 Hi, my name is DJ. I'm a sophomore at BHS. I'm part of my browser keeper program and learning local government and civic engagement by interviewing community leaders. Can you introduce yourself a little bit? Hi, folks. My name is Jim Kondos. I've lived in Vermont pretty much all my life. I was in the Burlington school system from kindergarten through my sophomore year. I was out at Burlington High School in my middle of my sophomore year when my parents moved to South Burlington and I graduated from South Burlington. Then I graduated from the University of Vermont. I've worked my whole life in Vermont. And my background is that I served 18 years on the South Burlington City Council. The last eight years, I was the city council chair, which is kind of like mayor in South Burlington. And then I served in the state senate. I chaired the education committee and government operations committee. And then I have been secretary of state since 2011. So I'm now just started my sixth term. Or at the end of this term, I'll have 12 years as a secretary of state. I've been the president of my national organization, national association of secretaries of state. And I'm currently the national co-chair for the overseas and military voting initiative where we try to find better ways and easier ways for people who are overseas, whether they're in the military or citizens, US citizens to work over there. And to be able to vote here in the United States. So we've been working very diff, very focused on the work that we do. We believe in, in eventually saying every, every eligible Vermonter has a right to vote and we will protect that going forward. So I think that's my background. I'm not sure if you want me to answer, but I got, I can answer lots of other questions. I see the questions in the chat that Megan has posted. Um, you know, do you want me to just go down that list? Let them ask you the questions. Okay. Jeremy, introduce yourself. Hi, I am here. I'm also a student at BHA. So I'm currently in 11th grade. And I guess I'm part of this program. Well, that's great. Our first question is, what is the job of the secretary of the state? So the secretary of state in Vermont, every state has a set, not every state has a secretary of state, but most do. Some states have gotten rid of the secretary of state. The lieutenant governor actually performs those duties as well. But he, and they're all different. Like there are three states, Maine, Maine, Michigan and Illinois, where the secretary of state also oversees the department of vehicle. We don't do that here. Here in Vermont. My role is I oversee the office of professional regulation. So we have 50 professions that we license and regulate. And we have an investigative unit to make sure it's about public protection, not about protecting the, the professions. It's about protecting the public. And it's from things like real estate, accounting, a tattooist, nursing, osteopaths, naturopaths, pretty much all the medical professions, engineers. So there's a lot of professions. We have 50 professions, about 80,000 licensees that we oversee. I also have the state archives, which is where Vermont's most precious documents, like for instance, our Vermont constitution are kept, but we also have a record center. We work with all state agencies to maintain a 100,000 cubic foot record center where we maintain their records for them until they reach a certain retention. Corporations, the corporations division is where any business that's in the state of Vermont that wants to operate has to register with our office. It's the first place they go after us, they go to the tax department and then they go to the corporate department for additional licensing that they have to do. But we are the first place and we help, we like to say that we help facilitate business in the state. And the last and probably best known is elections. We oversee the elections division. And we have the smallest elections team in the country with only five people. But we work very closely with Vermont's 246 town clerks. To maintain the integrity of our elections process and ensure that everybody who's eligible to vote can vote. So that's pretty much what we do as far as the secretary of state's office. And how do you come to this job? I came into this. It's kind of a long story. You know, like I said, I served on the city council. I was heavily involved with governor Dean in, in promoting affordable housing in South Burlington. And he actually recruited me. He asked me to run for state senate back in 2000. And then Peter Schumlin, who was later a governor also called me and wanted me to run. I did. I won and I served in the state senate. And one of the committees that I chaired was the government operations committee, which actually wrote most of the laws and had jurisdiction over the secretary of state's office. So I was well, well versed in what the secretary of state's office did since I helped write many of the laws that they operated with. And after the 2008 Obama election, secretary Markowitz, the secretary of state before me said, we happen to meet on an airplane and we're flying, both flying in the same place. And she said that she was not going to run for reelection again. So she thought I should probably run. I did. And I'm here. Any question? He said, we have the smallest. That works in voting system. How is that like different? Well, we set the policy. That's a great question. And we set the policies and working with the legislature and make sure that the laws that we have work for Vermont. And what we do is actually work with the 246 town clerks from cities as big as Burlington to, you know, to make sure that we have like the town of victory has 72 people on their voter checklist. So it, it's a very wide range of voters. But we manage all of the processes to make sure that they're following the right processes. But I can honestly say that all sector, the, all the town clerks, the city and town clerks around the state are really interested in one thing. And that is protecting the integrity of our community. And that's a great question. Another question is how is town mirroring different because of the pandemic? Well, we recognized early on that it was going to be different. Obviously last year when the pandemic first hit us, we set in place working with the legislature. They allowed me to have some flexibility and changing some of the laws that we had to help protect voters. And so we set, we set some ground rules, if you want to call them for the towns back in March of last year. The, I think we all thought that the pandemic would be by, we wouldn't have to deal with it after November. And obviously it reared its ugly head again. And we had to do something. And so right after the November election, we began working with the governor's office, with the town clerks, with the Vermont League of cities and towns and legislative leaders to come up with a, if you want to call it a menu of options that towns could use for this year. Remember, we have three overriding principles that we use when we were making any decision. One is to protect voting rights of every eligible Vermont or to to protect the health and safety of every Vermont or not just the voters, but also the town clerks and their, and the workers at the polls and three to protect the integrity of our election. So it was a, it was a constant tug of war in essence to make sure that we could make sure that we were following those principles to ensure the integrity of our elections, but while protecting people. And for instance, this year, we allowed some towns who have what they call a town meeting where they actually vote from the floor. We allowed them to change to a ballot so that they could vote by ballot instead. We allowed some town, well, we allowed any town that wanted to be able to mail their ballots directly to their voters like we did in November. And, you know, Burlington is one of those towns that has taken advantage of that as well as South Burlington. And we also allowed towns to be able to to postpone their town meeting day from March 2nd to say sometime in April or May, when they might be able to have, when the pandemic might be getting into a better place. Or they can move it outdoors. So, you know, we just, what we did was provide a lot of options. Oh, and my last question is, what is or can the Secretary of State's office doing to address racial and local political governments and stuff? Well, it's, and that's a great question, Olivier, because we, my office believes that I believe strongly, I'm second generation American, my grandparents all came here from the, from overseas. And I strongly believe that not only is immigration good for the, for the United States, but it's something we should protect. And we should help those people become citizens of the U.S. And that means they should be able to vote. So we, everything we do is around making sure that everybody who is eligible to be a registered voter can be a registered voter. And, and so there's two pieces of this. One is being able to be registered to vote. The other is being able to vote. And so we are constantly focused on how we can provide those opportunities to, to satisfy that. And one of the things we did two years ago, and it's a pilot project right now that we did in Burlington and Winooski was we worked with the refugee community and the new American community to decide, even though Vermont does not meet any threshold, federal threshold for requiring ballots to be translated. We worked with the new American communities to figure out which, which languages we should use to, to promote. And, and we came up with six and I, they're on my website. So I, I don't have them in front of me, but I know there's Somali, Burm, Burmese. I forget the other ones now, but there's seven, six languages and we created videos in each of the language on the process of voting, but we also created translated ballots so that when people show up and they would request it, they can, they can get a translated ballot that they, they can use to help them vote in their election. So we hope to expand that to other places as, as needed. And as I said, it's, it's not something that we are required to do, but it's something we wanted to do because we thought it was important. Give me even another question. So since we were talking about voting, I was kind of curious, but not a lot of people know why voting is important. Would you like mind explaining to us what makes voting so important? Well, voting is, that's a great, that's a, that is the question, I think, because that, that really is the, is the very basis of our democracy. Everything starts with the citizens right to vote and you pick the people who will represent you, whether it's on a city council or a select board in the smaller towns, in the state legislature, in the statewide offices, like the governor, the secretary of state, lieutenant governor, or, you know, for our congressional representatives. Your voice, your vote is your voice. That's how you promote what you, what you believe the people you, you support the people that you believe will be the best for you and for the, for the state. And so that's, that's where it all starts. And that's why it is so important. And, and you will often see me doing videos and stuff with regards to transparency in government, protecting the right to vote, working on a national level to ensure that as well. All right, thank you so much for being with us today. Do you have any questions for us? No, I just think it's great that you're involved. You know, I, I hope as soon as you're eligible to be registered to vote, you get out there and register. You can do it online. You can do it in person. It's, it's just, it is the fundamental principle of our democracy is to be able to be registered to vote and to actually vote. And I encourage you to, to do that as soon as you can get engaged, do the, do the things that you need to do in your community. That will really help I think in the long run. Thank you. Thank you very much and thanks, Megan.