 Welcome to this week's legislative update. I'm Jim Baumgart your co-host along with Nanette Bullabush from Elkhart Lake and the other co-hosts. They're happy to be here. Yeah, and it's a delight, a delight for having her. And then we have a wonderful guest here, the County Clerk, John Dalton, and Thank you. Yeah, welcome to the program. Glad to be here. We were, a week before we did a program and we covered a lot of things about elections and some of your duties and we'd like to cover a little bit more, but we'd like to get into the fall elections, which we didn't cover in the last election. But for those that were unavailable to watch the last program, why don't you let the people know how long you've been around as a County Clerk and Anything else you want to let them know about yourself? Sure. Yeah, I've been County Clerk since January of 2013 so I ran in 2012 and it was the first time running for any public office and then I won again two falls ago in the fall of 2016 It's a four-year term. Four-year term. So I'm one year into my second term. Okay. Well, welcome to the program. It used to be for the citizens, it used to be two-year terms Sheriff and everybody, but time flies in today's modern society. So they've moved a lot of them to four years Or are they all four years now? They're four years. No two years. Not at the County level. Okay, cuz not all of them switched over I think the sheriff was the first one was four-year terms, I think and then pretty soon somebody else and now they all have Yeah, those state statutes they changed them. And your position is still in an elected position. Correct. We know there are some who would like to see it appointed But you told us earlier that it should be elected. Yeah, me too. And I know Jim feels strong He is a County Board Supervisor. I have forefathers that wrote the state constitution If it was important enough to be an elected position then I don't think anything's changed. No, no people have to have confidence that there's somebody that will raise questions rather than be an hired person who is at the whim of You know the head of the County Board or whatever it might be there are people that can go and List their concerns and somebody should be willing to listen. Yeah, or the person doesn't have to vote for him Right. You have to please your boss and if you're hired by the chief administrator of a County County executive or the administrator. I'm hired by the people if they don't like what I'm doing they elect someone else in Yeah, they can say keep them or fire them. And it's nonpartisan So you're here representing all of us making sure we all have equal access to fair elections My position is partisan But my duties are nonpartisan and that's that's pretty much spelled out in the statutes to action Yeah, because if you cross that line you get so elections spring and fall Spring elections tend to not be very active unfortunately, especially the primary in February But in spring people will be electing local positions City count City Town Village School Board County Board. You will be reelected or not or not Are you running? What is the most important thing people need to know about voting and elections? It is turn out at the April election and if there's going to be a primary then it has to be the February election But in my opinion for what goes on in our daily lives What affects us our employers our taxes our pocketbook when we're writing that Check at the end of the year for taxes There's you can get involved in that and that is at the April election that affects you You're it's your town board your village your school district your county and There needs to be a greater turnout for that. How do we do that? How do we get more people to vote? Maybe social media Maybe there has to be some more articles in the papers not everyone gets a subscription paper There are weekly papers that are out there that could get the word out But and it's every every April. It's not like the gubernatorial or the presidential every two years Every April there are some ballot at some point at school district town village They don't give you a break through the job So so I There's something if I if I my numbers are correct there are over 70,000 adult people in Sheboyin County who could vote who are old enough there over 18 they can vote But somewhere around 20,000 22,000 of those 70,000 are not even registered to vote What is your office doing to encourage more people to help people register to vote when we when we Work with couples on marriage applications Because our office does marriage applications marriage licenses When they come in they're asking a registered to vote. Do you have a passport? Do you ask them? Yeah, good So that actually they don't get the marriage license if But we don't I knew that all we have to do is is guide them to their local municipality because we don't register voters We do often see them back for applying for passports because we do do that But getting getting people just interested It's unfortunate that the fall elections gubernatorial or presidential it gets a greater turnout But some of those people only vote once in four-year cycle presidential one and sometimes the local elections are so much More important, but those 20,000 people that really bothers me That's those are voices that aren't even close to being heard and they are not they're listening Yeah, let's hope so, but I've got friends on the on the League of Women Voters And there's a an amazing group called the Plymouth neighborhood action team They're going door-to-door. These are grassroots people go door-to-door Encouraging people to register to vote. Do you support those grassroots efforts? Sure good So so you're willing to work with them if they want to ask for help with statistics or information or literature Because we had one I think the league was in St. Vincent de Paul a couple ways to go as people walk in to get Christmas things and clothes or food banks that would seem to me That's a perfect way to get people to register to vote and to learn about how to do it sure anything else We can do to simplify it like same day. Well, we do have same-day Registration, but you said you oppose it. Why? Because that's where the lines are on election day if there's any backup It's going to be at the registration table for same-day registrants So if you're going to vote if you're going to take the time and research what you're going to be voting on a School referendum a village referendum if you're going to be voting on whether your taxes are going to go up for Whatever it is on the ballot you should be getting involved a little before the day of the election But if there's nothing but we have that same-day registration if there is automatic registration possibly with your driver's license That still doesn't get people educated or what's going to be on the ballot and get them to the ballot But if you don't allow them to be in a line to register on the day of voting Then that line disappears, but that line may disappear Completely from the voting process or most of them. Well, couldn't we invest more resources so that there are more people at those tables? Taking more names. Yeah, I think over the years though I think just less and less people are caring unfortunately to get out and vote But if we know those lines are there Then we can be ready for them with more people to help them. Would you support a national holiday? So that people who are working that's going to get on a bus. Oh, that's I think that's a lot of people Don't some countries actually They may I don't think so being that the polls open for 13 hours And you can absentee vote. Yeah, I think everyone's you you see Florida when when they have these big lines that are five hours long They're not doing something right where we don't have those lines I don't think it was constant do it. I haven't seen lines like that. Of course. I mean walkie walkie Green Bay Madison will get some lines but but not like what you see on the television. Maybe their state laws have it So their districts have more population. Oh, maybe I don't know and let's let's Voting places. Do you support efforts to just make it to simplify? I I did hear from a friend who tries to vote in her own town I should point county township and of course they have their own municipal rules But she said it was pretty complicated She tried to talk to the clerk and they referred it to the treasurer who didn't know anything and then nobody answered Her calls and I know that you're not responsible for every municipality But are there efforts in your office to at least streamline these processes and make sure all municipal officials are informed on these That comes on the election side that comes from the election commission So I'm not and they're going and direct to the municipalities with education Requirements clerks are required to keep so many hours per there so you don't have county gatherings of Village town officials on elections. That's not it. I I perform chief inspector training So I perform election training for poll workers Some of the polls of all of them. Okay, and sometimes the clerks participate in that But often it's just the poll workers because on election day It's the chief inspector that runs the polls and not the municipal clerk I have to ask because it's 2017 and people are talking about Russia actually it's 2018 when people are watching this What are you doing to make sure that our elections are not hacked that they're fair and equitable and not tampered with? Partially there aren't too many counties in the state that do it that I do the programming for all the municipalities But so I'll the programming for the memory devices on election day for all of the election equipment so And nothing is Networked with our county Offices which our IT department doesn't like for pushing out updates and whatnot and nothing is tied to the internet So there's and we don't have any modems So there's no internet connectivity wirelessly, so There's there's no way to hack our system that we know of that we know of right, you know that Yeah, but so there's no internet connectivity hardwired or wireless so Not sure how That can happen, but it's that's checked at the results are checked on election night That all goes back to my office a week later. We have a county board of canvas We double-check everything we submit all of that to the state and the state certifies the elections for state and above It can be Smooth and it can be a little complicated, but depending on the turnout to them make a difference No, the turnout is just a larger number of who came out to the ballot, so it's just a bigger number Okay, the April election the spring cycle is actually crazy and There there can be for example a hundred and ten different ballots in April ballot styles Oh, yeah, and there might only be 20 in the fall because everyone has the same ballot basically Presidential us a US Senate We'll have different ballots because out in the county county supervisory district will be split by a school district Oh, that's right. So you'll have District 25 in this school district district 25 in that school district and and it gets cut up the village of Glen or town of Greenbush May have six or seven different ballot styles. That's right for a little Greenbush Wow, I'll have because of the school district and county supervisory districts So we're running out of time people say there is someone watching this who wants to know how to vote Make sure they've got all the documentation they need now because the laws have changed in the last five or six years What's the most where do they go for that information? What's but before we can get into that John? We are running out of time. So they have to call John. Okay, just call Go to my vote my vote dot dot w i dot gov or call 92045 93003 And thank you for coming this has been legislative update. See you next week