Visit the corner back there. Legal defense network. The network will be back there with information and learn how it works and opportunities to partner and how we can help you address this. [inaudible] is this is a key part of our work and our cochairs want to introduce you want to wait . Please take the opportunity to go get some information and are more on how it works and what we do. Thank you. Our next panel we talked about information and next panel is tied to these challenges on can be and should we count ballots faster . We have hurt a little bit about earlier. One piece of disinformation is become prominent is the idea 8 01 p. M. , why dont i know who won the election already . It would be remarkable if we can count 160 million ballots on multiple modes and countable minimal minute. This has gained even more dominant as we hear candidates and say republican primary in arizona complain its taking too long to count ballots in that while they are behind and during the counting of the ballots they take the lead in the primary contest. Remarkably go quiet at that time did something i know Election Officials are hearing more and more as if its a normal process counting ballots somehow is the various. As if theres ever been a time in American History where we snapped our fingers and counted ballots in new the result of every race no matter how narrow instantly on Election Night so please welcome this panel and i will start our moderators, and wonderful reporter working on this issue and other issues related to elections. Kathy allen, a registrar in california in california if you happen to drive north on i5. Next to her is from louisiana. And then secretary of state sarah of vermont and to sarahs left. I will himself to diane. Thank you all i guess we should start with the statement of fact within the united states, never official results on Election Night. There is a lot of interest especially the past two years on how exactly we count ballots and when we know results. The u. S. Tends to take a little longer than other countries sometimes which has exacerbated conspiracies was seen around this so for all of you, how long does it actually take you to count ballots . In california which is now in all mail and the estate. The highest rate is election day itself so especially reelections published by the end of the evening is about half the ballots we have to count total so essentially every grace on Election Night in california. Intimately lost. Primary in 2018 are valid was 19 inches long, very long complicated valid. We got a little less but we have official results hours after polls close. Of course election day voting we still have this machine but absentee balloting program has grown since covid significantly so what we did was pass a law to allow for days prior to the elections is for processing. Absentee ballots on local election supervisors but not counting it. We start counting election day Early Morning until they are finished and typically we have one or two counting past 8 00 p. M. And we end up, people want results quickly. Getting calls typically feel good about the process if anything goes past midnight we get concerned and president ial election we had 72 we had everything done by both 15 00 a. M. Vermont has a couple things going in its favor that allowed us to do a turnaround. We have official results within 48 hours but most jurisdictions have entered results that even though a couple things that quick turnaround, we have. Few people number one to count ballots and there are only 300,000, 247 different election jurisdictions you can imagine the level in small communities but we have a few election policies that have helped us keep that timeline short. Number one is processing absentee ballots before election day, not counting or announcing any tabs of the results but begin feeding them through and with anything in policy we are always a balance between accuracy, fairness and give confidence in their election procedure. To pursue we want Election Integrity and you want to follow the rule of law in your state. For new jersey similar to this later number and vote by mail, no excuse vote by mail and as a result of the pandemic, our stake changed the law the you process days prior to election you have that. You also have to factor in new jerseys will vote by mail, i postmarked state so we can expect the postmarked vote by mail thereafter and weve instituted vote by mail. It gives an additional amount of time for counting two days prior to the local board you have time tomorrow i want to say about seven days after the election so, although we have election workers following the law of the utmost integrity and care. Think you hear this but the basic premise the government process to work efficiently if thats what we are looking for. We all know u. S. Decentralize the process, every state and in some cases different theres two Different Things may have all of your answers highlight three large areas which is accuracy, the method you use the empty, the idea of at least half a dozen states in the country do not allow this and weve seen how it plays out in the entire nation is watching for particular races to be called. How much processing option for your help to expedite results, preprocessing by voting by mail the preprocessing has become the most efficient part of being because it causes the board to sit there and they have to determine which pallets are to be determined and wait until election day and we lost time for which people would question so for this candidate or the other each of these processing these officials with the first being in terms of the i dont think we could finally result process likely from the were able to count and process ballots, they had older absentee ballot mail and ballots counted by the time polls closed and they were able to provide results very timely in the president ial election. I believe around four or 5 million ballots. Thats a tremendous amount to be counted. A week before they finished. They realize that and those of us see an increase noticed with got to have a quicker process because your testing to make sure this person would set the ballot. Your checking for law requirements, mothers maiden name is you wait, who wouldnt have the results so thats very efficient. Its lovely more people Pay Attention to the election process but theres a lack of education so many people are vocal about wanting quick results because they are suspicious, it seems like a delay but they do want security measures, exceptional accuracy. Trying to get this done quickly so you dont create a semblance of moving on but also make sure you check the most important boxes which is accuracy and security and its run the way it should be fun. You should look at like you look at a manufacturing line, technically what needs to happen and how much time each steps require on human effort. Is there a way to automate these to speed the process . I would hope you take that information to the state legislature and say these of the changes we should make and they are seamless and technically correct. The title of the panel is can we count ballots faster than we are already doing . I think it is possible. You got to work with the legislature and citigroups active in the political realm to determine we can invest in a transparent way. We have the yearly bill we go to the legislature in its predetermined theres no controversial political legislation and it but its a deal to make technical changes to the Election Code or improvements to the election cold to make it more efficient for local election partners to do our job. How did you go to those changes and become politicized . I know you can speak to that where you worded every day you are doing your job. Are facing change in board of supervisors and how we process ballots in the way we count ballots and the systems we use. That will dramatically change. And we cant preprocess we cant start processing until the day before so that means we will not have result of any kind 8 00 p. M. Or 8 01 p. M. They should report every two hours Election Night and that will start an issue first results 10 00 p. M. And a few hours after that. Not only does that slowdown results but doesnt that make it more difficult . I cant tell you how many people the past three years or so have told me they want and for a long time ive seen paper ballot request but now im getting into this paper ballots counted by hand, all of these things are methods that would slow down a process. California has had paper ballots 2008 and not every state has paper ballots the california has paper ballots. Its one of those pieces of information at the National Level and these localities where it may or may not be. You are saying . Paper ballots are the gold standard. You can come back after the elections and take a look and double check for the results were reported, what other set of eyes get when they are reviewed again. I have to say and counting doesnt make sense from my experience because when i look at regular audits done in vermont, i did observe his dispatches is its for the communities that dont have a calculator where you can see more instances on this. If you think about it, would guess maybe some working 15, 16 hour day might make mistake when it comes time to count. One different for us is we are a top down states of policies made by the legislature implements the policy changes and we work with the registrars to implement that. During the training for the workers but every parish is doing the same process at the exact same time, i do not exact same time but throughout the day. It makes it transparent and you have to leave the Election Code to understand what they are doing i realize people dont want to leave this. I dont really like leaving this code but bottom line those who think something is going on, they believe is out of context and they take various pieces and put it in and call it pie. Not possible. Its not a pie thats not how elections are run the thing over your elections officers, consistency is always a major part of elections and if youre consistent accuracy, and that is important. Id be the first to say is working is able to get Election Results to this system in the near future consistency will use paper to audit to confirm accuracy of the election and consistent. Those will the machine that there is, its not the answer because it will delay a minimum of this argument is more. So many of these and the opposite of one another. A position you cant lend . You wanted to quickly and accurately there always Something Else. People taking small snippets using online are told and questioning, and the ingredients. Im looking for to retirement your. [laughter] how does it mean just simply doing the job will election getting results . I wanted to chime in that its become will attest to go out and educate voters important your local Election Officials. For we have set up, you are election the makeup is different, different on board so you wrap your arms around that. Every county in every state, you know one county, you know one party. Thats how to you, in new jersey we have a statewide election of the so my team and i doubled down on this experience. Partnerships, even outside of the election world, we are talking business folk, academic, we are talking faithbased innovations can get this information not only defines the the process. It may sound simple new jersey you have three ways to vote but it becomes a little more complex when we are talking about how to complete vote by mail so it will reject the you have to secure it which then weakens the time to deport the unofficial results. I just came from my 8yearold dance competition. For me to mention this the reason is because we all know our kids in activities, i had a figure skater, a gymnast and you say did my child come in second the report back she did not do, im educated take a step back so now i am informed about the process how this works. It is key for all of us to work in partnership in our state information, Accurate Information on all offenses to say not even aware of how the votes are counted, they have not been aware or acknowledging these periods in which they can cure and provisional borders, their votes are counted as a process in and of itself. What you do when they dont believe you . The people listening have perhaps their own idea, citizens have their own even if you are in the way things are, benefits which people vote for what the people want what do you do if they still dont believe you. One of the things in California Law that helps is for observers to see the entire process from tobacco spent a lot of time and energy making sure we can provide that opportunity and they are just as important to us as poll workers are to see the process so we had to focus on what we can do. One of my colleagues call us the movable middle those of the folks who want to target and provide information to. The last three years when people come in with questions and people genuine concern and want to hear we had to say and people who will so my response lately in the last year to spend as little time as possible with folks who really do not want information from other one competition or to explain to me what they learned and folks who dont have information of what we do actually in the building is there a place and i know weve seen this will happen last two years were transparency and accessibility does become a Security Threat working and elections . Weve seen people watching the house and things get out of control, people being followed home, shift workers, how well is 2023 going into 224 . To me, quite a difference in 2022, we drew some pretty centered boundaries dive into observer laws in california and change the way allow observation especially election day got pushed back on your account to run elections if the employees because they are afraid. Will you shake your head. The balance of transparency really is that something will employees are concerned about . Absolutely will work on an earlier, are the ones on the front election reason seven days of early Security Warehouse a specific location will will. But we cant security were pulling work Law Enforcement things we are concerned they work with local frankly, they are 65 plus and start with them, theres no real sense in their community when i say younger, 50 and under, theres no real guide or push duty so im not sure where we had in that situation but coming to a place that is going to urgent. Her around the country and louisiana but each coming with u. S. Attorneys and we work with them and do tabletop exercises and plan for the worst but i cant go into a pole and Law Enforcement going unless they are called by the commissioner in charge so there are some impediments but location without fear so when it comes to counting, transparency accounting, we would use or you can mark 20 of people come in and observe how you approach transparency in the accounting process so it doesnt slow it down or interfere or contaminate but also give people a view of whats going on . And her mother observers and clerks are given the ability to delineate when they can relative to the folks who are doing the county. The separation is important for before you get to Election Night, what i hear from local Elections Officials which i take with them is they say down, make changes to election laws because every time there is a change made, we have to figure out how to describe it in a way voters will understand this is actually the way the law works now and its part of the reason we hired education Civic Engagement coordinator in our state because educating folks on what the election law is in one state is quickly important for the people who live in that state. Election law and perceived or actual violations and 50 other states around the country, it will be hard for people to keep that straight. Want to go back to everything the secretary said and going back to election treads, we dont have that high level, i know when i came aboard in 2018 Law Enforcement partners focus on cybersecurity now and beyond, it is more a focus of people. That said entire year, ensuring theres nothing else against any election official. Also look at partnership with u. S. Attorney general and the good developing we have in the operation and election of the ones on the front line, if anything is going to occur the location of witness and need to be kind to contact the individual the so is he the work is the message, your readers will there folks there backs. Nor can we stop anything happening with the the same time we can be proactive rather than reactive all you approach these changes . I know youve got to put things into disgust perceived as delay but maybe our delays or a sense of the race provision and something about nature, in places where the electorate go a little longer to determine results you if you have the close race . You something, unexpected. We will work one minute, delays the results. How will in real time catches fire online and suddenly meanspirited. So you do realtime your job while also using the public and being transparent . Your touching those of us do this work everyday understand but the surgeons. Just getting the votes counted and efficient know there is a reason will communicate with your boaters is often carefully as you can. It is important to make sure you say what you know is if not more, you have to. There are delays. At the same time, theyre taking them to count yet its always taken this into the country and come, nothing is different. Increased california now we are all male it does make the back and take longer. Most common on election day. I think it is key. Is completely free report things. We communicate with the press throughout the day is a problem and reports from the internet. She realized through her process and our process that something had gone wrong. We had actually put out the right numbers, but in her internal process and her putting it out on her network, she realized she had an issue. It looked like one candidate won, the other candidate conceded, and once she reprocessed, it was just the opposite. But she got out many front of it, she gave information to us, so we were able to outline to the press the processes, and she was able to cull the candidates. Ill give you another example. I had just become secretary the, and it was in the very election, and there was a senate race that was within 8 votes. And one candidate went to bed thinking he had made the runoff, and the other thought he went to bed thinking hed lost. I had to pick up the phone because there was a problem at the local Clerks Office in their processing, in their counting, and i had to call i didnt want the one thinking he won putting his head on the pillow and making up tomorrow, the next day, saying what happened. So i called him and i let him know, and i actually convened a meeting with all three candidates the next day, and we went through the process and we talked about what we were going to do, what the recount process would be, how that would work and let their attorneys do their thing and let administrators locally and from our office do our processes. When people understand the process and they see the consistency of the processes, then they feel comfortable. Otherwise if theyre willing to listen. I was going to ask, do you feel thats necessarily true right now . [laughter] but thats real. If that happened in november of last year, is the everybody just, like, dealt with it and does that happen in 2022, 2023some does that happen the same way, the reaction . Heres the irony, i think ive been in the office for 13 years, 8 as secretary. Prior to that, first assistant. There are always going on issues with elections. But its so ironic that in 024 the world 204 world came to an end for some folks and it didnt for others. And then the very next year, in 2021, we had another election, no one complained. And then in 2022, all of a sudden the world was falling apart again before we even got to the election. Ask we had a smooth election. There were no problems with it. If there were any problems, it was on the very local level which had nothing to do with the federal races. Now, you know, were going into a Gubernatorial Race statewide, and people are going we want hand count, hand marked, we want you to the decertify the equipment. They forget im going to go through a procurement process, and i dont know what other states can do. I dont know if your county had to go through another procurement process [laughter] thats not an easy thing to do. And so, i mean, people just think, people who want to the find the bogeyman, youre never going to be able to tell them that the bag togyman doesnt exist. Those that are willing to listen will understand. And when you put out election policy and talk about Election Administration and not the politics of elections, then people are willing to understand, and they are willing to move forward. And if we continue the route that were going, theres going to be so much fatigue in this country that im concerned about voter participation. And trusting what we as elections officers do. If you cant the people who are appointed, you can unelect an elected official. [laughter] im sorry. [inaudible conversations] youre appointed. [laughter] its very frustrating for us because we, as someone said earlier in the panel, we know what the truth is. We can show to the bottom line how the system works and how the election was pull off without pulled off without major errors. But you, people have to be willing to listen and want to understand rather than blame. And its just, for all of us Election Officials in the room, thats really the hard part. And the other part of it is our policymakers, our legislators jump to conclusions by the hundreds of thousands of emails that they get that dont have any effect, and i think dont come to us as Election Officials and ask us the right questions. They throw out legislation, and then here you are, youre in a defensive mode and youve got to defend the system, and youve got to the explain the system from a 30,000foot level and then simes the theyre willing to listen sometimes theyre willing to listen, sometimes theyre not. I cant tell you number of legislators i have offered to come to our office, and we will walk you through the process. Do they take you up on it . One. One, out of two oversight committees of about, you know, twenty people. And, you know, i encourage them to go to their locals, and they dont do that. So what, what can be done . Either something youve experienced in your own state, in your own county or something you would like to experience that can help and i hate say speed up the process, but keep the process an adequate amount to make sure that were accurate. In journalism we say its better to be right than first, but you do want to be first if you can while youre right. I imagine you want to finish this and get the count done as quickly and accurately as you securely can. How can legislators, how can your employeeses, your office, how what can be done to achieve that . Well, ill just go back to the manufacturing analogy. When you see that youve got a log jam someplace, you think about what can you to do to fix that. So as a for instance, many states have large military and overseas populations. Vermonts population is a bit smaller because were small anyway. Of but we dont have a ton of military voters, but, you know, over the course of time weve had a lot of, a lot of them come to the us and say, look, i cant get my ballot back in time. And so heres a problem, right . We are, by our processes, disenfranchising voters. We should look at that. We should try to figure out how to fix it. But we dont want to go the route of saying, well, well just take your ballot whenever it gets here because that could undermine peoples confidence in our results. So we are embarking on asking legislature to the approve an electronic ballot return so that we can receive those ballots back into their local election offices electronically to increase the likelihood that they can get their ballot in on time but also to keep with the same reporting timelines. Well, you know, i just, i think that and we havent done, like, the true postmortem on the 5day processing yet. But, of course, folk are are welcoming of that idea9 with the understanding that you have more lead time in processing your vote by mails. We have about 900,000 new jersey voters who choose to vote by mail. 6. 5 million who are registered. So just think about that quantitatively. I also want to just again go back to the space, right, for voters and those out there well have, like, in the system. And this is why, you know, we all have to try to and weve tried to identify those major constituents who can talk to a naysayer within their space. So if there are the naysayers who are in the business arena, im just using that by way of example, we brought along some corporate entities who even ask me for their lunch and learn to somehow get on the phone or virtually and just go through. It may seem that is very simple, but now you have a good portion of corporate folk who are understanding how new jersey voters and their election process works. So, you know, its a lot that that needs to be done in the sense of galvanizing all different groups to come aboard, because even these constituents are constituents of legislators in our state too. I mow that i know that my team and i, we work through bill comments, you know, and i go before various hearings. And, you know, i do think and, again, im speaking about new jersey legislature. I do think that they welcome the education because, yes, hay do get the calls, they do get emails. And at the time we all werent experts in the field, so they dont understand what, if anything, is going on. So you just have to continue to make sure that everyone who is interested and genuinely interested is understanding the process. And another good thing that i know that my team and i focus upon are our youth, because if there are naysayers and im not, im coming from a good place of this, but naysayers, you know, we all gonna be gone, im going to be the gone one of these days. But we want to ingrain now those students in high school, those students in college and pierce all of this mis and disinformation. Make them understand civically and just be education the education of what is, indeed, going on with your election process. Because when i speak to students, they genuinely want to hear the truth, and they dont want any of the politics in this. They just want to know is your system secure . You know, what can we do to make it a healthier democracy. This is what theyre looking for too, college students. But a lot of those things education programs, looking at different options for people to vote, new machines, no new machines all of those things cost money a lot of times too. And a lot of legislation when it comes to changing or adapting the way that we vote or adding new parameters on it are often unfunded too. Theres not a lot of extra money thats put in there. So how do you continue doing the job youre doing with the additional scrutiny, oftens often times more tasks or in your case totally revamping what your job lead toking up to elections and doing leading up to elections and doing it on the same budget . How do you do that . Well, im lucky right now, louisianas economys doing fairly well. And weve got a lot of cash. And so what im pleased with the legislature is, is that they have funded many of my requests, not all. But the important thing is for once theyve actually been setting aside large sums of money for the new voting system. Okay. But theres never enough money for Voter Education or for us to get into the schools. And so we encourage our locals to do that. But theyre also strapped. And i will tell you quite frankly, this new foia world is draining the resources of not just local Election Officials, but state election official offices as well. And ive got two outside law firms that help me with foia requests, and i now and i have three attorneys and one paralegal. Were drowning in it. Ive got requests that probably wont be answers answered for two years because we dont have the time, we dont have the staff, you know, and im being sue over it. And the lawsuits are getting more and more prevalent. Its like now were settling Election Administration in courts rather than through policy changes at the legislative level. So Elections Administration is under attack from all sides, in my opinion. And the amount of money you have to pay not to mention, you know, about my colleagues, but i get sued just for reapportionment issues because and i have to defend something i didnt have anything to do with. [laughter] and, you know, i keep asking for more money to be able to deal with it. Yeah. That, the new world in elections, quite frankly, if i looked at it, id feel like we were more like governors than we were secretaries of state because were dealing with such a volume of issues that the offices were never, ever really prepared to deal with. Im going to have administrator allen, but also were going to open up for q a, so if you have questions for our panelists, please, please feel free to answer them as you continue to answer the question about funding, basically, for you. Yeah, funding is a really big issue. I think that my board made the change, our board of supervises made the change to go to hand counting because they thought it would be less expensive. But the biggest part of our budget is always people and labor costs. So were very concerned about that. Meanwhile, i have the Biggest Union in Chester County is striking right now over wage increases and issues around our labor negotiations. So its definitely always a challenge to find the funding. In california, elections are funded by the general fund which also funds our Law Enforcement, right . If so im never going to win a contest with Public Safety over funding cushions. So we really need discussions. So we really need state and federal dedicated funding to add more elections. I know on the ballot is taken up by state and federal races in my county which the county pays for. So its definitely something that we need a nationwide answer for, not just for our county. And if you have a question, please raise your hand. I think theyll bring the microphone to you can i raise other point . So louisiana, theres a number of differences for louisiana. We fund all elections top to bottom. Very aeroly do the local governments rarely dot local governments have to put anything up, and what they do is minuscule, like office space, things like that. So its a constant drain on our states general fund, and like she said, youre fighting Law Enforcement, youre fighting medicaid, youre fighting health services. Its a real difficult situation. Yeah. Hi, im melanie from american oversight. Secretary ardoin, there was an earlier panel that was discussing erik, and they were saying concern louisiana did withdraw from erik. Can you address some of your concerns and why you withdrew . Ono comment. No comment. [laughter] hi. Im grace gordon with the Bipartisan Policy Center again. And my question for whoever would like to take it is i know you all are kind of drinking from a fire hose most of the time. Are there specific Research Questions around reprocessing, around hand counting, around getting faster results that the nonprofits and Research Institutions in the room should be addressing that would be helpful to you all in your roles . Thats a fantastic question. Uhhuh. I want to get her Contact Information [laughter] i know im think of ill think of something when i step off the stage. I mean, we talk the about half a dozen states, more than half a dozen states dont allow for preprocessing. So what should they be asking to try and get better responses, get better information, Better Research when it comes to these methods, these practices that you guys say have helped you speed up, if you will, the process of counting votes and maintaining accuracy . Well, let me correct something i said earlier. In florida hay had 45 they had 45 of their email ballots counted in time for reporting when the polls closed. Educate the message. [laughter] text message. I would say this, look at those states who are preprocessing and how many ballots they are preprocessing and then whats the time frame that those votes like, for example, in my state the early voting, early votes and the absentee ballots are all reported at the same time. By each parish. And hen those states and then those states that do preprocess, whats their reporting time for their votes versus those states that are not, and could a preprocessing process work for those states especially i would say swing states . If they dont have it, whats the impact. If they do have it, whats the impact. I think that would be something good. And then i would suggest bringing that to nas for a good discussion here [laughter] really thats and i would really offer that you contact executive director of nas with two expresident s, the current president and future two years from now president. It would be a good project to present on because we as secretaries and lieutenant governors that are in charge of elections, we cotalk about those issues and look we do talk about those issues and look for ideas to improve our states and help us move forward. And i think, to me, i think that would be a bipartisan issue that we could all discuss and work on. It sounded like preprocessing was something unanimously that you all seemed to think without it tends to slow down the Election Results process. Absolutely. Yeah. And when you were asking the question before about paying for elections and the investment in elections, what i was thinking about is, you know, we do a pretty good job of covering our costs on any given election year, but what were not doing and what i would suspect many states and jurisdictions have trouble doing is investing in those Software Upgrades that theyre going to the need or the Hardware Upgrades theyre going to need over time to, you know, to adopt new technologies. And so i guess what i would come back to for a suggestion is, you know, are there, are there Software Products out there that are, that score well in terms oe reporting of results . And many that case, wed love to hear about them. Any more questions . So i, for you i have a question. Talk you were revamping, totally different system that youre going into. What is that like . And, again, california, we ten to wait longest we tend to wait longest for the results, but do you feel that this is going to deeply impact result timing to the point that the people who were encouraging this to begin with and who wanted may also have issue with the amount of time that its going to take to get those results . Thats entirely possible. So i, we, this all started on january 4th when board of supervisors canceled our voting systems contract, and so then we had to go into procurement and find Something Else for disabled voters when theyre voting in person. So we have multiple issues to deal with, essentially, inventing a process wholesale with the support of our secretary of States Office whos been great. They are working on crafting regulations for our county in california. I hope, i hope, i hope that they are publish soon. [laughter] and those will go through the regular rulemaking process. And like i say, i hope, because part of what we have to do is present a plan to the secretarys office and have that approved prior to election, and so we need to get that completed and submitted. We have an election in november of this year, and then we have an election in march. Obviously, the march preferential primary in california. President ial primary. My largest concern the election in november is fairly small for us. Were 110,000 register voters. There are some other special elections kind of swirling in the background that may happen or may not on that same day. But right now were looking at a fairly achievable thing, to hand count 8500 ballots in a timely way. But when we get to march and turnout is much, much higher and we have many more ballots and a much more complicated ballot that, i didnt say, but the special election so far, right . So thats easy, right . March will not be simple or easy. And thats the place where im very concerned that we have a success in november and then a failure in the march. And its not a place that any election official ever wants to be, to be looking down the barrel of what may be a failed election. So were working on procedures to try and make sure that does not happen. Obviously, thats what Election Officials do, right . We do contingency, contingency, contingency plans, right, for everything. Yeah. Will folks regret making this choice if Election Results are delayed . You know, i cant get into someone elses head, obviously, but were making a really good faith effort within my office. I had someone ask me a couple of weeks ago what do you, what do you spend time on . How many hours do you spend working on this . Basically since january 25th i havent done anything besides this. So this is what were doing. And the majority of my staff is doing it. In addition to foia. Thats the other thing we cant let go. Well,s and they canceled that contract for the machine concern. Correct. [inaudible] correct . Concerns. That was word. Yeah. And so were sort of seeing, again, snowballing that everybody in this room has seen for the past few years now, but the implementation the now of what happens when that distrust turns into policy, turns into your new way of voting and how thats going to work out with a substantial ballot thats lengthy yeah. And in a state where it already takes quite a bit of time to get those results. Right. And we have a u. S. Senator that is terming out, so that contest will, if past elections bear out, will have probably 30 or 40 candidates in that race. So to hand tabulate, now we talk about in november of 22, for example, weed had just under 69,000 people turn up and vote. Its just coming slowly in rendering. We run out of time so we started by asking, can we count the ballots faster . , and by asking, should we count ballots faster . Is this something manufactured situation where who have distrust in the system for the they already did where it was riled up by outsiders, people skeptical about the situation . Is the length of time it takes to get the results, something we should be concerned about and should we do it faster or is it something thats sort of artificial, something to improve . Theres a lot of answers to this but going back to Voter Education is what is important. California is never going to be done first because we are in washington and nevada, utah. Vermont. [laughter] so that way of connecting is not compatible, its not going to happen. Its working in other areas. An interesting question, you had florida who has processing as they come in and i would say yes. If you have to hand cap and you look at the size and the amount of voters they have and its achievable because of. Its not necessarily achievable when you have 3 million votes cast in the president ial election with the u. S. Senate of the congressional race on the same ballot. At one time we had 24 candidates for u. S. Senate race. And we have voters that circled the donkey, the elephant dont want the candidate and if you didnt have electronic scanners, a solution is equipment and you can make sure the results are accurately counted auditing thats the key. How many people you think in louisiana we start 6 00 a. M. For president ial and it p. M. How do you think 65 plus your old are going to last that day and later in the night . They are going to quit. They are not going to be there but yes, can get accuracy and speed . Possible but eight jurisdiction looking at whats best for them and thats the beauty of our system. State know what they can do and locals know they can do better and thats how you get to accurate and speed. Should we count ballots faster . My deception i would say we are on the right track because you need to balance accuracy, fairness and speed but the end of the day to think it is important every state think about how to make sure weekly cast ballots are counted. Thank you, secretary. Its making sure every eligible to vote will count and done with integrity, voter enhancement on infrastructure and etc. But that is the major premise we are guided by. Better to be right then first. Thats great, thank you panelist, this is outstanding. Do any of you want to announce her candidacy for the u. S. Senate for maryland . [laughter] we are still looking at great news so anyone can stand up to do that. Youre going to take 815 minute break and start again at 3 20 p. M. We are running on time which is amazing. Stop by the election official Network Cable if you can and pick up materials and grab a snack and will start at 3 20 p. M. [inaudible] [inaudible conversations] break here in this discussion with State Government and Election Officials on ways to improve voting systems putting ballot counting and election policy. They are expected to resume shortly, this coverage will continue when they do here on cspan2. In all conversations. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]this e Senate Health committee