 Hi folks. I'm Jim Kondos as most of you know. I am Vermont's 38th Secretary of State. I want to thank you all for attending this discussion regarding our upcoming primaries and for helping keep voters educated with official trusted information. Today's focus is on next week's primary elections. Our plan is to hold at least one more of these events to discuss our planning for the November general election as well. This year the 2022 August primary and upcoming November general are once in a generation elections as we all know. There have not been this many open statewide and federal seats at any time in recent history and certainly not my tenure as Secretary of State. I'm really of the mindset that when voters have more options both on the ballot and how they vote that's a good thing. The last statewide election in Vermont was during the COVID-19 peak. Fortunately that is not the case this year. However one positive outcome from the 2020 election was Vermonters embracing voting early or voting by mail. As a result we have worked with the Vermont legislature to permanently increase flexibility and voting options for Vermonters. Examples of the new positive impacts of Act 60 2021 provisions for ballot drop boxes and the opportunity for voters to be able to cure any defective ballots. I want to take this opportunity today to discuss what options early voters who haven't returned their ballots have, what early voters who have already returned their ballot can do to ensure there weren't any issues with it and what in person voting may look like for those voters who want to vote in person and what you all can expect as reporters next week and in the hours and days following the closing of the polls at 7 p.m. First it is important to remember that the August primary is really three separate elections in one day. It's a Republican, a Democrat and a progressive election. It's essentially a nominating process for each of the Vermont of Vermont's major parties where voters have direct say in the major party candidates who will appear on the November general election. In June we issued a postcard ballot request reminder to all Vermont voters describing all the tools voters have available to utilize in order to utilize the Vermont no excuse 45 day early vote period. And I'll give you some numbers here as of late yesterday. We had 52,120 voters who have already cast their ballots or who have requested their ballots early and a total of 25,970 just about 50% who have already returned their ballots to their town clerk. This represents a two and a half times increase from the last midterms in 2018 prior to COVID. I often say before an election your vote is your voice, exercise it. Well while that remains true, many Vermonters still have unreturned requested ballots and they need to know how to get their ballots back so that their vote does count. One, they can deliver their ballot directly to the town clerk during business hours and I would advise that you contact your town clerk directly to verify their office hours. You can use a secure drop box where you can place your ballot before election day. We have about 200 towns that over 200 towns who have secured drop boxes in one form or another and you already can bring your ballot directly to the polls on election day. So if you're unable to get to the town clerk before election day, which is Tuesday, August 9th, you can still bring it to the polls. Very importantly, the town clerk needs to have the voters ballot in hand by 7 p.m. when the polls close for their vote to count. I'll repeat that. It's important that people understand that the town clerk needs to have the voters ballot in hand by 7 p.m. when the polls close for their vote to count. Voters can check directly with their town clerk or at mvp.vermot.gov to verify the address of their polling place and also to check and I'll talk about this a little bit later to check the status of their ballot if they sent it back already. A small number of polls have moved to new locations from years past. That information is available on their mvp, my voter page and people can look there to see if their polling place is the same or not. Voters in towns with more than one district may have a new poll location as a result of the 2022 legislative reapportionment process. By Vermont law, any ballots received by the town clerk by mail up to and on election day will be counted. Another important point to remember, Vermont is not a postmark state. Postmark dates do not count here in Vermont. Our hope is voters heed our warnings on by mail ballot return and those who didn't get their ballots in the mail in time, which from our estimation was either last Friday or this last yesterday, Monday. And if they didn't get their ballots into the mail by then, they should be prepared to bring it to the town clerk before election day or to the polls on election day. If someone has lost their ballot, they can still vote at the clerk's office before primary day or at the polls on primary day, they will need to sign an affidavits saying that they have lost their ballot. If you did not lose your ballot, but you just forgot to bring it with you to the polls, you will be asked to sign an affidavit that you have not yet cast a ballot. And I want to be very clear. Vermont's polls will be open, as always, for every voter who wants to vote, whether returning a ballot or voting in person. New to Vermont's election this year is ballot curing. Voters now have the opportunity to cure defective ballots, which previously was not possible by law. So if they forgot to put their voted ballot in the correct envelope or they forgot to sign the certificate with the voting ballot, or they didn't return their two unvoted ballots, their ballot would be deem defective by the town clerk as per Vermont law. And that voter's ballot would not have been counted. Now voters can correct those errors, either with the town clerk or at the polls on election day, so that their ballot can be counted. Voters can also check mvp.vermot.gov, the My Voter page to verify ballot status. If it says defective, they still have work to do and they should contact their town clerk to discuss how to cure it. In most cases, the defect may be cured by simply submitting an affidavit online through the My Voter page, or they should watch for a postcard to come from their town clerk. We did provide pre-printed postcards to the town clerk that they can utilize to mail to Vermonters for those whose ballots have been deem defective. And we understand from some of the town clerks that we've talked with that it's working very, very well. Within five business days of election day, town clerks must make a good faith effort to notify the voter using any contact information they have in the voter checklist other than a mailing address. We do not have phone numbers or emails for all registered voters and this goes back decades of grandfathering where it was not required. A lot of the town clerks are trying to update their information as they go, but it's still not complete. And just as an FYI, and I want to speak a little bit about the defective ballots. So this year, we only have so far to date, 444 defective ballots. And of those 444, 260 have been cured already. That's close to 60%. So I would say it's working and working well. That is 260 votes in the past elections would not have been counted because of an error and how they returned it. Now it works. My message to voters encouraging them to verify their ballot status is simple. Every vote counts. Make sure yours is. I would also like to remind people of Vermont's innovative accessible voting system, AVS as we call it. It's a fully ADA compliant process and will be available for use at all the polls. The AVS enables Vermont voters, including those with disabilities, to cast their ballot privately, independently and securely. And I'm sure many of you are wondering what can you expect on election night from our unofficial, and I repeat unofficial, reporting of results. As you are aware, the number of early and absentee ballots for the August statewide primaries has increased from years prior to 2020. Changing the workload placed, it changed the workload that was placed on the Vermont town clerks and election workers. As for new Vermont law, the town clerks now may conduct the early processing of ballots up to 30 days before the election. However, no results will be known until after the polls close at 7pm and the town clerk basically flips the machine to report mode. We get asked every year, so I want to be clear, there is no way to get an early number, any early numbers on turnout or updates throughout the day on a primary day. I repeat, no actual results or turnout numbers will be available until the report is run by the town clerks after the polls close on election day. For hand count towns, and that is any town with a population of less than 1,000 that have not otherwise voted to use a tabulator, the counting of votes cannot start until after the polls close at 7pm. This year, the town clerks are utilizing new tabulators supplied by our long-time and trusted vendor LHS Associates out of New Hampshire. These tabulators will provide new tools to voters letting them know if, for instance, they overvoted in a particular race, like filling in three ovals for a race that specifies no more than two, or if they insufficiently mark their ovals. The voter can choose to correct their overvote or have the ballot cast as is, meaning that their votes can count in that race. And this is as good a time as any to remind you and you all and the public that official results are not immediately available on election night. This is a common misinformation point that once the election is over, all the results are official, they are not. The town clerks in Vermont by law have 48 hours to review, to verify and certify their election results before they submit them to our office. Official results are then certified at the statewide canvass seven days after the election, which is represented by the three major parties and me. That one-week period is actually one of the fastest in the country. Most go two weeks to 30 days before they actually canvass. Keep in mind that recounts may slow down the results of a particular election, which would not be available until after the recount itself is dissolved. We do need to move away from the notion that elections process ends and the official results are available the moment the polls close on election night. That's just not how the process works. And it's for good reason. Generally across this country, the reality is that accurately counting votes in an election may take longer than in times past. It is vitally important that we do take our time to get things right. Accuracy leads to better integrity. With something as important as our elections, the focus must remain on doing things accurately and not doing them as quickly as possible. Additional time to report results is not an indication of a problem. It is only an indication that the process is deliberate to ensure an accurate count. With that said, as it currently stands, we do not anticipate any significant delays in either the recording of unofficial results on election night or of official results at the statewide canvass the following Tuesday. I ask that everyone exercise patience. Remember that our town clerks and election workers are working incredibly hard on before, on and after election day. In fact, many of the town clerks are in their offices before 5 a.m. on primary day and won't go home until after midnight. And it's important to understand that they are the reason why the door to democracy is kept open for all the monitors. Our election night results site is ready to provide you with the unofficial numbers that I know you'll be looking for. Unofficial results will start appearing on our election night recording site as the clerks start to enter them into our election management system. Typically sometime after 8 p.m. and they will continue long into the night. Out of an abundance of caution, I want to be proactive and say that redistricting may cause certain issues with the presentation of election night results, but we're not anticipating any at this time. But I just want to make sure that you're aware that there may be some issues with that. Remember, again, the election night reporting site is not official. It provides convenience. And if we make, and if we find that changes to the map from redistricting are causing issues with the election night reporting system, we will communicate and address those as soon as possible. As always, even when ENR is functioning perfectly, which we anticipate it will, it is the single best source for unofficial election night results. Excuse me. Again, keep in mind that these numbers can change over the next 48 hours as town clerks provide the official account for certification as for the certification at the campus. And remember that I or my staff will have no idea about turnout numbers as the primary day goes on next week. We are only privy to the same anecdotal info you'll be hearing from people who have visited those polls. I will not be able to say what turnout looks like until we have the official return of votes from every one of the Mott's town clerks. While I don't anticipate for Mott's primaries being the focus of any specific disinformation campaigns, it is something that we are very vigilant about. On our end, we have direct reporting channels with both Facebook and Twitter and all 50 states do to report any disinformation designed to suppress voters so that the platforms can then take action to take those sites down. On your end, I would ask that you before you bring further awareness to any unverified anecdotes about the voting process, you first check with Vermont's trusted official election sources that would be our office or the town clerks. It doesn't take much time for something false or misleading on Facebook or Twitter to cause a lot of harm. If you have any questions on election day, again, please don't hesitate to reach out to my chief of staff, Eric Covey. I want to thank all of Vermont's hardworking elections team, which is the smallest in the nation, and all of our hardworking town clerks for their work to increase access to the ballot box for Vermonters. They deserve our gratitude and our appreciation. Election season is always such a special time of the year and I am so proud to be from Vermont where we can continue to do all we can to increase voter access and make sure our voting process is not only secure, but also equitable. As you all know, this year is a bittersweet year for me as it is the last election cycle I will oversee as Vermont's chief election official. So I will leave primary voters with a simple message that I have been repeating since I took office 12 years ago. Your vote is your voice, exercise it. It has been my honor as a secretary of state to have served for Vermont citizens for the last 12 years. I hope to see you all at the polls on August 9th or that if you've already voted, thank you for being a voter. With that, I'm going to turn it back to Eric who will open it up for questions. Okay, so if you've got a question, let me know in the chat or raise your hand. We're going to kick things off with Jack. Go ahead. Hi there, Jim. Thanks for doing this. I suspect that a lot of the people who are on this call know the answer to this question, but maybe some of our viewers and readers and listeners could benefit. Could you please sort of chew up under what circumstances people can cure their ballot? Simply changing your mind is not an acceptable reason to alter a ballot. Am I correct? That is correct. And I'm actually going to bring Will in and let him describe the reasons that you can change, that you can cure your ballot. Sure. Thanks, Jim. And thanks for the question, Jack. It's a good one to get information out on, of course. I think Jim went through a few of the reasons earlier, but I'll summarize them. And I think what's most important to remember is they are all focused around the method, the manner in which the ballots were returned, not anything about the way that the voter voted on the ballot itself. And so those are that the certificate envelope that the voted ballot goes in is not signed. That's a very common one that can be cured. That the voted ballot is not in that certificate envelope when it's returned. That also will make it defective and can be cured. And that the three, these are the three most common. And then in the case of the primary, that the two unvoted ballots haven't been returned along with the voted ballot. There is also a couple other instances where if the voter needed still needs to supply additional documentation regarding their registration. So voters that register for the first time in Vermont by mail or online are required to submit some documentation for personal identification. And if that hasn't happened when they registered, they need to do that before their vote can be counted. And the fifth reason is if the clerk's records indicate that a ballot has already been returned for the voter. And so it's interesting too, because those last two cases that I mentioned, as you can see, really require some communication and coordination with the clerk, either submitting the documents or figuring out why they're already marked off as having returned a ballot. And so in those cases, they can't use the affidavit to cure that defect. They actually have to contact the clerk and work out a way to either submit the documents or figure out what's happening with their record. And, Jack, I do want to add, in 2020, we actually had a significant number of defective ballots in the primary. And that we thought that the reason why was because it was the first time many people were voting by mail or voting early and were confused as to the process. That and the fact that our process said that you couldn't cure the ballot. So now that we've done this, I mean, we're now less than 1%. If you take the total of the ballots that have so far in this election been deemed defective, it's less than 1%. And it's of that 60% have already been cured. So that's a huge success on our part. And has there been a different or enhanced voter education around those processes to make that number better than 2020? That's a great question, Jack. And after the last election cycle, Will and his team undertook working with the Center for Civic Design, which does a lot of, they look at your documents and determine if there's a better way of saying it. So we have actually used this this organization, which works pretty much with all 50 states in various ways to review all of our election documents to make sure that they're worded correctly, that they're worded simply. And we've made a huge effort to increase the information and how it's presented to the voter. So we're really pleased with that. And we'll continue doing that with other other items in the election process. Excellent. Thank you. Hey, Peter, go ahead. Thanks, Eric. And thanks, Secretary of State condos for doing this. I have three questions. I've been in and out of this. Did you already give us the total number of early ballots had been requested to date, Jim? Yes, but I don't want to be about it again. I got it on tape. No worries. No worries. I can listen back. Just wanted to make sure it'll be there. You mentioned that you don't anticipate vote counting issues related to redistricting, but that it's a possibility. I'm just hoping you can explain why redistricting could potentially lead to delays or issues in getting results. All right. So let me let me take that first. And then, Will, I'm going to have you come in to go further. So the deep dive is that we have to change a lot of our back end of our systems to match up for and it's not the actual vote counts themselves. It's how they're aggregated because some of the there are district changes that have occurred. And, you know, you can look at Burlington and other places where there have been changes to some of the legislative districts. For instance, here in central Vermont, Stowe used to be part of the Illinois County District that's now part of the Washington County District. So there had to be a change in the back end. And Will and his team have been working with our contractor who manages the system to ensure that those things are correct. And they're doing literally every day they've been testing the system to make sure we don't anticipate any problems whatsoever with the statewide. That's an easy one because the numbers are the numbers and it's it's, you know, those will it's done on a statewide basis where we may have a little bit of an issue. And Will, I hope I'm not saying too much here, but where we may have a little bit of an issue is with the map for the legislative district, the legislative districts, we know the numbers will be correct. Our concern is whether the map will match up to it. So that's just one area. Will, do you want to add anything to that? Sorry, I don't have much to add, Jim. That was that was pretty thorough. I would reemphasize, of course, that it has nothing to do with the accuracy of the counts occurring at the polling places on election night and our ability to ultimately report the accurate result. But Jim was correct that we're just working very diligently right now with the software developer to ensure all of the the mapping for where the results need to be sent to be combined and canvassed for the various offices at different levels. Jim gave a great example of the switch with stow now being part of the Washington County Senate district. But I think as you all know, there's there's a ton of examples of that across the state where towns have moved from either one rep district to another or from one Senate district to another. And of course, I expect accuracy and perfection out of our team and my software developers, but we thought it was prudent to just flag that as a as a possibility. Thank you. And finally, and apologies if you also already hit on this, but are there things, Jim, that your deputy would customarily be doing on election day, election night, that he won't be doing given his status as a candidate in order to avoid even the perception of conflict? Here's where we stand with that. Chris hasn't been in this week and he won't be in through through the election. So he will not be involved in any aspect of the election leading up to it. It's we had that discussion early on when when he decided to run. And we thought it was the proper thing to do. I will say this office, we don't actually touch any of the ballots. All we do is aggregate the numbers that come to us after they're certified by the by the local election officials. So, you know, the town clerks are the ones who actually handle the ballots. They're the ones and their boards of civil authority are the ones who actually review the ballots, pack them up and seal them into secure bags or boxes to hold for the 22 months that were required to hold them. And given that, Jim, can you talk about why you decided it was nonetheless prudent for Deputy Secretary Winters not to have been in the office? And it sounds like the cutoff was last week. He hasn't been in since last week. That is correct. Well, first of all, Peter, I just want to make it clear, you know, this office is about more than just elections. So Chris has not really been involved in the elections process at all leading up to this. But we thought we decided early on that we were going to ask him not to be here in the office this week or through the election, just to take that perception out of out of the discussion. You know, but we have other divisions. I have the state archives. I have the office of professional regulation. I have the corporations registrations, which includes the business portal that we've been working on. And Chris has been the lead on some of that. So, you know, we do have other work that needs to be done, but we've decided that he will not be here this week or the early part of next week. And I'm sorry. Last, last question, I promise on this. So is he not working? Is he not on the job during this period? If so, is he on some kind of administrative paid leave? Is it unpaid leave? Is he taking vacation? He's using his vacation and leave time. Thank you. Calvin, go ahead. Hi, yeah. Yeah, thank you. I'll echo the others. Thanks for holding this. Just we see this play out in other states. But I mean, quickly, like what is the most common thing that Vermonter may forget that prevents them from voting either leading up to or on primary day? I guess, I mean, that's a hard one to answer, Calvin. But you know, the fact is the whole country has election day on November, the first Tuesday of November. That's an easy one for everybody across the country. That's the general election. For the primaries, primaries are set by the by the state individual states and Vermont, you know, we used to have our primary the second Tuesday of September. That was problematic in meeting federal guidelines for getting balance out to the overseas and military voters. So we had moved it to the fourth Tuesday. And, you know, we had a real struggle getting those getting the everything still put in place. So we asked the legislature to move it again. And background, I think it was 2012, they moved it to this the second Tuesday of August. But some towns or some states, they've had their primaries back in May, June, I think the vast, I think the vast majority of states have their primaries prior to the end of June. And there are very few states that do it later. But, you know, it is what it is. In some states, it's in their constitution. So it's difficult to change it. But in other states, it's in their statute. And, and they've made it accommodations. I guess it's, it's just a matter of getting the information out. And, you know, I have to be honest to Calvin, a lot of the interest in primaries depends on who the candidates are. And it's if they're competitive races. This year, as I said early on, we've got a basically once in a generation change going on at the state level, where you have a U.S. Senate seat is open. A U.S. House seat is open. You've got contested primaries on both of those. You have the Lieutenant Governor's race is heated. You have the Secretary of State's race as a primary. You know, so these are things that drive, whenever reporters ask me, well, what do you expect? I don't know. I think the easy answer is that it depends. And, you know, it's, it's, I know reporters would love to have a definitive answer, but I can't give that to you. I guess my last follow up and I don't know if there is a definitive answer to this, but, you know, this being your last term in office, and out of all of your years serving as Secretary of State, in your view, how do we encourage more voter turnout, right? I mean, we've had a record number of these past few elections. I mean, was it mail in early absentee? I mean, what was the answer and how do we grow that? Well, you know, I think, I think that's a multifaceted question. And, you know, and the answer obviously is multifaceted, but I think that really what you have to look at is, and one thing which I have been vocal about is I would support making like for instance, November, the November general election, a holiday that so everybody would have that opportunity. The problem is our society has changed over the years. You know, people work, it used to be that most people didn't work on Saturdays and Sundays. Well, now people work on Saturdays and Sundays. They work at night. They work during the day. It's, you know, you have childcare issues, you have school, you have, so there are so many different things that go on. People are busy, and it's sometimes hard to get people to focus on a particular day. So that's why I fully support what Vermont has done where we have a 45-day window for voting. It's really an option. People don't have to do it. They can wait and vote on election day. But, and then the other aspect is to, is to provide convenience and options to people to be able to cast those ballots, meaning whether they do it by mail, in person, at the clerk's office, how they get it back. Those are all things that, you know, our office and what I've tried to do is, is remove any obstructions and barriers to allowing people to vote. That sounds good to me. Thank you. Okay. Do we have any other questions today? Yep, I do. Okay, go for it. Um, Mr. Secretary, first, yeah, thank you for calling us. And I'm sorry, the lawnmower is going off in the background. So I was going to ask you why drop boxes are necessary, but I don't now because right as this press conference started, my shut-in at home next door neighbor asked me to deliver her sealed ballot for her. I hope it's okay that I do that. If it's not, let me know. But, so my, my other question is, are you concerned at all about delays in U.S. mail delivery? Certainly, those have been more frequent. And what do you recommend people concerned about that do? So that's a great question, Guy. And we've, we've actually, I was just talking with a couple of reporters yesterday about this issue and nationally. I actually attended the National Postal Conference. I was invited to be there as a speaker back in May out in Phoenix. And, and we spoke about this whole very issue. I actually met with Lewis DeJoy and had this conversation with them as well. But, but to put it bluntly, the post office has assured us, and I will say that they did in 2020, and they've done it again this year, that our, that election mail will be given a priority. So that's why you didn't see it for this one, but in the, in the general election, we're going to be switching all of our envelopes over to have a stripe on the side, a colored stripe. And that is to help the Postal Service identify it. Also, every, every postal envelope and every election envelope has the, the symbol on it that says this is election mail helps them to identify it as well. We will and his team have been meeting with the Postal liaison that they have that's been assigned to Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, literally weekly now for several months. And, you know, as I think he's probably had a couple of conversations this past week with, with, with that individual. And it's always when we hear, we see something come to us from front porch forum, we'll notify them and let them know that this is that here's what we're hearing. And, you know, I think the problems that we've heard and Guy, I'm sure you're looking at front porch forum, but the problems that you see seem to be isolated to certain towns or certain areas versus a statewide issue. And I can tell you from 2020, we actually, our Postal Service was went above and beyond. We had postal carriers that were checking the blue boxes on the corners, street corners to see if there was election mail in there. We had them, the postmaster for from a town might call the town clerk and say, hey, we just received three ballots in the mail, and the clerk would send someone down to pick them up. So, you know, it's a matter of all of that total discussion occurring. But I think the other thing is that we've been very clear, we were in 2020 and we've been clear this year that, you know, if you're going to mail your ballot back, it should be in the mail by seven to 10 days before. After that, you should try to make arrangements to get it dropped off at the town clerk's office or at a drop box. What happens to ballots that do come in on a Wednesday or a Thursday? Are they just S-O-L or? Next week, you mean? Yeah. Yes. It's, I wouldn't use the word term S-O-L, but I would say that it's, you know, the Vermont law is very, very strict and says that we will, and very clear that all ballots must be received by 7 p.m. on election night. And I do want to add, I don't have the actual number, I don't know, Will if you do, but I don't have the actual number. But the number of ballots that we receive after the deadline is pretty small. It's pretty small. Okay. Speaking of state law, other state laws do have more stringent guidelines on video oversight of drop boxes. Vermont's is like, you can have video, but as long as you're inside of the town office, it's okay. Any thought about recommending strengthening Vermont laws to make it more, more oversight to allay some of those concerns? Well, first guy I will say, and Will can vouch for this, but this is the first year we're officially having drop boxes. It's the first year that it's in statute. And if you look at the statute, it actually is pretty stringent, but it doesn't require, it recommends but doesn't require a video of it. But it does require it to be on municipal property. It has to be visible from the office, from the town clerk's office, or from an official office. And so it is, I would not characterize our laws being weak. I just, I think our law is made to fit Vermont. And I know there are people out there that do not like drop boxes, but the vast majority of Vermonters do support them. And by the way, we have over 200 towns that have drop boxes in one form or another. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Any further questions today? Going once, going twice. So that will conclude today's session. We do have a recording. If you need it, just let me know. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, everyone.