 Good morning. You're back with the Vermont House Government Operations Committee. We are resuming our work on S15 with the Director of Elections and Deputy Secretary of State. Then it'll be my intention to hear from Carol Dawes, and then we've got a couple other witnesses who are here with us today to respond to various parts of the bill. So back to you, Will and Chris. Thanks, Madam Chair. And I'm just going to really quickly finish up with a few other points on security measures. And then Chris is going to talk a little bit about voter fraud, I believe. So just a couple additional points, like I said, we intend to when we're, if the bill passes as it is now and if we're mailing about it to all active registered voters for the general election, to also include on the certificate envelope, a barcode that's from the election management system from the statewide checklist that's unique to each voter. I will admit that the primary purpose of that is administrative. It's for ease of processing on the clerk's ends they can use the barcode reader scan that barcode and immediately have that voter checked off the checklist as having received a ballot. But I think it also is a security measure in the sense that if in an instance where the person who signed the envelope and indicated they're returning it is different than the person behind the barcode. So it just at least raises a flag for the clerk to look into that ballot being returned and we had a significant amount of that at some instances of that in November 2020. And the vast majority that I remember ended up being household exchanges, so wife used husband's envelope or vice versa. But like I say it at least raises a flag for the clerk to maybe follow up with that and find out what happened. If in the event that there was some indication that ballots were being returned fraudulently from any particular address or from any particular person. We do we obviously know the mailing address that each ballot was sent to. And so in terms of conducting an investigation that's at least another starting point. If you notice that you had a bunch of ballots sent back by people who didn't appear to be the voter from a certain location where those ballots were sent that would give you a first a first step for the Attorney General's office in investigating. And finally I just wanted to mention that the bill. One of the provisions I really like is the allowance and encouragement for the use of secure drop boxes by the towns. I think we had about 175 towns that were providing them in November on a less formal basis. We authorized them to do so to either use existing mail slots, or to install new mail slots or drop boxes this past fall and provided some funding to do so. But this bill, I think, sets an appropriate sort of baseline set of security measures for those drop boxes. And says that the Secretary of State's office will buy a certain number for towns that do choose to use them. And I think this does provide probably just the most secure and most direct way, other than handing it into the clerk him or herself for voters to return their ballots, convenient as well. And so, I do think that that's another secure option for delivery of the voted ballot back to the clerk. Representative LeClaire has a question. Sure. Thank you madam chair. Well I got a couple questions I guess around the certification envelope. One, what constitutes a signature. Good question. Almost any marking. Would an X be considered a allowable mark. In the case that the voters physically unable to sign yes. Well that was my next question what what does happen if you have somebody who physically can't sign themselves what what what is the process. Typically, those folks are in a situation where they and Carol can can speak to this some more I believe but where they would be requesting the two justices of the piece, deliver the ballot. In that case there's really specific language in the statute about a voter that's unable to sign, being able to, to use a dot or an X as long as it's witnessed by the JPs delivering the ballot. If it's not that case where a ballot's mailed out, I would expect them to be contacting the clerk to ask what's appropriate in that situation, or a care provider for that person. Okay, so it's interesting replic layer I'm sorry I also have wanted to address for some time and have wondered whether it's appropriate to do in statute. How and to what extent powers of attorney may be used to sign these certificate envelopes. That's a question I get almost every election cycle. That that was going to actually be my next question will was that, aside from the doing something in the presence of the, the justice of the piece. Is there any other provision out there where if somebody has a legal guardian. You know, any other sort of legal oversight over somebody that they could sign for them or not. And specifically right now but I would not be opposed to trying to craft some language around that I think it's a difficult needle to thread as you probably can imagine. And my answer to the question at least as always from my private practice experience which seems in the distant past at this point. But at least make sure that the scope of the power of attorney covers this kind of transaction because as you know this power of attorney can have various scopes and be limited or not. Sure. So just one more question for so for clarification sake so if you had a ballot that got sent in and arrived and on the certification envelope. There was clearly an X written on it. Would that be considered unacceptable signature. First, you would have to be assuming that you otherwise had the voters name right that their names printed clearly above on the certificate or in the return address that you could even identify them because otherwise you'd be in a position where you just don't know who it is anyway. Right. But if you do know the voter and then the signature is just an X. Again, if I got the question from the clerk I would I would encourage the clerk to follow up with that voter at that point to try and contact them and ask them whether that whatever the marking is on the certificate was intended to be and was in fact the signature. But there's there's no definition or sort of minimum standard for what constitutes a signature in the statute. I would say that some of it could be open to the clerk's interpretation. And then the other part of it could be sort of their ability to contact the voter as well. Okay, very good. Thank you. Rep Higley. Thank you madam chair, thank you will will just want to follow up on that a little bit. Any official voter registration is there a signature required for that as well. On the paper forms yes. Okay, so in that case you run into the same issue wouldn't you I mean if somebody can't sign something has to happen right. Yep. Okay. And then the other question I've got as you talked about a bar codes bar codes on the mailings and bar code reader. Who would be respond is with the town clerks be responsible for purchasing your own bar code readers. No, we are our office would cover that cost. Okay, thanks. Right. I don't see any further questions. Oh, now I have rep fade with a hand up. Thank you madam chair. I apologize. I log back in, I think a second too late to hear what came. The reason Mr. sending was giving his explanation, but may I ask one more question from my list. So the last week when we were speaking Mr. sending and you were unable to attend, I asked a question about the, the scenario we heard on the radio about the middle, the Middlebury students. And your responses made me think of that so there was some allegations that the Middlebury students were scooping up on claimed mail out ballots and large numbers and sending them back in. And I've heard that you guys didn't, you know, that clean never came, you know, true to your office so there was never any look into it. And I have a question about that also, but, you know, hypothetically, how would you detect that information that how would you detect that that was occurring is, you know, is there a trigger system of like, wow, all these ballots where, you know, came from here but maybe their addresses were for somewhere else. There's no way to detect if someone is, you know, scooping up ballots spilling them out and sending them back in. First, it's really difficult for me to speak to anything around that particular instance is my impression was it was a single caller into a radio program that the secretary was on. I think I mentioned Rep LeFave. I think the secretary's first response during the program was encouraging that person to make a formal complaint and give us any further information or detail about what they were alleging and we heard nothing so at this point I consider that a entirely unsubstantiated allegation. Your question really just just speaks to the process that we talked about before. And so it's it's it's difficult for me to comment and react to that I don't know what's meant by scooping up ballots. It's all of the controls that we talked about but if, if those palates are coming back with signatures that appear to be of the voter that they were sent to and there's no other reason to question them. That voter that active voter would be checked off the checklist and the ballot would be counted. And I would just add. I appreciate your. I'm sorry. Nope, sorry. Sorry, Mr. Winters. I would just add that, you know, if we did receive a complaint about this, we would investigate it and what we would do is we would reach out. First we would, you know, if we had a specific address where this was alleged to have taken place. We would see who was registered to vote at that address. We could reach out and contact the individuals who are registered there ask them if they voted. We could look into who's currently a resident there. See if those people are registered or if they have voted interview witnesses. There are a lot of different ways and look at those envelopes look at those signatures, potentially, if we contacted someone who used to live there and they said they didn't vote. And then that ballot showed up in that town clerk's office we could take a look at those envelopes look at the signatures do further investigation, but we need a complaint we need specifics in order to act on those things. Okay, thanks. May ask a follow up. So if we're talking about how we have the highest respect for integrity in our voting, and you get this tip in where maybe the people, you know, for whatever reason how the reservations of calling in, what stops the state from doing their own investigation to be able to show that we as the state uphold voter integrity. Okay, we heard about this. Let's get into it to see how true it was. And this is what we found what stops the state from doing their own instead of having somebody come in and make it a complaint. Chris, do you want to handle that wonder. I can, you know, we hear a lot and you all probably hear a lot of allegations that are that are thrown out there we can't chase ghosts. We need some specifics to act on we don't want to just start sending investigators around the state we would refer this to the Attorney General's office if we thought there was anything to it. We take voter fraud really seriously and if we hear of something serious we will we will go after it and we will investigate but what we have in a case like this is, we don't have an address we have Middlebury students, we have allegations of scooping up. We have 20 ballots or 30 ballots or whatever it is. You know we have the smallest elections team in the country, and we need to use our resources wisely. If we get a serious complaint we will do something about it we have harsh penalties on the books and we will take action. But we can't, we can't chase hypotheticals and and and allegations out there. Thank you representative look there. I would just, I would just add that there's no subjective judgment of what's serious or not either, but it's made serious by we need information. I honestly don't know rep buffet of where I would start. There's like, like Secretary Deputy Secretary said there's no address voter names, which ballots these were I there's there's absolutely no place to even start. I have a question I think one for Chris and one for will Chris the first one to kind of follow up and Samantha's question. And you may not have the answer right at the tip of your tongue but how many occasions has there been either voter fraud or election fraud that has been referred to the AG's office and how many of those were prosecuted saying the last 10 years. And if you need to get back to me on that I'm fine. And then the other question I have is looking at this general election voted ballot envelope. I had a robust conversation with the member from Burlington's one of his more informed constituents and he had raised the issue about. Have you entertained dealing with the mail out ballots and a little bit different and using a remittance envelope. And I guess that they're different in that a remittance envelope is the back flap could actually contain all the information and the place to sign. There's not an envelope that would address all those issues. And I'm just curious to know if there's been any conversations about changing. If we're, we're going to continue down this path. There have been conversations about changing how we're going to do it and cutting down on envelopes and postage and maybe some of the occurrences for curing. Thank you. Thank you very much representative will clear I'll defer to will on the envelope question but as to your first question. I don't have exact numbers for the last 10 years, but I do know prior to the last few years. Every year we kind of say, can anyone remember an allegation of voter fraud in the state of Vermont that would that we've prosecuted or allegations of complaints that we've received not just that we've prosecuted. There are very few and far between. There was maybe a couple in the last 10 years of complaints that we'd received. We really don't get complaints of voter fraud and you would think that if there's, you know, any voter fraud happening any widespread voter fraud, especially we'd see more complaints than that. I'll go up by saying last year where we had a lot more attentions on our elections a lot more absentee voting, we did receive seven complaints of alleged double voting, and we looked into all of those. And we referred them to the Attorney General's office for an investigation. And we know that one was an actual legitimate case of double voting and we talked about that one earlier. Last year in the Vermont general election with more than 370,000 Vermonters voting an all time record for us we had seven complaints of alleged double voting with only one confirmed is legitimate we had zero complaints of voter impersonation zero complaints of voter intimidation. No unexplainable complaints of someone showing up at the polls it has and telling us that they've they had already been checked off as having voted. We would think if there's a lot of stolen ballots going on out there or, you know, 30 people in Middlebury sending in not 30 people 30 ballots in Middlebury getting sent in on behalf of someone else that we would have at least one complaint about someone showing up at the polls and saying, wait a minute this shows I've already been checked off and I haven't voted we had zero those we had zero complaints of stolen or damaged ballots, we had zero complaints of so called ballot harvesting. So anecdotally speaking we have the numbers from 2020 but from before that we've rarely rarely get cases complaints of voter fraud and if we find them to be serious, we refer them to the Attorney General's office as we did last year. Thanks, Chris. And I would just add to that a little more detail as as Chris mentioned repliclair we referred seven potential incidents to the Attorney General this year of which one has resulted in potential penalties that we're going to follow up on and figure out at what stage they're at with those penalties. That's totally what Chris said is true about the level of these. I also can remember number one and for the for the historical review and the numbers. I know that the AG's office tracks this and can, and can tell you in the cycle before this in 2018. I did refer maybe three or four off the top of my head I'm thinking to the AG's office, and one of those did result in community service being assessed for I believe it was a college student or younger person who had submitted a ballot both by mail and then but we can certainly follow up with the AG's office on the more detailed history of that. To your second question the answer. Yes. I'm strongly considering the envelope design and the return method. And, and yeah I've gotten the suggestion to limit it to one envelope from a number of different places. And when my question is well what do you do about the certificate and the signing and not wanting a signature on an envelope that's out in the mail. And exactly the suggestion is that a lot of people use a flap approach where the signature is on the inside of the flap and then it's closed down. So we are considering that as a potential option going forward, like you say just to reduce complexity and mailing costs and printing costs. Thank you. Thank you so much for your wiki and then rep the fave and then we'll get back to witnesses. Thank you Madam Speaker. I'm finding it interesting that we keep coming back to speculation about an incident supposed incident. Without evidence that happened, perhaps in Middlebury, perhaps somewhere else. Not a lawyer, but working in child protection for years. We had to look at various complaints that came in. And I had to learn the definition of hearsay. And I'll read it here. Evidence that is not within the personal knowledge of a witness, such as testimony regarding statements made by someone other than the witness and that therefore may be inadmissible to establish the truth of a particular contention, because the accuracy of the evidence cannot be verified. I think if we continue to chase these unsubstantiated assertions, we could spend lots of time. But until there's actual evidence, I don't expect any state agency, whether it's the district, the state's attorney or the election commission to start chasing hearsay. We can continue to do that. If people want to continue to bring up hearsay, I'm going to continue to remind people what hearsay is and I'm just going to close here with a quote. From a recent court case. Our people laws and institutions demand more than strange legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations unsupported by evidence. That was in a Pennsylvania case by judge man around election fraud. So I hope we can stick to the facts. If people want to bring evidence forward I'm sure the Secretary of State's office would investigate actual evidence. But until then I hope we can we can stick to the facts. Representative Lefebvre. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Sending, do you have the town clerks? Is there a way that they track if there had been an instance of people coming in and saying, oh, I thought I already voted even the people that forgot they sent something in because they participated in the early mail in voting or do those only come in as like phone calls the night of like hey what do I do or do you have a record of even though they were deemed to be you know a innocent of someone forgot that they voted. Do you have a record of how many times that occurs. I know you said it was very few but you have an actual record. No, because of what you identified with a it, it happens in the course of phone calls and emails probably on election day or the day after. Thank you. Director Sending, why don't you share any other information or thoughts you have in response to the questions you heard us generate yesterday and then we will move on to some of the other witnesses. I appreciate it Madam Chair I think I'm pretty much through my prepared stuff. I do think the Deputy Secretary had a few more quick points to make. Great. Mr. Winters. Madam Chair I do just kind of want to put a bow on this voter fraud conversation. I do want to say that I hope I don't didn't leave the impression that we're purely complaint driven we don't have to have an official complaint. But what we do have to have is information and actionable information so if we were to learn about some allegation of voter fraud. We would pursue it we don't have to have someone actually report it to us we could come to us through other sources and I just want to say the words voter fraud and election fraud really get thrown around rather lightly and in our view irresponsibly these days. And it gets repeated so often that there are a lot of people in the public who've come to believe it must be true. We also hear the allegation all the time that we don't try hard enough to look for voter fraud or we don't take it seriously. And I just want to be perfectly clear that that's dead wrong. We have so many responsibilities at the Secretary of State's office and very serious responsibilities. I'll tell you that election integrity is something that Secretary condos takes as his his primary goal, his primary role as the state chief elections officer is something he takes extremely seriously and we think election integrity is really the most important responsibility that we have so if we hear someone cheating or committing some kind of election offense. That's offensive to us that's offensive to every voter and we take it seriously. As the Secretary likes to say the true voter fraud in this country that we see more than anything else is denying any eligible American the right to participate in our democracy. And fortunately voter fraud is exceedingly rare, and it's proved time and time again by national studies that it's rare. And we saw in 2020 that voting by mail is safe. It's simple it's secure and we now have proof from that 2020 general election with record numbers of voters participating and really no evidence of fraud you heard the numbers. And also I just point you out to the PowerPoint that is on your, your committee page now. We want to be clear voter fraud does occur. We're not denying that it occurs but it's so infrequent that the numbers are well below one tenth of 1% in every study that we've seen based on the data that the experts have analyzed there are two links in that PowerPoint one to the Justin Levitt study, which looked at a billion votes and analyze those votes and found 31 potential credible cases of voter fraud. And also there's the Brennan Center, which has done a ton of research, including specifically looking at vote by mail. And I'd point those to your attention so in addition to the Vermont 2020 election, we had the national elections. The vote by mail opportunities were expanded due to the pandemic. Some states kind of struggled with that, not all were as smooth and successful as we were here in Vermont and they were certainly challenges that they faced but one thing that we did not see in the 2020 elections nationwide as any widespread fraud. Those 2020 elections were administered under the most difficult of circumstances and with intense scrutiny with constant media coverage with constant partisans on both sides, looking very closely at what was happening with dozens and dozens of lawsuits. But what we saw was that these elections were certified post election audits confirm the results just just as ours did yesterday. The lawsuits were all thrown out and it was due to a lack of evidence of fraud. So I guess just in conclusion that there are many threats to our elections and many things for us to worry about. But voting by mail and increased voter participation are not among them. So I hope this testimony has answered a lot of your committee questions about checklist maintenance about security measures and about the myth of widespread voter fraud, and we'll stand by ready to answer other questions that you have thank you. Thank you very much Shropi Hoski and then we will go to Carol Dawes. Wonderful thank you so I have a couple of those other questions not related to security that I wanted to throw out there and one of them is about the primaries, and if there is any move to work towards universal mail ballots for the primaries and if you would be open to an opt in or single up so once someone signs up for a primary ballot once they don't necessarily have to do it every year. I'm worried that as this becomes more and more common people are going to just expect that things come in the mail. And when it doesn't they may miss the opportunity to vote and I think we should be really trying to get people more involved in our primaries. Yes, Rep Fioski I think the simple answer is yes. For all the same reasons that we think it makes sense to mail about it to all active voters for the general election. We'd like to do so for the primary as well. And we've said since since the beginning while working on this bill that that would that is the goal for the future to get there. I won't go back over all of the issues that make that difficult with the primary I think you're familiar with them but that's that's certainly the direction we want to move as soon as possible. And what was your second question is about single sign up if we'd be open to including in this bill as an intermediary step someone only asking once and then getting on a permanent list. We would I would not be opposed to that. Just so you know the current status of the law, like you said I think is that you have to do it each calendar year. And you're right because elections only occur every two years that means you have to think of it every other year to submit your standing requests for that whole year. And our system I know could accommodate that if, if that was the direction we want to to identify permanent absentee voters. Wonderful. Thank you so much. My other question is just some clarification about the language around what happens if someone registers after the mailing list has gone out, and how they are they able to register and get their absentee ballot kind of in the same space or like what does that process look like the way that it's currently crafted. And a ballot is not automatically sent to new registrants following the generation of the mailing list. And Carol can speak to a little bit. I think that was a provision that I think that a lot of the clerks are very happy with, because that continuing need to automatically send the ballot to anybody who registers after that time that we that we did in this past November led to concern about issuance of multiple ballots to the same person, having previously been issued them in the mailing, but we can thread that need a little better I think with the language right now, which is I would, I would only say we should keep the language in that any voter that changes towns, after that mailing deadline shouldn't be automatically sent a ballot because the clerk needs to first follow up as the bill says and determine the status of the ballot that was previously sent to that person in the previous town before doing so. So having thought about it more I think if we're talking only about first time registrants in Vermont after that time. We could add a provision that says for those first time registrants in Vermont so there's no risk that they were already sent the ballot as part of the state mailing that they should automatically be sent one at the time they register. Great. Thank you so much. Carol, thank you so much for being with us on this bill last week. And I apologize that we didn't get to you before. Before you had to leave last week but we would love to hear your thoughts and you're welcome to either go back to the beginning of the bill and run through or respond specifically to the conversation you've heard today. We would love to hear your, your thoughts. Thank you for the record Carol does very city clerk treasurer and chair of the legislative committee for the municipal clerk and treasurer's association. I'm going to take sort of a hybrid approach. I'm going to respond to a few things that that I've heard make a few comments on behalf of the clerks and then be available to answer questions. One thing that I that I do want to mention is, since we were just talking about security, one of the tools that we have that wasn't talked about is the provisional ballot. And we do have an opportunity, should a voter come to the polls and their name is already checked off. And we're not able to problem solve it in the moment. As was mentioned before frequently that in those instances, it's been election worker error, they marked off somebody a line above or a line below and we're able to confirm that. We're not able to do that we can always have a voter vote provisionally. That's a process where we contact the Secretary of State's office. We let them know that we have this situation going on. We allow the voter to vote and their ballot is sealed in an envelope and set aside until we can do a little more research and determine whether that that ballot should be counted or not. We have to certify our elections, 48 hours after the conclusion, the close of polls, it gives us time to do that due diligence, if necessary. I will say in the 13 years I've been clerk, I've never issued a provisional ballot because those instances are are extremely rare, but it is a tool that we have. The, with regards to the, to the bill on the, the clerks are are in support of the vast majority of it. We have a few concerns, the majority of our concerns are about process. And we know that a lot of that is going to be worked out in conjunction with the Secretary of State's office. And we have a wonderful relationship with them when we get down to, you know, how do we actually do this, how do we actually move forward with this. And the three things that, that we, that we have talked about with regards to process is maintaining the voter checklist and both Will and Chris have gone over a considerable amount of information about that. Mailing ballots to all the voters voting at the polls. And again, we've had quite a bit of conversation around that. And then the other thing is curing defective ballots. And I'm sure that we'll have more discussions as we go along with regards to checklist maintenance. The challenges that we have is around the automatic voter registration. We're now seeing a tremendous number of voter registrations from the Department of Motor Vehicles. The concerns are around how robust the information is. Will or Chris mentioned that, that a lot of the discrepancies seem to be in data provided by the drivers or the people getting the non-driver IDs. But we're finding that, you know, they're, they're forwarded to the wrong town. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that people don't know whether they live in Berry City or Berry Town, or their mailing address is in Marshfield, but they actually live in Plainfield. There should be registered in Plainfield. So there are a lot of those discrepancies that clerks have to be really diligent about as we register voters that come in through the automatic voter registration. And if there's a way to make the interface between DMV and the state system more robust, that would be really helpful to the process. And the other thing Will had talked about this, the Secretary of State's office gets a download from the DMV of all license holders with all their information so that driver's license numbers and dates of birth can be confirmed in the system. And it would be wonderful if there was a way to have those updates done in the system behind the scenes. Right now, if I have voters that are registered, but they've, they're sort of legacy voters, they've been a Vermont voter, registered voter for 40 years. I may not have their driver's license number I may not have their date of birth, and I have to go out and get that information but clearly that information exists in the Secretary of State's office and I don't know whether there's a way to have it interfaced and fill that information in behind the scenes that would make the voter checklist tighter as far as having information to be able to make confirmations as far as whether voters are moving or changing names, addresses, that kind of thing. And then the other thing is more of a recommendation we get as will mentioned we get or Chris mentioned we get on a monthly basis a list from the Secretary of State's office of people who have died a list they get from the Department of Health and I have found personally that it's really helpful to not only check that list against my registered voters but to check it against all the registered voters in the state. We Barry City has a nursing home we have a couple of senior living facilities and frequently voters or people will move into those facilities, but not transfer their voter registration so they're not on my voter registration list, I can't change their, their status I can't purge them, but what I do is I then reach out to the clerks who, who, where they are a registered voter and let them know. They can go ahead and purge them. So, so creating some kind of system for for that would would help keep our checklist as up to date as possible. I'm going to just pause briefly to see if there's any questions on any of that. The next is with regards to the vote by mail and curing defective ballots. Actually, I think it was rep vahosky that mentioned the potential for confusion. Do I get my ballot by mail or don't I get my ballot by mail for this particular election. And I think that that's that that is a potential for voter confusion. And yet we need to make sure that we're maintaining a balance between the state elections and local control of local elections. So it's just something to keep in mind with regards to town meetings and special town elections. Right now I think that the bill walks that that line by allowing local authorities to make the decision as to whether they're going to do mail ballots or not. And I think that that's the right way to to leave it is in the hands of the local officials. The just looking through my notes here. One of the things I'm sure we'll get into more information about curing defective ballots. But that the process around that is probably the things that the that the clerks are are most concerned about just wanting to make sure that the steps are laid out really clearly. One of the biggest concerns we have is our ability to contact voters are actually our limited ability to contact voters we don't have phone numbers we don't have email addresses. We have a few scattered information but certainly nothing that we can depend upon. We do have mailing addresses and so as the bill is currently crafted with the postcard notification. And that certainly is the one that that covers the most bases with regards to the information we have. But there are still concerns about, you know what is the process once a voter has been notified. As an example, one of the reasons that ballots can be determined as defective is if the ballot is not in the certificate envelope. I'm actually preparing for a school budget re vote on May 11. We've received a little over 700 absentee ballots back at this stage of the game and 14 of them so 2% are defective at this stage of the game. And 10 of those 14 are defective because the ballot was not in the certificate envelope. It seems to me that perhaps there's a better cure for that instance than to make that person come into the office to put their ballot in the envelope. Maybe there's a different way to cure that, or maybe it's not something that should rise to the level of defect. I don't know but I think it's something that should be looked at. The other step that that will need guidance on is if I if a ballot is deemed defective and I mail the, the voter a new ballot, what happens to that defective ballot. It obviously can't be kept in my defective ballot envelope, because that's the that number of those ballots is counted accounted for at the end of the election. So we'll need to figure out what is the process associated with that ballot that has been deemed defective and and ultimately replaced by a cured ballot. So that will need to be worked out. And then the other thing that has been that is addressed in the bill but but I think needs to be worked through and probably mostly through the through the process through through procedures and rulemaking is working out all the details about a voter who chooses to come to the polls in person. They've had the ballot mailed to them. They come with the the voted ballot. They want to feed it through the tabulator themselves or put it in the ballot box themselves or they don't have their ballot with them. So those procedures are laid out in the bill but I know that clerks are concerned about, you know, having to have all those bits and pieces in place affidavits is this the right voter gets this affidavit, just making sure that the processes make sense for for at the polls. We're busy. Just want to make sure that we're we're making we're making sense with that. Clerks are in huge support of allowing early processing of ballots into the tabulators or ballot boxes that has been that was a God send during the November election and during a recent town meeting elections. Particularly with a move towards more mail voting, being able to early processes is is extremely helpful. We really support the ballot drop boxes, certainly support that the opportunity to do outdoor polling, or drive through voting as the the the needs may, may warrant so I think that's what I have for notes and I'm happy to answer any questions. Thanks Carol, I have talked to a handful of town clerks since the November election, and, and you know we we did a fair amount of debrief on the November election earlier this session. So I'm just wondering with respect to this new, this new concept of being able to cure your ballot, you know, is, is it your experience that the Secretary of State's elections folks have done a good job of issuing guidance and training town clerks, and then also being available for the. Okay, this is the scenario, what do I do now kind of question. It's like, here are the rules and here are the exceptions to all the rules. The. Yes, generically, the Secretary of State's office is great about those sort of one on one unique instances, and helping figure that out. I think that the, the, the election management handbook is a godsend during the election seasons. The go to what I love about any of the handbooks is that not only did they give you really practical applications for the statutes they also give you the statutory reference. So you can look at the actual language that's behind the guidance. So I think that they're, they provide a lot of really good guidance. Will has mentioned election bulletins. They get sent to us out to us on a regular basis there. They're particularly well timed, because the election elections all have a cycle. They have to be done at a particular time. And the bulletins are really good about coming out and going. Remember, in the next week you have to do X and then you have to do why the following weekend. So yeah, so they, they have, they've been really wonderful about providing that guidance. Obviously, we haven't dealt with curing defective ballots yet, but my, my hope would certainly be that, that we would get similar support and guidance down that road. And clerks aren't afraid to go back to the Secretary of State's office and go, no, no, no, no. We need more. We need different. We need better. So, and they're always, they're always very open to that. And the Secretary of State, Terry condos has a group of clerks that he meets with generally at least once a year to talk about all kinds of issues that that might be on the table coming down the pike things that need to be tweaked. And they're, they're very responsive. Thank you representative LePay has question. Thank you, Mr. House for being here. I just wanted to thank you for saying what I was trying to say much more clear before in my test, when I was speaking, I said that once a ballot is casted, there's no way to redact that and from my experience of counting this past election with the town, with the town meeting day, you know, I knew that all the defective ballots got put in a bag clearly labeled defective but we still had to count to make sure the amount of votes casted match the amount of votes that were counted. And so that was my question and I, you know, I thank you for saying it much more clear than what I was, you know, asking is what, how do you, how do you fix that then. How do you get rid of that ballots, and, you know, and not have your numbers mess messed up and that's one of my questions I have about hearing ballots. And I do appreciate that if we're going to be putting in other measures for the ability for clerks to have the information that you guys need to contact. I'm surprised hearing the struggle of you guys being able to contact a voter, just from the information that you aren't to give in you know I think if we're going to be giving the integrity of the voting to the town clerks where the other responsibility is and you know it should be. So we need to be giving you the tools to work with efficiently also. So, I appreciate hearing what, you know, would be more useful for you and more helpful for you to have this be a safe and streamlined process so thank you for speaking up about that as well. And one, one thing I would say with regards to defective ballots. It's not that they that the votes are counted because those ballots never leave their envelope and get included in the. Sorry, I, we've changed our phone system and I can't figure out how to shut it off. The ballots aren't counted because the ballot never comes out of the defective envelope. The voter is checked off the checklist and is counted amongst the people who cast a ballot, but the votes themselves on the ballot are not counted. Correct, thank you, thank you for that clarification I meant you know we had 50 people walk in, we have 50 votes, we have 50 voter, you know 50 ballots to be counted for that was the point I was trying to make you know you had 50 people on your check in you have 50 people on your checkout, and we should have 50 ballots here that we're counting, regardless, you know and the ones that are defective they still count as the 50 and the 50 out is their votes never make it to the total tallies of the election. Thank you for that clarification. Thank you representative Higley. Thank you madam chair thank you Carol. I'd reached out to all five of my town clerks as well. And I'm glad to hear you say that one of the concerns are some of the concerns is around the cured process. Again, as you had mentioned, they had talked about limited ability to contact these folks. And I'm just curious whether or not, in specifics, the provision about not later than one business day clerks will mail out a postcard is that a concern right there as far as the actual wording in that section of the bill. It is a concern the concern. First of all, the they have to be data entered into the system within three days and then if there's a defective ballot that that the postcard has to be mailed out within within a day. In my office I have three staff. I've got more people to do that kind of work. Smaller offices where a clerk may be the only person and they may not even be a full time clerk. There are concerns about that. And I, I don't I don't know what the what the perfect number of days is. But honestly, the, the, the number one priority is making sure that if we're going to offer an opportunity to cure that we want to offer as much opportunity as possible. So getting the information out to the voter as soon as possible is, is the most important thing. So finding, finding what works. It's, it's hard to, to find one scenario that works across the board from towns my size down to towns where, you know, the clerk works three mornings a week. Right. And again, that was one of their other concerns, at least by a couple of the towns that they didn't feel that they had the help that they needed. And again, that might be, you know, a select board issue, not not allowing that to happen or whatever but they really, they really were stressed. So my hope is that that we're doing this as sort of a two part approach. Not only are we coming up with a way to cure defective ballots, but that working with the secretary's state's office, who through this bill would now have more time with regards to the creation, the language on the certificate envelope that we come up with, with stronger ways to, to keep people from having a defective ballot to begin with, and that that would certainly reduce the number of ballots that we would be dealing with for having to send the postcards out. I think that there are ways through the, through the chain is through changes on the certificate envelope, through, through press releases outreach to the public I think there are ways to cut down on the number of defective ballots and that that in conjunction with a process for curing will they will work hand and glove. Carol representative McCarthy. Hi Carol. This conversation made me think of a question that I had when we were just doing the overview yesterday. And in the, I guess an existing law and as it's modified, you know, in, I think this is in section 13. And the way it's written right now in the in S 15 it says beginning 30 days before the opening of polls, you know clerks kind of point two people to start processing the ballots and I'm wondering if it would make sense to consider making that longer so that clerks would start doing that when they start receiving ballots back instead of it being a 30 day window and having that fixed and maybe will could weigh in on that too. I, to me, because 30 days is so much longer than what we had before it seems like plenty of time. I think here in Berry City we didn't take advantage of that that opportunity. What I love about it is the flexibility you can do what works best for your community. For me it's easier to get people to work at the polls and so it's easier for me to process the the ballots at the polls, then it is to get people to come in on in the days leading up to it. I don't know, you know, the ballots go out approximately 45 days before you could gain a couple weeks. I'm not sure whether because they would come in and a trickle at the beginning there I'm not sure whether a clerk would find that useful or not. But certainly giving clerks added time, you know, there may be some clerks who would find that useful. Will you have some thoughts on that. I don't think we wouldn't be opposed to any extension of that period but the points that Carol makes are good ones. And actually the 43rd day, which is a Monday, when we'll start mailing the ballots, if it takes two or three days for transmission each way. That probably will only gain you at most a week of early processing. But I wouldn't be opposed to language that would allow for that if that's the desire of the committee. Thanks that really answers my question when I was reading that I was reading it as why are we putting a limit but now I'm understanding based on what Will and Carol are saying is that for clerks in Vermont that's just plenty of time to do the processing and we won't run into what other states ran into with processing delays just because of the volume of the votes that we're going to get in each town is a lot lower than in some places that had issues so thanks. Representative look there. Thank you Madam chair. Carol, and I haven't found it again but the language about being able to process the ballots early. Is it my recollection that that's permissive language. Yes. And in order for this ballot hearing to work. It wouldn't be permissive anymore, then wouldn't there have to be some sort of a deadline put in place that you have to start processing those mail in ballots earlier, because then it defeats the purpose of the ballot hearing doesn't it. There are different things. There is there is a timeline associated with when a ballot comes in being data entered into the system. And when it's data entered into the system that's when you make note of whether a ballot is defective or not. When data entered into the system, I mean, into the Vermont election management system, not processed into the tabulator or the ballot box. This is just a data entry process. When a ballot is determined to be defective at that stage of the game then you would begin the process of mailing out the postcard. So that's separate from the, from the actual processing of ballots into the tabulator or ballot box. I see okay and so what's the understanding as far as getting the balance into that. The management system how, how long do you have to do that. The language as proposed in the bill is three days. Okay. And the other question that I have would be, well, let me back up is, I recognize it's three days but what is it currently. Is it. There isn't anything in statute currently about data entry. Okay. And the other question I have is around the ballot curing of those that you're representing how many would you say are in favor of that and how many would you say have some significant reservations. You know, we haven't conducted any polls, but you know, anecdotally I would say 25% have severe reservations 25% are in full support and 50% are playing the wait and see, let's figure out what the process is going to be. That's fair. Okay, thank you. Sounds about right. Chair, can I add just one thought to that answer for repliclair repliclair it's good questions and I remember testimony I think that I gave in the Senate, where I noted that sort of of all the provisions in the bill just what you just zeroed in on is the place where you're actually making a new responsibility for the clerks, and it's that three day timeframe to determine that about it's defective and enter that in the system, but you simply can't avoid that to have an effective and fair curing process. Right. Thank you. All right, so we have some other folks who are gathered with us here this afternoon to respond to some aspects of the bill. And we're in morning still, but, you know, time means nothing in this COVID meeting world. So at first I want to welcome Falco Schilling who's here with the ACLU of Vermont and welcome and please share your thoughts on S 15. And for the record, my name is Falco Schilling. I'm the advocacy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont. And I appreciate you having me in this morning to testify on S 15. And I do want to say that it's, it's definitely a pleasure to be coming forward to testify on this bill when I talked to my colleagues around the country. Many of them are having spent significant amounts of time fighting back laws and proposed laws, which would really restrict access to the ballot box in unconscionable ways. So it is a pleasure to be coming forward in front of you today to talk about how we can move forward and successfully implement a universal vote by mail system moving forward, especially after seeing that it was such a great success in the 2020 elections as you've heard from others. This is a lot of people to vote safely, and also increased participation where we had almost 145,000 extra vote new voters above our previous record total. So just wanted to share our broad support for S 15, in terms of moving us to a place where more Vermonters can vote more easily where we're greatly supportive of that. I did also want to speak to some of the concerns that I've heard through some of the testimony specifically yesterday around the issue of signature matching requirements. This is something that is of concern to the ACLU both here in Vermont and around the country. So we would not be supportive of including a signature matching requirement in this piece of legislation, because such requirement could disenfranchise many people unnecessarily, and just increase workload by creating more ballots that would be defective. So the people who are most likely to be disenfranchised with a signature voting requirement from what we've seen are people who are often already marginalized this includes people who are younger. This includes people with disabilities this includes women this includes people who are transgendered or gender non conforming, and for a number of different reasons, and I can walk through quickly. And that might happen so if you think of someone who has disabilities, for example, our client for the ACLU of New Hampshire brought a challenge to New Hampshire's signature verification law because she was blind. Her signature did not appear the same way on multiple ballots because she could not actually signed at the same way or even see it. So that law was overturned because there was not adequate notice and curing requirements in that law, which are generally the major concerns that we would have with any law moving forward that has a signature verification requirement that there be adequate notice, as well as opportunity to cure. So if you also we've seen from examples in places like Florida, where would they have been analysis of the vote by mail system both in the 2020 and the 2018 election. Younger people are more likely to have their ballots found to be defective at a rate at almost three times the rest of other voters and this is also true for racial and ethnic minorities, where their votes are rejected at a higher rate than those of white voters. Beyond that, people whose names have changed. So women who might change their names and might either be developing a new signature because women are more likely to change their name after marriage. Might have a signature that evolves over time is more likely to be mismatched, or if they're trying to recreate a name that they their previous name. That's another issue where those signatures might be mismatched similar for people who are transgendered or gender non conforming, where they might be going by a new name developing a new signature, or being asked to revert to a previous name where they are no longer using that signature regularly. So these are just a couple of the different groups of people who are more likely to have their ballots found to be defective and disenfranchised if we were to institute this type of requirement. So I'm not going to go deeply into what we think would be required in terms of due process notice and curing opportunities, if this were to be put into the law because we do not support, including a signature verification requirement in the law, but would say that it would require a significant amount of resources and more time on the parts of the town clerks because you would need significant training into their signature verification. We would also want to make sure that those when ballots are disqualified that there's an opportunity for due process and nonpartisan review of those disqualifications, and then adequate time for notification of that voter, and then adequate time to in fact cure that ballot when they are notified so that would add significant amount of process to for folks for town clerks around the state. And generally because we see the threat of election fraud is so low as described by the Secretary of State's office so well earlier, we would not support including signature verification in this bill because we think it would did unnecessarily disenfranchise many different monitors, especially a number of those who are already marginalized from traditionally marginalized communities so trying to keep it somewhat short because I know we have some other witnesses up today but just want to say we support this bill moving forward, but would have serious concerns about a signature matching requirement. Thank you for being with us today. Committee members any questions for Mr. Schilling. Representative Lefebvre. Thank you madam chair and thank you for being here today and providing your testimony. So we do have language that we're looking at that will allow ballots to be cured. Do you support that support the language that in there that would allow the curing of ballots we think that's important. What I was trying to convey is that if there was a signature matching requirement that curing of ballots, the provision might need to be more robust with more opportunities for curing and more requirements on town clerks in terms of the due process needed after the determination that a ballot was defected but the curing provision within the bill currently is something that we do support. Okay, thank you. Thank you madam chair. I was just curious, you know I'm, I'm one of the ones that spend supportive of some sort of a signature verification or some form of verification. I've got a call into the Secretary of State's office in Oregon, haven't received a call back as you are probably aware they're as busy as we are with issues. So, a matter of fact I have Oregon on the phone right now so I will ask this question after I talk to the Secretary of State for Morgan, thank you. All right. Next I'd like to invite mark use to share any thoughts or reactions to the bill, either generally on the whole bill or if you have specific parts of the conversation and testimony we've been taking that you'd like to react to so mark use welcome and feel free to share your thoughts with us. Thank you madam chair mark use executive director justice for all. I will be providing some comments that are thoughts of my own, as well as justice for all today I'm not here to represent the racial justice alliance. I also brought with me a couple, couple slides. If in case I may get to those I'll try to figure that out but it might, I think having some images might help you along the way. For those of you know me you also know that I'm a retired army officer. And I've been in Vermont for about 12 years. And voting is something that has been very important to me personally for my entire life. And you know I've voted in, you know, upwards of probably about 12 or 15 states and, and I've voted, you know, absentee absentee ballot remotely. And the question that comes to my mind when I think about this subject is, you know, how do you feel when you go into the polls. How do you feel when you go into the polls. I had a conversation with a group of people color it's black folks about this very question. And you know the answer, you know has varied from uncomfortable to scrutinized to judged to just weird. It's awkward. And, you know, the list goes on. I'm talking about my own personal experiences as well. And I know that our country has a incredibly rich history of black folks in the polls, or the absence thereof. So I came to, you know, offer some testimony on this. And by deep concern, both nationally and statewide is very difficult to have a conversation about the historical context of voting in the United States and the particularly framed in a reference of systemic racism. If you're talking to a person who doesn't believe that that exists. And I understand that. But what I will say is is that, you know, if nothing else, I suppose it might be a good idea to take a look at something that Governor Phil Scott said and that is this is a couple years ago and I think it was in his. It might have been his annual or could have been his budget speech he said we don't need more taxes we need more taxpayers. So without that and also think about the number of folks that are coming into the states and the demograph the state rather and the demographic the racial demographic of those folks now it doesn't take a scientist to figure this out, but the state is changing. And whether or leave it, like it or not, states changing. And these, you know, racial, the racial demographics of the state is changing. And the voters, as a result, I should say the taxpayers guess what they're also voters. So, so this is really important, really important conversation, particularly when we're talking about historical disenfranchisement. Now one thing when we know for sure is is that there is very little evidence that there's any widespread voter fraud contrary to any crazy scheme that you might hear on the news. There is very little evidence of any voter fraud, very little across the United States and we've just proven as a nation that we can conduct an election with record turnout. Effectively, so I didn't come to try to explain to the committee, the, the, just how largely safe this is but I did come to just add some color, if you will, to the conversation surrounding our position on this policy. I think this policy is necessary. This, you know, when we talk about the ability to vote, and to make it as convenient and effective as possible, particularly for groups of folks like the one that I represent and others who have historically been denied that opportunity. It's very important. It's probably one of the most important things that I can come up to your committee to talk to you about hard stuff. So, I'm just, I love her bill just I got a couple comments on the bill, maybe four or five points. And, and then I'd also like to just also connect this with someone other broader and historical and also present challenges that are set before this committee that tied to the remnants of this state's historical disenfranchisement of folks. And some of the work that you've already done in that area and some of the work that you still have in front of you. The policy, I would just say that it's probably maybe, like I said, five or four or five points, you know, support the policy, the Justice for all supports the policy. And a couple exceptions that I'll get to here towards the end that you know I really think that they just require some more attention but if you go to section eight over and and look at a section eight, section one and three section eight, three, eight. There's some conversation there about, and I'll just read it to you. It's, it's, it says, after the semicolon after 230 2537 eight of this sub chapter. It says before issuing an absentee ballot the clerk shall confirm the status of the ballot that was previously mailed by the secretary of state and proceed as follows so I think I get what this what's going on there but I just, you know, in reviewing that and kicking that around, you started, it would just be good for a person just to file an affidavit just straight up on the end of that process. Just if if you if you relocate it in your end, you're, you're going to vote. Just, if I understand this this this section correctly. This is talking about our voters transfer from from one area to another and another part of the city. And it looks like there's this elongated process that's in there and I think it would just be really cut and drive that voter just when if they went to give it. And hopefully on the back end of all of this in the unlikely but certainly possible event that there was some kind of fraud that there would be checks and balances on the back end and we see that in this policy we see it in this policy that there is a way to reconcile these votes on the back end point number two is over in your section. In section 10. If you look at section 10 in that's a 2543 return of ballots. And if you just go on down to D item D where it starts in that all voter absentee ballots returned. This is minor but there's some language challenges with that sentence right there. It's a little confusing where it says as follows shall be counted and then it goes into those categories I'd ask you just to take a closer look at that it might be a better way to flush that out in terms of what we're trying to articulate there. It does create a little confusion. And the last thing we want in this policy is confusion. And then over in as a as a third point if you just go over to section section 11. If you're looking at section 11 and just not at me if you get there. And then over. If you look at and that's 2543 a if you look at item F. And section sub subsection six there it talks about and we're talking about drop boxes now and that the allocation we're getting into where there's over 20,000 voters which is really rare. 20,000 registered voters in that particular area. And it talks about representative districts and I'm assuming these are statewide districts I think there are seven here in the city of Burlington. So, I just wanted to make sure this is just for clarity. That we're actually talking about statewide representative districts. Because I wasn't quite sure they are maybe it's just my knowledge deficiency. But I came across a little challenge understanding why that section was there because it's it's such a rare occurrence. But definitely wanted to clarify what representative districts, what their, you know, what the definition of that was moving on to for if you go to a section 12. No, scratch that we're moving up we're moving on to just towards the end and I think this is really I wanted to stop for a minute I see representative Higley has his hand up and before we move on I had a couple of other points but just give everybody to ask some opportunity to ask some questions right now and then I can go to the last part. I think that it's possible that rep Higley didn't put his hand down from before but will could you confirm for us that in places such as Burlington that has different districts that they may have more than the five or six drop boxes. Yes, that's right and I think what Mark was asking to is that it is referring to state representative districts mark and it's more common than you might think for instance there's four in South Burlington. The seven you mentioned the girl you can, but that's what it refers to. Great. Representative Behovsky has a question. Thank you. I just want to clarify with you director sending that a town can have more drop boxes than representative districts it is simply that the Secretary of State's office will supply that number correct. Right. Okay so the town can have as many. Well, I mean as many as they wanted it but they have to supply them above and beyond what's in this bill. Correct, and they would have to locate them as the bill directs. Awesome. So, thank you mark if you had, if you had any slides or documents that you wanted to share with the committee you're welcome to email them to our committee assistant and she can get them up any page. Okay. So I'll just, I'll just go into my next points and I'll hold on to slides. Thank you. Before I go into this section is as you know with PR to on your wall right now the constitutional amendment and some of the work that you've done. Historically, with, I think last biennium with title 17 chapter 32 removing those 16 occurrences of the term freeman. They still existing in title 24. In appendix of title 24 in chapter seven and chapter three rather three and seven and 28 through 31 for Burlington and virgins is their charters, the term the terminology freeman and also by the way in Senate existing Senate rule the term being used freeman, the chapter 42 of the Constitution is where this language starts in it. It is what undergirds the, the entire voting or the entire system of voting in this state is where it's first use freeman it was removed. It's the iterations of it under the auspices of degenderization in 1994. As again, it was removed in title 17 your committee removed it entitles on title 17. And I think it was as one oh seven. And the reason why I'm getting at this is because this terminology was always used to delineate the, the, the voting rights in the state. The federal as well as the constitutional amendment referendum. So whenever there was a state, whenever there were a state state elections, federal elections, or state constitutional referendums. Further, whenever the further the qualifications for any person running from those offices was also divine defined by this terminology, this terminology called freeman. So what I want to do is I want to make sure that we're setting the stage to the conversation that we're having, because we are not a state that has never that has never suppressed voters in this state. Many of you who are on the call still remember your, your freeman's oath that you used to take about maybe eight years ago, before we got rid of that. So the conversation is relevant. It's not that far in the past, how the, this state has delineated from not just folks who can vote but also folks who would be qualified to hold a statewide office to be qualified to hold a federal office. And also those folks who could even vote on a referendum that is to change the Constitution. Okay, which we are doing with PR to, and I encourage you to get to that as soon as you can get those hearings happening. Now, I take you now to section 21 2021 and 21 a because these are the sections of this bill that have really been afforded the least amount of attention. And, and I think that our most problematic as it pertains to those folks who would be disenfranchised at those folks who would, who would need. Well, first of all, let's just start here. Section 20 language access. Come on guys. We've been kicking this can down the road for a long time. We're talking about language access we're talking about link we've already done it we just did it this last year. And every single time we come to a conversation about much of anything to do with allocation of resources or privileges. What I'm what I'm seeing what what what I'm experiencing here what my response to this is is that we just can't seem to figure this one out. And what we have here again is a kicking of the can down the road on this particular issue is, and I just would go to it for those who are watching the secretary states office shall consult with municipalities and interested, interested stakeholders on best practices now have some recommendation here so I'm not just here to tell you what's wrong with it. We're increasing access to voting for nine English speaking Vermonters and Vermonters with limited English proficiency and provide recommendations to Senate and House committees on government operations and so on and so forth. So just note there that this the Secretary of State's office is being tasked with that. And I'm going to skip over to 21 a and note that the there is also a voting access report the reason why I did that is is these are interrelated. Both of them say access, both of them are report. So, with this says, for those who can't who can't see what I'm reading here is his owner before January 30 of 2023 the Secretary of State's office shall submit a written report to the House and committee's own government operations with findings and any recommendations for legislative action on a issues related to implementing universal vote by mail from municipal and primary elections and be the impact expanding vote. The impact expanding vote by mail would have on a access to voting among those who have historically been disenfranchised in populations that have historically had lower lower voter turnout, which is very similar to section 20, if not the same and public satisfaction with voting process and also the administration of elections so I think what what I'm what I came to ask of you is is that if you would consider committee. I think that what we do is is we would address this idea of access with a sense of urgency that we also invest some resources to perhaps an outside entity doing some of this work. The reason why I'm suggesting an outside entity is is because I think there is some ongoing work that needs to be done in these areas that needs to be consistent. It needs to be really targeted focused and there is a there's an effort obviously that needs to go into this work that's reporting back back out to to you. I think that you know back to item 21. It's good that there is a creation and funding of a position although that the it's not really clearly defined what exactly what that assistance can be doing there's some high level stuff I would propose that will. I'm sorry Madam chair that this that this position that we're proposing creating or an additional position would be created that would be focused on election equity. And that this this position would be focused on doing this work throughout this entire period and into perpetuity. As far as how we go about ensuring that there's equity in this election process, as opposed to periodically reaching out to an activist activists in the community who has to blow out half his day to come and testify to you. And usually not doesn't doesn't feel doesn't feel like you're always listening all the time, but to come in and offer you that testimony, or to just give the Secretary of State's office additional responsibilities that are related to it and just have them come back with some support later on down the road. So, so I think that these three areas section 2021 and 21 a in the in the current state that they are in. Though we support this entire effort. We find this language to be unacceptable in his current state. I think we can do better with this language. So I'm going to stop there. See if there's any questions or anything like that. And I think. Yeah, I appreciate the opportunity to come out and share with y'all and, and I think will was not beginning a matter of chair. Thank you so much for being with us this morning. And just for committee's expectation. I'm going to ask us to continue through a few more witnesses because we do have two other folks with us this morning. So we'll continue a little bit into the lunch hour but I did want to ask director sending if you can help orient the committee to to what your office is already doing and and maybe respond to the points that Mr. Sure, I'm happy to and thanks mark for your testimony commentary I appreciate it. A few things so the language that mark identified. The first section 21 was added in the Senate. After discussing what we can do to go further in improving our services to non English speaking voters and improving access generally to populations that may have been historically underserved and the language that was that is included I believe was the the brainchild of Senator Rom, and we supported the inclusion of that language how it's written right now to sort of formalize and put at least a date on bringing information back to the committee is about next steps in this process. And I say next steps because it's actually an area of the work that I've done since I've been director that I'm really proud of. I've devoted a lot of attention to that I wasn't required to but that I did because it's right and it should be done. And so the only real offense I take is the suggestion that I haven't listened to suggestions in this regard, and just really quickly I know we're running low on time. But it's been two election cycles now 2018 and 2020 when we've engaged in the pilot project with the cities of Burlington and new ski to provide translated election materials, sample ballots, and instructional videos that we've then worked closely with those to make sure they were circulated as effectively as possible, including appointing sort of ambassadors among the various communities in Burlington and when you see to make it known that these resources were available and help communicating about those resources and how to participate. In 2018, we've launched this pilot project. We had two in person events in when you ski and Burlington representative Colston attended the one in new ski. Where we presented information on voter access how to register how to request an absentee ballot what you're going to find that the polling place you can view the videos that came out of that effort on our website. None of this was mandated by law federal law sets percentages of population, after which you have to provide translated election materials remind doesn't come close to any of those thresholds at this point. But because the issues were raised to us back in 2018, we took it upon ourselves to do this effort voluntarily. And it was really clear in the Senate that we intend to continue that work. I am in consistent communication with the group we've been working with in Burlington and when you ski on this continually. And we intend to do more and better. And at the same time I was not opposed to sort of formalizing that work with the report that's referred to in the law, and then the sort of repetitive nature of section 21 a I think is really just a result of the legislative process in the Senate, where that second report in 21 a was sort of a compromise. Instead of the formation of a commission to study all of these things and many other things in addition to language access. And we felt that it was a more more efficient for our office to present that report after engaging with stakeholders and interested parties. In a lot of ways because we've already been doing so for four years and have a lot of built up knowledge about what that will take. And so, all I can tell the committee is I'm, I'm committed to continuing that effort. And I think we can as an office to increase resources for non English speaking and other underserved populations. Thank you director sending committee members any questions, either for Mr Hughes or for director sending on his response to that section. All right, please stick around folks we've got a few more to to hear from so. I'm just offer just a brief response. I just didn't follow up with what will seem as same to us is is that just for clarification. First of all, I was actually directing my comment to your committee madam chair. I'm going to talk about my fourth third or fourth time in the committee. And there is, is I have had a sense of frustration in my testimony to the committee I understand the committee must synthesize what we as a community constituent community the community representatives bring to your committee but we've just seen very, very little come out of this or any other committee for that matter this term, this, this session on equity, and I won't go down the list of bills that are stalled in the house, or the one that crossed over that's completely unacceptable. So that was in fact directed at the committee unapologetically and and I hope it's enough to go around for the in the entire legislative process so some folks can leave the committee and carry that, or else they could just take it as a general sentiment and just be mindful of it. The other thing is just I just wanted to just flag the, the defensive nature in which the Secretary of State's office representative here just came back at me with. And also, just make make sure this is kind of highlighted in this process, particularly given all of the things that were just named. It makes it less sensible that in this policy, you know, given the fact that, you know, all of these activities have happened in the Burlington and Winooski area and all of this. This work has been done, by the way, it's notable that none of it was mandated that's very important because it must be, it should be. It's very important to note that the work was done, you know, voluntarily in other words, and, you know, and with with all due respect and, you know, appreciate it. Will has done a lot of work that he was not required to do, but he shouldn't have to. That's the whole point. So I guess what I'm getting at here is is with all of the work that has been done. One would think that this policy would be more mature than it actually is. Because we've already laid the groundwork. I think the representative from the state's office secretary states office said, four years, we've been doing this work for four years. So why on earth would we be looking to kick a hand on the road called a language access report. Or something called a voting access report. And why would we be creating a position in the secretary states office that does not specifically take on these roles and responsibilities, knowing that they're as important as they are, and the work exists. Again, none of this specifically directed at the secretary states office, or even any individual legislator, but the process is not producing what it is that we need. And it is not reflective of what it is that I just heard. So, again, I asked that the committee would consider doing the work that needs to get done to create a process to create something that produces results and doesn't kick the can down the road, despite what anybody has done voluntarily, or whether it was by statute or not, let's get the work done. Thank you for your time, Madam chair, thank you for allowing me to come and testify. Thank you. And committee members. The member from Winooski who has been involved in some of these outreach efforts with constituents and his community had a noon meeting that he had to step out for so I'm sure that he will take a peek at this part of our committee meeting that he missed and we will certainly come back to have a committee discussion about his observations of the work that the Secretary of State's office has done in the past in Winooski. Any other questions from committee members. Representative Higley are you about to yes you are go right ahead. I'm sorry that I had to leave for a minute, but it was very important I've been reaching out to the Secretary of State of Oregon for some time now and actually got to speak to someone. I don't really want to take the time now it's it's rather lengthy. As a matter of fact, anyone from their elections division would be more than happy to testify. Anything that I say, you know, going forward, if there's more questions around what they do in regards to signature verification. Again they'd be more than happy to check in and talk with us so at some point I would like to, I don't want to take the time now but I would like to initially talk about what they had talked about and why they've been doing what they've been doing for 20 years. Thank you. So if you want to get some contact information to our committee assistant we'll see if we can get somebody scheduled. All right, Morgan Nichols thank you for being here today, and would love to to hear your thoughts on S 15. Morning Madam chair, and thank you for the opportunity to come before the committee today. I'll be fairly brief. My name is Morgan Nichols I'm the State Director of Main Street Alliance of Vermont. We are a state based organization nonprofit that works to lift up the voices of our over 700 small businesses who believe that when policy serves our workers our families and our communities. We have a more equitable environment where small businesses can thrive. And we are we come here today to show our strong support for S 15. This committee have done to support for monitors throughout this pandemic and for your continued to work to serve our communities. Additionally, I want to thank the legislature, the Secretary of State's office, as well as our town clerk workers filled out their ballots correctly and utilize all of the avenues to get their ballots in on time. Please know that as we support this bill we are also committed to continue to this to do this education and outreach, both to our members and to all eligible voters. Our small businesses know that when democracy is accessible to everyone, our voices and our values are more equitably represented represented and that this is a foundation for building a society that works for everyone. We also know that like in business our democracy works best when we focus on the end user and moving to a vote by mail system gives all voters the access that they need to make their voice heard. With the provisions and reports outlined in this bill, we are thrilled to see that steps would also be taken to increase access to among groups who have been historically left out of the democratic process. Making this commitment to all eligible voters not only will continue to show Vermont's leadership and voter accessibility. It will also show Vermonters that you see them, no matter their circumstance. Anecdotally I want to share that I have multiple meetings per week with business owners from throughout the state and as we review mainstream Alliance of Vermont's platform and we get to our work to support this bill and voter access. Every business owner that I have spoken to shows unanimous enthusiasm and enthusiastic support. One of our businesses, ground fell meetery in St. Albans owned and operated by Ricky and Kelly Klein work tirelessly to provide information to their workers so that they knew how to update their address access all candidate information, how to correctly fill and process their ballot to ensure that their votes were counted. And they wanted to ensure that they kept their workers informed on the timing to mail their ballot or how to drop it off. And then they also showed them the, the vote by mail track your ballot feature. Recently welcoming their newborn son, Ricky and Kelly weren't able to to be here today so I'm just going to pass on the message that they that they sent along. And this is from Ricky. At ground fell meetery, we are a proud member of time to vote and have offered paid time off to participate in elections since we founded our company. Vote by mail is the biggest opportunity we currently have to end centuries of both intentional and unintentional voter suppression. It's unintended unintentional voter suppression that in many ways is the most insidious. The hours that the polls are open. The hour, sorry, the hours that polls are open and their location in rural areas disproportionately impacts lower wage individuals, stay at home parents, people with special needs older Americans new Americans list goes on and on. So universal vote by mail is a bold and important step to commit ourselves as a state to truly support democracy for all. We thank you so much for your time and consideration and we urge you to support as 15 to making voting in Vermont accessible, safe and easy. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you much for being with us today. Committee members any questions for those. All right. Excellent. Thank you for being here. And last but not least we have with us Christopher Miller would love to welcome you to share your observations on the bill. Thank you very much and thank you madam chair and committee members for giving me the opportunity, and I am in the unenviable position of standing between you and launch so I will make my comments both brief and to the point and I will submit some written So for the record, my name is Chris Miller I lead the global advocacy work for Ben and Jerry's and I want to offer just a few brief comments on behalf of our support for S 15. And as you know Vermont is called Ben and Jerry Ben and Jerry's is called Vermont it's home for 43 years and what started in a dilapidated dilapidated gas station about three quarters of a mile from where I stand is is now a billion dollar business operating in almost 40 countries around the world. We're incredibly pleased and want to offer our thanks and appreciation to legislators the Secretary of State's office and others for how well the last election went off. I don't need to repeat all the statistics but this was a safe simple secure election with record voter turnout and that's incredibly important. There are many reasons why we are supportive of S 15 broadly but specifically this concept of of permanent vote by mail. The first is our company has been advocates for voting rights for many years. As a matter of fact we have an exhibit up today at our Waterbury plant honoring john Lewis and his work to expand voting rights in our country. We have worked with Reverend barber in North Carolina to expand voting rights and we're actively supporting the john Lewis voting rights advancement act and for the people act in the United States Congress we believe any and all opportunities to make voting more accessible and more easy creates a stronger and more vibrant democracy. Secondly, I can tell you that vote by mail is incredibly popular with our employees. We have more than 600 employees in the state, most of whom work at our manufacturing plants that are now operating three shifts a day, seven days a week. So the flexibility with which the vote by mail system provided to our employees was was incredibly well appreciated and supported. We did a lot of internal work to ensure that our employees understood that ballots were coming what the correct what measures were to ensure that their ballots were completed properly and returned on time. And anecdotally, I think as what we saw was highest ever voter turnout in the state. I think we had a higher participation rate amongst our employees, then would have been the case without it. And then finally, just to note that in the context of the pandemic. We had to, and our team had to work exceptionally hard to keep our people safe and healthy over the past year. Folks like myself had had the luxury and safety of, you know, working from my living room, while my colleagues who put the ice cream into the tubs that shipped around the world had to show up every day. And so doing everything we could to minimize the exposure to themselves and their community so allowing them to vote from the safety and comfort of their home was important from our businesses point of view. So taking universally mail in ballots a permanent feature in Vermont's general elections, we believe will help increase access and options for voters. So with that, I want to thank you, I would encourage you to support as 15, and I will submit written testimony with a bit more points but thank you for the opportunity. Thanks for joining us this morning and spilling over into the noon hour committee any questions for Mr Miller or any of the other folks who've been with us. Director setting. You have anything you'd like to share in conclusion this morning. I just wanted to say in quick response to Chris that I forget if it was him who was our point of contact or not but I just wanted to thank Ben and Jerry's. We also worked with them through the fall in 2020, and they had a legion of employees who were on call if we needed additional poll workers at any polling places around the state so that was a great example of public private in tackling the problem us here so I appreciate it. Thanks. Thanks. All right. Any last questions from committee members before we break for lunch. Thank all of the witnesses who have been with us this morning for sharing your perspectives, and we will be coming back to this bill after the floor today and tomorrow morning with the intention of being ready to go through final language tomorrow afternoon so welcome you to email me if you have additional thoughts that you'd like to share with the committee and we'll get you on the committee's docket. And have a good life.