter that you know that has their right to be able to vote. So please contemplate being able to have a ban on bringing in more than 10 ballots. Again might not be enforceable, but I would like if someone was to have that found the same, the same situation if you were caught to be a, you know, not being true with voting so the same, the same disclaimer, wrong hand the same disclaimer, we have on our on your ballot would be the same if you were to be found bringing in more than 10 ballots. I'm asking, I'm asking for that please just as a committee. If it's something that we don't find is, there's a lot of fraud and I don't see the harm of us always putting in attempting a safeguard. I hear the concerns for the others I hear this is going to be a discussion that we're going to have to have a deeper look at. But could we please look at at least putting in the ballot collection and harvesting. All right, so we have a couple people whose hands are up, who may not be intending to speak on this so would you raise your physical hand. If you would like to weigh in on on this concept. Yes, prep Colston. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you, Madam chair. I am not struggling with this, because I'm reminded of a phrase from my friend from Barry town, and we're creating a solution for a problem. So I, I'm just, I don't, I don't understand why we need to make an issue of it when it's not an issue. Good question, Madam chair. You can ask I'm not hearing a lot of shabbiness on the part of your colleagues and committee, but you can feel free to ask for that. I mean that's just one person opposing I mean that doesn't know there's not a lot of people opposing just one so we're tied right now one to one. But my question is how do we know it's not a problem. How do we know that's not happening. Not just to be prevented. What's the evidence. Yeah, how do you know it is a problem. That's what I want to hear. What's the evidence, thank you. Well, I, I think, I think so what what fundamentally this comes down to is, I don't know that we have even defined, or, or that we have agreement that it is a problem for someone to help someone else get their ballot to the polling place. And it's kind of a neighborly thing to do, which is why I don't, I don't think it is. I don't think there's anything wrong with it I think the, the implication in saying that is that somehow that means that the person who's transporting their ballots has fraudulently executed some of those ballots and I don't think that that is something that we are seeing evidence of. So I would hope the intent is that I'm not asking you for not to do a neighborly thing and I don't know how many people in here bring 10 ballots 10 of their neighbors ballots in. But I'm asking for it to be provisions more of large, large parties and larger groups, you know, can't can't do it. And if that's what I'm asking for and again it might not be something we see a problem now but down the road, I'd like to have it to be something that is not a problem. Again a neighborly thing to me. Yes, go ahead pick up your neighbors again there's there's 10 people, nine, not including yourself. You know, it'd be for more the unions and special interest groups to systematically collect ballots on a large scale, not a neighborly thing that's not what I'm doing and that's not the intentions of what I would like this to be portrayed as. I'm not cutting down any neighborly acts. I'm asking for a safeguard to be put into this language, we're opening it up, and I've yet to be shown the facts that were any other state has everything that we have without some type of safeguard put in. So when that shown to me. I'll, I'll stop trying to fight for a safeguard. Until then, I'm not going to. I'm going to run through the hands that are raised. Um, I just wanted to point out that it is a felony to mess to do anything with the federal mail to take things out of the mail or add things into the mail that are not yours. I also want to point out that in Ohio, I believe it was in a 2020 case, an expert found that 97% of the challenge signatures were in fact the right signature and so this to me when I look at I simply looking at the numbers. We know that racism is real and people of color are disenfranchised from every aspect of our society. We know that people with disabilities are disenfranchised from every aspect of our society and I am certainly happy to connect with any one of the people out there that can give me the data points. But what we do not know and in fact there's overwhelming evidence to show that voter fraud is not a widespread problem 97% of the challenge signatures were found to be the person who signed who initially signed it. We can't say that 97% of the safeguards we put in place do not impact already disenfranchised groups. I feel pretty strongly that we need to be doing everything we possibly can to ensure that everyone who is eligible to vote can vote. I also would be curious to hear from the Secretary of State's office, what it would take. First of all, even if there are best practices around implementing something like this and what it would take for Vermont to implement them. Will or Chris pots on that question. Chris you go to me taking that one. So a number of things and I, I'm sorry I was in another chat as well but I what I heard from you rep the husky is what it would take here in Vermont to implement that kind of system, but to implement the best practices of some sort of signature verification I have a qualms with a license because that impacts groups that we already know, or I mean it's the same concern I have with that being our automatic voter registration system I don't think I need to reiterate them but my question is, do we know if there are best practices that ensure we are not disenfranchising already disenfranchised groups and if so what would it take to implement them in Vermont. I don't know if I can answer yes to the first part of that question. So as a result of signature verification, it would be a it would be a massive undertaking to implement in Vermont. I want to make one thing clear to the committee to begin with is that we do not have signature images on file for any of our registered voters right now. So the first step in the process would be figuring out how we collect signature images assigned to each of our voters. And I think having thought about that and some of the other product, some of the other things would take to implement this. If, if we were suggesting that signature matching was required before we move forward, we wouldn't be able to do this system any sooner than 2024, and probably later. Chris pointed out, and I think it's it's really important to note that in these states that have been doing it for a long time. Most of them have centralized processing, especially of the early absentee by mail that ballots so they're coming into far fewer numbers of locations than our 246 town clerks. Those locations are where the software in the hardware is set up, and where the experts and signature verification are there to adjudicate ones that are identified as possibly not matching. I also just like to note that while while we have been unable to hear from someone from Oregon today. I want to make sure the committee is aware that we haven't approached any of this process in a vacuum. And that we are in constant contact with my colleagues in other states I know the director of elections in or in Colorado very well in Washington very well. Additionally, in Oregon they have an interim director right now who I haven't had a chance to meet and establish a relationship with. I know the former director from Oregon very well who's the person who put in place their system over the 20 years that rep typically is talking about. And I've had a lot of conversations with all these folks on an ongoing basis, including a standing Friday call with all of my colleagues across the country that's been going on for a year or more trading ideas figuring out how to make sense. A common theme that comes out of those discussions is that what works in one state doesn't necessarily work in another, and that it's really important for states to craft their vote by mail systems in a way that makes sense for them. Backing up just a little bit, I want to remind the committee kind of where we have we find ourselves where we find ourselves right before Corona virus myself and secretary condos wouldn't have told you we'd be implementing a vote by mail system anytime soon in Vermont. That's the stuff we've been talking about about the care that it takes, and the investment that it takes, etc. We went ahead and we're forced to do it on an emergency basis last year, coming out of that project which was a incredible challenge. And I'm very proud of how we ended up meeting it of course. I liked that process across the board, across parties and rep Higley that's why I appreciate you, you acknowledging yourself sort of coming around to the idea of proactively mailing ballots out. The governor himself seems seems fully supportive of this idea and in fact has been arguing to expand it to the primary and asking why we weren't doing that. With that wave of support for trying to keep this this process in place that again put a huge challenge in front of me in my office to do it for 2022 coming up in two years. So, all of that is to say that I've been clear since the beginning of the testimony in the Senate gov ops committee that we need to approach this vote by mail system that we're implementing in a way that makes sense in Vermont. And because we decided to still have ballots returned directly to your individual 246 town clerks. It's very hard to implement signature matching system that I could stand behind is fair to all voters. I have serious concerns about the, the different way that signature matching might be treated among towns and even among election officials within a town. The training that would need to be invested to train the officials to sort of reduce that risk and reduce that concern on my part and all the voters part would be pretty immense. I've talked, like I said with the director in Colorado a number of times and Audrey touched on and I'm sure Audrey knows Judd to some extent. He's a longtime director and sort of a leader in my community of election directors. As he described the process at these centralized locations in Colorado that are processing massive amounts of absentee ballots coming back all at once. But you can't rely 100% on the software. That's not a catch all solution and the way that a lot of this software works is you set parameters, you set a certain degree of confidence that the software wants in the signature match. And of course you can't set it at 100% because you'd end up disenfranchising a whole lot of people so you will you allow it to allow for some difference right between the two images. The first difference you allow is the number that end up going to the three person committee. The point is they have both software and human eyes that have to be applied before the decisions made you can't there's no easy sort of solution with software that's going to make this for all of our Vermont clerks and I think I'll leave it at that you heard Carol's pretty strong sentiment that this is not an idea that's supported by any clerk she's spoken to, and it would, it would add a massive amount of work to their plate in the direction of these absentee ballots that that process that I was described to you before the clerk sitting at their desk making the defective ballot judication and quickly sending a postcard is out the window, if they're if they're having to engage in this whole signature matching process. So, and then it just risks so many more defective ballots and meeting to cure when that's been the point of all of the testimony and how we've set up this whole processes. One last thing right and then you're balancing all of that investment all of that training the money the time, the potential for a lot more defective ballots the need for people to cure. The fact that that will probably lead to allowing for cures after the election and you balance it all against the instances of fraud that we've seen the evidence of the fraud we've seen this particular kind of fraud signing the certificate envelope for another voter forging the signature and sending in their voted ballot. All of the both informal informal studies I've seen and then informal discussions with my colleagues is that the instances they do see where the signatures don't match or what Audrey mentioned, their wife, their husband vice versa, or for college student, most likely under the impression you know having heard from the college student what they want to vote and then just signing the envelope because they're not there to send it back. In that regard I just think it's worthwhile because rep Higley you rightfully we're hoping to hear from some people from other states we haven't had a chance to yet. I just want to read it was last week I think sometime in true north reports here in Vermont. They cited and quoted some testimony by the director of elections Justin Lee who I also know really well really nice guy in Utah that mail ballots out to all voters, and I found his response to the questions really enlightening and interesting. This is from a excerpt from the desert news they say here in true north. Lee told the committee Utah hasn't seen widespread voter fraud, but there've been instances where voters have signed a ballot on behalf of someone else such as a spouse partner or child in my school. The officials catch those cases because they verify every signature against the voters signature in the state databases. If that happens voters are earned that they are committing a crime. And then his quote is, we don't see a lot of repeat offenders when we reach out and let the note, please said. So you're not seeing sort of systematic efforts to commit a ton of voter fraud by forging signatures and send back a large volume of ballots to throw a race one way or another. What we're seeing is mistakes made by people who don't understand that it's not okay and who don't repeat the mistake. Once they're informed of that and then the next paragraph is the most important one follows directly from that right. We don't see a lot of repeat offenders when we reach out and let them know that please say. Alternatively, over the years it says the larger concern among Utah voters has been to make sure election officials don't discount their ballot because the signature on the envelope doesn't match the one in the database due to age injury or need or messy handwriting on any given day he said, so we clearly identified the bigger problem and the bigger concern among their voters is the potential disenfranchisement from comparing their signatures. So if you can't tell I would oppose the idea of implementing a signature requirement at this time. It's certainly something we can look into if we have more evidence that this kind of fraud is occurring as we implement the system. Thank you, saying that you couldn't guarantee within a 97% certainty that we weren't disenfranchising voters, even though we're seeing that the voter fraud rates, even in states that are doing this work are potentially 97% not happening. No, I couldn't. Thank you. Thank you Madam chair just go to replic faves request. I could get behind a 10 person limit on on bringing in ballots. It doesn't just go to mail fraud. I mean there are drop boxes now. It doesn't have to go through the mail. The, the other concern and I think hang on just a second. The other concern that was talked about whether or not there could be pressure put on different groups as far as knowing that everybody received a ballot. So, I'm sorry. I lost my, I lost my train of thought. So, I'll come back to you. How's that. Representative Gannon. I also want to address what they was concerned and, you know, went and looked at the language in the bill. And what is it page 15. I mean, you know, a candidate or a paid campaign staffer can only return ballots of that candidate or that paid campaign staffer their immediate family I won't go into the definition of immediate family. No, or if they're a caretaker. So it really restricts a candidate or paid campaign staffer from returning ballots and that's already in the bill. So I'm just wondering what I mean that seems to address your concern. Maybe I'm wrong. I feel like if we would keep that language to have it put in there for no unions or special interest groups. That's not a paid campaign staffer those, you know, those people, you know, I know money of them that would work on behalf of the campaign but not be paid. And I, I, you know, and when you asked for the proof, I go back to the North Carolina congressional nine districts of the 2008 congressional race, where an election was actually overturned by this. So it's, it's recent it's happened didn't happen in Vermont that a lot of the stuff were given data on isn't Vermont, it's other places we're comparing. So it has happened and I'd like to prevent it here. So if there's some. There is already language in there preventing it I'd like to add a little bit more and just go away with ballot collection of no more than 10 ballots are turned in by one person to prevent the unions and special interest groups. Rep Higley you're back. No, I'm good. I'm done. I'm exhausted. Representative with Claire. Thank you Madam chair and I have to say this has gone on long enough that I almost forgot what I was going to say. A couple things I hate it when somebody uses my words against me but I think it's actually solution in search of a problem, but that's fair. I have to say I, I, Samantha's suggestion I have to say I find that somewhat intriguing. I've had some concerns about this legislation for a while but that would alleviate some of my concerns. I think that we all agree that there's special interest groups out there it doesn't matter if you're Republican Democrat liberal conservative that there's a special interest groups out there. And none of us want to see anybody influence any election inappropriately. And some have made the comment you know show us to prove for those problems that's a fair comment. But other than last year we've never gone down this path, either. And a lot of what we do here is try to anticipate and make sure that we don't have those problems. I've heard a lot about signature verification and I recognize it's a very heavy lift for us, but I also recognize that other states have put safeguards in place. I've had a lot of valid reasons I would hope, and I guess, you know to the 97% that we haven't had issues, maybe the safeguards have been contributing factor to that. So if we were able to put in some language that would limit the number of ballots anybody could bring back in. And I consider myself neighborly but I'm not sure that there's even 10 people that would allow me to do that. So we can make sure that special interest groups, again, regardless of their persuasion, can't interject themselves and have an undue influence on things that would alleviate some concerns that I would have around this particular legislation that I think that maybe we could move along. Chris Fincher says his hand up. I'm chair and with with much respect to all the members of this committee. I especially to representative Leclerc I was going to say you know the solution in search of a cure. No, the solution in search of a problem is something that keeps coming to mind I would understand I have these same concerns we have had these same concerns. They would be much greater if we hadn't been forced as director sending said earlier to jump into vote by mail and 2020 and have that year under our belts and have that experience under our belts. And something that will has has continually drilled into us into into Jim and Secretary condos and I, as we talk about all these potential ways to move forward is that we need a Vermont based solution. It's different from state to state we are not North Carolina we are not the city of Chicago. This is Vermont and this born and raised Vermonter may seem a little bit naive here but I don't think we're going to see ballot harvesting or widespread voter fraud here in the state our towns are small enough. Our clerks know their voters well enough. We will hear about it if there's something like ballot harvesting going on. So, I just think this is a solution in search of a problem and until we see it happening. I understand the fear that it could happen in the future, but it's unnecessarily complicating what is a great first step forward for vote by mail for the state of Vermont. I had a question of clarification around a special interest group and what would be considered a special interest group and I will frame where my concern comes from and it comes from the disability community would we consider if Vermont Center for independent living had an advocate counselor helping an individual helping a group of individuals they support often I used to work there their caseloads are usually around 30 to take their ballots in is that would that be considered a special interest group or if we had someone who was working in a rehab facility who said hey I'll help you by taking your ballot in would that be considered a special interest so I'm curious about what one would consider a special interest group. Rep Lafayette. Thank you for that question I, I go back to the same position, not more than one person can bring in 10 ballots rehab facilities they usually have a mailing center. You know, when I work at the hospital patients so patients could have mail go in and out they bring it to the front desk they put it in the out thing, and they go to the mailing center, there's ways to post you know to bring mail. And the thinking thinking of your, the other case ones you know if they're going into people. I wouldn't consider those people I'm talking more of a larger unions and in specific special interest groups are the ones that I'm trying to prevent from, you know I'm not trying to prevent someone from helping out, you know disabled or elderly person. I will get back to you on what my specific list would look like, but to the testimony from Mr winters. I think coven was our preventative measure for ballot harvesting. No one was going door to door in 2020. Hopefully coven's not around in 2022. I think more people were worried about having someone scream at them for approaching their front door than they were about trying to pull in, you know, or help with the ballot. Again, it's really hard to, to compare what we are doing. And maybe if we are hearing that you guys were thrown into this and you wanted to put more work then maybe this isn't ready for primetime if we're having a hard time putting safeguards in. I'm not saying that voters signatures are the stop all end all I've offered for other solutions to come forward. I've offered to hear what you all have belts are appropriate measures to do, and I'm offering one here. Just something to help ease my concern. I'm clearly I'm not afraid to say that I have concerns and again it's preventing, preventing a problem, not I'm not saying that there is one here now you've shown me that data but again there's many things you've also shown me to the tune of, you know, we've been in a pandemic, we've had problems and we're rolling out something that has been live for one year. So I'm asking just to for, and I'm thankful that people are considering this and asking questions about it. So thank you. Rep Cooper. Thank you madam chair I, you know it's almost getting to the point where it's an allegation looking for a problem. I have one of the largest unions in the state and been active for 30 years and I've never been asked to do anything with the ballot I suspect I would be the poster boy. If that were happening here. And also I have a, the honor of being in a district that has two people in it. So when people come to the polls, there are a lot of them. Aside from the 90 year old person who has picked up the ballot from the next door neighbor who is 95 and can't drive anymore in the old age home that's up the street. I very rarely see anybody with more than one ballot in their hand and quite frankly, the ballots are large enough they don't fit in your pocket very well so when you get out of the car you're usually holding it. I kind of wonder if Carol has any information on the number of people that show up to the polls with more than one ballot it certainly seems like something. If there were evidence, I would be supportive of this there seems to be no evidence so therefore I am not. Thank you. Yeah, the, you know, Barry city is actually fairly large with regards to Vermont communities and my voter checklist is over 6000. But I can tell you, I know, pretty much to a person who's going to come with stacks of ballots and if I don't see Jean from the Parkside neighborhood the week before the election with six or eight ballots from her neighbors and I begin to wonder if it's okay. And, you know, we've got other such people around the community who provide that service for for their neighbors. You know, certainly would want to make sure that that continues to be something that that they can do I think that that's, that's important for for people to feel part of the community by being able to offer that. So Chair, I think that the greatest preventative factor for ballot harvesting is the fact that everybody has a mailbox on their house, and everybody has the option of sending theirs back in pretty much, unless you elect to have a post office box, then you go to the post office. Thank you. Carol, if Jean from the neighborhood came back with 11 ballot envelopes after after we had accepted this restriction. How would you enforce that. Well, first of all, one of the things that the draft language that currently exists in the bill, it says that that clerks aren't responsible for for enforcing it because, you know what if she brought two in one week and four in the next week and then five in the next thing we can now she's over the 10 and I don't feel that as a clerk I would need to track that number somebody had mentioned earlier, you know punch cards or things like that. If, if it were an instance if the if the language said that that 10 was the limit what I would do the first time Jean came in with 11 of them is I would explain to her what the situation is and I would likely accept them that first time and I would tell her that that going forward, you know she should partner with one of the other neighbors and and split the duties between them. And then she would feel that because she would have been told by her town clerk that she was doing something wrong. Chris winter is your hand is still up I want to make sure that you're able to talk if you had wanted to know that was from before. Thank you. So committee, I'm gonna let us take a bio break, hoping that five minutes is enough for you to stretch and grab a fresh glass of water and, and we will come back to do some final work on the bill in after a brief.