 Good morning. You are with the Vermont House Government Operations Committee. We are gathering this morning to consider S348, an act relating to temporary elections procedures in the year 2020. This is maybe our second lap on this issue. And so we will try to dive right into hearing thoughts from a bunch of witnesses. But before we do that, I think I will go to Betsy Ann and Betsy Ann ask you to take us on a jog through this relatively straightforward bill. Sounds good. Good morning, everybody. Betsy Ann Rask, Legislative Counsel, walking through with you S348 as passed by Senate. Thanks to Andrea for posting this. There are two parts of this bill. The bill is introduced would do what you see on the first page. And as passed, the Senate would do this also. The first part of this bill would amend your 2020 acts and resolves number 92 that had that was the first GovOps COVID related bill. And specifically section three, which has been in regard to the Secretary of State being authorized in consultation in agreement with the governor to order or permit appropriate elections procedures. And then it provided a non exhaustive list of what those temporary elections procedures could be to address COVID. And the Senate, then the bill is introduced, struck the requirement for the Secretary of State to obtain the agreement of the governor. So that's why that language on page one and subsection a would strike and agreement maintaining the requirement for the Secretary of State to consult with the governor in ordering or permitting these temporary elections procedures. On the floor of the Senate, there was an amendment that was proposed and that amendment had three different parts, three instances of amendment. They were all pretty much related, but the Senate considered them in separate instances of amendment one, two and three. Just as an FYI, the first instance of amendment would have struck the requirement for the Secretary of State to consult with the governor also. That amendment failed. So you'll see consultation is still required. The second instance of amendment is what the Senate did adopt and that is on page two to add this subsection C. This language provides that if the Secretary of State orders or permits the mailing of 2020 general election ballots to all registered voters pursuant to that subsection A authority, the governor or the Secretary of State would need to do two things. First, inform the governor as soon as reasonably practicable following the Secretary's decision to mail out those ballots. And I read or I understood C1 to somewhat be related to that first instance amendment that would have struck the consultation. So in lieu of consultation, there would just be an informing of the governor. But this C1, the Senate did adopt. And in addition, as part of the second instance of amendment, there's also this language here in C2 that reads that if the Secretary orders or permits the mailing of 2020 general election ballots to all registered voters, the Secretary would be required to require the return of those ballots to be in the manner prescribed by 17 VSA 2543, which is in regard to the return of early voter absentee ballots, quote, as set forth and sec one of this act, the provisions of which shall reply to that return. Well, there you'll see there is no sec one a sec one a was in the third instance of amendment. So that third instance of amendment failed. The third instance of amendment would have added sec a to amend 17 VSA 2543, which is in regard to the return of early voter absentee ballots. And in that 2543, the language provides how early voter absentee ballots needed to be returned. The third instance of amendment would have amended that statutory law to put parameters on who could return those ballots. And just as an FYI, the who would be the voter himself or herself, the justices of the piece that delivered the ballot if applicable, or an authorized family member or authorized caregiver, and then provided penalties for someone who was not authorized and returned a ballot without the voters authorization. But that sec one a failed. So we are left with this language referring to a sec one a that isn't in there now. But with this language at a minimum, if if this language were to pass as is, and the Secretary of State does decide to order or permit the mailing of 2020 general election ballots, the Secretary of State would need to inform the governor as soon as reasonably practical, following the Secretary's decision to do so. Still effective on passage. Warren has a question. Warren, go ahead and unmute yourself. I have more comment than a question really, but I was glad to see that they have amended that to remove the end agreement language. I hope you remember that I spoke against that a while back because it just shifted the responsibility. The Secretary of State's office has always had the exclusive responsibility to set election rules. And by allowing the governor in into that mix by allowing by requiring the Secretary of State to get agreement from the governor, that just gives the governor veto power over whatever the Secretary of State was proposing to do. And I thought that was that was a serious mistake. And as it's playing out the governor was refusing to go along with what the Secretary of State wanted to do. So I'm glad to see that they removed that. But this this has always been the Secretary of State's exclusive responsibility. And I think it should remain that way. We have we have capable people in both the administration and the Secretary of State's office and it shouldn't have to be joint between them. It should be just it's been the Secretary of State. It should always stay that way. That's my comment. So I hope we agree with that new language. That's my phone. Thank you. Thanks, Warren. John Gannon. Thank you. That's Ian. Going down to the language in C2. I have two questions. My first question is when when 17 VSA 2543 apply no matter what? So you should hear from the Secretary of State's office. I would think that 2543 would apply or at least it would be the baseline to operate from because if the Secretary of State does bail out 2020 general election ballots, those would seem to be an early voter absentee ballot. And so that statute would seem to apply. But the Secretary of State also has the authority to order or permit temporary elections procedures. So unless the General Assembly explicitly requires 2543 to apply, then I would read the Secretary's authority under subsection A to be able to deviate from 2543 if the Secretary of State thought it necessary to conform with the temporary elections procedures that the Secretary orders. Okay. Thanks. And my second question is with respect to a set forth in section 1A, do we need to clean that up? I would recommend it be cleaned up. This is your call, but there is no set 1A and I can see how the language would cause confusion. I read it as 2517 VSA 2543 as it would have been amended in sec 1A. But that didn't happen because there is no sec 1A. So I do think this reference to sec 1A that really doesn't have any meaning from a drafting perspective, it causes confusion. And so that would be nice if it could be clarified, but that's up to you. Okay. Thank you. Jim Harrison. Thank you. That's Ian. First, more of a comment and reference to my friend from the Secretary of State's office does not write election law. The election law is written by I mean we pass laws governing elections. The Secretary of State's office administers elections. We're taking a quite a leap here, which is why I supported putting in the governor language before. Having said that, this is a question for Betsy Ann. Do we need in consultation? They've already consulted. They've already done that. They've gone back and forth, couldn't reach agreement. Do we even need in consultation at this point in time? I mean, why don't we just make it cleaner if that's the direction we're going to go? I think that's a policy decision for you to make. The Senate had that same conversation about whether to remove that. The Senate GovOps committee in introducing this bill agreed to maintain the consultation requirement. Okay. And then the other question just to follow up from the member from Wilmington. I'm confused if we leave Section 1A in there and we don't add anything further or even if we leave it there, would a reasonable interpretation that existing law would hold in that ballots can be returned by any person or does the Secretary of State have the ability to change that? Are you asking me or? Yes, I'm sorry. Yes. So remember the overall authority in subsection A is the ability of, as it's currently written, the Secretary of State to order or permit appropriate elections procedures. It's a general authority and so if the Secretary of State decides to mail out 2020 general election ballots, I read that general authority in subsection A, including the authority to order how those ballots would be returned. Okay. And would they have to do that by rule or regulation or can they do it by putting a notice on the envelope? So it's the order authority that said general assembly did not require this to be by rule. It's the Secretary of State order. It's not the same as but I would liken it to some of the governor's executive orders during this COVID emergency situation. It's not done by rule but the governor has authority by laws enacted by the general assembly to issue these orders that the governor has been making during this emergency time. And so I would liken this Secretary of State authority to that authority. It's the general assembly saying that the Secretary of State may order these without the rulemaking process being necessary in order to address the elections due to COVID in this emergency situation. All right. You are muted again. I guess that's your last question. So, Rob LeClaire has a question. Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess it's kind of a question kind of statement to follow up from my left-leaning committee member from Montpelier's comment. If the governor is going to be taken out of this Senate, I think he should be taken out of it totally. I agree that the Secretary of State is the primary election officer here. And to keep this much simpler and much cleaner, my feeling is I'd like to see us take the governor out of it totally. No consultation does even have to be informed about it. Why if he isn't going to be able to have any input into it and why have any role to play at all? Thank you, Madam Chair. Absolutely. Anybody else have questions? Mike Marwicky. Thank you, Madam Chair. You know, there's been a lot of conjecture about what the governor wants and what he doesn't want. And, you know, this committee helped put this clause in there so the governor could be consulted, even though I'm not sure they asked for it. And it seems to me that the governor has said he doesn't want to be part of this. I'm not sure what I'm I'm not sure of anything about this right now. And my suggestion is we call the governor to testify himself so we can hear exactly what he wants in this instance. That's a valid point. I will take your point. I'm not sure that we're going to get him on the horn this morning, but we have the Secretary of State, so that's going to be the next best thing. So I am going to throw it over to you, Jim, and invite you to share with us your thoughts on S348 and then we'll go on from there. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair and committee members. I do want to thank you all for taking this up today. And I apologize for my being brief, but I do have another meeting that has been long scheduled in a few minutes. But let me be very clear. It is our hope that this remains a clean bill. And in fact, we would ask that you just concur with the Senate because time is of the essence. The bill is really about one thing, just removing the governor from from the decision making process. The governor has stated to me personally, and he's also stated it in several of his press press conferences, that he's not philosophically opposed to vote by mail. He defers to me and my team as experts in elections. He does not believe the voter fraud narrative. He, Dr. Levine and Dr. Fauci have stated we need to expect a surge of the virus in the fall. He even stated that the governor has even stated that even in August, when he wants to make this decision, they'll not be able to predict what's going to happen in September, October. Our problem at the elections office is that if this were to happen at the end of September or mid-October, we're up a creek without a paddle. And it's going to be really be a problem of disenfranchising of voters. He further said, and he has said this publicly that he didn't ask to be put in this position. He didn't want to be put in this position and that he does not stand in the way of the legislature if they remove them. So let's go back to a little bit of the background. When the emergency COVID bill started back in March, it was to provide authority for me as Secretary of State Vermont's chief election officer, the flexibility to move quickly while this virus was in play. A member of this committee, as you know, offered an amendment and we agreed to it in the interest of expediency. We were trying to get this through before any kind of shutdown that may have occurred. At the time, you will remember it wasn't sure how the legislature was going to continue going forward. However, to put it simply, the governor and I have had discussions, his team and my team and myself and the governor for about eight weeks now, with no resolution. He agrees with almost everything we've proposed, but he does not want to pull the trigger until after the August primary. He has asked us to go ahead and start putting all the infrastructure in place and do the things we need to do, which will between now and then cost us approximately a million to a million and a half dollars. And then he said we can decide at that time. My problem is we can't wait. We have to move forward. And my real concern is if we spend a million to a million and a half dollars, even though it's federal dollars, that we would still be subject to a federal audit and that money could be clawed back by the feds. So what's this about protecting our democracy through our elections? The COVID-19 health crisis has challenged many aspects of our society and our lives, from our Main Street businesses to our healthcare facilities to our homes. Vermont elections are not immune. Personally, I love going to the polling place on election day. Seeing friends, family members and neighbors all doing our civic duty by voting is something that's truly special to me. And I know many of us share a great deal of pride and enjoyment in that process. As Vermont's chief election official and entrusted guardian of that process, I am responsible for making sure our fair and free elections can be conducted safely, despite the presence of a highly contagious virus disrupting our normal everyday activities. As a state in the country, we are facing a lot of uncertainty when it comes to the weeks and months ahead. The medical experts, including Dr. Fauci and Dr. Levine here in Vermont have said there's no way to predict with certainty the status of the virus in the fall. Many are anticipating that second surge, as I said earlier, although we are unsure what the extent will be. Fair and free elections are the very foundation of our democracy. The right to vote is not only a sacred right, it is a right enshrined in both our Vermont and U.S. constitutions, guaranteeing that right to every American citizen. So to end, I will just say that preserving our right to vote while protecting the health of every Vermont voter, town clerk, and poll worker at the polls is my number one priority. Thank you. And I will let Chris and Will follow up with questions about process and details. As we go. So I think that's all I have to say. Secretary Condos, Jim Harrison has his hand up. Do you have time to stick around for a question? All right, go ahead, Jim. Mr. Secretary, thank you for joining us this morning. It was also a pleasure talking to you yesterday. Can you share with us what the plan is via assuming we give you this authority to adopt directives on election law this fall? What your directive will say about return of ballots. Right now, as you know, under existing law, basically ballots can come back by any means possible. Do you envision changing that? And if so, how will you change it? So the plan, first of all, let me be clear about what the plan is. The plan is for the primary, we are not going to make any changes to the process of the elections. The only thing we are doing in addition is to mail out a postcard, prepaid postcard to every active registered voter as to whether they want a mail in ballot, a direct mail ballot for the primary. That's by design. It also helps us clean up our checklist even more so. And I do want to state very clearly at this point, Representative Harrison, that our voter checklist today, because there's been a lot of stuff out there, a lot of rhetoric in the press from individuals, our voter checklist today is far more accurate than it was yesterday, the day before that, and the day before that. We instituted or implemented a new voter checklist system in 2015, which was state of the art. We did a tremendous amount of cleanup of the checklist at that time, working with the town clerks. And now for three years, we've had the automatic voter registration where we get an upload from DMV every night, and that helps us maintain correct addresses and make changes as needed. So our checklist is in much better shape. Now, going forward into the general election, there's only one aspect of the general election process that we envision changing at this time. And that is the direct mail of a ballot to every active registered voter. That is it. Everything else about the process will be the same. And we will perhaps have minor details involved in that. As we put this thing together, we haven't got the final effort written down as far as what we plan to do. But there is a lot that has to be done between now and in August as we prepare for this. So the answer to your question is, I am certainly willing to look at adding to the directive language about the return of ballots. But I don't really see the need right now for that. Although I do think that I can certainly, I would be consulting with a governor anyway, whatever we decide to do, we're going to send it to the governor to let him know. But you know, you're asking about an underlying change. And I think that it's not a good idea to have this debate in a very short amount of time going forward. We've had that law in place for years, the current law. We've never had a problem under the current law. There are aspects of the law as far as influencing voters, impersonating another voter, all these things. You sign the envelope under penalty of perjury. There's a lot of things in place already. And what you're asking me is whether we're willing to basically do a double whammy on the voter. So if I could pick up on that, and I understand that you haven't reached agreement totally with the governor. But I'm looking at a memo under your name that I assume was an outline of what the directive was going to say for the 2020 elections. And it says in here, for the primary election on August 11th and the November general election on November 3rd, all early absentee ballots must be returned to the clerk of the town or city in which the voter is registered to vote by either the voter or an immediate family member. Are you backtracking from that language that is written in this memo? Are you referring to a memo I sent to the governor? Yes. Okay. So in a sense, I'm not really backtracking, but that was an immediate, an initial attempt to have a discussion with the governor about a directive. And after we sent that over to him in our office, we realized that that was too restrictive and would not allow people to be able to get their ballots back. The question here, we are planning to pay the postage, the return postage for every ballot that we send out. So we do not believe that there will be a whole lot of this to happen. We're also going to provide the towns with lockboxes so that they can have a dropbox so that people can return their ballots if they want to bring it right to the town clerk's office. There will be ample opportunities for people to get those back. We do not see this as an issue. However, we will probably issue some kind of restrictive language, but it won't be overly restrictive. There are many cases out there, Representative Harrison. We had a situation where someone whose neighbor is an elderly person and stays home, they are not a caregiver. They do not provide care. All they do is they look in on their neighbor once in a while and they assist in taking their ballot back to the town clerk. Once the town, once the voter has filled out their ballot, put it in that envelope, sealed that envelope, signed that envelope, so there's not really a problem going forward. I disagree on that because you can be selective in that, but that may be an argument for another day. I appreciate your candidness, Secretary, and I would love to work with you on tightening this up, but I guess I'm disappointed that you're backing away from an earlier proposal. I understand maybe it was part of discussion, but I also saw a similar comment in a Digger article last week where it sort of suggested that, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, that you were okay with the tightening of the return similar to language that's in the memo that I'm looking at. So here's the point I guess I would make. First of all, as I said earlier, Representative Harrison, this underlying law has been in place for decades, and we've never had a problem. We've never seen a problem, and I understand, I guess I would ask you, what is the concern? Because we are not seeing that concern. We are not seeing anything happen. You have laws in place for speeding on the highway, yet people still do. I understand that, but we don't put in governors into every car to limit them to a certain speed. So I guess I'm not really understanding exactly what you're getting at, because we've never seen a problem. Are you suggesting that there will be a problem this year? God, I hope not, and I'm not suggesting there will necessarily be a problem. However, we are making a fundamental shift in the way we conduct elections if we go to all mail balloting, and I think it's reasonable for this one time to have some bumper guards on who can return ballots. Normally, when we do early balloting, and I've done early voting myself, that oftentimes it's going down to the town clerk's office asking for an early ballot and filling it out right then and there because you're going to be away on election day. And others that you mail, the clerk knows who they're mailed to, can flag the return, but oftentimes when someone requests a mail ballot, they turn it around way to way. Again, for a variety of personal reasons, they're going on a trip, they're having surgery, whatever. Vermont has a very open early voting system, but it's something that you have to request. So given that we're going to an all new system with mailing a ballot to those who don't request them, I think it's reasonable to require some bumper guards. And the language that we're talking about is very typical to language that is in a number of other states, if not most other states. So Representative Harrison, I guess I would just continue to add that it's already illegal to commit fraud as a voter. It's already illegal to influence another voter. It's already illegal to essentially get in the way and obstruct a voter. So I guess I don't know why we would need, at least from my standpoint, even if you pass this as Betsy Ann has already explained, I could still change it. So I'm not sure that it's necessary to do that at this time. I do think, and I will say this to you right now, I do think that this section of the law, we could take a look at it. But I think this is an improper time to do that, because we do not have an issue going forward. Now, having said that, I will, I noticed that one of the town clerks is on this call. And I think Carol Dawes is there. So perhaps she can explain a little bit more about the return of ballots and the concerns, and maybe alleviate some of your concerns, since she comes from one of the larger cities in the state. But in any case, I just think that it's not necessary to do at this time. And I do want to correct one thing you said, you said all mail balloting, all mail voting, this is not necessary. We're not going to a universal system that requires you to mail it back. We are going to a system where we will mail the ballot out to every active registered voter. But the voter has the option of mailing it back, has the option of walking it into their town clerk's office, has the option of walking into the polling location with their ballot. Or if they haven't voted on that ballot that was mailed to them, they can walk into the polling place and vote at the polling place. The only aspect of the voting process for November that we're proposing, the only aspect is that we will mail the ballot directly to every voter. And it's in a secure way. We will know, we have identifying marks on the envelope, the certificate envelope coming back. We will know you sign that envelope under penalty of perjury. And I just think that we're arguing about something that's not necessary. Yeah, no, I appreciate that, Mr. Secretary. However, harvesting of ballots, even though they're sealed signed, and there's nothing wrong with the ballot themselves, open up to potential issues with harvesting. We all know people in our neighborhoods that are not going to vote for us regardless. So if I were so inclined, and I'm certainly not, I have never returned someone else's ballot. I would not that I know are not going to vote for me. So you can end up making phone calls to your supporters the night before the election one step further by actually trying to collect ballots. So I'm interested in putting something in place in this unique instance where everyone's going to get a ballot at home. And I didn't mean to apply that it's all mail voting, it's all mail ballots sending out. So I understand the difference. I'm interested in preventing any type of harvesting of ballots that might work to your favor. And I don't mean there's an interest group that's interested in certain candidates, but not others. Thank you. Rob LeClaire and then Mike Marwicky. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning, Mr. Secretary. As you know, we had an election in Berrytown very recently. A couple of questions I have for you. One is since the election, we've gotten 20 ballots back after the election. And I know at least 10 of them were postmarked before the election. The other 10 I don't know yet. I haven't confirmed that. But how do you anticipate us dealing with that with the mail in? Because as we all know, you can't rest assured that you can get a letter from Montpelier to Berry overnight. And I'm concerned about a lot of ballots not getting counted. And secondly, I agree with you. I'd like to give you as clean of a bill as we can give you. Would you have any concern about just taking the governor totally out of this equation whatsoever, any reference to him at all? Just remove it so that it's totally your call. So let me take the second one first. And I would say that no, I don't have any concern about that, except the only concern I have is that if to do that, that means you have to send it back to the Senate for their review again. And it just delays this process a little bit more. So let me just say that right there. We are looking into your first point. Yes, we are seriously considering right now, state law says that the ballot has to be received by 7 p.m. on election night. And that's what the law says. We are looking at the possibility and this would be part of our directive if we did it. And it's a serious consideration of extending the receipt of ballots to Friday, in other words, extending it by three days to allow for ballots that are postmarked on election day to be received and counted. Corresponding to that, we would have to extend the canvas from the Tuesday, seven days after the election, that in other words, the Tuesday after the election, we would have to extend that deadline to the Friday as well. So that we still maintain that seven day period for the town clerks to certify their elections and get that information to our office. Very good. Thank you, Jim. Mr. Secretary. Mike Merwicky. Can you hear me? Yes. Secretary, I'm not here to question you and I'm here. So if anyone else has questions for you, they should probably go ahead. But I'm ready to let you go. And we have a long list of witnesses we also want to hear from. Madam Chair, I'm cognizant that we do have a long list of witnesses we want to hear. And I want to hear all of them. So I just want to, I know we're on the floor at 11, as Zoom goes. But I hope that we can make the commitment to stick with this process all day long if we have to to hear all the questions and all the witnesses. Even though I'm ready to vote right now to concur with the Senate, I want the process to unfold. So I hope we can make that commitment that we will stay here all day and into the night if we have to, to hear all that needs to be, all those who want to be heard on this. Absolutely. This is, this is a priority for our, for the committee to work on. And we do have floor at 10 o'clock this morning. But I will ask leave of the speaker to be late to the floor of the house if need be so that we can finish hearing from all of our witnesses. I believe, Jim, that you said Deputy Secretary Winters would like to speak for a few moments. I think he would and will is there to assist him if there's any details of that need to be hashed out. I thanked it again. I want to thank the committee for their attention to this. This is really important to me but also to our elections team, which by the way is the smallest elections team in the country. But we also have very hard working town clerks whose main focus is the integrity of our elections and they should be commended as well. So thank you very much. I would also urge you, I know Carol Dawson's on. I'm not sure if she still is, but if she is, I would urge you to hear from her as a town clerk as well. Absolutely. That is our plan. Thank you. Chris, take it away. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. For the record, Chris Winters, Deputy Secretary of State. And if my internet lags here at all, I'm going to cut video. I'm competing with a fourth grade math class right now. I appreciate that the committee is hearing this issue again. I really want to thank you for your patience with us and for giving your valuable time to this issue and making it a priority. Building on what Secretary Kondo just said, and I will be brief here, our goal is to make certain every Vermonter has the ability to vote safely. And what is going to be a high turnout election this November? And you've heard many times before from me, from Secretary Kondo's, from Director Wilsonning and others. We have to plan for this now, even though the election is months away, and there's still a great deal of uncertainty around what the coming months are going to bring. And I hope that conversation keeps turning back to the health and safety of Vermonters because we do not have the luxury of waiting any longer for a decision. Our goal has always been to be as prepared as we can for the worst case scenario. The virus is still going to be with us in November. We don't know what form it will be in, but the experts are predicting a resurgence, and we need to listen to that. And we need to do right now what we can to allow Vermonters to safely exercise their right to vote. And the best and most effective way to do that, in our view, is to drive down in-person voting at polling places, to protect Vermonters, to protect election officials, and to protect poll workers. And we're seeing it play out before our eyes right now in other states. We're seeing some of these primary elections happening and the struggles that they're having with voting in person and voting by absentee ballot requests, the problems with getting those requests out, the problems with getting ballots back, as Representative Leclerc pointed out, our plan to mail every active registered voter a ballot in November would eliminate a lot of those problems. And it's a safeguard, it's an insurance policy. So the best way and most effective way to drive down polling place attendance is to put a ballot in front of every active registered voter and allow them to choose how they want to vote. They'll have the ability to vote in person if they want, to vote early, to drop off their ballots or to mail them in. Many, many Vermont voters already choose to vote by mail. 30% of Vermonters in the 2016 election either voted early or voted by mail. This is really nothing new. Several other states do this without a problem. So we need to stay focused on the real issues here, which I think is the health and safety of Vermonters and avoiding any disenfranchisement of people who might be afraid to come out and vote in person in November or shouldn't be coming out to vote in person in November if the health pandemic continues. But as we keep on saying, we need a clear path forward now, we can't stress enough how difficult it is to do this work without a clear directive. It's a really heavy lift. Will's sending us here and can talk to you about some of the mechanics of getting that done. It's a complicated endeavor and it's not like we can just flip a switch after the primary. So we thank you for passing Act 92 and giving us some time to try to reach an agreement with the governor and his team. We've really been trying hard to get the assurances we need, but that just has not materialized. Try as we might to make that happen. So at the end of the day, what we really need quite simply is clarity and certainty. And we still don't have that. So up until now, we've been hoping to get a decision from the administration to go ahead with the amount of assurance that we need. But the goalposts have shifted a few times and our latest proposal for a decision now with an off ramp decided by the governor and secretary of state in August was rejected. So if we can't get a clear path forward, then we need a plan and we really do need a plan to be prepared. We understand that you as a legislature would feel obligated to do something. And as secretary condo stated, the governor has in fact invited you to do just that and has said that he never asked to be involved and never wanted to be a part of this decision. So we need certainty as soon as possible before we make many more, too many more critical decisions, enter into more contracts or invest more resources. So we really do thank you for taking this up now. Will Sending is here and would be glad to answer your questions about the mechanics and what he's been able to put in place already and why acting right now is so important. He's been working nonstop on this to do what he can without a decision to get us ready for every eventuality we may face in the fall. So I'll stop there. I really appreciate the time with the committee and I'm looking forward to your questions and the testimony of the other folks that you have here today. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. Rob LeClaire has a question and I guess I just want to suggest that since we've been around this issue a few times let's try not to ask questions that we've already asked and had answered for us because we do have several other witnesses who I think can also inform this conversation in a new way. So Rob, go ahead. Okay. Thank you Madam Chair. I'll try to make it brief here. Good morning Mr. Deputy Secretary of State. I just want to clarify did I hear you say that you're planning to have the ability to vote in person in the November election as an option as well? Absolutely and that's something that I think has been getting missed in some of these conversations. This is not a mandatory vote by mail. There will still and always has been a plan to have in person voting available for especially for the people who don't for which voting by mail might not be an option for them. So I'm so you're doesn't that seem to make it even more confusing? It seems to me it should be one or the other because if you're going to send out ballots to everybody then why should they have to come in and vote in person especially if we're concerned about this COVID reassurgence doesn't it going to make it more confusing for the town clerks that somebody theoretically could vote twice because you're going to get one home by mail and then you still would have the option to go in and vote in person wouldn't you? Your vote is only checked off once on the checklist by the town clerk. So if you were to vote by mail and then show up at your polling place you'd already be checked off. We think there would actually be a certain amount of disenfranchisement and probably some lawsuits if we didn't at least make voting in person possible. If there's a resurgence in the fall we are going to be pushing like crazy for people to vote by mail and not come into the polling place to keep those numbers down to keep our voters and our election workers, our poll workers safe. But you know there will be some people who really are going to refuse to vote by mail maybe maybe they want to vote in person but our goal is to drive down those numbers at the polling places as much as possible and the best way to do that is to put a ballot on everybody's kitchen table. We'll have one more quick question maybe it's a comment but can you give me an example where the governor you're saying at least holding the process up and yes he hasn't agreed to the overall plan but has he objected or somehow interfered with you putting the process in place as far as ordering the materials and supplies and things that you need to and entering contract with the vendors. Has he done anything to delay any of that? There are some and will can speak to this but you know there are a number of things that we have been able to do and he has said go ahead and plan for it but we still have this decision looming over our heads. We've been unable to communicate clearly to the clerks and the public what the process is going to contract and as a vendor I might be a little bit spooked if if there's still a decision to come that might pull the rug out from under us. So we're doing everything that we can but having that uncertainty hanging over our heads and we just don't see the point of not making the decision now because the science and the data are not going to tell us anything different in August than it's telling us right now. So we need to put this insurance policy in place right now regardless of you know there's no point to us to wait another couple of months so having that uncertainty hang over our heads has really just been we feel like we're a bit hamstrung and we're a bit spinning our wheels but we'll can tell you what things we have been able to do but we really need to make a decision and and be able to to move ahead with certainty and with a clear path now. Very good. Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you Deputy Secretary of State. So Will if there is anything that's been said so far that you feel you urgently want to clarify at this point I would welcome you to jump in but but if not then I think we'll switch to Carol and and hear her perspective as someone who who administers elections on the local level. Nothing urgent Madam Chair and I'd love to hear from Carol. Thank you. Thanks for being with us because I'm sure we will have nuts and bolts questions that come your way but Carol Dawes since you are on the front line of voting in a number of different election cycles and also as a representative of the clerks why don't you give us your perspective on this plan to put a ballot in every Vermont's hand. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to speak. I've been following this. I listened to the Senate debates earlier in the week and one of the overarching points that I'd like to make is during that debate there was quite a bit of discussion about senators hearing both pros and cons from clerks and that's very true. There have been a lot of lively discussion amongst the clerks but the concerns that have been voiced have to do with process and have to do with how this is going to be rolled out and these are all questions that will be worked out with the Secretary of State's office. I personally haven't heard anything from the clerks that didn't support the the bill in front of you which just makes changes with regards to the governor's participation in the process. The body the legislature has already approved mailing ballots to all voters as one of the options that might be required for this year and I think that the clerks look forward to working with the Secretary of State's office on the process. This is as Chris Winters said this is not anything new. I view it as just an expansion of a situation that's already in place. Absentee balloting is already a well functioning process available to voters and I think of it as just an expansion of that. We will certainly still have voting in person. Representative Leclerc you talked about Barrie Town voting earlier this week and I think that that was a great example of how a strong vote by mail absentee voting can affect the number of people who come to the polls. If I recall it was while you had well over 1,000 people vote there was less than 200 that actually came to the to the drive-through polling that was set up and I think that by using by expanding the tool associated with absentee voting that we're giving ourselves as many options as possible as we move into the unknown of where things are going to be in the fall. Thank you Carol. Jim Harrison has a question. Yeah thank you Carol make this quick. You suggested that clerks move support legislation. Are you suggesting that all town clerks support the plan to go to all mail balloting? No I didn't I didn't suggest that. As I said there's been a fair amount of lively debate on the listservs and email and there are clerks who are not in support of it. There are clerks who are very much in support of it but the the discussions that have been had with regards to the all to mailing ballots out to all voters the concerns voiced have been mostly around the processes involved not about the whether it's appropriate or not to mail ballots to all voters. Most of it's been around the process and I think that those are details that that the clerks will work closely with the Secretary of State's office on making sure that that the right processes are put in place. Okay thank you. John Cannon. Thank you and thank you for testifying Carol. Just a couple quick well one comment as I think you said this is really just an expansion of an election system that has been in existence for several years and is it is your belief that most clerks are now very aware of what the Secretary of State's office is proposing and are starting to educate themselves about this? I certainly believe so there there has going back six eight weeks ago there was email out from the Secretary of State's office to all clerks keeping them up to speed as to what was being developed both for for August for for November and there has been some increased outreach both from the municipal clerk and Treasurer's Association and from the Secretary of State's office to clerks over the last 10 days or so which has provided even more information so I think there's been quite a bit of outreach to clerks and and I know they're also reading articles in the newspaper and reading digger and that has led to the discussion so I think there's been a lot of engagement with regards to clerks and and and they certainly have the the information available to them and are working on already working on problem solving for in in-person voting and and different aspects of it like that so so we're all geared towards the two elections still to come this year. Great thank you. All right any other questions for Carol? All right Carol I I very much appreciate your thoughts and and please stick with us in case we come up with other questions that would benefit the perspective of of a local elections administrator. We have a couple of different organizations with us today who would like to weigh in and so I'm going to go first to Greg Marshallden of AARP and I would love it if you would share AARP's perspective on mailing ballots. Thank you Madam Chair members of the committee and I'll be brief as well but AARP Vermont supports this legislation because the state does need to take action to assure that all registered voters can cast ballots safely this summer and fall. Here in Vermont voters over the age of 50 made up 63 percent of all voters in 2018 and 59 nationally so people over 65 show up the polls far more often than any other age group but also note that many of our poll workers many of the volunteers across the state are also retirees and over 65 as well however it is the same age demographic that is far more vulnerable to COVID-19 than younger ones and we know that COVID-19 is killing older people around this country at a much faster rate than it is other age cohorts. Our elders know this and they are rightfully reluctant to go anywhere where there might be large groups or close quarters. We need to protect Vermont's votes and election officials and volunteers through staff polling locations many of whom again are retirees. We also know that we are running out of time here to implement alternative means to cast it for people to be able to cast a vote such as voting from home and older Vermonters should not have to risk A their lives or B their health to exercise this very important right. ARP Vermont supports this committee and this legislation encourages the state to take these steps to send absentee ballots to all registered voters in Vermont. This would be especially again helpful for many of the older folks in the state but also specifically folks in long-term care facilities folks in rehab centers and folks that are quarantined due to the virus and again we're not sure what that will look like in the fall but by all predictions we're pretty sure it will be it will come roaring back. Thank you and I appreciate the opportunity to share ARP's perspective. Thank you Greg. Any questions from committee members? Great. Okay so I would like to ask Kate Lap next to please share her thoughts with us. Yeah thank you for the opportunity to join you this morning for the record. My name is Kate Lap and I'm the government reform associate at VEPERG the Vermont Public Interest Research Group. I'm here this morning to encourage you to pass as 348 as approved by the Vermont Senate. By now I'm sure you've seen our petition calling for three things. First mailing every voter a ballot. Second keeping safe in-person voting options available. And third expanding voter education and outreach. Today the petition has been signed by over 2,500 Vermonters and 14 organizations. VEPERG supports us 348 for the following 10 reasons. First safety the American Public Health Association and the Vermont Public Health Association recommend voting by mail as a way to limit crowding at polling locations and reduce the risk of exposing voters and election workers to COVID-19. Second convenience COVID-19 and the governor's stay home stay safe order are nothing if not an enormous inconvenience. Sending every registered voter their ballot is a small inconvenience the state should provide to people who are struggling. Third flexibility we simply don't know what the pandemic will look like in the fall and as 348 gives election officials and voters the options they want and need in November. Fourth participation even in this moment of crisis Vermont can still help more registered voters participate in our democracy and as 348 might increase turnout in this year's election. For example we've already talked a little bit about the Essex Westford school district vote. It held one of the first large-scale vote by mail elections in Vermont earlier this week. Participation in that vote climbed from 934 last year to 4968 this year that's an increase of over 500%. That level of democratic engagement is something to celebrate. Fifth this is tested millions of people already vote by mail in America and thousands in Vermont. The states of Washington, Oregon, Utah, Hawaii and Colorado all have universal vote by mail programs. Elections officials from both parties in those states attest to the wisdom and security of these programs and recommend other states follow their lead. Sixth predictability passing as 348 this month will allow election officials in the state and local levels time to educate voters about their new options. In that way everyone can know what to expect when it comes to voting in November. Seventh this is common sense the governor has amended rules and regulations to allow for the home delivery of beer wine and cocktails. If we can deliver these highly regulated substances we should be able to safely deliver paper ballots. Eighth vote by mail is recommended the non-partisan elections experts in the secretary of state's office and with the Vermont municipal clerks and treasurers association have recommended we do this transition to a vote by mail system. At a moment where we are taking the advice of experts on how to safely address the COVID crisis let's follow the recommendations of these officials and experts on how to safely conduct this year's election. Nine it's already paid for the federal government has already provided the funds to conduct the 2020 election by mail. We are not asking Vermont taxpayers to fund this effort. Ten voting by mail is simple the bill passed by the Senate is the good one for the sake of giving election officials more time as much time as possible to prepare for a vote by mail election. We ask that you pass S348 in its current form as soon as possible. I'm really thankful the opportunity to join you today and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you Kate Jim Harrison. Yeah Kate thank you for joining us today. Do you have any recommendations for any changes and how ballots are able to be churned in in terms of mail ballots or do you support existing law which means by any means possible? That would be a policy decision that we would leave to this committee at this time. We encourage a swift passage of a clear bill but we have not taken a sense on returning ballots beyond current existing statute. Would you have any objection to narrowing who can churn it in like many other states do such as the voter themselves a caregiver family member and not allow for harvesting by interest groups or candidates to collect ballots? Again we haven't taken a position on that at this time. If it's a permanent change to Vermont's election law we would encourage more time for a thorough conversation and investigation. Thank you. Any other questions from committee members for Kate? All right excellent thank you Kate. So we have two folks with us today from the National Vote at Home Institute and Amber McReynolds and Audrey Klein are both with us or they were both with us. Audrey thank you so much for joining us this morning and please help orient us a little bit about what your organization is and then please share your thoughts with us. Good morning thank you Madam Chair. My name is Audrey Klein I'm with the National Vote at Home Institute. Amber McReynolds sends her apologies she's in a board meeting for our organization today so I'm grateful to be here. Our organization is a national non-partisan 501c3 organization and we orient around ourselves around the process of voting from home which is the combination of vote by mail policies but also creating an ecosystem around it of policies that help everyone vote. We can see that not everyone signs voting at home to be the most convenient or possible solution. There are some voters that don't have reliable mail access such as Native American populations and there are people that are differently able that might need those in-person options and we create a larger system that accommodates all of those. Does that answer your question manager? Yes thank you. Great I'm so pleased to be here we're here to support the bill and we also want to sort of we will come from a little bit more of the election official side. We generally agree with everything that has been said especially from PERD but we also want to make sure that that we know that this kind of policy also helps election officials deal with the sort of shifting sands of what this year's election is going to look like. Not only do we support the bill because it's necessary for public health but it's prudent it can be cost effective and really sort of smooth out the way that the the election is going to go this year. We highly recommend proactively sending ballots in the way that the secretary has recommended and this bill allows for. That cuts out a lot of administrative burden on the town clerks. This year across the country we're seeing a massive uptick in absentee requests so some states have opted to do a bit of a half measure where they're sending absentee requests to voters and then they have to be returned in process and then you also have to then process ballots out. It's causing some pretty large log jams and bottlenecks across the country and we don't recommend that process. We're much more in favor of what this bill is recommending. Furthermore there's other administrative hurdles that this clears including processing deadlines that will allow for for continual processing of the ballots. Currently law only allows the processing to begin a day before election day and so opening up that process and allowing clerks to just continually work on those ballots if they come in will smooth out the process and make things a little bit more cost effective and allow clerks to sort of to plan their resources better and make sure that they're they're putting the resources where they're needed and in our opinion we think that it's going to be towards the mail balloting but giving them as much flexibility as possible is something that we do recommend. With that I will not take up much more of your time but I would be pleased to take any questions but also in the future we want to be helpful we're a collection of elections officials and experts across the country and we've been doing this for a very long time so we would love our mistakes and our lessons learned to be your benefit. Thank you Audrey I appreciate it. Committee members anyone have questions for Audrey? All right I am not hearing any questions so we have a few more minutes. I would open it up to committee discussion on on how we should proceed. Go ahead Mike. I'm trying. We got you. I'm just trying to unmute without dropping a word I don't want to use on well thank you for your time and thanks for all our people who came in to to work on this. Madam Chair I'm ready to to vote I'm ready to concur with the Senate. I think this is an issue that has been kicked around long enough the can has to stop kicking down getting kicked down the road. The time to act was last month and I believe we have a fair plan in there that's just for this crisis time we're not looking to change permanent law here and given those considerations I'm going to move that we accept the Senate bill. Madam Speaker I have my hand up. You sure do we won't do anything before we've had a chance to have a committee discussion about this so thank you Mike for your for your motion and Rob go right ahead. Thank you Madam Chair. I don't think anybody is debating whether or not this is going to happen we've already given the Secretary of State your authorization to do that this whole debate quiet on sees around whether the governor should be involved in this process or not. The Secretary of State very clearly said that he's looking for a clean bill wants to move this thing through I agree so I'm not sure procedurally you would like this to fall but I would make the motion that we remove the governor any reference to the governor in this legislation at all out totally recognizing that yes it may have to go back to the Senate there's nothing that says that we have to accept what they did or didn't do. There's nothing in this legislation as it's currently reads that prohibits the Secretary of State or any of his staff from going ahead and pursuing this this isn't a matter of whether or not it's going to happen it's just a matter of whether or not the governor has has any involvement whatsoever so that would be my motion is to remove him totally from any reference in this legislation at all thank you. Marsha Gardner either at the end of April or the beginning of May we heard from the Secretary of State's office that time was of the essence that we needed to move forward with a clear path for them and as much as I would like to clean up the language in this bill I think we need to move ahead with it quickly and just pass it as is thank you. Other thoughts from committee members. Madam Chair. Yes Bob. Can't figure out how to turn things on on the phone but I concur with Marsha. Thank you and thank you so much for for agreeing to join us even though you're still out and about I appreciate you making every effort to be here so we have we have two two different suggestions from committee members and since the suggestion that Mike made sort of negates the suggestion that Rob made I'm going to ask us to act on on Rob's motion first but now I see Jim's hand up so before we start taking votes I will ask Jim what what can we do for you Jim. Yeah I think you just answered my question I was just asking for clarification if Rob made a motion to delete reference to the governor we heard the Secretary say that he didn't have a problem with that so I will support that thank you. Okay so the first question at hand here right now is the question of removing the governor altogether and so Marsha if you have a roll call sheet I think I'll ask you to to take a roll of how committee members feel about striking the all of the reference to to the governor having involvement in this and go ahead when you're ready. Can I ask a question before we begin? Absolutely. Based on this this is probably for Betsy Ann. Betsy Ann are you still on the call? Yeah okay um so we can come back at a later date and clean up this bill and amend it as proposed by representative from Berrytown is that correct? You could do so until that time its provisions would stand if you were to enact it as is so that for example there would be that requirement to consult and then if the decision is made to mail out the 2020 election ballots to inform the governor of the secretary's decision to do so. Thank you. Okay committee any other discussion about about the question at hand? All right Marsha when you are ready. Okay. Danon. No. Kitts Miller. Warren are you there? I think Warren is doing his tutoring right now. Okay. Raul Wiki. No. Leclerc. Yes. Harrison. Yes. Gardner. No. Plastic. Yes. Cooper. No. Brown Owl. No. Okay. Colston. No. Copeland-Hanses. No. So we have seven three one. All right um the motion before us at this point is uh oh Jim Harrison you have a question? Go ahead and unmute yourself. I'm sorry I caught whatever the representative from Putney has. Sorry. I was going to offer an amendment to add some bumper guards similar to what is in other states but given the way that that simple amendment before me went I'm going to not offer it. Um I uh unfortunately I was looking forward to make this bipartisan and I think we're going down the path of all mail um sending out a ballot like the lack of restrictions that we have today and I was looking for a path forward and it seemed to me this morning that the secretary backtracked a little bit on some provisions that he had proposed to the governor earlier and I'm disappointed in that. So I will be voting no on this bill and I sincerely had hoped that we could have ended up in a bipartisan. Elections are too important for one party to decide the rules and I feel very unfortunate for that. I had suggested to you Madam Chair that maybe we get a different perspective from another town clerk other than the city clerk and Barry that supports all mail balloting. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and that didn't happen either. So I just I'm very disappointed. I will be voting no on the motion to concur with the Senate. I did not come here to rubber stamp what the Senate does. I'm sorry. So I would just remind the committee that the question before us right now is whether the secretary of state can move forward with agreement with the governor or on his own as the elections administrator and the question of whether to allow the secretary of state to decide to mail ballots to every voter was made several weeks ago. We've already given the secretary of state that ability to do that. So the only question before us right now is if we remove the governor from the process as he has asked us to do and I am more than happy to continue to have conversations with the elections administrators both at the secretary state's office and from the clerk's perspective about the directives that will go out to educate the public on the legal ways within current law to return an absentee ballot. But at this moment I think we have we've come to the point where we need to give assurance to the secretary of state's office to move forward. So any other committee discussion right. Nobody's diving for their raise hand button. So I'm going to assume that we are ready to go ahead with considering Mike Murwicky's motion to concur with the Senate on S348. Are you waiting for a second? Nope. I'm giving Marcia a moment to fill out the form correctly so that she's able to keep very good track of the votes we're taking. I believe I am ready Madam Chair. All right. Take it away. Gannon. Yes. And Warren is still Murwicky. Yes. LaClaire. Yes. Harrison. No. Gardner. Yes. Classic. Yes. Cooper. Yes. Brown Owl. Yes. Colston. Yes. Copeland-Hanses. Yes. And the motion carries. All right. Warren has told us that he's off doing his tutoring and I don't know if he's been listening in on the YouTube but he may pop back in the committee before we fully wrap here. So I'll just ask you to keep the vote open for a few more minutes. And I want to say thank you to Audrey and Kate and did we already lose our AARP guy, Mr. Marshallden. And thank you to the folks from the Secretary of State's office for being here and being available to answer our questions. And are there any other announcements or questions from committee members on what we're doing? All right. I will remind committee members. Well, first of all, I will say to committee members that there were a couple of you who reached out to me yesterday and I was literally back to back to back in meetings all day long, sitting outside my nephew's drive-through graduation ceremony, finishing up a course before I before I went to his sixth grade graduation. And so I apologize for not getting back to you but I will do that today, make myself available today if you have something you want to chat about. But the other issue that I need to get some input from you on if you have some is this question around the recommendation that our committee can make with respect to the COVID relief fund dollars. And so I will encourage you to hound me if you have some ideas. Send it to me via email if it's something that you just want to get on my radar. And by all means, if you have a plan that you think is good, feel free to reach out to other entities or organizations to do a little bit of legwork on it and see if you can get an idea more fully fleshed out. Warren, thank you so much for popping on and joining us. The question before us is do you concur with the Senate proposal or the Senate S348? As the Senate amended it? Well, they sent it over to us as a bill as we heard Betsy Ann roll out right at the beginning of our meeting. Yep, so no changes. No changes. I vote yes. Okay, thank you. And if you need to go back to finish your tutoring session, I can stay for what do we got? Three more minutes or yep. We're basically just doing some announcement. I just signed off early with my student. Thank you. I very much appreciate it. I figured that's what you were voting on and I said I really need to get to that. Mike Marwicki has a hand up. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to thank you for your patience and perseverance to help us get through this issue here to get us on track with voting. I think we've made a lot of efforts to reach out to the administration, to all parties here. And we've been at this for months literally. And I appreciate the patience and perseverance you have exhibited in bringing us through this and getting us to this point here. So thank you. Thanks, Mike. This is all part of the important work of the Hardworking and Talented Government Operations Committee. So I appreciate all your persistence and perseverance and very much respect that we came to this conversation with different ideas and different concerns. And I think we can continue to discuss them because as we know, the ballots aren't going to be mailed until September. So we can continue to talk about how we educate the public and how we encourage folks to return their ballots in the legal ways. Warren is raising a hand. Hi, Warren. You got to unmute yourself, though. I wanted to ask what the vote was on that question. The final vote with you was a little hearty about that. The final vote with your vote was 10 to 1. Thank you. All right. So COVID relief fund suggestions, please feel free to reach out. And otherwise, we should probably jump over to the floor at this point. Any other questions? All right. Nobody's diving at the screen. Thank you so much for being with us this morning. Thank you, Carol and Will and Chris and Tell Jim. Thank you. And Andrea, appreciate the help as always. See you all over on the floor.