 Okay. So, we are now live and this is a joint meeting of the Senate and House Government Operations Committee, along with some other folks. And we have a lot of people here with us today. So, do I guess just set the stage a little bit here. Sarah, is that okay if I just jumped in? Thank you. So, we passed one of the very first pieces of legislation that we passed dealt with the upcoming elections because that's so important to us as a committee, as two committees, but also to our town clerks and our committee and to all the voters in Vermont. And so, we passed this very early giving the Secretary of State and the, where there were a couple things. There was the no having to sign petitions for obvious reasons. And then the part about it that we're going to hear about today was the giving the Secretary of State with approval from the governor, the ability to make whatever changes were felt necessary so that we could make sure that this election was gave everybody the opportunity to vote but also protected people's health. And we know how crowded polls can get. I know in Brattleboro that they have, they're set up and you're pushing each other in the shoulders and standing in line. So, we wanted to make sure that the options were there for the Secretary of State. So what we have done a couple times, and this is the, I think the third time we've had an update on where that is. They're kind of different. There's the municipal elections and there's the primary and the general election. So we're looking at all of those. I think it's important to understand that we're getting an update here. We're not, we don't have to give any kind of approval because we already gave the approval for the Secretary and the State to Secretary of State and the governor to come up with options and there were a number of options that were listed. So, Sarah, do you have anything to add here and should we, and then we can jump to Will or Chris or whoever would like to start. Thank you. I appreciate the Deputy Secretary and the Director of Elections taking time to brief us today. I think, I think part of the real value of this conversation is in helping House and Senate members to understand what planning is being done to be able to ensure that people can safely access the ballot box in August and in November and also giving us an opportunity to become familiar with what the changes are so that when our constituents in our town clerks ask us questions, we keep them apprised of what the plan is. So thank you so much for being with us today. And I think also to help inform our colleagues because there are what 18 of us here today out of 180 so we need to be able to answer questions from our colleagues also because they will be having this many of the same questions from their constituents and town clerks. So, I don't know that my Betsy is with us I don't know that she needs to walk through this at all or we're all really familiar with what we, what we did does anybody have any technical questions for Betsy about what it was that we actually did. I don't see any hands do you Sarah. Okay, if we, I don't see anybody raising their hands so in that case let's just then jump I don't know will if you want to start off or if I see that Chris is with us also. I don't think Secretary condos is, but if you would, however the two of you want to start off. Thank you. Chris, would you like to say anything before I start. Now I'm not seeing Chris. I think Chris might have just dropped off did he take it away. I had my okay. I'll go ahead and start and we'll get we can, he can join back in when he can. I thank you guys for having us here and I'm happy to give you an update on where we're at. And pardon me for working from notes today I like to pride myself usually to be able to work off the top of my head but there is too much in my head at the given moment to not rely on some notes. It's important to start by letting everyone know and making it clear that we haven't made any final decisions about process for the 2020 elections in August and November. The primary reason for that is we need agreement with the governor. We're in the process of communicating with them and trying to reach that agreement but that hasn't happened yet. And so we're still at the point where we really haven't made any final decisions and what I what I talked to you about today could change. I want to start with and Senator white frankly mentioned the same thing but both secretary condos and I have been approaching all of these discussions and the decisions we have to make and the 2020 elections with sort of two basic principles in mind of course which are protecting the health and safety of Vermonters primarily that is the primary interest from this very highly contagious and highly deadly disease. It's a time protecting their right to vote which is a sacred fundamental critical right to our democracy. And so it's really a, it presents a significant challenge to all of us and to all Vermonters and to all Americans frankly to try and balance those two things going forward for the rest of the year and for the duration of the coronavirus however long that might last. Both what what I can tell you what I'm going to present to you today really is my recommendation as the director of elections as to how we can best accomplish those two goals in the 2020 elections for the rest of the year. The two goals being health and safety of Vermonters and protecting their right to vote. And what's a pretty critical upcoming general. My recommendation that I've arrived at, I would say it's based on my expertise, my now eight years in the position administering these statewide elections. Most importantly my conversations with town clerks, city clerks, village clerks and school district clerks across the state. They're going to be the ones on the front line the ones actually put in the position of having to conduct these elections having to perform whatever process we decide on. So their input has been critical and really helpful. Also dialogues with my colleagues across the country, other election director, secretaries of state. Their input has been essential as well. There's about 50 people in the country who do the job I do and who know everything that comes with it and the kinds of decisions that I'm faced with so that's another critical resource for me. And then input from advocates various various communities advocacy communities and groups and researchers that have looked into the efficacy of various male voting processes for a long time. But I think most importantly and I'll get to the point and I'm going to try and be brief I know everybody's on time crunches today that I continually tried to step back in our team did. Remember, we want to craft a solution that's appropriate for Vermont election administration is really different from state to state across the country. And so while all of that input is valuable. I also always operate from the from the position that we have to do what makes sense in Vermont and not a cookie cutter work in another context. So, with all of that said, strongly proposal we've come up with is the proposal that protects the health and safety of the poll workers and the voters as much as possible going forward. And I'll start from a high level where we where we begin is that for the November general election. We intend to I think that the approach would be to mail a ballot to every active voter on our registered voter list. So that mailing would come in late September. The deadline to send to military and overseas voters is middle of September so this mailing would kick in right around that same time. And I've kind of thought of a no later date of October 1 to send ballots to over all active registered voters in Vermont. They all would receive a prepaid pre addressed return envelope. They would address back to their individual clerk's office, and again postage paid. The postage would also be paid on the envelopes going out to the voters from the clerk's office. And all that postage will be paid at the state level. Through the federal funds that we've received for the coronavirus cares act. I would like to this is this is my ideal situation at this point to have that mailing proceed on an opt in basis for the clerks where they could opt in to having the state perform the mailing from a centralized mailing house. I've heard a variety of opinions from clerks about that. And there are there are positives and negatives to that. I would say in general, most of the clerks have been excited to hear that that's an option, especially those in the bigger towns or cities that the state could perform the mailing for them. And to be clear that the return cards the return of the ballots would still go back to the clerks for the processing at the individual clerk's office, whether we mail them out from the state or not that's the current plan. In addition, we would intend to mail a postcard to all of the challenge voters I'll take a second to remind you all that distinction. Active voters are voters who are active on the checklist and in just a current status, what we in Vermont here called challenge voters are those that have been sent a notice. Because of some indication that their residents has changed that they've either moved to another town in the state or they've moved out of state. And we've talked about this a lot in both committees that's a process that's regulated by federal law, if you're going to remove a voter from your checklist based change of residency, you have to send a notice to those voters that gives them a chance to reply and say that you are. Did I cut out are people still hearing me. Yeah, you're okay. To reply and say that you still live in the town that would move you back into active status. If the clerk doesn't get a reply to that notice sent out. She has to hear she has to wait to federal elections so to November elections, without either getting a response or having that voter show up to vote, and then they can be removed from the list. That's federal law so when I talk about the challenge voters, voters who have been sent that notice and we haven't heard back from or seen them vote. The basic breakdown of that I think the most the most recent I looked at it we have 480,000 ish total voters 450,000 of those are active only 30 have received the notices and not taken action that's actually a fairly small percentage relative to a lot of places I think So those voters the 30,000 or so the challenge voters would receive a postcard. That would allow them to affirm their residents have the same language that adds that the standard response card has to those mailings and would also give them a chance to request a ballot. That's the basic plan for November in terms of absentee balloting I'll be clear here that I think I mentioned to this to both communities last time I testified, we're triaging decisions, figuring out what decisions need to get made now, which can be delayed, just as a matter of capacity and decision making the ones that really need to be made now are the ones about how we're doing the early voting and the mailing of ballots back and forth. So we have a lot of discussions and consideration based on the decisions we make now about what other kinds of processes we might need to namely polling place adjustments on election day, but more specific to this conversation. We will also need to figure out extended processing times for absentee ballots coming back. We're opening up letting clerks use the tabulators for however long before the election and get ballots processed into tabulators and ballot boxes, whether we extend the processing and counting time beyond election day at all, whether we would extend the the deadline to receive ballots back go to a postmark system for November 3. Those are all decisions that will be made down the line after we've established this basic process. The other thing that would obviously go along with mailing a ballot to every voter and mailing these postcards to the challenge vote would be a substantial voter education campaign put on by our office to let people know why they are receiving a ballot when they haven't requested it and how they both vote it and return so that it gets counted by their clerk that's going to be a critical piece of the process. In fact, August, for a number of reasons, my proposal right now is that we proceed with a request based absentee balloting process for the August election. So that is to say essentially proceeding under current law in that regard, which would mean the voters need to request a ballot to have it sent to them, and that the clerks would be the one doing that processing. So we're going to, again, even though we're not sending a ballot to all, we wouldn't, the proposal is to not send a ballot to all voters in June for the August primary. We would still equip clerks with enough absentee ballot envelopes for their entire checklist. They have to be the new envelopes that we're designing now with the postage paid metering on them that comes back to the state. We're going to equip them with an abnormal number of ballots as well. We're going to print more ballots for the primary than usual, and a equal number of absentee ballot envelopes that would account essentially for them being able to do that for everybody on their checklist. I don't expect that we will have 100% early voting in August, but we're going to account for that. Because we're just proceeding with the request base process for the absentee balloting for August, we would intend to send a postcard this time to all of the active voters, the 450,000 sometime in mid June. That postcard will lay out on the top all of the various ways that you can request a ballot in Vermont. We've noted as we go along that Vermont's really well positioned, especially relative to other states due to the good work of these committees over the past four years. Voters have many ways to request a ballot online by phone in person. And you don't need an excuse to request that ballot and you can do so for 45 days before the election. And you can do so, frankly, all year so they can put in put in requests right now and get the ballot sent to them on the 45th day before the election. So the top half of the postcard would explain all those various ways to request the ballot, and then we would include a tear off mail in bottom of the postcard that is an absentee ballot request. It's important for all the Vermonters that may not have access to on systems and or phones to call their clerks and for whom mailing a postcard back pre address prepaid again to the clerk's office would be the easiest option to submit their request. The point there obvious is obviously is since we're not mailing a ballot and putting that under your nose with a return we're going to make it as easy as possible for you to request the ballot in August. So we'd send up the same kind of postcard that I talked about for the general election to the 30,000 challenge voters that allows them to both affirm their residents and request the ballot at the same time. I can get into some of the reasoning I sure I'm sure I'm going to field questions that would that would prompt these answers but that postcard I'll just put it out there now has the dual effect and really nice effect of identifying bad addresses that exist on the current before we take the step in September of mailing ballots to everybody. So when clerks get the undeliverables or the forwardable notices back from the post office whatever format that takes, it's going to move us a long way toward cleaning up the addresses that need to be cleaned up on the checklist. Again, in combination with those postcards. So until summer we would engage in a big voter education campaign to say request your ballot, because we're not sending it in this instance, and return it by mail. And what is everybody's interest across both elections is let's remove, let's reduce traffic at the polling places as much as possible to reduce risk to voters and poll workers. It's really, it's really important I don't say that lightly I know everybody has been seeing the developing stories coming from elections that have been held nationwide, putting poll workers and voters at risk of this virus contracting this virus. I got ahead of my notes a little bit because I mentioned at the beginning that of course then there are all of the other TBDs to be determined, which are those processing allowances I was talking about on either sides of election day for the clerks and poll workers. So we have to be with the intent of not having to deal with the giant influx of absentee ballots that we're going to see for both elections, all at the same time and in the same cramped timeframes that they typically have to deal with absentee and we got to consider that asking 510 6 poll workers to a room processing ballots presents its own risks. And so how can we extend those processing times and or modify that process to reduce the risk to poll workers the amount of contact they have to have with each other and ballots. The other to be determined decisions are rules of conduct around the polling places, whether we might allow drive up voting, whether we might allow these polling places to be outside, what the appropriate distancing rules are. Those decisions can be made later and can be based on more direct knowledge of how bad the virus is at either the given election times. And also, because of our, our well designed election management system we will have a day to day notice of how many ballots have been returned. And we're going to have a good idea of how much traffic is left over how many ballots we haven't seen as we get closer to the election and can adjust accordingly. So that outline proposal for the two elections for the processes. One other thing that we might another to be determined I just give you guys some of the ideas that are still in the background and out there. Whether in the general election if we're sending a ballot to every voter and putting it under their nose, whether we develop a system of some kind of dropbox secure dropbox locations where ballots can be returned to. And that's proven really effective in a lot of other areas of the country as another mode of return to ensure that people do so. That would be an investment of course and we would talk about where and security is the main concern with those dropboxes of course. I'll just touch on because I think it's going to be a question and I might as well affirmatively address it right now which is what's driving the timing, and what's driving the need to make the decision now. There are a number of things from a broad perspective, people who know election administration and who know the implementation of a vote by mail system would think that it's nearly crazy to try and do so between now and September. Having said that, because everybody knows the dilemma and the challenge we're faced with, there are resources being marshaled across the country to try and help states stand up these new processes in a very short amount of time. So to be more specific, the, I think the biggest the biggest couple drivers are a mailing house contract to be put in place and systems put in place with that mailing house to be ready to do this very complex mailing in September. These are details on the numbers how many ballots they're going to be putting together into envelopes how many envelopes they're going to need what are the size of those envelopes to have the best insertion process the most efficient insertion process. Very big one is just just the quantity of envelopes and ballots that needs to be printed. So we're going to mail a ballot to every voter in November, you need to account for 100% of the checklist right that you mail the ballots to. Then you need to also have backup ballots for people who may request them after that time register and request them or miss the ballot and want another. And you need additional ballots for any election day traffic. So we're talking about instead of our typical order of 100% of your checklist for the general election probably 125%. Same thing with the primary we want to we want to pad the primary so that clerks have enough for more absentee balloting and potential voters at the polling place. And just the kind of very minor detail that goes into this. If we're going to be mailing the ballot to all voters in September for November. We want to do what they call scoring a lot more of those ballots, which allows them to be folded easily by the mailing house folders and fit in the certificate envelope coming back. If you're not going to be mailing them all out we typically only score about 30% anticipating that kind of absentee volume. I was on a phone call at from about 10 to 11 this morning with the envelope printers, ballot printers, the US Postal Service. And they will be placing orders for their ballot stock for November next week. Those are the kind of things that are driving the timing on this, they would have liked to place those earlier. Just one other example of the actual design of the envelopes. We want to have a common design between August and November for pricing reasons and consistency reasons for the mailing house. So we need to develop apply for the correct permitting and prepaid postage to be applying to all of those envelopes right now in the next couple weeks. So there's a lot of kind of low level, just nitty gritty detail stuff that's driving the timing. And then I think you can all appreciate that. There is a very high level of anxiety right now among the clerks as to what the process is going to be so that they can start preparing for it mentally and every other way. There's, there's anxiety among the voters about what the election process is going to be in the fall. And as soon as possible we want to be able to communicate that out and start educating folks about what they can expect all year. So that drives the timing as well. And I think with that I'll stop and open it up to questions. So, right before we go to questions here and serve you can keep track of people here to when hands go up because I can't see everybody if we can do that together. I just wanted to say that we in our committee we've been hearing from vulnerable communities around many different issues. We, our committee was kind of assigned this funneling activity. And will has been working with, with the vulnerable communities out there, the elderly, the community of color new Americans translating, he's been really really working hard with those communities and the second thing I'm going to say is that on Thanksgiving Day this year, will and the town clerks can probably all just have a really restful day because this will all be done and I, and I just have great confidence that it will be done well. So, that's a long time for poor will to wait to be able to take a deep breath. I know, I know it is why they pay me the big bucks. Oh, yeah, right. Brian. Well, I saw Chris put his hand up to. Oh, okay, I didn't see that. Did you want to add something before I ask a question. Oh, you're frozen. He's frozen. That's a good freeze. Okay, I'll go ahead and ask my question. Well, I'm wondering from where you're obtaining the list you're using in August to invite people to request that absentee ballot. Our voter registration database. Okay. I was under the impression that even if someone isn't registered to vote, they would be getting this invitation. Is that not true. That's not my current proposal, but it could be an option. But how, what do you mean if they aren't registered to vote. They would need to be given an option to register. And yeah, they're still will be election day registration right. I assume so. Yes. Yeah. Thank you. Representative Harrison has a question. Yeah, thank you. Well, thank you for the overview of a couple of questions. The primary plan as I understand it, you send out the postcards. Has a lot of merit. And like you said, in terms of correcting address and stuff. But on that line, what happens if someone's moved and they're no longer at that address. Does the postcard get returned to the town, to the state, or does it get forward to their new address. In some cases, I guess they could live in the same town, different address. Or in some cases other cases they could have moved out of state and obviously we want to make sure they're off or if they've moved to another town we want to make sure that they are registered in the new town, not the old town. And it's a good question and one that I'm still working on, I'm learning that I think there's a couple options. You either just get a non deliverable notice back to the clerk, or you get a forwarding where it's forwarded to a new address, I think. There are pluses and minuses to both of those, but I think if you were to do the forwarding, there's an option and you would certainly want it where the clerk gets a notice of that forwarded address. So that the check will be updated with the address it was forwarded to. Okay, so if, if you sent out the postcard to Jim Harrison at my address, and I had moved down the street. If it was forwarded, would you even know, I think there's an option where the clerk. Yeah. Okay, that's helpful. And I would want that if we were going to forward. That's the whole point. Right. Now, if we are in a mail ballot and I'm not sure quite frankly how the, although the absentees now are requested and you have to give them your current address when you request it. So it's probably not an issue, but if you were mailing a ballot, whether it's for the primary or in the fall for the general election. What happens in that case, if you move, does it just end up in the hands of the new occupants of that dwelling? Does it get forwarded or does it get returned because they're not at the address that you had on file? That's another good question. I think my approach there would be to have it returned to the clerk. Okay, you, you mentioned something about prepaid postage. Is this the return envelope? Yeah, both ways. Okay, does that currently happen on absentee ballots? Okay. So if it's pre-repair. Sir, I believe some towns and cities put postage on them and some don't, it's up to them. Okay, but in this case, the state would be doing it. Correct. So would the ballots go back to the state or to the town? Town. Okay. Does it have to come back in that envelope? In what case are you talking about where it was under way? You know, over the years, we've gravitated to more and more early voting. And in a lot of cases, that's probably been helpful and productive. But if we're going to dramatically increase that, obviously, there's a greater opportunity for returns that are fraudulent, for a number of reasons. I mean, it can happen today, but, you know, we're, we're sort of increasing that. And I'm wondering if, you know, with the prepaid postage envelope, there's some standardization if it's addressed to the town clerk. I'm just wondering if I think I've got, I think I've got your question. Within the return, the, the, the envelope that's going to be returned in the mail that has the clerk's address pre-printed on it for the voter and his postage paid. Before that step, the voter puts the ballot in what we call the certificate envelope. It's been dated by the voter and their name is printed. There's a, there's an extensive certificate language that says I am a voter in this town. I am the one who voted this ballot. I was not influenced in voting this ballot. And I am signing this certificate under awareness that I'm doing so under the penalty of perjury. That certificate envelope is put in the mail or that's pre-addressed back to the clerk. Last election cycle, there was a well-publicized case in, I think it was North Carolina, where a congressional election was ruled invalid because a third party intercepted a number of the ballots, supposedly, and returned them directly as opposed to going through the normal process. Is that allowed currently under Vermont law? And if it is, is that something we should consider changing? I'm not sure what you're asking is allowed or not, but what was engaged in in North Carolina was highly criminal behavior. They were prosecuted for. And he considered so here as well. And they would be prosecuted for it. And I just think the other comment there is in the, you know, my eight years and secretary condos 10 years, we've seen no evidence of that kind of activity in Vermont. Okay, so if I am going door to door doing my campaigning, can I collect ballots? Yeah. I'm asking, I've never, I've never obviously done that, but I'm asking, can I? Is that against Vermont law? I want to be sure about my answer to that, Rep Harrison, can I get back to you? Yeah, no, I just, I think it's something we need to ask. I'm trying to do various town meetings this year, where many of us go to four or five different town meetings. I filled out my ballot because I couldn't be in my town on town meeting day because I was over in Bridgewater. But I filled out my ballot, signed it, put it in the envelope. And I think I gave it to my wife to drop off. And I knew that that was okay. Certainly it was accepted by our town clerk. But if she could do it for me, does that mean I could do it for others? I don't want to do that. And I think that opens up a whole bunch of questions. I'm just asking if that's something we should consider. I believe it can be returned on your behalf by someone else. I think that it's signed by you on the certificate envelope. And that's the criminal behavior I was talking about in North Carolina, they weren't just returning people's ballots for them. They were, my understanding is throwing some away. And in other cases, voting them and signing on behalf of voters. Okay, no, and I get it. It's a little bit of a different scenario. Might it be something we consider if we're going to do a different election process this year. And maybe you can do that in the emergency powers that we gave the secretary's office with the election. Just throwing that out there as a question. We all want to increase participation, but we want also decrease any potential for fraud. And on that line, have you looked at other states to find out some states I guess do voting by mail. I don't know what security procedures, whether they use tracking numbers or any of those procedures that have we looked at and considered the yeah the every it's it's it's central to the discussion of implementing these systems. And it's just been over time, highly proven to be an infinitesimal amount of activity of that kind of election fraud it. Frankly, it's kind of hard to imagine the benefit that somebody would see versus the risk they are taking in the criminal activity they'd be undertaking. And I think that's precisely why we don't see it happen there are way better ways to influence the outcome of an election, then engage in criminal absentee ballot fraud. Okay, thank you. Representative has a question. Okay, good. I'm glad you could see him. Thank you. So, so we'll have there been any voter fraud cases in Vermont involving mail balance. I think it's a good time. Rep Ganon. And I assume we've done a research. I mean, you know this whole myth about voter fraud and mail in ballots, I think is a myth. There, there are very few instances that is that correct. Very few is an understatement. Do you believe within what is it act 92 you have the powers that the Secretary of State needs to put into place any procedures to ensure that there is no fraud. If we did move to a mail in process. I do. Thank you. Thank you for that question. Many members with hands up, but I know that Chris Winters had tried to jump in a bit ago and maybe Chris wants to jump in at this point. There he is. Okay. Thank you very much. I hope you all can hear me. This is the first time my internet's had a really, really real problem on one of these calls so hopefully you can hear me and I'll stay heard. I don't know if it's me or you, but you're going to say that it's not working. It's not working. Just fight wills very calm demeanor here. Can you hear us. Oh, your video. Yeah, just take a video off. All right, I'll do that. Is that better? Okay, sorry again. I was trying to say thank you for what you did and putting the law that you did into into act 92 and giving us the, the flexibility and the authority to act quickly and really time is of the essence here so despite wills calm demeanor here is under the gun. We all are every single day working on this. I appreciate your questions today, but I wanted to emphasize how much we are running out of time. And we are running out of runway to get this plane off the ground. So we need to make decisions yesterday about vote by mail. And I do want to say that the governor's team has really been great. They have kept the politics out of it. I know they're really busy and they have so many other things to do so we appreciate their time. And they're being careful about this, but we need a decision soon and we don't have an agreement with them yet we were hoping for a meeting with the governor's team with the governor between the secretary of state and the governor today. But we have not been able to get that so we hope it's going to happen soon and we hope to have a decision for you our goal all along has been to make a decision on this by the end of the month. So we hope that we can make that as soon as possible. Next week. So, and just, you know, the only other thing that I wanted to mention is that it would not be possible for us to do a vote by mail for the August primary, because of the short window, because all of the burden of doing that would land on the clerks. So in case anyone has any questions still about whether we can do the same process for August and for November. That's one of the big factors as to why we're doing that. So just to, you know, bottom line it. We are the election experts will is obviously the biggest election expert here and we hope that you rely on us with the power that you've given us and we hope that the governor's team is going to rely on us soon. And get us to a place where we can move forward with a clear direction. Thank you. Thanks. I think that one thing that will talked about here is important to remember and important for the everybody involved in making the decisions is that there are a bunch of questions that can be answered later around things like back and forth and how we do that and polling place procedures and extended processing time and those kinds of questions. So I think it's really important that we'll keep that list and that everybody understand that we don't have to answer every single question. Now what we need to answer now is kind of the basic way it's going to happen and so that we can get these printed and when you said that you would hope to make this decision by the end of the month you did not mean by the end of May. It is now may you meant by the end of April right. You're absolutely right by the end of April will is already moving as though because he has to out of necessity making plans now. We are planning for a worst case scenario. And the problem is we don't know what it's going to look like in August or November, and even today in the governor's press conference he was talking about a resurgence in September and October. So it's imperative that we start moving on this right now. Brian. Yeah, thank you madam chair. I talked a little bit about the merits of the two stage process for the primary election. And I think Chris was trying to answer it but maybe I'm just not understanding. If that's to be a good sort of procedure to follow in August why wouldn't it also be a good procedure in November. The mailing of just a request instead of the mailing about everybody. Yes, the postcard first saying, you can now get an absentee ballot if you fill this out and they look back. You want to get that will or you want me to answer it. I can start at least Chris and I think I miss anything. It's a good questions that are called more. We talked about it I think in both of the previous committee meetings a little bit. The consistent process between the two elections. I acknowledge that the reason that I'm suggesting what I'm suggesting is that they're two very different elections. We expect we see normally about three times as many voters at the general election 2025% for the primary to 6075% the gender. I anticipate that to be at least the case this year. People are very tuned into the November general election carry a lot about it. People are far less tuned into our August statewide primary way less about it. It's just the truth. So, when you think about the effectiveness, how, how it's going to help you to mail a ballot and put it under the nose of every voter with a return envelope back to the clerk. We have a much more significant impact on the number of that the polls in November than it would have August the 20 to 25% of the Vermonters who typically participate in August are the type of engaged voters that will request the ballot. Especially prompted with the postcard, the electorate in November are not the same kind of engaged voters are more likely to one miss that postcard or not not be as likely to take the two step process of requesting getting it mailed to them and mailing it back. The basic point though is that when you expect so much more traffic at the polls in November, you take additional steps to reduce that traffic even more than you would in August. And there's a couple of of practical reasons why to the cleaning up of the mailing list through the postcard, as I said this summer so that the, the mailing if we were to mail it in for all voters in August in June, there wouldn't be that opportunity to do the address cleanup beforehand and we get a lot more back. So I'd like to make sure that for the August primary you're mailing three ballots to every voter, and you've got to have two unvoted returned and one voted returned in the subject flow courts defective. So it's a much more detailed process also in August to that doesn't lend itself as much to sending all three of those ballots to every registered voter. It's a primary. It's a nominating process, you're not electing anybody to office. The sort of choice that people are put up against is less significant in August than November in terms of their, their exercise of their right to vote, and that's born out by the different levels and turnout and the two elections. I just add one thing to that that I think that one of the reasons people are more interested and more people vote in November than in August is because that is really a party function, the August election is the parties, figuring out what the nominee is going to be. And many, many, many people in Vermont consider themselves independence and don't, don't take part in what they consider a party function so I think that there's a huge difference there between the two elections. I think we'll covered it well and Senator White as well. The only other point that I would raise is that if we go to a ballot by request system in November with an unexpectedly huge turnout will have a lot of requests and those are all going to fall onto the town clerks. And we'll be able to handle that very well but others may very well be overwhelmed by such a large number of absentee ballot requests and processing. Representative Leclerc has a question. Thank you Madam Chair. And Chris have both said that there's things that that have to be done immediately. And I know we'll ticked off a few things but I'm just curious. Could you be a little more specific about the things that have to be done say by the end of this month. Are we talking about curing vendors and pre paying for their their supplies. What, what's causing it the sense of urgency, because like Jeanette had said it seems like there's was a lot of questions are going to have to be answered as we go it seems a little bit like building an airplane as we're flying it, but what's I got everything up to building an airplane and while we're at it. I'll answer that. Right representative Claire it. I will try to be clear I mean the main things are stock appropriate stock for envelopes and ballots and vendor contracting for the statewide mailing in September. But again, why, why wait. But when you emphasize the end of the month. If we waited until the end of May to make that decision to get a contract and make sure that we had the mailing house contract and the printing. All the materials, and that's a little late is it not. I mean, aren't you talking about have that some states have already signed their contract and put in their request. Yes, that's too late already there are there are vendors who have told me that they have no more capacity for certain kinds of these services, you need to get in line now. There's a really crazy situation out there, the election vendor community is really small. And they're, they're stretched to their capacity right now to handle this crisis. But I tried, you know, actually it was replica error who raised this question I think last time we were talking that I'm also really making an effort for a couple reasons to keep the vendors the vendors local on this process as much as one, because I just think that's a good idea and two because they have a more intimate knowledge of our process here so I'm actually trying to work with some of the existing folks who print ballots for us to also perform the mailing services. And of course that makes it more seamless you don't have to have somebody print the ballots and then mail them across the country but another person who puts them all together and sends them back to every voter. So, it's arranging all of those relationships, getting all of the supplies in order, and getting the, the ability to put it all together in September together which is your mailing house vendor or vendors. Senator Bray has a question. Thanks for Will and Chris or I know we all have shared goals around having a well managed well run secure election, and I'd hate to think that logistics would jeopardize that a little bit. I'm just curious as to whether or not you've been given any kind of date certain by which you will receive a reply from the administration, in terms of signing off on the proposal you have. I could take that will. We have not. We, we've been talking to them all along about trying to make a decision by the end of the month by the end of the month of April. We've been requesting sit down between the Secretary of State and the governor and we understand he's very busy and that hasn't happened yet. We would hope to have a decision right after that. I think wills of the opinion we need to do this as soon as possible we need an agreement we need a directive. We need to move forward next week at the latest. One other thing that I'll that I'll bring up is that through this process, the governor's team has suggested that maybe we need to come back to the legislature for further approval in the form of a bill or a resolution for whatever action we take. Just let, let the committees know that we vehemently oppose that we think you've already given us the authority to do what we're proposing now, which is vote by mail vote by mail is explicitly listed as one of the options in act 92. And we don't want to slow this process down anymore so we've been very much opposed to no offense opposed to bringing anything back to the legislature we think you've already done a good job in putting the necessary procedure and power in place for us to make a decision and get moving. So I just wanted you to be aware of that. Well, can I just say the, I know that, you know, when we discussed the language, it was in consultation with was the original language, and then it was amended to an agreement with, in order to broadcast an even stronger commitment to bipartisanship and comedy. But I, I think that was also based on the notion that we would have a timely response so if you know I'm wondering if the two committee chairs for instance may not want to say something officially on behalf of a sense on the part of these two committees that we're aware of there being pressure on the Secretary of State's office to run the election well, which again I'd say I come back we all agree to that. And maybe it's not as higher priority as we would all hope as government operations folks on the administration's to do list at the moment. Senator Clarkson. I was going to say exactly the same thing I was going to say maybe it. Maybe it's time for Sarah and Jeanette to write a letter on behalf and support our support for our own, our own action and, and moving ahead in a timely fashion and underscoring what we've already done. Thank you. Representative Harrison has his hand up. Okay. Yeah, I'm obviously a committee chairs can do what they like I'm just uncomfortable getting in the middle of those conversations with the governor and Secretary of State. I think they're both reasonable people and they will do what's best for Vermont. There will be some disagreement over when you need to pull different triggers between now and November. And I think will is very smart to have a plan ready in place, couldn't we end up printing some ballots that we don't end up sending out. So be it. But I think the August primary we're going to learn a lot about the new process I think we're going to help clean up our voter checklist and I think he's very smart in the way he's outlined that. Whether we send ballots to everyone in September right now. We could certainly make plans to get them printed. But, you know, we could say postage if we don't send them and don't need them so I'm just, I'm not comfortable sending a letter. But again, we're all individuals so the committee chairs choose to do it. They certainly can. If I can throw up as a chair one of the chairs here I think that the and I think representative Harrison you just put your finger on it the decision needs to be made about the printing and the mailing house contract if in November, we find that they have figured out a vaccine and a cure and everything else and we don't need to do this then we probably don't need to do it. But if we come to September and we don't have any ballots printed. We're up the proverbial Creek. I think the decision is whether we go ahead now and get them print. I understand it will that we go ahead now, assuming that we're going to have that we're going to do it that way in November and get them printed and get some kind of a contract. Am I wrong. I think it would be a very unwise. I think we're going to have to wait until the end of the summer to decide to mail out every voter and let me tell you, if we do so, I won't be able to do it through a mailing house. You will be asking the clerks to send the ballot every voter at that point. And the other day you need to have a contract for both the printing and the mailing out and do a lot of legwork over the next three months, making sure that process is is press that is a very precise process. You need to have 275 different ballot styles and 246 different return addresses. Each voter needs a particular ballot style one of those 275 and a particular return address voters with the same return address to the clerk have the same ballot style. Towns and cities that are split by districts and so people in the same town or city vote on a different ballot. It's a massive coordination to make sure that you get it's 246 different runs of envelopes and I put it's a massive data that needs significant preparation over the summer. The other way you can do it is to just what you're talking about I print enough ballots and envelopes to account for it. And we at some point tell the clerks that okay you're going to send three weeks. That's every registered voter. Forget it forget I ever said that. The only other piece of this that I would that I would add is the sooner we can make a decision on which direction we are going in August and November the sooner we can start getting the word out, we can start educating. What to expect so that we don't have any confusion come August and November. All those other issues like whether there will be drop boxes and whether they'll be polling places and what the rules will be for the polling places and all of that doesn't have to be done. Next week that that is information that you will keep working on until the with the town clerks until the election. Is that right. Okay, and a lot of ways to me those are more sort of upsetting decisions to the process I have a hard. We're not, we're not proposing any real deviation from the norm, except sending a ballot everybody and putting it under their nose. They're going to return it in the same way it's going to be processed by the clerks in the same way. It's to me it's sort of not a, I shouldn't say that but it's not a hard decision to make, because all you're doing is sending a ballot everybody. You're not forcing everybody to vote it you're just trying to take what is proven to be the best step that you can take to have people return and vote their ballots by mail which I think is what we all want we want to reduce traffic at the polling places. So that's my interest. We're, we're, we've been asked what the best way to do that is, and this is my strong feeling that that's the best way to do it. And we can really only practically carry it out if we make the decision now. And certainly we can only do it well by making the decision now. Thank you well representative Hooper has a question. This is probably an inappropriate statement. I think contrary to what Jim said we already have stuck ourselves in the middle of it by taking the exclusive power away from the person that's responsible for elections and dividing it. The question kind of is, if we go ahead with printing and everything else up to the point. Does it come off that way do we run jeopardy of being stuck with the cost for all this stuff from the money that has come in specifically for that or is it big latitude on where we can spend it on and not use it. Well we would be stuck to pay any cost that we contracted for and incurred that's for sure. I can't. You said there was going to be, you know, we'd be able to use the federal money for this and if we spend the money but don't use it for the intended purpose do they, do we then get stuck with it. If we print 630,000 ballots or whatever. You know that's a good point and that's probably the case. I think that's a big issue I think in a time when we're scraping. And it should be a big issue for the governor to I certainly support the chairs going forward with a. Hey let's get this moving idea. Thank you. I don't see anybody else. Do you Sarah. Harrison and Hoover both still have an Anthony I see to but Center. Who did you see. Okay, great. This will be brief I just I also want to encourage you to write a letter to the governor and it's not as if we're sticking our nose and saying this is how we wanted to happen the letter first of the letter simply to say we need you to agree to something as soon as possible. I'm not trying to dictate what that would be, but just making it clear that we need an agreement as soon as possible and I think that could be a pretty simple letter just expressing our concerns that there are decisions that have to be made regardless of what they are. Senator Coloma. So, I'm going to agree with the representative Harrison, probably not a big surprise. I, when we started the discussion today will made it clear that these were just proposals that no decision had yet been made. And I supported what we passed two or three weeks back, because I felt that there was a give and take situation with your office will and the administration. So I think by pushing this letter, and that's fine if that's what people want to do, you are in essence asking the governor to agree to the two proposals. I see the two elections as being very different. I'm not as much concerned about the primary election in terms of whatever people might think mischief could occur or could not occur. There's more on the general election so if, if the administration would agree to your proposal will for the August cycle, it might allow at least a little bit more time to come back and figure out how we want to approach the November election. Chris wants to feel that one or not. Now, just one point I would make Senator colors there. There would be no action needed for what I'm proposing for August. I, I thought that part of the reason for having to make the decision quickly was for the November election because that's when we need to have the contract for the with the mailing houses and the printers. We don't need to have do that for the August election because that isn't going to be that much different than it has in the past. So you're going to print. I don't know how many ballots you print for that but you're going to do it the same way you always do. Is it am I wrong. As a matter of law, yeah, right, we might order a little more but that's we don't need a directive to say what quantity of envelopes and ballots we can work. If we know here what if there is. If it's just a matter of that the. First of all, I think that people who aren't involved in elections had don't really understand the, the work that it takes upfront before an election to make sure the election is done and when you need to make decisions and it's like, Bray Senator Bray is always fond of saying it's like the airplane on the tarmac you there's a, there's a point at which you need to decide you're going to leave and go up. And I think that for people who aren't involved in elections, they would be stunned to know that the point that you have to make that decision is so much earlier than the election itself. So I guess my question is just, is it, is it a question of difference of opinion or just not just the fact that the governor and his staff are so busy dealing with when people should when things should reopen and the UI and all of that stuff that this seems so far away that I mean, is there, do you sense that there's actual disagreement or that it's just that it hasn't risen to that priority yet. Yeah, this is, this is Chris Winters. I'd say we don't know. I think what we really need is for the Secretary of State and the governor to have a conversation. And that's why we've been asking about that we've spent a long time. And a lot of time talking about all the details and all the intricacies of trying to get a vote by mail election off the ground so a lot of our meetings with staff we've been meeting with the governor's team one or two times a week for the last, I don't know month now. And so we've taken a lot of time to bring folks up to speed on the ins and outs of elections, which is there's a lot to it. And, you know, will is the one to do that. And he's done a great job with that but it comes to a point where I think the secretary needs to sit with the governor and get this final decision made. And, like I said, we've had a really great experience with the governor's team they are working so hard on so many things we appreciate that their time is valuable. And we just hope that if the secretary and the governor can get in the room together. They can figure this out and we can get a decision. Actually not in a room together in a virtual room I should say. Well, I appreciate the time that that you have spent with us today helping us understand all of the planning that's going into preparations for August and November. And, you know, I can't help but think that if we had known four or five months ago that our Department of Labor was going to get the kind of traffic it's gotten over the past six weeks. We might have been more urgently preparing for that and so I appreciate that the Secretary of State's office is working diligently to make sure that they are preparing for a different way of executing elections, given that it's not safe at this moment to to count on in person voting so thank you for for doing this lead work and I certainly hope that this comes to a quick resolution so that you can move forward with making the preparations you need to make. Thank you Madam Chair we really appreciate that we've been working with you know the simple goal of making sure no one has to choose between their health and safety and their right to vote we don't want to disenfranchise anybody we want to make everybody comfortable with voting in August and November and based on all the information that will has gathered we really believe that this is the path forward this is the way to ensure that the most people get to vote aren't afraid to vote and we also protect the poll workers and the folks who visit the places. I noticed that Secretary condos has joined the meeting. Okay I'm going to have if we give him a few minutes and then I think your Senate gov ops committee is going to you have another meeting right so are you going to keep on on this one and we'll just leave and go off on our all Senate meeting. Is that the way you want to do this. Sarah. We have a separate zoom meeting set up for us to jump on to as soon as we're done here. The meeting is set to start in three minutes. Okay, we certainly want to stay and finish this year with you and then we'll all peel off and go do our meeting. And then I would suggest to our committee that we don't really have time to, if we're, do we want to join the all Senate caucus and put off until next week the municipal boards because we don't have time to do both. We can't do justice. I think we should go and do the all Senate. Okay. So let's, let's let Senator, Senator, Secretary condos, if you have a word with us and then, and then we'll leap off into our different meetings. Are you there. I don't think he was hearing us. Hey, here. Oh God. So we're leaving you in about three minutes here did you have something you wanted to share with us. Can you hear me. Yeah. Yes. All right, there's, there's, there's some kind of overlapping going on. Yeah, I'm here. I'm here. Good. Well, if you have something you want to share with us, you better do it because we're all leaving in about two minutes and a half minutes. All right, so, so the issue here, the issue here. Everything's delayed. Something's going on. You have your live stream going at the same time. Do you? I think I think you are the one that is causing the overlap and the delay. We aren't sure why. Okay. How about that? Is that better? Yeah, much better. All right. Let me see where I am here. You don't need to see yourself. Okay. In any case, the, the, the issue I think that, that we're missing is as will said, we have to make a decision. We really have to make a decision next week. The governor's team was suggesting that we come back to the legislature to get approval of this concept before it goes back to the governor. You said you already did that that 92 was about was, was to do that. And we don't need to go back to the legislature because to try to get a resolution or another bill out of the legislature is probably several weeks before we can do that. So in any case, I think, the idea of the letter was to perhaps send a letter saying, we've already debated this issue. This was part of the concept was that we might go this direction and then have just send a letter to the governor's team so that they understand that this was contemplated by the legislature. And we really need to get get moving on this because we don't have a lot of time. And if we were to try to do to drive down the numbers of people in person in November by doing again another ballot request card. The process will fall onto the office and to put it bluntly, I think they would probably riot. I don't think that they would be ready to deal with that many ballot requests. I think that's the whole idea of their offices that I and that's the whole idea at this way is is to try to get this contracts in place to get data driven stuff that has to be done completed so that we can complete the work that we need to do. If we wait until after the primary decisions. It's too late. This whole process will fall to the clerks. And I don't think they're going to be very. So in any case, you know, I, we're here to just kind of give you guys an update. And that's our goal is to give you an update. And just let you know, and if you if you decide you want to send a letter to the governor, it's not interfering it's just saying to them that you don't need to do take any further action at the legislative level. And I think that we did talk about that a little bit earlier. There didn't seem to be any disagreement about that. So I'm going to, since you guys are past your start time, and we are also I'm going to apologize to Carol Doss who has been on this call listening to us and to Tucker and to Gwynne who thought that we were going to be actually dealing with one of the issues, I think of their BCA appeals and other quasi judicial municipal boards and I really apologize to you but we did not know we were going to have this to 30 meeting. So we will schedule it again. For early next week. My apologies. Thank you to the secretary state's office for making time today and welcome house government operations members to peel off of this meeting and check your legislative email for the invite for the to 15 meeting that we are past time for so Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us and us joining you.