 Okay. So welcome everybody to our Amherst Community Chat for Thursday, October 15th. Today, we're going to be talking about elections and voting, and our special guests are acting town clerk Sue Audette. Welcome, Sue. Thank you. Amherst Facilities Director, Jeremiah LaPlante. Welcome, Jeremiah. Thank you. So before we get started with Q&As from the room and questions that were pre-submitted, I'm going to allow your town manager, Paul Balkeman, to give any updates he has. Thanks, Brianna. Thanks for everybody for being here. So two things I want to mention. One is today is the first day of school, and so many children and teachers are so excited to be back for the youngest students especially. And that's been going really well so far today. It's we're halfway through the day. So it's a gorgeous day to begin, and there's just a lot of pent-up energy and everybody's so excited to see each other. So the school district has done a tremendous job on putting in proper protocols, so everyone is being safe. And so thank goodness we're back at school. The other thing is that yesterday, late in the day, the state announced that the town of Amherst, along with 62 other communities in the Commonwealth, continues to be read, which we were not surprised by. We anticipated that that would happen because the way the red designation, which is defined as higher risk, is defined as a retrospective count of going back two weeks. And so we've had a very high count the two weeks prior. So we're hoping that next week we might drop out of the red boat. It depends on how many new cases come through our system. But again, working really well with the university and with our acting health director, Jen Brown, who will be at the town council meeting on Monday, talking about what's going on in the community. So that's my quick updates. Great, thank you. I wanted to give our special guests a chance to introduce themselves, especially Jeremiah, since he's relatively new to the town. So Jeremiah, could you introduce yourself and just tell us a little bit about what it is that you do for the town? Certainly, yes. My name is Jeremiah LaPlante. I'm the facilities and maintenance manager. I oversee a lot of the different various town buildings, ensuring that we are in compliance with all life safety measures. Also looking at the building envelope in the grounds, just making sure that they're maintained adequately. We also have a number of staff who helps with our maintenance and sanitation of those facilities. So that's a general overview. Great, thank you. And Sue. Yes, hi. I'm Sue Audette. I'm the acting town clerk currently. I have been the assistant town clerk for the past 15 years before becoming acting, working in the town clerk's office the whole time, which as probably a lot of people know, we run the elections. And but we also take care of the town census. We take care of dog licensing, vital records, business certificates, a multitude of other kinds of licenses and permitting. But happy to be here and I'm happy to get some information out to everyone. Great, thank you both. So I just want to remind the attendees in the room that they can raise their hand via Zoom to ask a question live in the room or press star nine if they're calling in from a phone. You may also use the Q&A function that we have within the webinar to post your question. So until we get some hands in the room, I have some questions that have been sent in to us. I'll start with this one. If I submit my vote early, when does it get counted? OK, so we are currently in the midst of receiving ballots in and all those ballots that are received in either through the mail or dropped off in our drop box are being stored in the town vault and they are going to be counted on Election Day. Nothing is going to be counted ahead of Election Day. That's a state law, right? So. Actually, we have the option of doing advanced removal and counting, but we opted not to do that. Yeah, we're going to have a central tabulation facility just for the early ballots that will be counted on Election Day for the team. Yes. And you were saying earlier to me how many mail in ballots have you sent out or have been requested for Amherst? It's a big number. Yes, it's a huge number out of 16,600 voters currently as of yesterday. We have sent or we have received 8,400 requests for mail in ballots. That's total between early ballots and absentee ballots. So they're still coming back in. So I don't have a number for how many have returned, but it's ongoing. Do you do we want to take the chance to talk about some of the key dates that are coming up? I know there's a lot of different deadlines and dates over the next couple of weeks. So maybe this is a good time to shot about that. Yeah, absolutely. So first, we have early voting starting this Saturday, 1017. It's from 10 to two over the bangs community center, which is 70. Both would walk. It's going to be on the lower level. They'll be signage. So you'll see. And it goes through 1030. So it's two solid weeks of early voting. That's seven. That's 14 days in a row during. And these these hours are posted on the town website if you care to look. But during the week, it's normal business hours that we are open. So it's eight to four 30. And on the weekends, this coming weekend is 10 to two Saturday and Sunday, both. And the following weekend, that Saturday, 1024, it's we are open two to eight PM on that day, mainly because it's the last day to register to vote. So see my segue into the last day to register to vote. So we will be there with our registration forms for anyone who wants to come in and register to vote. And then on Sunday, 1025 will be there again from 10 to two. And then the following week, again, Monday through Friday, eight to four 30. That's for early voting and last day to register to vote. If you'd like to vote by mail, you must submit an application in writing. And the last day to do that would be October 28 by five PM. OK. And lastly, on the other end, if you've received your ballot and you sent it back, the last day that you can that we can receive ballots in is November 3 election day. Your ballot must be postmarked by that date in order to be counted. OK. And we have up until November 6, 5 PM, in which to receive the ballot. So that's a little confusing. This is something brand new for this election. But we want to make sure we can get as many ballots in as possible. So if you did not go to vote early in person, if you did not drop off your ballot early before November 3, you still have until November 3 to get it postmarked in the mail. And we have up until November 6 to receive that ballot. Hopefully lots of moving parts. I was going to say that might generate some questions. So I'll just remind folks again, you can raise your hand, star nine or put Q&A right into the Q&A button. We have another question here that what is the town doing to ensure the voters safety for in person? Voting. Jeremiah, Jeremiah, do you want me to start and you can finish? Sure. Yeah, absolutely. OK. All right. So we, of course, every polling place has a constable, but we are going to double up on the busier polling places with constables slash police officers. And that is far as personal protective equipment. This is where I'll let Jeremiah segue. We've ordered a lot and we've received a lot. So, Jeremiah. Yes. So we have 20, I believe it's 20, right? Plexiglass shields. And those would be for the election workers to or 40, actually, 40. There's two we have. So there'll be four at each polling location. And this will help create some separation between the election workers and the townspeople coming in to cast their vote. Each of those polling locations is supplied with like a disinfecting wipe, cleaning materials. We also have like a stand up, a hands free hand sanitizer dispensers that we're going to have at each one of those polling locations. So when we come through the door, you can sanitize up, you know, check in and go cast your vote. We also have quite a number of stanchions. And this will help with that crowd control and help with directing the townspeople into the appropriate areas of each of those polling locations. So for this last primary, Sue and the town clerk's office had purchased 30 stanchions and we went ahead and purchased another 50. So that gives us several hundred more feet of barrier that we can put up to help with that crowd control and create that separation. In some of the polling locations, we did paint some stripes on the ground and that will help with the distancing. And I would say for this one, and anticipate seeing a lot more of my graffiti on the ground, I will I will be happy to put put more. I was telling Sue, I want to make a template, so it'll be a little bit more so than just a stripe on the ground. But I would like to to increase the amount of of that signage, those directional signage. I know at the high school, we added quite a bit more just because there's three polling locations in that space. But each one of those those different polling locations will have a whole bunch more. We had Smith and Wesson. Smith and Wesson had donated, I think, 500 face shields for the elections. So we have we have our masks. We have the face shields. We have hand sanitizers. We have disinfecting wipes and then post elections. I am bringing in a team and doing viral disinfecting for the entire space that we take up for the elections. So we have a team of specialists. They come in and and do like ionization, cleaning, fogging. So we do we we have that viral disinfecting that happens after post election. So there is a lot, a lot of safety measures. In place. So, yeah, Jeremiah has done a tremendous job of laying out each precinct, both on the ground in a location, but then on a plan also so everyone can look at it and see if it works. Sue can look at it and say, this works for me. You know, when people bring up safety issues, they bring up two different things. I think one is what we've sort of addressed, which is are you COVID safe? Basically, are we what are the precautions put in place to make sure that I don't get infected because it's work? I've been very good at staying at home and avoiding crowds and things like that. The other piece of it though is, will I be interfered with if I try to vote? And I know this, you know, we all know that this election has a lot of energy around it. And I think that, you know, again, the town has thought about that. There are designated areas in every precinct for observers, which isn't anyone can go in and observe the voting going on, but they have to be in they have to be standing in designated places that are be laid out, I think at each precinct. And then also the warden at the precinct can control where people can go. Is that accurate? That is. That is, yes. So I think, you know, people are saying, well, what do you have been asking? What is the town doing to make sure that we're not interfered with and that people aren't, are able to vote freely? And I think that that's a thing that we've really thought about and Sue and Jeremiah have thought about and have consulted with others in the state and Secretary of State because they're aware of it as well. Are there things that tend to pop up during presidential election, Sue, that don't come up at regular elections? You know, I know that there are a lot of people who only vote presidential elections, for instance. They don't pay attention but everybody pays attention to a presidential election. What are the types of things that you sometimes hear happen at the election sites? I think, I don't think it's any different than any other one except for the sheer volume of people that come out to vote. And because of that, you're dealing with crowd control and you're dealing with lines. And yeah, people getting impatient, you know. So I don't think, yeah, if there isn't anything specific that that's pretty much it that I can't remember. You're asking me to remember four years ago. And we probably see more campaigning for the presidentials and each of the polling locations, each of the wardens, I created a map so they would know where that campaigning space is because anyone who is there with signage has to be a certain distance away from the entrance. Yep, 150 feet. Yeah. All right, so we've got some questions here. This community member is expressing nervousness about COVID and social distancing when they go to vote and asking, are people required to wear masks when voting in person and what if someone refuses? People are not required to wear masks. This is from the Secretary of State's office. We cannot force people to wear a mask. If we see someone that does not have a mask, we will offer them a mask. If they refuse to take it, then what we're going to do is allow the people that are currently in that polling place to finish voting. Once everybody's out, we're going to have that voter vote by themselves and when they're finished, then people will be allowed back in. And also we didn't mention that we will have a dedicated poll worker doing nothing but disinfecting after every single voter. With the voting boost, the pens, everything that's touched. So that's going to be happening as well. It's like a lot of staff, do you? We have a lot of staff. Yeah, that's good. Yes, yes. Well, it's been great. We've had a lot of people volunteer to work this time that had never worked before, it's been great. And we also have a, where's my other here? We've got a backup of an additional about approximately 70 workers sitting in the wings that we can call upon. And that doesn't, yes, yes, yes. It's been wonderful. Thank you everyone out there. Sue, do you want to say a little bit about the grant that was recently received and how that's going to help support this election cycle? Absolutely. We applied for a grant from the Center for Tech and Civic Life that was advertised to all cities and towns dealing with COVID and helping to run elections more smoothly with any product that you need. And we were lucky, we got $34,000. And it was quick and easy. So with that money, we've been purchasing additional PPE equipment. We've been purchasing signage, all those touchless hand sanitize, everything is coming out of this grant money. So yeah, we thank the company that gave us this and don't know what else to say on that, but it's allowed us to move forward and do things that we would otherwise have a hard time purchasing. Yeah, I think it was a real godsend. Congratulations to you and Brianna for putting that grant together and getting it done so quickly and having to come back so quickly. I think your idea of having bilingual signage that you're going to have out there is really important. And so yeah, there's a lot of things that had we not had this grant, we would not be able to do. And it just adds to the safety really in the security of the election. Yeah, absolutely. All right, so we have a question that just came in through the Q and A. What is the non-UMAS student COVID infection rate in Amherst, how many cases? Okay, so I do not know that number. I knew, I know a week or so ago, practically every case in Amherst was was a affiliate of UMAS. But since that time, there have been some new cases and I had not checked with the health director to know how many of those are UMAS related and how many are not UMAS related. I think we're at 53, I did check the numbers this morning. We're around 50 in terms of active cases. And active cases means someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 and is in the 10-day period when you are analyzing which direction the disease goes. You will see that number, we anticipate that you will see that number drop down because it's been about 10 or 14 days since the initial cases were identified and those cases as they age out will drop off of our active list. So, but I think we're pretty safe to say that a vast majority of the cases are related to the university. Yes, and in general, we tend leading up to that recent cluster or outbreak. We hadn't been making designations between cases, what members of the population they were from. So we typically won't report out on that on our daily case counts, but we do update the site every, we will update it every afternoon at four to get the most accurate count. Okay, so thank you for your question. I'm going to go to the next question. What if I mail in my ballot and decide I actually want to vote on election day? Which one will be counted? Okay, I love this question. This is a common question. So if you mail in your ballot and we have received it, in which you can find that out by the way by going to trackmyballotma.com and allow about a day or two for us to have time to scan it in. But if we have received your ballot in, you're done voting. You cannot vote in person, it's over and done. So take your time with your mail in ballots. If you receive them, be sure that you want to send it back. You know, once you do, you're done. If on the other hand, you have received a mail in ballot and you decide, I'd rather just show up in person and vote. I like the voting process. I like to see my neighbors, you know, I like the whole experience. That is fine. You would just, you can destroy that ballot and just show up on election day or during the early voting hours and vote in person. But the key is to not return your ballot because once it's received by us, you're done. So your name actually comes off the list of being an eligible voters because you've already voted. It actually doesn't come off the list. There's an X in the box. It's going to show up that you applied for a ballot and we received your ballot and X, we received it, you're done. Yeah. Interesting. It's like being checked off the check-in list. Yeah, you're checked off with an X. And I noticed in your ballot box outside of town hall, which is on the main street side of town hall, and it's a secure ballot box. I often get people asking, can't someone just walk away with it? And I know that Jeremiah has chained it to the building so it can't go away. But you have a little sign on there now that says, before you put your ballot in here, make sure that you've signed it. Make sure that all this, because that was a really nice reminder because I think sometimes people forget to sign the envelope which is what's required before it can be counted. Are there other ways that other hints for people so they make sure their vote isn't disqualified? I mean, signing the envelope is the key thing, right? Signing the envelope is key. And actually, if we receive one that's not signed, we'll send out a second ballot. We'll reject that one and we'll send out a second ballot if time allows. If we're talking two days before the election, obviously we won't send it then, but I think if the ballot is not inserted into that Manila envelope, which is called an EV7 or an AV7, that's another thing. If you haven't filled out the envelope at all. Is that what's in all those boxes behind you? Yes. Yeah. We have all kinds of envelopes, voter directions, everything. So yeah, the signage, that's the most important thing. Insert your ballot in the envelope. Oh, here's a question I have heard from people is that my envelope won't stick. I licked it, it won't stick. You can tape it. You can scotch tape it, that's fine. So that won't disqualify it. The important thing is it has your signature on there. Good. All right, so one of these questions we kind of talked about a little bit when you were talking about how many staff members it takes to successfully have this in-person voting. This person used to work in the polls but can't right now due to COVID and they're concerned that you have enough workers. It sounds like you do, but how has that impacted recruiting and retaining election workers in light of COVID? It definitely has impacted our, we have a base of election workers that work pretty steadily. So I would say probably half of the people didn't feel comfortable working, which we expected. But word has gotten out through various channels that we needed election workers and people have really stepped up to the plate. They filled out online the election worker questionnaire and from there we would just take the information and continue forward. So that's how we've ended up with about 70 people in the wings. And we've had to see a lot of younger people step forward. And I don't know if it's because remote learning, you have time, they're not in class every single day, they're more flexible, but it's been great. So while we hate to see the people that are the experienced, dedicated, you know, I've been doing it for years, not be here. On the other hand, it's nice to see new people get involved and learn what is involved in running an election. So yeah. All right, so I'm gonna give one last call for questions to our attendees. Feel free to use this time to put something in the Q&A box or raise your hand via Zoom. So we can hear from you live. While we give a moment for that to happen, I'd like to invite each of our guests to share something that they didn't necessarily get asked that they think would be relevant to our community members now. So I'm gonna pick on you, Jeremiah. I was going, I hope not me. I gotta think of something. Good. I can come. I guess I just wanna just sort of continue with the same message of safety and just state that aside from working with Sue and my smaller staff and all of the individuals who are helping out with the election, I really have to give a shout out to Guilford and the DPW. They do such great work and seeing that collaboration and all of us sort of come together for the primary because there is so much work with there being 10 polling locations. I just maybe didn't really share anything but I really didn't wanna sort of tip my hat to Guilford and his team for all of their assistance and all of this. I second that. It's a true team effort, it sounds like. Huge. All right. Yes. Go ahead, go Sue. No, please you go Sue. Okay, there was one other thing, something called the six month rule with more numbers here. So if you have moved, you were living in Amherst but now you've moved somewhere else within six months. So the date would be May 3rd. So if you've moved after May 3rd but you have not registered to vote in your new location you can return to your old location and vote. So this is a six month rule within Massachusetts. You have to move within Massachusetts though. You can't be moving out of state. Okay, so I just wanted to throw that out. If anybody has any questions on that they can contact our office but this is something on the state website mass.gov. You can look it up. So if you find yourself, oh gosh, I've moved and I forgot to register to vote and you are still a current registered voter in a prior location. You can go back to that location as long as it was from May 3rd on. I had never heard that. That's kind of like the five second rule but for voting. I love it, yeah. Learn something new every day. All right, Paul, did you have any part in comments? So Jeremiah did trigger my thoughts that when you realize how much work has to go into this I mean, the facility staff are putting together the stanchions and all these different things that they're working on for weeks in advance and laying out the planning, the actual work. And then on that morning or the day before DPW is out there going to 10 different locations taking all the equipment to all the locations at the end of the voting period, taking all that equipment back making sure it's secure coming. All the ballots have to come back to town hall where they're put in the vault and they're stored for a certain number of weeks in case there's a recount or anything like that. Just the number of moving parts in pulling off an election especially one in COVID times and a presidential election all at the same time. Credit to Jeremiah and especially Sue for stepping up, taking on this incredible task during difficult times. So just it was really terrific. I see the things that we did for the primary and how we've learned from the primary making some adjustments, listening to the wardens and saying, here's the things that we could improve and improving them and making sure that the general election November 3rd polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. We're gonna make sure I get that right. That's correct. And so I think it's just a really attribute to town staff for doing that. Thank you, Paul. And I'll add as an Amherst voter perspective myself I feel that my rights as a voter in this kind of new landscape have been thoughtfully taken care of throughout these processes. I know everybody on this chat and other departments have contributed to making sure that the voters in Amherst are taken care of. So I think that is very obvious with all your programming and safety measures. So I thank you for that. I'll take one last minute to say thank you to our special guests. Voting information is on our website and more will be added there. You can contact the town clerk's office with any questions at 413-259-3035. Very good. And you can email them at town clerk at amherstma.gov. If you have any follow-up questions regarding elections and voting. And we will be back next Thursday at noon for another Amherst community chat and every Thursday after that except for probably Thanksgiving. I don't know if we're gonna do that, but... So thank you all for joining us today and to all our attendees and viewers who are gonna watch this later. Have a great day. You too. Thank you. Thanks, Brianna. Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye.