Today. Topics included Voter Registration procedures and the civic value and duty of voting and cyberSecurity Issues of voter information. I will call the item back to order. We are continuing with item number 4 in our agenda. The first part is, just a restatement of the mission that is laid out in the executive order of may 11th, 2017. Its the executive order 13799, members of the commission to have a copy and of course, it is available on the white house website. Ill just read it, section 3 of the executive order states, mission, the Commission Shall consistent with applicable law, study the registration and voting processes used in federal elections, the commission will be solely be advisory and submit a report that has the following. A, those laws, rules, policies, activities, strategies and practices that enhance the american peoples confidence in the integrity of the voting processes used in federal elections. B, those laws, rules, policies, activities, strategies, and practices that under mine the american peoples confidence in the integrity of the voting processes used in flem elections and c, those vulnerability in voting systems and practices used in federal elections that could lead to improper Voter Registrations and improper voting, including fraudulent Voter Registrations and fraudulent voting. Are there any comments on the mission . Seeing none, we will move to the bylaws and operating procedures. We have not adopted any bylaws yet, that is our next order of business. Theres presented to the commission a proposal for the by laws of the president ial Advisory Commission on election integrity. The proposal is a, is pretty closely mirrors the bylaws that were provided by the gsa, right. Gsa, has, sort of, prototype of bylaws as many people may know, theres approximately conditions at any given time. Many of thes are ongoing. President ial commissions are more rare, they only represent about 4 of that thousand. But, they all have bylaws and so we started with the model and have staff suggested minimal changes to them. This is the proposed bylaws. These are the proposed bylaws and at this point, im hoping that members of the commission had a chance to look at the bylaws. And next point to be appropriate would be a motion to adopt if theres one. So moved. Second. And theres a motion and a second, and actually, one of the items in the bylaws is that we dont require a second, but at this point, we have not adopted them yet. So mr. Blackwell and mr. Adams moved and seconded respectively. Now the issues before the commission, is there any discussion of the bylaws . All right, they seem straight forward to me as well. Is there a well, since theres no discussion, i guess we can go ahead and call the question. The question is called, all those in favor of adopting the bylaws say eaye. Opposed nay. Bylaws have been adopted unanimously. The next topic is a forward looking question and that is what topics might the commission wish to address in future meetings. I took the liberty of just putting together some ideas on paper, just as a starting point. And thats all this is. And i will pass these out to people, and i will read them in to the record and again, this is nothing more than my thoughts on a topic and would invite any additions or deletions or we can scrap it entirely. Just laying on out of the the topic for the commission to think about. I wrote down five possible ways to divide the subject matter. One would be accuracy of vote r rolls including people that moved from one state to another, noncitizens who may have gotten on the voter rolls one way or the other, deceased who are on the voter rolls and felons that are excluded depend ant on the state laws. Second topic, fraudulent or improper voting. Scope of the problem and strategies to address the problem t idea being that that theres so many different ways of dividing up the issue, you know, theres activities that occur on voting day. Theres activities that might occur in a early voting stage where a state has voting by mail. And then theres activities involving the registration process, which may be well before voting occurs. Then the third general topic was voting by mail. And that is a wide variety of subtopics. Issues involving threats to the integrity of voting by mail, we have a hybrid system in our state, where i think most states have it now, where you have voting on election day and voting by mail proceeding the election day. We now have several states that have gone to all mail balloting too. That could be wrapped in to the topic. Fourth topic i just thought of is one that we may want to address and we certainly do not have to. Its cybersecurity regarding state voter data bases all of the state and county officials here have access to these data bases and each state takes steps to protect them against, efforts to hack or break in to the Voter Registration data bases that is one topic we may want to tackle. Next is voter tim additi r v intimidation and any topics that people want to discuss. With that, just sort of a thought paper to get people started, i entertain any discussion. One of the more pro found statements to come out, was the importance of one single vote. We have 31 of the 40 counties in equipment, where voting is executed. It would be interesting to catalog, across the country, how many initiatives, whether its for hospital, school levees, candidate elections are determined by one ballot. The reason i say that, is when we look at the big numbers like 5 million, 6 million, 7 million. You know, it is easy for somebody to dismiss it. But when we drive home the importance of every single, legal vote cast and the integrity of the ballot box, we can show people the consequence of one illegal a ballot that dilutes a legal ballot. Theres some states that can readily get us the numbers. We dont necessarily have to go back to the, you know, the first recording of states history. We can take a period of time, over the last two cycles or just to get us a snapshot, so that we can help drive home the point to the american voter, that the single ballot count, that is what this is about, the single voters voice is the focus. And we want to fake sure theres no voice being negated. We tried it in kansas for the purposes of a legislative hearing on a bill that was in front of the legislature to see how many elections were decided by a small number of votes and it was amazing how there was not a cental repository of that in our state and the county election officer for the largest state, johnson county, came to the commission and said over a ten year period, heres what we have. And i was astonished by the number of elections that were dead ties or decided by fewer than ten votes. But he had to look through his day that that was not easily available in a place where you know where to go to online. So, i think it would be fascinating information to have. I think it may be harder to obtain than you think. Chair, we believe p we probably cant get every jurisdiction, based on personnel and time and money, but i think we can get a Representative Group to drive home the point. And again, as the Vice President said, one person, one vote, that is the bedrock upon which our democracy is based. And a lot of decisions are made by one, two, three votes. Yes, mr. Vice chair, you know, really, until i was contacted about potentially serving on this commission and read things in the media, i just assumed that someone could only be registered in one state. I really thought that was the law of different states, quite frankly and to find out that people are registered, we will sea state we will say state aa Vacation Home in state b, that they can be registered in both states and potentiatentially vo one state and go to a resort state and vote another ballot. I dont know if it happens or not. It seems like to had me, it would be i would like for us to discuss, a recommendation to the president that someone can only be registered in one state. If you have a Vacation Home, great, vote an absentee ballot or by mail in your home state. I dont see where anyone needs to be registered in one more than one state. I would like to see us discussing that. I can add something there, the interstate cross system check, all those here are participants and its easy to get registered in the new state, but its harder than one might think that deregister the person, because that is the last thing they think of when they are moving, i better call the county i used to live in, and send them a written piece of paper saying, i am no longer wishing to vote there, because im moving. Its a big problem and its worthy of discussion. Two things, one on secretary blackwells recommendation to get as many states to provide us information on elections in the recent years, perhaps in the last ten years that have been decided by a small number of votes. I didn i think its a good idea. A great example of this, im sure the secretaries know, secretary yusted of ohio, just a couple of years ago put out press releases in which he had done that. He had gone through and found, numerous, particularly local election hads in ohio that were decided by one vote or by ties. So, that information is out there. On the second issue that judge king raised that, that is a very important issue, we know from the very studies that have been done, including the pugh study that theres a lot of people who registered in more than one state. Many of those are probably errors. You know, someone moved, they didnt notify the prior state. Part of what this commission has to do is try to come up with recommendations that will improve, help states improve the communications between the states, so they can find these individuals. But, what prior studies have not done is taken the second step. Yes, they have looked at Voter Registration lists and found individuals registered in multiple states. We dont know how many of those are errors. Simple administrative, innocent errors and how many of those are individuals taking advantage of it to illegally vote in more than one state. And the second half of that kind of study that has not really been done, is getting also the voting histories to check that. And the data base that we have has examples of individuals who were prosecuted for voting in more than one state. And thats certainly a problem. We need to look at how big of a problem that is, and what can be done to prevent it. I would add, not that im going comment on every comment here. But the crosscheck data base, sends to the participating states what are possible cases of double voting. We say possible, because every match is a potential false positive. Further investigation is always warranted, in the last two years, my state obtained eight convictions in double voting issues. Its not complicated to obtain the information. Everything is that there has to be further investigation to make sure its not a false positive. Yes . I have two or three additional topics, maybe they fit in elsewhere, and of course, there will probably be more topics that we spread to as we start the worker. I think we should look to the president alex active order, the causes for the lack of Voter Participation and confidence in our elections. Im not sure how we collect that data or get witness testimony the on that. We have a low Participation Rate among democracies in the world and i would like to know why. And then we should look at automatic Voter Registration. A number of states are taking up automatic Voter Registration, several have passed it and put it in place. That raises questions about the accuracy of the voting rolls. How this is all playing out y and how it will change the process across the country. And i would like to also look at, i dont know if its appropriate or not, how voter crimes are identified and prosecuted in the country. Resources are scarce and its not followed up on. I could be wrong about that, but i know its hard to identify voter fraud when its happening. I know from personal experience in seeing it in person, myself, that it is not a myth. I think we should identify and look at how we prosecute these crimes in the country. On the list, you have cybersecurity regarding state data bases listed. When i thought about the purpose of the commission, i thought we should probably not go there, theres so many other people looking at this. The timing of that and just the cooperation of the eoc, the dojs, i is have an opportunity this month, yet, to visit the facility in albany, new york, we are all learning more and more about it. I dont think it would be harmful if we put some of the information we are gaining in one spot, so we can maybe suggest best practices, regarding information sharing. And security levels. Those kind of things. I might chime in on that point, secretary lawson, the one hesitation i had in really, a hesitation, that i have in think background the cybersecurity topic is some of the federal secretaries of of state here may have had briefings in your respective states that are either sensitive or classified. And you know, the briefing will be about, were there any attempts to breech the states registration rules and so, some of the discussions are themselves sensitive. So, for example, if the commission were to say, well, we have an expert in public testimony saying well, here, here are the things that the states are doing well. If you want to break in to a states voter rolls here are the weaknesses, which is exactly what the sensitive discussions are about. Then, we, in a way, have sort of given a road map to those that might want to breech the states secured voter rolls. So, my concern on that topic is that we might have to go in to a closed session for part of the meeting. But maybe that should not deter us. You know, that may be just what we have to do. And its my understanding, i guess this can be verified, theres another president ial commission looking at cyber vulnerabilities across the board. I think its being chaired by mayor giuliani. There are times when we can be read in to certain conversations, whether they be, you know, confidential meetings. And i think we should explore it. The reality is while some of us had top secret clearance before, as commissioners we dont have top secret clearance. But, there are people who are concerned about various threats that would fall under the umbrella of information that is confidential. So, i think we need to explored administratively ways that we can be read in to pertinent aspects of our exploration, and we also have to be willing to understand that sometimes we wont be able to go in to that lane, you know, with our examination. Obviously, as my job as commissioner in the elections systems commission. We are working on looking in to these issues and i believe theres a role for us to play here, maybe not to the detail where we have to you know, reveal methodologies and things of that nature, but look at the realties of how feasible it is, a bad actor, to get in our Voter Registration systems and manipulate voter information. I know we have heard the stories of 21 states and in some cases 31 states in the press being somewhat hacked, the department of Homeland Security cant define hack, they said that they would have to give us 21 different definitions of that. But i think its worth looking at if voter information can be manipulated if the systems are penetrated. Hopefully we would not have to get in to deep Security Issues but i think its worth exploring. You are right, commissioner mccormick. 2015 the office of Personnel Management was hacked and 25 million of employees had expose er to potential breech of information. We have to operate in the real world, theres real threats and vulnerabilities and we cannot be limited in terms of what is being done to protect the american people, whether its their Social Security numbers. Their financial situation. Or the integrity of the ballot. Theres real threats. Other commissions and get a bead on this, i think we have to, we have to press to see just how far we can go. Its important to our work. I also think that theres positive statements that can come out of this, that is, that our election system is the centralized, our tabulation machines are not connect to the internet theres positive statements that we can make to show that the systems are not as vulnerable as was thought in the past. In my opening statement, i of course made reference to funding for upgrades for counties and states for the voter machines. Heres the reality of this. Ive been there on election day and night when the machines are not working properly and you have to bring in other machines and thankfully we are a large county and we have got the Financial Resources to, and we have got access machines, but theres a lot of counties in the nation who dont have the resources, and its all, and we can talk about, elections a lot, but if people cant vote because the machines dont work, then we have a massive, massive problem. And we have got to address that. We have got, in my opinion, we have got to address funding in a recommendation by the president to congress, lets do another funding like we did for hava, in 2002, and states and counties all across the nation used that money to purchase Voting Machines. So, here, what we have got now, is we have got 13 and 15yearold Voting Machines, and you have got Voting Machines that dont work. You have got these machines need parts. And we have got these counties and states we have got to have the funds, otherwise, you know, we are missing the big picture if we dont make sure that we have the machines that are state on the art and work, and work properly. Thank you, mr. Vice chair. I have been paying close attention to what is being said and it a fascinating discussion and you know, i think, i know what we do in maine, some of the discussion around what commissioner king just referred to, with the voting machine break downs, we dont have Voting Machines in maine. We use optical scan tabulator, but it happens that they break down. And because, we are a paper ballot state, you know, our town clerks always have option of hauling out of the old ballot box and use it until the machine is fixed. One of the things that comes to my mind is the issue of chain of custody. And the