uh elections review, go through uh uh so we're going to uh just start with some numbers um going back to 2018 and then we're going to focus on the absentee ballot uh voting which is usually the the um the more hot topic. Uh a couple of items with that and then we look ahead to 2026 and 2028. Um we're g do a quick summary of uh Kendra's position as election administrator and then she's actually going to run through a few um past election topics. Uh just remind the board of where where we're at with those. U make sure we're still on the same page. I'm pushing my magic button and it's not Tanner. Help me. There we go. Uh okay. So, a couple things on this one. This this is for the general election, the stats, uh, going back to 2018. Uh, just highlight a couple things. One is the our voter turnout. You can see the 95% number back in 2020, 91% for 2024. Uh, Carver County has been one of the highest uh, voter turnout uh, historically for for a while. Uh, we think that represents a lot of trust in the system. Um you can you can see that the election day voters uh equals the election day ballots uh 69,565 for the latest one in in November. Um and then but you can see within the absentee ballots uh pretty significant shift. Uh point out the the 4,333 number in bold. Uh that's um the last presidential election. And that's how many absentee ballots were placed in the tabulators by the voters. That uh you know over tripled to 15,351 in our last election. Um and then the the the two asterisks point out that the legislature changed the uh absentee voting call it direct voting where they stole the absentee process but voters can put their ballot directly into the tabulator just like they do on election day. That increased from seven days to 18 days before election, which obviously meant a lot more people were able to put their ballots directly into the uh tabulators, which meant correspondingly, you can see back in 2020, last presidential election, the 30,000 um were absentee ballots that were placed in the tabulator by the absentee ballot board. That was a lot to do with CO. A lot of people were um you know, mailed theirs in. They didn't want to come into the building. So, the absentee ballot board over 45% of the um ballots that were cast were put in by the absentee ballot board into the highspeed tabulator. That number dropped significantly um down to 13,000 in 20 uh 2024, which represents still mainly the mail, right? Those people are mailing in their ballots. And then uh the people that were um did the absentee ballot prior to the 18 days because once the 18 days before the election then they were placing their uh absentee ballots directly into uh the tabulator. So any questions on the numbers terms of the absentee ballot board just a high level overview they operate for 46 days before election. Uh and last year we had three elections. The presidential primary, uh the regular primary as well as the general primary or general election. Uh so 46 days before each one of those three elections, the absentee ballot board was um was open and open for business. Um we we break it into three phases. Phase one is where you're verifying the the applications. Uh and then they also do the initial acception rejection when they come back. Uh phase two is when you open the the the uh envelopes and you make a tally. You count the number of absentee ballots. Oh, you also verify um once again. So it's like a two-step process to verify. And then phase three is when you were entering those absentee ballots into the highspeed tabulator. Um so in the Minnesota statute allows uh on the absentee ballot board that you can have election judges uh who are representing the voters affiliated with major political parties or deputized county auditors who are representing all the voters major minor parties independents. Uh interestingly the the statutes are not clear how you select those uh absentee ballot election judges for uh for the abs. It's very clear for on election day um for cities and townships. Um but for for the absent billboard, it's not real clear. Um then there there's two lawsuits that those just the um ballot statements. Yeah. That the absentee ballot board is and this is being taped. So um the readings now are being taped. Uh but as I as I wrote there, the the statutes aren't clear how the process to select absentee ballot board members. uh election judges for the absentee ballot court. Okay, Miss Ray, let's uh let's let him finish. And I know that's a a big one for I just want to make sure I heard what I heard. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Um and then in March of 2022, the Supreme Court, there's a lawsuit and they ruled that uh absentee ballot board, they must use election judges for uh significant but infrequent tasks. So, signature verification, ballot duplication, those are two um most often referred to. Uh but even then, the ruling still wasn't clear, at least in our opinion, the ruling still wasn't clear, the process to select the absentee uh ballot board election judges. In July of 2022, the uh Carver County Board adopted uh updated their absentee ballot board resolution. And in that resolution, they uh directed uh county staff to use election judges from the major party list for signature verification and ballot duplication. So, we've been we've been following that uh board direction since 2022. Um and just there's some numbers um that the signature verification for in 2022 election and 2024 election there was less than 40 that so it doesn't happen very often but when it does it they the signature verification that step has to be done by election judges from the major party list and then ballot duplication there was 424 out of the 69,000 that I just mentioned there's 425 that needed to be less than 425 that had to be uh the ballots had to be duplicated so you know some coffee got spilled on it or there's a tear in it, something that doesn't allow it to go through the high-speed tabulator. That ballot has to be duplicated. Um, so that happened 425 times. And most of those were actually the UAVA, which are the military b um um uh ballots. We send them out uh to to our military serving overseas and when they they get a PDF and when they come back, they actually have to be um they have to have a ballot duplicated, actually create a a ballot. So most of those are are, you know, things there's nothing nothing that could happen. No, nobody did anything wrong. It's just built into the system that those need to be uh uh those ballots need to be duplicated. As I said, that has in in Carver County, we've been using the election judges from the major party list since 2022 because that's what the board's uh direction was. Uh April 2024, uh they had a workshop and um right well the year about a year ago um and the direction from the board was to increase the utilization of election judges from the major party list. So, we committed to having them in the room whenever we did phase phase two or phase three um for the 2024 election. Uh worked worked well. Um and then we actually put them to work kind of you know the long as we were there um to do the signature verification or the ballot duplication. Uh she had them working as the phase two team which worked out great as well. So we did um we did increase the utilization of those election judges for 2024. Uh most of us remember in October 2024 there is a lawsuit with against Henipin County and um they they were not using election judges from the party list as I mentioned you know the statutes weren't clear the Supreme Court ruling wasn't clear so we had the lawsuit um came out of that lawsuit it was very clear specifically stated that um election judges had to become had to be u selected from the major party list or exhausted from the major party list which Henipin County was not following but as I said we've been following that since 202. So, it had no impact, right? We we we were not impacted by the law uh because of the the July 2022 um county board resolution. Any questions? Um I'm going to raise four three, excuse me, three elections, uh issues, concerns from 2024. Um kind of some, you know, lessons learned, um things we we hope to do better on. Uh but the one the first one was that election staff worked 10 to 12 hours a day for 19 straight days. This is multiple election staff including Kendra um including some of our temporary people. Um the legislature added uh absentee ballot board. They had to be open on Tuesday night which we didn't have before. Uh they added another Saturday and they added a Sunday um which for me I thought why would they do that on Sunday? Who would want to vote on Sunday? It was it was crowded. It was very popular um people uh coming in on Sunday. Um so and they also added those 18 days direct voting which you know to me sounded good because it meant the absentee ballot was going to be doing less um a phase three phase two and phase three where they had to put them in the tabulator but it does create more work after the polls closed for Kendra and her staff. So they were it was the polls were open um and then once they closed they still had more work to do because of how the um the direct voting works and all that meant was they lost opportunities to work and get all the other work done that needed to get done because they were they were doing these extra hours that were required by the statute. Uh the same thing happened in 2022. uh similar long hours, multiple staff, you know, happen for different reasons, but um it's a real concern um because of of the long number of days um and uh with no days off um obviously it adds you know work life balance stress to already stressful job increases errors, increases opportunities for mistakes. There's no margin for safe, you know, no safety margin if all of a sudden something did happen. uh somebody gets sick or or uh the legislature makes a throws a last minute curveball at us, you like the the Supreme Court ruling that could have affected us. It didn't, but you know, those are things that are out there and we already got staff working that many days. Uh that's going to be a real challenge to to address those changes. It's also very difficult to train develop staff when everyone's working so many hours and they're and they're trying to get so much done. Um we we've been it's been on our mind. Uh but we haven't been able there's no simple solutions. Uh we one one uh goal that we have would be to decrease the number of inperson absentee val absentee voters. Um if we if if Jan Hassen would be a uh uh absentee voting location similar to what uh Wakonia is doing that would uh decrease our volume that was here at the the government center by a third which would be awesome. We're also going to our plan is going to get more experienced election judges from major party list just like we've been doing. They're they're good to have them there. they already they have to be doing valid duplication and signature verification. So if they're already there for doing that, let's get more in there and and do more work. Um and then we keep talking about other things as well. Mr. Chair, I do have a question on that. So if Chan Hass was kind enough to jump in this game, would they be required to be open Tuesday nights and Saturday, Sundays? The the um the way the the statute's written now, they would. Um Kendra's telling me that they are they are talking about changing so they wouldn't have they actually have to be open for the 46 days and then including the um the other um Tuesday nights and Saturday Sundays but they are talking about changing that. So um you only got to be open for the direct the 18 days direct. Um but yeah that that is a you know the law's not very flexible. It's if you're going to be if you're going to provide that um you got to provide the whole you gota be open the whole time and it's statewide then everyone's got the same hours. everyone's got the same so there's consistency uh which is I I believe why they do it but it does it does create an extra burden good enough thank you uh our second uh issue um was that our our first precinct to report was until 1:00 a.m. in the morning. Um at that time we had 34 out of the 38 precincts um that were reported and that was that was later than we what we had hoped. Um and um same it was uh this time it was a little different this year than it was two years ago. Uh this was focused on the late reporting was on completing phase two. Um and that it had a lot to do with pre before election day. We had limited space for those phase two teams. Um and so it and we also had done the um made the commitment to have election judges from the party list in the room at all times for phase two and phase three. So that complicated the the scheduling logistics for Kendra uh because she had to make sure we had election judges from the party list in the room when we're doing those things. Uh so just another wrinkle. Uh so so on election day uh we weren't totally caught up on all the absentee ballots that we had received um in terms of getting them getting them into uh phase two and phase three. And then on election day, the legislature changed the the drop off point from or the deadline. It was 3 PM. Uh they changed it to 8 PM. And um what ended up happening is we got a large drop off from the post office in the morning. Uh which we've gotten before and we've gotten through those on election day. U but then we also got one in the evening, a large drop. Uh which we we just weren't expecting. We didn't think it'd be a large. We thought a few more would trickle in, but uh it was a pretty pretty big number. Um, and then we had the election judge not in the room. Uh, that became a problem when the one election judge, uh, so major party balance. One of them was called into their township, uh, precinct, uh, to help close because they're going to be the the head head judge next year. So, they wanted to train them in. It was kind of unexpected. All a sudden, they realized, oh, we won't need, so that person had to leave, which meant we stopped phase two and phase three from 7:30 to 9:30, right? The key uh, part of of the of the day. um stop both phase two and phase three uh to allow that person to leave and then once he came back then we started things up again. So um that delay was just uh just due to only we only had the two uh one from each party. Obviously next time we're going to have four two from each party. So if one does happen to leave uh we're not going to stop everything. But those are those are the the main reasons why it took us longer um to get the phase uh to get our our first precinct to report. Um, as I mentioned, we had similar problem in 2022, but that was actually uh phase two wasn't the problem. Phase three was the problem. Um, but we put Mary Kay um, assistant finance director and Lynn Boris from our finance staff. We put them on phase three this year and they were uh, um, they were caught up uh, and they did a good job in that. So, it was really um, kind of a moving, you know, moving target. Um but that was the uh that's what that was the explanation for why we were late in getting our first pre precincts to report. Um for 2026 uh we expect the absentee ballots volume to increase. It's become more and more popular. Um so we're anticipating more. Um and the big the big change we're going to make is that uh figure out how to get more space figure out how to create more space for our phase two teams which should help uh keep us caught up on the volume. And then the third uh election uh concern I want to bring up is our software um vendor um ESNS had a programming error where I mentioned the 34 out of 38 um were the uh those that's when we did our first precinct to uh that report. um the four that weren't ready uh because they had an excess ballot issue um they actually got reported as being 100% reported even though they did not have their uh polling place results in. So it was it there's a it's not supposed to happen that way. the ESNS um writes their software so that you can only report when you've got both the absentee ballots and the polling place ballots, but they made an error in their program that allowed us to report those uh just the absentee ballot numbers for those four precincts without the polling place numbers in yet. And it looked to the state that we had 100% of our precincts reported 38 out of 38 when we only had given them numbers for 34. So, um, we didn't have the opportunity to pre-est that. That wasn't something that that we had any idea that it was there. Um, it's always been programmed to work correctly as kind of a stop gap that won't allow it. Um, it actually turned out to be we were lucky that we reported as late as we did because the problem was there. If we would have reported at at, you know, 10 10 at night or 11 at night and and had um all of our precincts would have looked like the 100% had been reported um had been um reported when we could have only maybe had half or or a third or whatever. So, it was actually lucky that we were late because otherwise this problem would have been uh would have been bigger. Um this the vendor's already committed to they've uh they explained it to the state, they've explained it to Kendra. uh obviously they're going to double check their programming before they send it to us uh that they did this right and they're going to create the ability that we can u pre-est that particular uh reporting functionality. So we'll test to see if we can uh report precincts when we don't have both the absentee ballots and the uh polling place ballots. Um so we'll be able to check that. So we don't anticipate that being a problem. It's just uh a good example of how um you know you think you got it figured out. Kender's been doing this with ESS for a long time. They do this across the country and um this was a this was an error that was made in their programming. They didn't catch it. We had no way of catching it. Uh but we'll we'll we'll get it figured out for next time. This did not just impact county. It was not unique to Carver County. There were multiple counties that were affected by this same situation. Thanks. Okay. Uh looking ahead to 2026, as I mentioned, we are planning on expanding our Epste ballot space. Uh we're also it's going to allow us to create a public viewing for phases two and three. Um we had uh where uh in Township Hall where we're currently located. There's two there's two spaces that are adjacent. It had one of them and public health had another. Uh we looked at it um because we we could possibly have used their space, but uh it didn't work out as well. But it has now cleared out their space. Public health has agreed to move into IT space, which means we'll have a there's a wall that's that's between us that didn't used to be there. And once that wall is taken down, we'll have this whole big hallway. Uh we'll be able to put in more uh tables and chairs for our absent for our phase 2 um teams. Um which is going to be great. And it's also going to allow us to have a a public viewing. Uh so that that's allowed by statute. It's not required to have the public be able to view. uh we just didn't have the the space to be able to make it work this up until this point. But we think once we take that wall down, they'll be there'll be it'll be a real good spot for the public to view, but more importantly for us at least we'll be able to have more phase two teams. So we'll be able to to get through those numbers even even quicker, especially as the numbers grow. Um and then as I mentioned, hopefully we try and increase our absentee voting locations. Uh the county is required to have a a voting location in all 38 precincts. So, anybody in the county can come, any voter in the county can come and they can uh they we have all of the ballots here at the county. The beauty of being a a a city uh absentee voting location is like what is doing, they only have to have the ballots for their precinct. So, if you have three precincts, that's all you have. You don't have to have the 38. So, it's it's actually much more efficient process for the voters because they're only um the election judges and the and the workers are only having to deal with those um ballots for their precincts. Um and obviously that's more convenient, right? It's not you're not driving a long distance to get to uh to vote. Um in most most metro cities uh in the area do provide the absentee voting locations. Um Scott County, we looked, they have seven uh city absentee valuable locations. In Carver County, we only have the one. We've had just the one since 2018. Chan Hassan has shown some interest in the past. Victoria shown some interest, but haven't been able to get them over the hump. But you can see it have a huge impact on the number of uh absent develop inerson absentee voters that come to the government center. Um you can see Chanhassen at over 5,000. Uh Chaza 6,000. when we talked to them, they they weren't as interested at the time um because we're already doing it in in Janessin, so the convenience factor is not there. And excuse me. Yeah, Chesca. Um but you can see the numbers are growing. Even Carver and Victoria now are uh are increasing. Interesting. Waconia, we only had 84 people come to the government center. um because they can go to city hall and and and take care of theirs and they had a large number of uh people that went to Waconia for their absentee ballot in person absentee ballot voting. Uh then for 2028 um the the legislature has allowed or um and kind of I think this too, but they they they've allow they've uh changed the law so that the absentee voting locations will transition to early voting precincts. Um and the and the difference is there's no there's no absentee ballot uh application process. When we go to early voting precincts, it's going to be just like uh election day where it's going to be run by election judges from the party list. uh challenges will be allowed. Uh any anything that um anything that's similar to what happens on election day will be what is uh going to be these early voting precincts. They might I thought it was going to be 2028. Uh Kendra now tells me they're they're actually talking about uh being a pilot project in 2026 in some areas that they test their software and and before they roll it out in uh you know statewide in 2028. So we'll see we'll follow that to see how that goes. Um then also in 2028 the um big change would be obviously the government center building construction schedule. If we stay on pace for that uh 2028 we could not we may not have a government center building here to have our um either our our early voting precinct or the absentee voting location. Um, so we're talking about moving that the requirement that the county has to provide this across low county. Uh, potentially moving out to Cologne, uh, Wakonia area. Um, and then, um, because we'd be out there, we think then maybe we could talk city of Chaza into being an early voting precinct at their community center. Um, and then also big picture talking about not having the county government center be uh, the early voting precinct where we're bringing everyone in from the county at our government center. Perhaps if we find a good spot out in Colona, Raconia, we could just leave it out there and then the people that are coming in aren't driving all the way into into Chaza and um we don't have the volume, right? We can we can um offload it by Chaza doing their own, Chan doing their own, Victoria doing their own, Carver doing their own, Leon doing their own. Um so that's kind of big picture. Just give the board a heads up on on kind of where where we might be going with that. Could I add a clar a clarification question, Mr. Sure. So, but if if our staff have to move because of construction, we're going to have to find lease lease space probably can. So, we could provide could we provide the service there? Yes. Yeah. Exactly. We that that that was that's what plan A was. That's what we've been thinking all along that we would wherever our our staff goes temporarily um we would we would just provide the same level of services there. Um then then we that just lately we just started thinking well um rather than trying to because if we got you know 15,000 people that are going to be coming through there um you know that that only certain spaces are going to work well for that. Uh then we thought well what if we what if we actually move it out to um you know the public works facility as an example and we do there we do it there. Um then and then then Taska did um became a voting location at the community center then we wouldn't be bringing a lot of people out there. We could really we could you know dramatically to go back to that list all these big ones right would all not be coming to wherever we put this up it'd just be these small ones 67 57 you know 150 so um it could we could it could dramatically change what we're having to deal with if we move uh this required location out actually got I got the the um Scott that's county does they have their countywide facility somewhere out in the middle and then they have their big cities just to their locations hen county does it that way. No county has does that way, too. So, it's just something something came up that we started thinking about. But when you start thinking about that new building, if we didn't have to build something to accommodate 15,000 voters coming through, um you know, that would obviously make a big change in our building. So, that's what that was the main kind of the main driver started thinking about that. Um which Kendra's not necessarily on board with yet. So, just yeah. Yeah. So, it's just just preliminary thinking, but uh something to get something to uh put on everyone's radar. We uh real quick, I just want to shift a little bit to the elections administrator position. Um and I just want to share with uh the board and um make sure acknowledge Kendra. Um, I I tend to do the um I deal with the the data requests and I deal with the questions from the board and I deal with questions from the the community, but you know, obviously Kendra is the um is is the main person that's doing all the work and coordinate everything and and it's a tough position. It, you know, there's the statutory compliance um with the legislature making changes, the Supreme Court rulings like what happened this year with Enip County uh county attorney interpretations. Uh the election day precincts don't apply to absentee voting locations. Uh we had poll challengers in in the in 2024, which is something that is allowed for an election day, but it's clearly not allowed for on absentee voting location. Um but we still haven't showed up and and we had to get the attorneys involved and and kind of explain the stat well in the secretary of state um as well um and explain the statutes to them. Um and you know that a lot of stress involved with trying to trying to everyone everyone's trying to follow the laws. Um but you know you have different interpretations and you look at it differently. Um but yeah just it it's um it's not not easy. The election data requests thankfully were down in in um in 2024 compared to 2022. I mean I I said I I manage them. Um you know I I I deal with them but I don't know all the answers. So I'm still relying on Kendra. Hey, help me out with this one. And so I'm still um you know asking a lot of questions. Um but um the the volume was down in in 2024 a little bit. So that was good. Uh there is a new AMCO uh legislative implementation committee and uh Kendra is going to be on that going to represent Carver County um on that committee. Um so that you know just uh a kind of an acknowledgement of Kendra's knowledge and expertise. In terms of total the 28,000 total absentee ballots, those are both the inerson and the uh mail. Uh and that she has three full-time staff. Uh we had 19 temp temporary people um deputized county auditors and then the five election judges from the major party list. Um there she the the key to making these uh making our elections work are the partnerships with the cities and townships. County provides the equipment election equipment supplies and support for the 37 precincts. Um and then provides training. Kendra is required to provide the training for 450 um election judges and clerks. It's the state's uh materials, but counties got to provide that that election uh election judge training. Then we keep track and make sure people have actually attended the training. Um and it is the the unfortunate thing is that the high turnover uh this stressful position, you know, we're seeing in Minnesota and across the country uh that there's election administration, they're just uh they don't want to do it anymore. They get burned out. Uh it's too much. Thankfully, Kendra is still here. Her staff's still here. uh her temporary people um Pam Razer and and Sheriff Olsen and uh number of them they keep coming back. They say it's kind of in their blood. Um so it's great to have them back and and Kendra does a great job leading the team working with all the cities and the townships um and and and keeping it all um you know fair and accurate process. So at this point I'm going to bring Kendra up. She gonna say a few words to finish up the presentation. Um good morning Mr. chair and board members and the public. Um so um thank you for that. Um we'll just talk about a few past election topics that we've had and just to summarize the different roles and responsibilities for election administration. Um and to remind everyone those roles and responsibilities are driven by statutory language. So those roles and involvement um are are defined in statute. The state uh adopts the statutes and rules and procedures. Um they uh determine it determines what machines what type of machines can be certified and can be used in Minnesota. Uh what the absentee processes are um what ID requirements do or don't exist in our election processes and how we do the uh post-election counts the post-election review to validate the accuracy of the uh results on election night. So that's all driven by our state statutes. Um voters voters concerns about that election integrity, transparency. Um that is the message when we get questions at our office or uh we um direct the election judges. Um that if people have concerns um their audience is the legislature, we actually have a contact sheet that we hand out to help them with that uh outreach um so that they can have those conversations with the right people. um the county responsibility and the county board. Um appointing the election administrator. Um and then approving our budget for what we need for election staff, space, equipment, and then also uh then just hearing those concerns and making sure uh that questions are directed to either staff, uh the county attorney, uh the appropriate audience for for the public concerns. cities and townships. Uh it's it's more driven around the e election day voting, uh the polling place. Uh they um clearly have the statute that talks about um staffing election judges, the exhaustion of those election judge lists that are uh received from the parties. Uh we pass that on to the cities and townships and then uh discuss the compliance with the election day statutes of of exhausting the list. and then they use their attorneys and they hire the election judges. So, as Dave mentioned, we train over 450 election judges every election cycle, but those election judges are hired and are the staff of the cities and townships themselves. So um just uh the the last point here um again as I mentioned that the roles and responsibilities are driven by statutory language and so the statute provides that when the party lists submit those uh election judge lists the parties submit those lists to the state. The state then precincts those and identifies what counties to send those lists to and then statutes provides that we send that list on to the cities and townships. Um there is no other role or responsibility or involvement at the county level that's defined in statute after that point. And then the major political party responsibility um is providing those lists of people interested in being election judges. And as Dave mentioned, um those relationships, um those of you that have been around uh for a while have heard me say this before, but I'll say it again. When we have a successful election in Carver County, it's not a Carver County Election Office success. It's a Carver County success. We view that as a partnership of us, the cities and the townships, the election judges, and quite honestly, the voters themselves that we're all working together to have a successful um accurate election in Carver County. So um it it is truly a partnership u from our perspective. Some of the past election topics that have been uh discussed and and um analyzed and that um in the past in Carver County is uh hand counts. Um we do uh have a hand count verification after every election. It's driven by statute that there be a post-election review. So at the county canvas board meeting for the general election, they draw three random pre precincts from the 38 precincts in Carver County, we uh conduct and oversee the post-election hand count um after the election, but it is actually done by teams of party balanced election judges from the cities and townships that are selected. So again, we lead that process, but the handc count itself is done by the party bounce teams of election judges. We have had some recounts in the past. Um, all of us that were around at the time remember the 2008 uh Coleman Franken Senate race recount that was a statutoily required uh recount and court contest. We have had a couple of discretionary recounts in past elections in Carver County. Um there's a statutory threshold of uh how close the race is, for lack of a better term of putting it. If it falls within a certain range, it's a taxpayer funded required recount. If it falls outside of the range, a losing candidate does have the right to request a discretionary rate recount where they pay for that recount. Um and they get to pick which one which precincts they want us to start with. So we have had a couple of those in recent years. Uh the 2018 election had the state representative district 47B and in 2024 we did have a discretionary recount requested for state representative 48B. Uh both of those showed that the um all of these things the post the required post-election review and the recounts that have happened in past elections have validated the 100% accuracy of the machine counts in Carver County. Also with the um concerns about the absentee voting security to go through the process, um we do have um the requirement of the application. Again, the direct balloting uh that we're doing currently requires that anybody that votes absentee fill out an ABS application and submit it. It has to provide uh certain identifying information, their driver's license, the last board, their social security, date of birth, everything that identifies that unique individual and where they live. And then the absentee ballot board members verify that data um in the state database. We create a uniquely identifiable absentee record for that voter before the ballot is released. And that's whether it's through the mail or handing uh to an in-person voter. Uh we verify that information. we create that uniquely identifiable absentee record in the state system before a ballot is issued. Then when the absentee is returned um in the envelope um again with the couple of possibilities that Dave mentioned that absentee ballot board then um there's identifying information they're required to put on the envelope again that social security number last for the social their date of birth uh has to have the voter there's legal elements that have to be on that envelope before they can accept that absentee ballot to be included in our results and they match that information to the unique absentee record that's in the system. The voter is signing um on the envelope that they acknowledge um that any fraud is a felony. Um there's the witness requirement in Minnesota as well. And uh the ballot is always linked to that voter record. So if we would receive something back, I know there's speculation of whether somebody could just uh return a ballot. um there's a unique barcode. So if the ballot board gets anything that doesn't match something that was issued for our office, that ballot is not going to be accepted. Um and certainly there would be additional investigation and possible um you know submission to the sheriff's department and consulting the county attorney to um possibly prosecute. Um and there is protections from the voter voting twice. That's whether somebody can vote absentee twice or vote absentee and then show up at their polling place. that unique absentee record, that database um keeps that from happening. Uh we actually had people a number of times and I was in vicinity when we had those conversations with them where they asked us to mail their ballot. We mailed the ballot to them and then they showed up in person at our counter to vote in person and the first thing they heard from us was well we show that we sent you a ballot. Did you receive that? Oh gosh, yes I did. we have to spoil and inactivate all of those materials that were mailed to them before we can issue them a new ballot. Same thing for the voter in the polling place. Um the record is going to show when they go to show up at the polling place if they had an absentee ballot accepted, it's going to show that they can't vote on election day. So those protections are in place uh to really minimize the chance of somebody voting twice. and then the absentee uh drop box versus the absentee drop slot. Um there's been some movement in past elections as far as the statutes allowing for the use of either of these options. Um the decision from the board um and the direction was to use the absentee drop slot um that comes directly into a safe in our office. It comes directly um into the the office. that is only open during our hours when we are there to staff it and watch it. It does allow somebody returning their own ballot to just drop it in the slot and not have to stand in line. Um, and it also takes if they have concerns about the timing of the post office and and those other concerns, they can make sure that they get it right directly into our possession and there is surveillance uh in that window and such. And then uh there's also the option in statute of an absentee ballot dropbox which would be a 247 option external to the building um that has a lot of requirements as far as surveillance and and those types of um security controls. uh the direction in the past. Um the recommendation from us and just from a couple of of uh elements um there have been some counties that have implemented and there's been movement of implementing and then choosing not to use it anymore. um consistent with what's going on in other metro counties and um what we're hearing as far as voter support and demand of that um we've we've not used or the direction is not been to not use the dropbox and our expectation is that we would continue to with that recommendation um at this point. And then another topic that's been brought up in the past is the cast vote record uh which involves ballot images. Um so there's no requirement in Minnesota statute to create the cast vote record ballot images. Um as far as you know this technology is there. Uh but as far as turning it on and creating that CVR report uh we have never utilized that. We've never created tested or used it. Um there's no uh process. there's no need for it in our adjudication because we've always had the paper ballots. Um there was some uh effort to uh get the CVR ballot images from all the counties in after the 2020 election. In 2023, the Minnesota legislature did make some changes that made uh part of that information not public data for voter privacy. Um there's ballot images and timestamped CVR data. there's a request for it to be randomized. If there's less than a certain number of ballots in a precinct, that's not provided. So, there's nothing in based on those statutory changes, it results in some randomized and incomplete public data that's available that has limited or no value and and has the potential to be um misused or to create confusion and perceptions. So, uh, our recommendation is to continue to not create the CVR ballot images. Again, we've always driven our results and our validation of those results by the paper ballots that exist in Minnesota, unlike some states that may not have the paper ballots. And we did um create um in recent years uh Carver County Election Integrity and Security web page. what uh we've wanted to do and it's been a goal of ours for a while and and we're we've uh made a lot of progress, but again, it's always continuous improvement and we're always looking for more to add. We're looking to proactively get accurate information out to the public um about security and the election processes to address some of those frequently asked questions. Um so, we've got our county frequently asked questions about our equipment and our processes. Um, we also link out to the state of Minnesota's frequently asked questions and then some information about our equipment and our software. Um, and that and we're always, again, that's continuous improvement. We would never consider it done. So again, we're wanting to be responsive to the questions and concerns and try to proactively get as much information out to the public as possible. Oops. I guess I went one too far. So with that, I guess we could open it to any questions. All right. A motion to adjurnn so we can uh talk. You guys want to uh to discuss or should we take some more feedback from from the audience? It looks like Ms. Williamson is ready for that. And if I could, I just have a couple questions. And and Kendra, you mentioned that the you're confident that the the 1 a.m. reporting on election night will be vastly improved uh this next election 2026. Sorry. Yes, I am I am confident in that. Um just based on um we're always looking for continuous improvement every election. We're always looking for what we can do better. Um, I do I do know Dave and I have talked about uh this was a little bit of a multiple variables in place for us in 2024, the volume and the demand. Um, and also the statutory changes of being required. Um, so we not only had the mail that got returned till 8:00 p.m., but we also had the members of the public were able to return ballots till 8:00 p.m. So we had them coming from multiple directions. uh with the volumes when I talk for lack of a better term um a very informal term we talk about the onesies twoozies um when you when you get those returned uh and you have one ballot for Benton Township or you have one ballot for city of uh Hamburg um the processes the ballot board still has to go through its legal checks and balances and it's validating everything and the documentation the time the ballot the number of ballots is this big but the time it takes to process those onesie twoosies and to make sure that we are documenting and logging and and making sure the numbers match um we can't shortcut those processes um but what we talked about also um we talked about the judges from the party list the five individuals that originally the the main statutory requirement is uh signature verification and ballot duplication um they were hands-on with all of the ballot processing in phase 2. I joke about that. I'm not sure that they'll answer my phone next time. I worked on them kind of so hard. Um but they were so involved. But we want to we want to what I would say heavy load that in 206 because we know our our perception is the demand is not going to go down. The volume is going to be there. Um, so with the space change of giving us more space and truly getting more people on the ballot board from the party list, um, and and having more people involved, um, that that we should be better positioned for, for 2026 and be back to more the typical when you're used to seeing results from us. Well, Kendra, doesn't a lot of this and in and it's you don't have to defend the system because I don't think it's your fault, but don't you think uh software glitches probably leave some voters questioning where we're going technologywise with all of this? Um, uh, do we have a list? And you and I are always going to go have lunch and talk about about the politics of all of this with the legislature, but isn't there shouldn't we be creating a list for the legislature that says we need to get a little humaness into our voting process that the city of Chanhassen or anybody or you would have to be open for 46 days in a row to take but we've gone from one day with a little bit of absentee balloting to open for 46 days. Uh which I don't I don't understand the number 46. Um couldn't be 26 uh 16. Um this isn't uh creating martyrs at every 87 counties and numerous cities to pull this off. Um is borderline insanity I would say. So, um, um, I I think I think we're going to have to figure out a way to cut back on this. This isn't this isn't working. And then on top of that, the USPS is delivering a bag of ballots at 8:00 on election day. And again, not your problem. Uh, are people mailing in their ballot the day before the election? I know in some states they're going, "Oh, why don't we just take those ballots until a week after the election? We'll just keep counting them until whenever." And so there's a variety of bizarre things going on out there, but I think this thing needs to be clamped down uh at risk of disenfranchising uh numerous parties. This needs to get back into a sane uh area of our of our government because this is this is not not reasonable. Well, Mr. Chair and board members, I will just say um anecdotally, as Dave referenced, there is um proposed legislative changes in play. Um I have listened to some of the committees um and seen some of the proposed statutory changes. There are a number of elements um in play such as when Dave referenced uh and who knows where it lands. We never know. There's a lot of things that don't necessarily make it out of the legislative session. You know that better than I do. Um but there's statutory language that would allow cities and town or cities to only need to provide the absentee absentee voting for the 18 days, not the entire 46. Um there's also proposed language to um have a cuto off period for the absentee ballot application to be received for mail out where they're proposing to uh establish a seven day seven days prior to election day deadline that would not affect in-person voters but trying to take out that last week of you know getting the ballot mailed out. Um, I hesitate to say very much about concerns about the post office and their processes because I'm not there just like they're not in our election office. And I also have to be careful because um my mom was a retired postmaster. Well, got to walk that fine line. But there were many times where I jokingly said to her, "Mom, what the heck?" You know, so um so there there are things um of concern um and and questions. Um and like I said there there is some proposed statutory language. The other thing I would say too is um the issue that happened in our neighboring county. Um there is a difference between um how they have their cities do their processes and how Carver County does. Uh Carver County for city of Bonia. We had a documented chain of custody handoff of the envelopes from city of Wonia to Carver County and we processed them all here with our ballot board as opposed to having the cities open those envelopes and start those processes. Um, so there are a lot of u the other legislative topic and and then I'll I'll kind of stop with some examples is the best practices that we use for the tight tracking and the the counting and and the reconciling when you're opening those envelopes. Um there are best practices of accuracy and and tightness of that that are being done here at Carver County and at other locations in the state. That's never been statutoily defined. And there is statutory language that would put those um processes, those best practices of tracking those numbers um into statute so that you would not run the risk of a um someone offsite um maybe taking a shortcut or whatever whatever might happen. So um I do know there's legislative efforts to address some of these concerns. Um um but we'll see where we land. I can tell you that yes um you all know I my first election here was 2002. So I've been done doing this a little while. How we're doing it now looks completely different than what the law what the laws were in 2002. And uh so so there's been a lot of changes through these uh 20ome years. Um but uh as we always say um we'll see what the legislature comes up with and as we always have we'll follow follow their laws as they as they land. Okay. I know Patricia is ready but everybody. Okay. Miss Williamson. Yes sir. Is there a way that I can share my screen on my computer easily or are you able to move to that? I see it says meeting presets. If I plug in my laptop, will it show? Uh, we have an IT staff person here. Is that Are you able to project my screen instead of the one that's up? See, hold on a second. Don't start pressing buttons yet. That's what I would do. That's what I would do. And that doesn't because I I I see here there's a lectturn laptop that pop a little more difficult. I think we'll we'll see if we can get somebody in the room here. Okay. So, 2002, Kendall, was your first election. You started here when you were eight. Something close. Yeah. 18. 18. Yeah. There you go. Uh, no. And and so um I'm Patricia Williamson. I live here in Chaza. I am the uh chair of the Carver County Republicans. I thank the board for having this working group and and work time. Hey, it was lectturn laptops. Hey, um nothing you Hey, I I I know where to I'm I'm kind of okay with the it, but uh I can be dangerous. So, um so anyway, um I I'm I'm so grateful that we have the opportunity to have a a public working session that we've had these in the past and that now the board has moved to have these uh publicly available for people to view and and to uh go back and watch. as someone who uh sits through a day job, uh anything after 9:00 am usually is pretty occupied. So, I did set some time aside this morning, though. Um, one thing that that uh we have prioritized as a county Republican party is our election judge recruitment, retention, and training as as something that's very important to us and something that I think provides good uh things for the citizens to be involved and engaged in. I do commend uh Kendra and and the county staff for their um willingness to do um better things. Uh one thing that she and I informally talked about just a few weeks ago was the idea of having some more uh onhand poll pad training for election judges uh prior to the election. I think that would be very helpful and I've heard a lot of feedback from this uh past election in that regard. So, if there's an improvement to be made in the processes and training available, um we were looking to even do things with our uh partnership with a Republican women's group in the area to see if we could get um some little training activities separately going. Um because I know other counties do that uh practicum training. Um when reviewing the statute, however, around the absentee ballot boards, I would completely disagree with um Mr. Frisman's assessment here. It's very clear in the statutes as written today under 20 or Woo there goes sleepy uh 203B.21 uh ballot boards uh in the Minnesota statutes the establishment of the board is what you need to start with. You got to start with when you establish that and the applicable laws therefore the governing body of each county which would be you all here um and municipality or school district uh have the responsibility to accept and reject those absentee ballots and that they have to appoint that ballot board in order to administer early voting and that's a must. Um so establishing that board you must consider a sufficient number of election judges that are appointed as provided in sections 204.19 and 204B22. And those two sections deal with starting with who's the authority and party balance. So before you even get rolling on what the tasks are or what the responsibilities or what the must-have job is, it must start with your board has to be composed with up to 50% of the major party list. So the major party list comes down May 15th and those people should be the priority hires for the absentee ballot board. It's pretty clear in the way it's written. I don't think there's any argument about it. I even have the House Republican reach out. One of the members of the election board or committee at the House got one of the nonpartisan staff to do a review which I have provided to um Chair Workman. So, um that review was done last fall. Miss Williamson, was that the uh that topic the basis of the Henipin County lawsuit? Actually, it even predates, but yes, there's there's inclusion of discussion around the Henipin County lawsuit. So, I I think it's important to recognize that you have citizens within this county that want to be involved with the process. They want to understand and seeing is believing. Just the fact that they need to be included is a great thing. The fact that they want to be included is a great thing. And I think there's lots of positives that can come from that inclusion, including some addressing some of the concerns that were raised this morning. Having that additional manpower can take the burden off of the staff. Having more people, not less, involved in the election processing of these ballot is going to help take that strain where that over the course of whether it's 46 days or 18 and when they come to some reasonable thinking about how long the this can go on and even late into the night on the election day, having uh relief um staff, having people to come in fresh, having people to be able to bear that burden where it's not every day and I I remember Kendra mentioning this during the post-election review that she had um some really great staff that had um worked hours on end, 19 hours uh a day or something along that line. It was or 19 days in a row with you know very long 14-hour days. I do appreciate the effort that has gone in. But I would say that you must start with the beginning of the statute where your party lists are required to be the source of your hiring. And then after you do that, let's say auditing, I only turn in five people and you need 25. Well, obviously you're going to have to find you have to go fish. You have to find other ways. But when I'm turning in 350 names to the county um during an election cycle, obviously there's adequate people to choose from, many of which have served as absentee their regular election judges that they could serve on that absentee ballot uh board process prior to. So, you know, I do agree with the idea of the changes for the legislature needing to be put through. Um we have an election task force as part of our party efforts uh that started in the fall and we were able to provide some feedback to the elections committee of the house earlier this year in uh January. So um we had a great opportunity to talk about things like vouching practices um on out to the absentee ballot board and the way that we uh staff our cities for those elections. So I think there's a lot of things obviously in any process. This is very complex one. I do commend Kendra. Her effort has been really quite great and very well experienced and she's dealing with a a changing dart board all the time. Um she's been very accommodating in any of our election review work which has been very nice. I I do um appreciate the um openness in which uh the county board members have been available as well for that requirement. But I think um I think we need to prioritize the citizens of the Carver County area for working our elections. It's our elections. It's our county and the people deserve that opportunity to be engaged the most. Um there there are possibilities of statute coming down as changes. I know there's a bill right now. I think it's House File 1800 or 1840. Maybe it's 1840. I'll have to go look. But it has some of the the changes. Uh it reemphasizes the vouching window. If you have a facility such as a nursing home treatment center, they must by statute register facility staff 20 days prior to the election. It's a requirement. There's even a special form that the SOS has available online. And that form needs to be filled out by the staff and provided with evidence that those people are legitimately coming to vouch for a particular precinct or whatever that might be. I happen to know personally that there was an incident in Chaza where someone was allowed to vouch for multiple people and it was just considered just fine. These kinds of things need to be reviewed again with the city municipal staff. It's not really necessarily the county's problem. It's city training and so forth. But that also runs through our elections here. So those kinds of things I think having better clarity, better understanding and reading the statute directly because one thing that we've noticed that there's sometimes where the guidance documents coming from the secretary of state's um office are not complete and this must exhaust the party list element has been dropped out of their guidance conveniently and I think that needs to be well understood. So thank you very much again um for the opportunity. Any questions from the board for me? I I think it's just a question. Thank you for being here, Miss Williams. I appreciate that. And I appreciate that um your you and the other major party um both major parties um hopefully will step up both major parties and help us recruit election judges. I think that's huge because I know that's been a huge issue at at the county. So, I appreciate your um your support and partnership in in that piece and um so thank you. There's one other thing about that. So, we did and and one thing that was also problematic that would be nice is if the county would agree to sharing in advance of the election, not weeks after the people that are selected for the absentee ballot board so that we can verify and help fill gaps. because when I have 348 names come down and I get three people that are utilized um that's not party balance on the entire complement of that board. The other thing that was not transparent was the early inperson voting. I have no idea who worked that precinct looking operation. Um we don't have any party ballots. There was no one in there from the major party list at all during those 18 days of early voting. I have no idea who was working in there. They certainly weren't off our list and there was no disclosure as to who worked it after the fact even other than it it came from the absentee ballot board members in some manner. So lack of transparency. We have a question from the audience. Oh not a question. I was looking for an opportunity to speak. Yep. Okay. Absolutely. This should be a good time. Good to see you again. I am uh Paul Hake uh Chanhassen 261 Hidden Lane. I actually have a long history here. I was the watershed lawyer for many many years and uh so I have a long background in government. I'm an attorney and when I want to step back and say three points. The first point is what's driving some of this anxiety because there's anxiety and you hear it regularly coming up. Now how did we get to that anxiety? The core principle is that when you change the form of government, there are consequences and the things that we're talking about are consequences that have flowed from changes in the form of government we have had. What are those changes? Earliest change was creation of the county administrator. Originally county commissioners ran the county and for administrative purposes we created the position of county administrator. Second thing that we really did at a fundamental level was we took the county auditor and took away the county auditor and the county board assumed the authority of the duties of the county auditor. Now, those are earlier changes. The county commissioners, county administrators were first started in the late60s, but grew in powers in the 70s. In 2005 or so was when we created and took away the county auditor and put it inside the county commissioners. And why is that important? Because before that time, the county auditor handled those electoral issues. So, you transferred those duties into you. And why is that important? When I want to change a county auditor, that's only one vote. If I want to change a county commissioner, I got to have at least three votes. I got to do something if I want things to be different. There's a lack a a further separation from citizen control of what's going on. Now, those are long-term changes that have occurred. But the key thing that's led to this anxiety is the change of administrator, the change of order into you was then laid on top of changes, electoral changes that began in 2010 in which we began at the legislature began a continuous process of evolving how we vote, the eligibility to vote, what to vote. And one of the things I've done, I've done a series of talks to some of the citizens out in Carver County about these where I've reviewed all those electoral changes. Who made them? When did they make them? Who was advocating this law? And what happened is we did we're not prepared for the changes that we started 2010 to the present in how we vote. And that change has led to a separation where people no longer feel connected to their vote. They no longer feel that. And what the political consequence that of that is it erodess people's confidence in the legitimacy of government. And the key point for you as commissioners is when you're elected, they all go to work. They don't think about that. And in their heart they say, "We have elected you with trust that you will watch for or explain what these things are and that you will if you see something wrong, you will say something." And what's happened now is that has broken down for a variety of reasons. having done literally an electoral study of all the changes that occurred from the legislature all the way through to who was doing it. That's where people say, "Hey, I don't have confidence now in that uh you're hearing or communicating to me the importance and the consequences of these electoral changes. I'll give one example. Can dead people vote? Do you know the answer? If you do not know the answer of who can vote, that's important. But our law actually, we created a law that yeah, dead vote can count in certain circumstances. And it's like, wait a minute, this and that you're I'm not saying you're the driver of those changes, but I'm saying those changes haven't come out to a common understanding. And so my main point here is to say first recognize the importance of the structure of our government. And when we change those, that structure doesn't have an immediate impact. It's a long-term impact. And so when you're thinking about it, what I'd encourage you to do in hearing these details, Kendra's not the driver of this. It's been driven by different levels by many, many votes. But the first thing I recommend is that you take the time to actually go back what has happened from 2010 to now in the electoral changes. Inform yourself of those and then ask yourself at each point, does this make sense? Do I understand the consequence that comes from that? And have I gone to my particular people that I represent that voted for me? Have I explained that to them? And the second piece is that whether you like it or not, one aspect of your electoral duties is to work with the legislators. and you have an ability and you have a position that you can provide an education role for them. They cannot handle it all. They cannot. And so that's what I'm here to begin to talk about to encourage you to think more deeply about it and to inform yourself at a far deeper level. And what is the ultimate objective that we're seeking that we as a community have a profound duty that we need to begin to think about? How do we rebuild the skills of citizen governance? Having represented public bodies and sued virtually every county, city, state, agency that I have done over the last 40 years, I have seen the erosion in skills of citizen governance. And what's most important at that this level where you are at is the ability to have public discussion and bring that discussion forward in a way that allows deep consideration of it. And so I like hate to have lectured you a little bit, but I felt it is very important that we step back a little bit and look at these foundational principles and that we begin to say what is a process that you can create that will allow you as a group to look through these changes rather than being reactive. Let's start with how did we get here? And now once we clearly know how we got here, you will be better informed and prepared to say ah when Kendra comes in and says ah they're proposing an idea. We can go back to fundamentals and say, "Dear legislator, no, your voice to a legislator is far more powerful than actual citizen votes voices. You have that ability and I'm encouraging you to pursue it to the fullest extent that you can. all for that fundamental goal of how do we rebuild citizen governance because if we wish to be a free people, we must restore those skills. So that's my thought for today and I have to go to work now unless you had a question. Don't sue us, Paul. Thank you for that. Okay, appreciate. All righty. Thank you for that. Okay. I do have to go to work though, so I I'll try to come again. Thank you, Paul. You have to be able to reach your legislator, right? Yes, sir. Could you identify yourself? My name is David Meisner and I am in Chaskawa Ward 4. My background is IT and logistics and often dealing with security issues in those fields. I wanted to say um one thing concerning what Patty has said another statute was 204.21 which clearly says that at least two election judges must be uh in each precinct must be ail affiliated with different major political parties and if no lists have been furnished or if additional election judges are required after all lists have been exhausted uh then they can appoint other judges. So, that was something that the Secretary of State omitted from his election uh his county election administration guide. So, we should remind everybody that that guide is not the law. The statute is the law and that's what we should adhere to. So, David, was that 2042? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Subdivision two. All right. So, I want to thank you all for being here and letting me speak. Um, with regard to the 2024 election, I personally witnessed issues that I found to be very concerning. Um, one issue is the absence of uniquely numbered seals on all of the ballots and and envelopes in Carver County. Uh on November 18th, I was at the post-election review and while I was there, after the ballots were removed from the boxes, I asked one of the election officials who was present here today if I could inspect one of the empty boxes. And I was told, you know, that the ballots were stored in. I was told that that was not part of the process. But then asked if the seals themselves were uniquely numbered. And I was told that the county was not statutoily required to have unique numbers on those seals. After speaking with several election judges working in in the election uh in Carver County, I was told that those seals were nothing more than a blank label with signatures on them, you know, that people would sign. It's important to note that those same election judges were not present at the peer to verify those signatures. So at any point those could have been completely swapped out with other boxes or envelopes of ballots and no one would have noticed. Okay. Minnesota statute 2020 203B 121 subdivision 5 includes in section A on the day in which absentee ballots are inserted into a ballot box two members of the ballot board must and I'll advance to uh line three seal and secure all voted and unvoted ballots present in the in the location of that day at the end of that day section 204 C.08 08 subdivision 4 includes each seal shall consist of a numbered strap with a self-locking device securely attached to one end of the strap so that no other so that the other end may be inserted and securely locked in the seal. No two straps shall bear the same number and these again were not numbered seals at all. Now, without secure seals like this, absentee ballots were essentially when not in the presence of of party balance election judges, they're left unprotected for up to 3 weeks. That's that's a pretty sad case there. Serialized seals are essential to ensuring the security of protected ballots. A proper chain of custody would require both the uniquely numbered seals accompanied by a chain of custody log that documents the date and time that the seals are broken, when they were broken, by who they were broken, and the number of the new seal that replaced it. Anything less than this should be considered a breach of security, compromising the chain of custody and the integrity of the ballots. Ballots should never be left in the hands of anyone other than party balance election judges once they're open. So until we demonstrate that our elections uh meet these basic yet critical measures, uh the people of Minnesota are going to continue to believe that our elections are plagued with misconduct. Uh it's our responsibility to prove them wrong. So I believe we have an opportunity here in Carver County to set a higher standard for election integrity, one that can serve as a model for the entire state of Minnesota to follow. And I encourage every one of you to consider these minimal measures and ensure that those implementing them uh are thoroughly educated on the procedures involved. And that's pretty much all I got to say. Any questions? Well, thank you. Uh Mr. Fisherman, do we need individually numbered seals? The law says we do. Okay. So, I would just say that it depends upon uh which area of statute you're reading, but as far as the ballot boxes when we are doing the absentee voting period where we're getting the envelopes, those are placed into blue ballot boxes that do have numbered seals that are signed by two individuals and those remain sealed. And then when we open those ballot boxes to start processing them to put through the tabulator, uh we document that that is the seal number that was there and uh in place. Um so I would have to do a little bit more research to make sure to match up is but um our position in looking at the statutes and the various sections of statutes and the processes being described in that particular section because there are different sections of statute. uh but that we do have uniquely numbered seals when required uh by the statutes but not individual happy to investigate and get additional information as we always tell people um give us some specific information what specific statute we'd be um absolutely uh wanting to to look into it further u to make the and check with the county attorney's office as we always do. Okay, David, would that include both the boxes and the envelopes? the envelopes for absentee ballots. And if you have a log for that, could we get a copy of that by chance? Could we access that? Um, I think we would need to discuss and and and but you're doing that. We would again look at the statute and check with our county attorney and make sure uh our processes. I'd say without it, we have a serious problem in Carver County. Are you a log of the boxes or a log of the log of every time a seal was broken and replaced and that they were never actually left untampered? So it would be a log a chain of custody log that accompanies and has every seal listed on those logs. Okay, we can and the reason for breaking. Okay, we will note it. Can I add one more one more? It was uh Kendra, it was you that I spoke to at the PE. So, if you'll go to the microphone, please. Oh, sorry. When you brought those ballots to into the per the boxes and so forth, it was you that told me that you weren't required to have numbered seals on them. So, am I to believe then? Are we to believe that from the time of what the the time they were opened or what what time did you stop using those seals uh up until the post-election review? That's what my question would be because if there was any time whatsoever they are compromised. Well, I don't I don't know Kendra if you're willing to the he said she said. Are we I'm not trying to do that. I'm just Yeah. So, just to clarify, the question at the post-election review was about the white they're basically white transfer cases. It's what the precincts return back to us um at the polling place. They seal over them. Those are not numbered seals from the polling places. They have two individuals that return the voted ballots as well as other required materials to our office. We document uh those being returned and then those are sealed in our holding cells until the post-election review and that's when they're brought out of the secure storage. Um, so I think the question, one of the questions, um, that I'm hearing specifically is the ballot, uh, the transfer cases from the polling place to the county offices, those transfer cases with the election judge signatures from election night. Those were the boxes uh, that did not have a numbered seal on them. And we opened those sealed boxes in the presence of the election judges that were working the post-election. cut out the absentee ballots right after that. Those are sealed with numbered seals. Uh not at that point. No. But again, we can discuss and look at the statutes and and uh make sure that we're following the law and then discuss further. Okay. All right. David, I have Thank you, David. Yes, sir. In the back. My name is El Sherwood and I live in Chanhasson. Hi El. I think I can add some clarity to Dave's report earlier when he was talking about uh confusion. It was just touched on by the previous speaker, but yeah, Simon has in place a website. It's called revisor of statutes and in it he permits doesn't require but permits certain things. One of which is ignore party ballots and use county employees to constitute absentee ballot boards. The second thing is he allows for anybody to sign an absentee ballot. Not the per not the not the voter but anybody can sign it. And he does this by saying that you only need to verify the signature if the names are different. So in effect, anybody can sign an absentee ballot. So we're being told this morning that we are following legislative law. And I think that is great to hear. So I would ask that next year when you two are delivering your report, you add two things to it. One is the date when the absentee ballot board was constituted and the names and party affiliations of all of those people. And secondly, an audit confirming that all absentee ballot boards have verified signatures. It's all I have. Okay. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Hello, I'm D. Martino. Um, I just had one comment regarding the cast vote records. Um, I remember a couple years ago, 2022, being one of the people who wrote to the elections department asking for those cast vote records to be turned on. Um, I think it's important for transparency. I don't pretend to be an expert in how all of that, you know, would work. Um uh but I do think that in the interest of uh transparency, there were thousands of people minimum around the country who requested this of their counties. And um I don't see any reason why. If it's something simple, why wouldn't you want to do it? Just one more transparency, a piece of transparency for us to have it that requested it. People all over the country wanted it. Why is it something that we can't have? I believe that it could tell us a lot about the votes and what really happened. So I am saying in in the interest of trying to make people have a better sense of um that the elections you know have fairness and accuracy that those be turned on. I absolutely think so. Um along with all the other people around this nation who requested them as well. Um I do have one other quick thing just off this topic and I apologize but I just want to say um in the interest of um um schools and um President Trump's DEI thing. I know this is off topic but just one second to say that um I do know weeks ago he's he mentioned that he wanted the DEI the diversity equity inclusion out of the schools and I have come across a job posting that is in the Eastern Carver County schools that was posted interestingly after that on March 14th that is open right now and is open until March 28th where they are actually hiring for an achievement and inclusion supervisor for the Eastern Carver County schools. and that is a $104,000 salary position. Um I'm concerned that we are progressing moving ahead on this and asking for this when there are a lot of people in our community who are opposed to this um DEI initiatives going on in our schools. And I would like to know why we are pursuing this. you know, granted February 28th was supposed to be the date originally that schools did not have to um that were supposed to comply between, you know, schools and colleges. And I understand that that has lapsed, but why why two weeks later did we come out to fill a position? That's a different level of government here. Got it. Just saying. That's and I just I just wanted that so Carver County community members can know that this is happening. So if people are so moved want to contact the school district, they can. Thank you. Thank you. We're not going to hear from Chan Hassen today yet. M Ray. Good morning everybody. I'm going to flip-flop between a few things. And honest to goodness, I do in fact have a magic wand which Mr. Degler is aware of, but I didn't bring it with me today. But if I did, I couldn't have teed it up any better for what I wanted to talk about today. So, are you referring to Commissioner Workman as Commissioner Dler? No, I met with Mr. Dler. What month is this? Um, a long time ago. Okay. And so I've got a couple of topics to discuss and I'm going to start first with um something that I received yesterday from Mr. Fishman. So it was communication and he said, "Kendra and I are not aware of any statutory reference to support your opinion that the commissioners are in charge of the elections. If you could please provide us with relevant statutory reference and or additional information to support your opinion, we would greatly appreciate it. Now, just so that you know uh publicly when Mr. Freshman has responded to my requests over the last three years, I don't even necessarily open them for a day or two or three because I know that this is the kind of answer that I get. I don't really ever get an answer. I get a response. And my response to you, Mr. Freshman, is teed up by Mr. hikes who talked about how when we removed the auditor that became your bosses. So um the question is who do the election clerk or the auditor work for? If the clerk and auditor work for the commissioners then the commissioners are in charge. So you guys work for the commissioners correct? No they work for the if you're elected positions they are autonomous. Are they elected? I'm not elected. Are you elected? Is the auditor elected? Okay. So, that makes the commissioners in charge of the elections. Uh, and I wanted to make a distinction um in the two areas of election concern. One is the fact that we do not follow the law to the T or even close to the C, D, or E. Yes, I have acknowledged that I have concerns about that. But once someone comes in and doesn't speak English and has no idea where they live or where their address is and their name is listed as a registered voter, voila, they vote as happened in this last election and their vote is counted. So there's nothing really that stops those procedures from happening and those are things that many people here brought up for concern. Um, and then there is actually election fraud in the elections. And that's something that we really don't talk much about. What I was a little surprised about here, um, is starting back in July, almost three years ago, coming up in a couple of months, the statutes that we were talking about with absentee ballot boards where there needed to be major party ballots were repeated at least a dozen times on the July 19th, 2022 commissioners meeting. That meeting is actually on Rumble if you need a little refresher. And that's the only thing we've ever been asking for or let me rephrase that that I have ever been asking for is major party balance because it's common sense whether I talk to a Democrat, a Republican, a socialist, they all say yes, it's common sense to have a Republican and a Democrat in the a toz process counting our votes whether it be in person or absentee. I've never pursued the in-person at the precinct because that's nothing but great people who sign up, do the best they can with what they've got, and people hopefully have fun at the job. I had a ball passing out the um I voted sticker. And when I noticed at the last elections, we did not adopt the little cute things for the children who are so excited to get a sticker and they get this very plain I voted sticker. So, I was hoping that that might have been implemented, but it wasn't. So, I've got a couple of questions. If you feel comfortable raising your hand, have any of you been in the military before? Have any of you served in the military that are on the board? Nobody served in the military. Have Have either of you two served in the military? Our county commissioner or our military? I've been married for 41 years. Well, that's a different kind of kind of military. So, I know how to follow orders. Um, does anybody here with a show of hand think that the tabulators are connected to the internet? Do they think they're a computer that connect to the internet? I don't think they're supposed to be. I'm going to defer to K. So, we're we're we're not answering or we're saying no because here's a picture of the um logic and accuracy test that was from the primary that does show that they are in fact modem with Verizon and they are in fact connected. So, um that is in fact in our voting tabulators. So if there's any other ever any question on this which the fact that these pictures were actually taken on some of the tape um another disappointment from not only my city but my uh county is we requested those printout tapes from each of the machines so that we could see what the accuracy and logic reports actually did at the primary and we were told we have no idea what that is. We have no idea what you're talking about. Um, well, this is it. And I've got lots of pictures that I can share with you as to what the actual printout is of that machine. One thing that surprised me with that is the actual machine itself. When they do the test, they'll have like under 50. As a matter of fact, I think it's under 40. Is it 38 total ballots that they test? And of those 38, I think there's um four that have a couple of different ones and then like the rest of the votes are blank. So they don't even test like what all the different options are. That really shocked me. And then of course we were told we couldn't uh be anywhere near watching the the the testing or the balloting or them putting it in or them making the ballots or what the the uh printouts came from the machine which is really um I don't have words for that. So then I wanted to let you know that um I had in in response to a couple of things here with the we have no idea that we need to have um which was reported and I asked you to repeat that. I wasn't sure if I was hearing that right. Um this is actually from a police report from something that I had initiated two years ago and it says um Miss Olsen confirmed that municipalities are required to select election judges within party parody and are not to exceed 50% of judges associated with a single political affiliation. So the we have no idea, we're totally confused, we don't know how to read that statute. Um to me was a little mindboggling. Um was wondering if anybody could tell me what the secret sauce is here for us to have almost 100% turnout over 50% above the n national average. Nobody knows what the secret sauce is engaged. And then last but not least, um I am wondering, we had uh two separate people that I had spoke with and it was actually brought in front of a commissioner's meeting and I did in fact email all of you. I was looking for an answer. I will assume maybe the attorney will answer this question. Why did we have two separate election judges in Chanhassen be told to sign as though the envelope is closed but do not close that envelope at the end of election night? So, wasn't this a part of the sheriff's investigation? You know, I just picked that report up this morning. They're so wonderful over there. Um, I did in fact actually mention something about that. And in these 16 pages, I haven't told them who the people were because they weren't necessarily brave enough to want to come forward and report that and make it a whole big deal themselves. Not a single mention in here. Which one of you commissioners thought that that was alarming enough to inquire. None of you I am going to be doing another round, which was very fun before of going to all my cities and townships within Carver County. And I'll just share that that we've been told to do that, that there wasn't a single commissioner that found that of any interest. Did our attorney question that or follow up or did our administrator follow up? So, nobody followed up. Nobody had any interest whatsoever on why election judges were told to sign as though it's sealed, but do not seal that envelope. Mr. Chair, I find that very interesting. Mr. I don't know if this is the right forum, Miss Ray, for like a question to answer about those specifics. I can tell you that from our office, if we get reports from law enforcement to review and make a determination if there are any criminal charges, we do that. And so we don't have public information to that extent. You could contact the sheriff's office on that. So I don't know, you know, the specifics about what you're talking about, but Well, it was here in front of a commissioner's meeting. I can just finish for one second. So if we do get allegations of a crime, so if there's voter fraud, if there's an investigation, it is sent to our office for review. We will review that and determine if there are probable cause to charge a crime or that we don't believe that there's sufficient evidence to pursue that. So that's the process that we go through. And so, um, we do not have any voter fraud cases that are pending that we have charged that are in our criminal justice system. Well, I don't know if that's voter fraud, but something very goofy that I mean, that's very to me alarming. Well, people are told by the city that there are no names in the report. Note that the city clerk is telling judges to sign as though that envelope is closed with the ballots in it, but don't close the envelope. Which city clerk? Do I want to say that publicly? Well, you don't have to, but So, there's a specific city clerk that made this allegation that told two separate people. One person came up here and told all of you at a meeting that this is what she was told to do. Another person was actually in the audience that day, chose since the one person talked about it, not to speak about it again. Why in the world was uh election judges told to sign but not close the envelope? Would you like to address this? I think we did um and Mr. Chair and board members, we did address this um at the at the meeting that she's referencing. Uh we did let everybody know that that was the first we were hearing about that. We were not made aware of that at the time on election day. Um we were hearing about this after the fact. Um that is not the training that's provided. Uh they are directed, we have in our training to uh that they are to seal those envelopes and the election judges sign over the envelopes and we made the commitment to make sure that that is clear at our training which we did do and we have have no indication that this happened again. Uh, but I think we said at the time that that would be something we couldn't speak to as far as what they were saying. They were directed by the city clerk, but that did not follow our training protocols and the information provided in the training. Okay. So, you're from the county's perspective, Kendra, you're aware of of this clerk. Uh, we got told what city it was and that they were directed by that city clerk and again, that was the first we had heard of that. Um, that clerk is is not the clerk at this time. Uh, but they were told to do that. But did they do it? Did they do it? Did they seal the seal it? Nope. That's what we're hearing again anecdotally because we weren't in we weren't in the room either. And you were all told this at a commissioner's meeting. Miss Ray, we're told we're told a lot of things at a county board that may or may not be true. And I don't I don't still don't have any evidence of anything until I guess you provide it to me. So I think the board is kind of at a situation where we're hearing it again, but if nothing's been acted upon, what are we supposed to do? We weren't there. I I would have assumed that if I were sitting in your position, I would have inquired as to what in the houble toothpick is going on that a clerk is telling election judges to sign as though that's closed, but do not close the envelope at the end on election night. Well, I appreciate that information and seem like it'd be that hard to figure that out. So, and we still haven't found anything out and we still have no reason to we have no reason for that. Well, I know that, but why did it happen? Mr. You never even asked, M. Right. Okay. You should really direct more of your conversation to us, okay? And less to staff. Remember, we're the auditors. It's up to us. So, talk to us. We got the information. You put this person as your buffer all the time. you never answer questions, which is why I'm so thankful that we actually have a working meeting to to ask questions and um be more than a couple minutes. So, I do thank you for that. Thank you. And and may I make a comment and and I've heard um many instances as as far as training and of course, you know, I spent the last 30 years, you know, making a living doing training. So, I'm always happy when uh training raises as as one of the as one of the solutions. So, I appreciate um Kendra, you probably know more about elections than anybody in this room. Um and uh and I appreciate that. So I think what's important is um to ensure that we have uh an ample amount of election judges properly trained and we know our our statuto our statutes and our processes and procedures going forward. And so part of having this and thank you all for being here um today is this is the this is the start. It's always good to know what went well and um what needs to be improved and um I trust that the issues that were brought up today will be addressed and we'll have continue to have smooth elections going forward. Mr. Freshman, Mr. Chair and just uh follow up um just a little bit on the on the background of that. As as Kendra said, we heard about it for the first time at a at a board meeting. Um Kendra did follow up and um verify that the training that we had was what was supposed to be this person. You know, it's what happens at a city clerk in a city precinct is, you know, is their business. Um we we try and train them and we try and help them do everything right, but at the end of the day, we're not there. As you said, Kendra wasn't there. I wasn't there. You guys weren't there. Um there was a a sheriff's report that was um um submitted. There was allegations made in that sheriff's report about various things that that weren't following right and the sheriff's deputy said that all the evidence and nothing was substantiated. All the evidence they found was that the rules have been followed. So we relied on that report to um to to believe that everything was fine. Um but there's some lingering questions. So we can certainly follow up on that and um and the other questions that were raised about the statutes. And the only thing I want to make sure is um when you read a statute when it says precinct, they're talking about the city precinct. They're not talking about the absentee ballot board. So, it does get confusing as as Mckendra is mentioning depending on what statute you're talking about. These are talking about the absentee ballot board which has certain rules or they're talking about the precincts and they have certain rules and they don't always go back and forth. So, it does get a little confusing and I think that's where a fair amount of confusion has been over the over the last couple years about those issues and then we've worked through them with the county attorney's office and with different people and we um usually get them resolved and figured out. So, we'll do that again with the with the ones that are raised today. Yes, sir. Based on what you just said, David, can you come on up to the podium? [Music] And Mr. Fisherman, maybe if there's a a sheriff's report, the board could get a copy of that. again, uh, David Meisner, um, based on what you had just said that the county office and the precincts are two distinctly different locations according to statute. Is that what you're implying? Is that what he is implying is what I'm wondering because I think any place where ballots are actually handled and open and so forth serves as a polling place. So it should be it's sort of a precinct by proxy and every law or statute that applies to a precinct should apply at that time to the county office that is doing this tabulation or or handling of ballots period. So I think to try and find a loophole in the law is kind of disingenuous from that point. It's a loophole and it's very clearly stated in statutes back then. Actually all the precincts did handle the ballots. the county office did not and the laws were changed to allow the county offices to do that. Maybe the statutes weren't updating their language to account for that. But I would say that the county office by proxy is a polling place or a precinct. So that's just my opinion there. So thank you. Anybody else? Our guests from Chanhasson are just here to observe. Not gonna not going to sign off on any seals in front of those guys. I guess I will say one thing. Yes, I think I think as a having a legislator brain of my own um it it is sort of odd. the the legislature I think has made things more complicated on purpose and uh that's not a conspiracy theory or other but uh as I've watched the legislature tinker with election law specifically it sure sure does uh it it ra it does raise questions maybe back to Mr. take um it does raise questions about the motives of of some people. It should be simple. It should be clean and clear and democratic and uh um uh there are uh tectonic plates trying to shove things in political directions. And so anyway, good to see you. Thank you. Debbie Lloyd Chanhassan Hass. Um, I would I was going to speak today, but then I realized this is a a county forum. Um, with regard to the city of Chanhassen and our public accuracy tests, um, I have really serious doubts about the training from the county for the city accuracy tests, the public accuracy tests. And I would like um improved training and better clarification of the public involvement in those um that those also should have party balance when those um accuracy tests are run. I can tell you in Chanhassen unfortunately they did not. Um, and when you're testing accuracy, sitting be five feet back from the test doesn't make sense. When you can't see and understand what is happening or be able to take a picture afterwards of the tape so that you can have confidence in the systems. Um, why even have public public accuracy tests? I mean, I'd like to go there and be confident that I'm what I'm watching makes sense and that I have full view of it at that point in time. That would be give me 100% confidence that everything else was flowing correctly. So, that's all I have to say. Well, thank you. Training the training. See music my to my ears. Thank you. Thank you for advancing my profession. Hi Bucks. Okay, anybody else? You here for the league? Does the league have anything to say? We haven't seen your face around here for a little while. Uh oh, I made her think about it. Good morning, Mr. Chair and commissioners and the rest of the public. that's here. My name is Sarah Carlson. I live in Chaza. Um, and I am not here on behalf of the League of Women Voters. I'm here because I'm an interested um and I would say committed individual to democracy. I would uh just in response to our last speaker, I did attend um the public ac accuracy testing for the city of Chaza equipment. Um, I was extremely disappointed that I was the only individual from the city of Chaza that participated in that in those tests. Um, I spent the greater part of an entire morning, maybe three plus hours, uh, with the individuals who were testing the equipment. Um, and I I was amazed um at the at the thoroughess of the of the tests that the individuals performed, my ability to interact and ask questions about the equipment, um, and even my ability to attempt to to um, I'll use the word trick the machines. Um and uh I I could not and they could not allow my false answers to uh to proceed. So I I would applaud our the work that we have done here in Carver County. I certainly appreciate the the staff of our Carver County Elections Office and their willingness to provide that training. um speaking to uh Commissioner Anderson's profession um and um I look forward to the continued uh transparency that our office here in Carver County provides to our community. Thank you. Thank you, Sarah. Miss Ray, one more. The city of the city of CH. Well, Kendra, what are you thinking? Well, I'm going to give uh Mr. Chair and board members and the public, I'm going to give a little bit of clarification of the public accuracy testing in the in Carver County and how it's done. um the four largest cities, so Chaza, Chan, Victoria, Wakonia, they hold uh separately scheduled public accuracy tests that they run. Now, they do get the testing materials from us, the procedures and protocols do follow our guidelines, but they handle the scheduling and the logistics of that in their public accuracy test themselves. the rest of the smaller cities and all of the townships. We host public accuracy testing sessions here at the county location. Um and we did that in the EOC um the last couple of election cycles. Um and so again, we they follow our procedures and protocols. And just to speak a little bit to Miss Ray and um those of you that have known me for even a fraction of a short while know that when you ask me an election question, you're going to get more than you've b you're going to get more not less. That is so true. and I will get into the weeds, so I apologize and Dave tries to help me get them too deep into the weeds. Um, but to Miss Ray's point, uh, there are strategically blank ballots in the stack of test ballots that go through the equipment. We are required by law to put blank ballots through. We are required by law to put over voted ballots through. So the pro the procedures and the protocols of the ballot stack that go through the equipment is driven by statute. It's also very intentional that those are pre-marked to create a unique set of results across the ballot. Um not just within in Carver County, we don't just create unique results for candidates within an office. I also make sure that there's not any uh similar office results across the ballot. So there's unique results across the entire ballot. So the ballots are marked accordingly. So to do that, you have to have some offices left blank. Um otherwise, you're not going to create those uniquenesses that prove the accuracy of the machines. So it may seem odd to a lay person looking at the stack of ballots of, well, they didn't even mark everything. that's intentional. That's to create those unique results that we need. Um, so the procedures and protocols that were required by law to do a public test uh to prove that the results are accurately reflected. We also make sure as I think Miss Carlson was uh referencing u we need to make sure that if it's a city of Carver machine that somebody from the city of Norwood Young America can't come and throw in. they only are supposed to accept the right ballot style. So again, I warn you, I could really get into the weeds and take everybody else's rest of their day by talking the specifics of of equipment testing. Um, but those procedures and protocols are are driven for a reason to make sure that we know before we deploy that equipment to the polling place that it's going to function correctly. Um and as far as there um I am hearing you know that there's differences uh within uh some of those other public tests as far as um how close the public can be and and such. Um and um so I will um defer to to u their municipalities as far as decisions as how close they can be and all the other elements of of that that we're hearing. So okay, back to the board here. Anybody have a comment? If I could, Mr. Chair, I thought we had a great conversation today and and Kendra and Dave, if I could see uh I'd like to have our attorneys review uh 204B.19 204B22 and then also uh I think Mr. Meisner brought up 20421. If we'd get a wording on that to make sure we're I'd want to and Kendra, we had a conversation before and you're um it's your words continuous improvement. We can always look at ourselves and see if there's anything we can do to make it even do better. I thought Mr. Meisner had a another great comment about uh we if we have the signed labels over the top, his point is you could change it out, but to have the the seals on there wouldn't be that uh encumbersome either. So, if that's something we could look at too, just have that that plastic seal that when they're both broken together, it would actually prove that it was never broken. So, u anything that we can do to ensure uh voter integrity, um I think just let's look at that. So, anyway, Mr. Zutterman or Fehee, uh y So, I think it's great chance to listen. Um, I don't claim to be Steve Simon on a Monday morning or Tuesday morning from a quarterback standpoint, but we learn too hopefully. I I don't know that I learned a whole lot today, but I listened a lot. And then if there's things that we need to act on, hopefully they um they deliver the result we want because sometimes we act in a way that delivers the results we don't want. Um, and so as I'm listening, I just maybe Commissioner Workman would be the best one to answer this after 10 years of the legislature, but feels like sometimes we're in the wrong room. feels like maybe if Steve Simon was here or the lawmakers were here, that'd be a better audience. And it feels like sometimes our staff is the punching bag because we don't like things or we get caught up in some of the media stuff or or whatever it is. Um, and I say that because sometimes people tell Kendra, I've been there when people have said it, you need to do this. It's the statute. Well, they're not qualified, right? So then we have to go to Mark Mets and his team and they're qualified, but they have to ask a whole bunch more questions at the state. Why don't we just go to go to Steve Simon and his team? And so a couple questions maybe for you Kendra and team is is there ever a window where Steve Simon's group comes out and asks the county folks where are the areas that we can improve and is there um to borrow the gal in the back's comment about accuracy testing is there a process where the state comes out and says yep you are in compliance because it feels like we're always chasing this elusive gray area um and that gray area can be Kendra you're required to do it Kendra you're allowed to do it we prefer if you do it and then you're requested to do it. And so it feels like there's a lot of garbage in between. Maybe it'd be great if Steve Simon was here and and as you approached the podium, another comment, it's not lost on me that uh if not the closest two of the closest elections in the state were in the southwest metro. Um not just the Tapki race in Scott County, uh which got a lot of the fanfare. Um and maybe we should spend more of our time talking about elections across the state versus a single election. that was important and fired up and politically charged for sure. But I think unofficially the second closest election in the state was in Carver County. It was the um Rem Stephenhagen race and so it's this topic isn't going to go away. Um we kind of sit in a powder keg because it is so close. Uh a lot of money is going to be spent in 26 elections for sure. No doubt about it. we're going to be facing some of the same questions and so wouldn't it be great if somebody from Simon's office or Steve was here to hear what you have to say and people like you to say where are there opportunities that we can close the gap and maybe they could answer the questions um better than our staff trying to deflect or ask or get our piece of it. So I just curious is there some accuracy test or you know do we get high marks from Steve Simon's office to say we're doing a great job? Commissioner Udman and Mr. Chair and and board members. Um yes there is and we actually just uh people may not be aware we talked about the post-election review which is required by law that is a uh checking of the accuracy of the the results that were reported on election night. So we do that hand count to make sure the ballots were counted correctly. There's also then a next level that happens at the state canvas meeting uh from the uh precincts that were selected across the state for that post-election review. they select at random. Uh then additional additional post-election audit. It's provided then that um there needs to be for each I won't again caution get into the weeds here, but there needs to be representative representation in that post-election audit of every congress congressional district. We had two of our three precincts that we had to do for post-election review. Two of the re three were re uh selected for the post-election audit. When you do the post-election audit that's taking place across the state, that is with the secretary of state's office and their staff and they are looking more into the processes and the procedures and the forms and and um you know what are our training materials, what about our testing materials. So they go into all of those procedures and protocols and and do a look. Um and anecdotally I can tell you Carver County has always got nothing but um very high marks. I will tell you just this is a personal point of pride for me. Um with the level of testing that we do, I get told it should be a model for the state. Um I come from a testing background. I didn't um as a child say I want to be an election administrator in my future. I have no ideas. You know, it's like if you would have told me this is what I would be doing as my career. Um I would be surprised. I came from an actually a software IT background and a software testing background which gives me a little bit of a different view of these testing procedures and protocols. Um so um our our our testing procedures are particularly called out um for for high marks and actually got asked again from the Secretary of State's office to give them some materials um that they can maybe look at and see if we can um get a little bit more consistency with that testing at the level that we do. Um, but to answer a little bit more directly to your point as far as do they ever ask you, hey, you know, what are you struggling with or what do you need help with? Yes. And I would tell you that as positive I as I feel throughout my 20some years of doing this for Carver County, um, I that is a a level of dialogue and engagement and partnership um that's higher more recently. What I heard in that post-election audit is that some of the struggles and some of the concerns are not just ours. They're consistent with what they're hearing from some of the other county offices and talking about additional engagement training uh clarifications and what can they do to kind of uh take some of the um I don't want to say ambiguity but but get things a little tighter. Um, and so I I am hearing that from the state. Now, as far as how that translates to legislative decisions, um, I know people have I if I had a nickel for every time I get asked, well, don't you think it should be this way? Don't you think it should be that way? And I've had to say this and I help staff and I help send this message to election judges. My personal opinions have no bearing. My job is to uphold the laws as they're currently written and try to make sure that our procedures and protocols follow the statutes and rules of Minnesota as they're currently written. And as I referenced, they look completely different than my first election in 2002. As the member of the public said, um, and I talk about this all the time when I started here, we didn't we didn't process the absentee ballots at the county level as an absentee ballot board. We made sure that we got them back from the voters and we delivered them to the polling places through secured chain of custody protocols of handoffs to them and they put them through their equipment with the rest of the polling place ballots and the results for a precinct were the results from the precinct. They were ready all at that time after the 2008 Coleman Franken recount when it became apparent from testimony that um things weren't necessarily being done the same from county to county. um the legislature made the decision to have the absentee ballots processed at the county level instead of going to the polling places. And now we've got the ballot board that was created um and all of the rules and regulations with that. I can tell you that one of the other things that we struggle with is that to be totally honest, the legislators are not always as clear as they think they are when they're making the statutory changes. Um, and so part of our struggle is sometimes there are um areas of statute um where it's referenced one place that maybe contradicts what's said in another part of statute. I think that's gotten a lot cleaner. I think a lot of that I've seen a lot of that clean up in the legislature. But um and the other thing I would say too when we talk about the guidance from the statute, my staff knows that if we get a question about how we're doing things, procedures, protocols, what should we do, what shouldn't we do, I never go and and sleep at night reading the guide or the election administrator guide. My mantra is you go back to the source, you go back to the statute. It's all well and good what the guidance document says, but what does the statute say? What does the rule say? And that's what we're always doing our absolute utmost effort into making sure that how we do it here is following the actual statutory language and the rule language, not what's in a guidance document. Um, and getting our county attorney uh consultation on that because they are the legal um guidance for us and so working with them to make sure we're being as compliant with the actual statute and rules as we possibly can. Uh, Mr. share a couple more comments. Thank you, Kendra. That's helpful. Um because I think sometimes we forget. We look at you're the face of the elections and you are locally. Um but uh I also don't think that the number of people in the room reflects the importance of the issue. I think we had seven people speak today. Um and I appreciate Commissioner Workman's generosity of expanding past five minutes for people to come up and speak in multiple times in some cases. Um I took the comment that Mr. Hank made um kind of personal, right? Because there's there's two pieces. There's a couple people up on this board that endured the election, right? We were on the ballot. So, you have to tread cautiously when you're on the ballot. Where do you weigh in? Where don't we weigh in? All those other things, but I got a text. I think it was 2:30 in the morning, found out that um the vote total was in in my favor and in Commissioner Anderson's favor. And then I think it was a half an hour later, I was like, "Oh, hold on just a minute. We didn't do anything wrong, but the state's reflecting it at 100%." Um, and it's not 100%. I think there was 4,200 ballots that weren't missing. They just hadn't been fed through. Um, and about the same time I was getting a text from a peer of ours in a neighboring county and um, uh, the the vote total came through for an individual that um, was shown as the winner and 4,200 ballots later was not the winner. And so it's personal because this is this is, you know, when you're waiting for those results when you're in elected capacity, it's a rare place to look. The other piece that it's personal is is every single person on this board, most people in the room, but every person on this board is elected. We're out in our communities, the pork chop dinner, the fish fry, the pancake breakfast, the ball games, the ribbon cutings, all that stuff. So, we're listening to all the things that matter to people in our county. And I'll say um by and large, people were happy with the flow of how they could vote and more convenient. They were happy with the results. They were happy with your responses and your answers. Um, and I will say that for the collective nature, the people that we represent, I don't know, 23,000 per people per district. The thing that's on people's mind most right now is not the election. It will be in 26 for sure, but it's how can I stay living in my house. You know, how can I afford for my kids to live in this area? They're thinking about the safety in the sheriff's office. And so, I like these conversations. This is one of many that we have. And I just wanted to use the opportunity to say elections is a small fraction every two or three or four years of what we do. and we take it serious or we wouldn't have forums like this. So, just wanted to make those comments. Thanks. Thank you, Commissioner Yes, Mr. Chair. Just was a ruled yesterday by the Minnesota Court of Appeals. It was in the paper this morning that the witness requirement for Minnesota voters to vote by absentee ballot does not violate the voting rights. It'll be interesting to see how that all shakes out. I know one of the gentlemen talked about the voting witness requirement and now they're just mentioned is it going to go to the Supreme Court next. So that just as all these changes and I think that's the challenge for all of us is the changes that take place and then the interpretation of the various statutes. Uh I think Al you had mentioned or David mentioned the word shall repeatedly and the word may and how that comes into the interpretation. And so I really enjoyed the work session today. We continue to learn so much but ultimately and you had mentioned it earlier Kendra about it's a Carver County success. It's not your office being successful, but I personally think it is your office being successful in what you do. And so, thank you. Uh, I'd like to uh respectfully reply to uh Commissioner Udman's comments. Uh, Steve Simon's website of revisor of statutes uh is not the is not Minnesota statute. In fact, it it subverts Minnesota statute and with it I I believe that that his he's priorit every move he's made there, he has prioritized convenience over election integrity. And in my opinion, that is wrong. Jennifer Ray, two clarifying comments. Uh, one, as far as elections go, I did chat G um chat GPT yesterday on commissioners and what are they responsible for with elections. I don't know if this is accurate because it's coming from AI, but it did say that you guys choose the polling places, which kind of surprised me. So, I don't know if that's accurate or not, but I will just say this that I did notice that um when we have precincts that are together, it can be a nightmare at the end of the night. I don't know how they get all goofed up, but I know that they can get goofed up. And there was um I think in Chaska were they there till like 4 in the morning, you know, and I think if we had separate locations, that probably wouldn't have been a problem. Just one suggestion. And number two, just wanted to um clarify. I picked this report up even though I made it almost two and a half years ago this morning from the police officers because I pretty much assumed what it would state and that it was everything is perfect just like today's election report. Thank you. If we picked the uh polling places there may be one in size. So let's we'll have to review maybe mo and ch then maybe we get 100% something you can't serve alcohol. I think I knew I tell you what I killed you Kendra. Yeah. Yes sir. I know. Sorry. We're we're getting giggly now. So No, that's all right. That's all right. Uh just a question here for the auditor. Um is it your And I guess I should ask you. I'm wondering if it's his opinion then that Carver County offices acting as a polling place is exempt from party balance rules precincts. Could you answer? Let me let me answer with an example that'll help. Um so this year we had people that were uh poll challengers which are allowed at the precinct and and um and they came to um our absentee ballot um you know pre pre-absentee uh voting absentee and they wanted to challenge the voters like you can on election day and it was very clear that it came down that the statutes don't allow poll challengers to come on on during the absentee ballot board because they're they don't have to have election judges is there you have to have them there to do those specific um tasks the ballot duplication signature verification but because um the poll challengers are not required they're not allowed to come on during the absentee ballot period they weren't allowed and and you know the attorneys got involved and you know they they were going different places and it was just it was a very good example of how the election day precincts don't always apply to absentee ballot board process because they're two very different statutes. Mr. Miser, Mike, but my question is specific to party balanced election judges that are handling absentee ballots. Are you under the impression that the county is not obligated to have party balance judges at the county office to handle absentee ballots like they are for regular ballots at precincts? That's my question. Yeah. Yeah. That uh Mr. there and board members. Um, yeah, the the statutes allow us to have deputy county auditors as as I've presented or um party balance election judges or well, yeah, either one of them are there. Um and it does say the statute that that um can you state the statute Patrick Pat the the statute that Pat uh Patricia Williamson put up here says you know sufficient number of um election judges party ball election judges and we real we view that as that we the the tasks that have to be done by election judges that's what they're talking about we have to have enough election judges be able to do ballot duplication and signature verification. So that's, you know, that that's what the statute says. That's how we read it. So I suppose you can let the record know that he doesn't believe that 204B.21 21 applies to the county offices where they have to exhaust the list provided by the the state parties, I mean by the GOP or the DFL that because it says clearly in there they cannot have more than half of their half of their election judges from one party and they have to exhaust that list prior to appointing any other election judges. apparently that now I don't know how that is because they handle absentee ballots but if that only applies to precincts and precincts don't handle absentee ballots anymore then the law is especi effectively just not being followed it doesn't apply to anybody so I think there I think this is a big problem that we have in our statutes because there's no clarification and there's nothing that's tying any kind of responsibility to the office the county offices like they would to the precincts and so forth So, I think it's uh it's sort of a matter of people just kind of plain, you know, plausible deniability or something like that that we're we don't have to follow these laws. And so, the laws really do need to be clarified at the I think at the legislature, but we should all take note of that that this is what I believe the county believes. Yeah, I just want to clarify that um that it it was it was specifically stated as I mentioned that the 2024 uh Supreme Court ruling with Henipin County, they clearly laid out what what we're talking about. So, you can you can refer to that and it'll it'll answer your question based on what the Supreme Court ruling states. Uh I'll get it to you. It was the one that was uh pretty pretty well known. I think it's something needs to be tightened up. we have a big problem. I totally agree with the way the the statutes are written. They're not very clear. Uh I think the Supreme Court ruling is very clear. So it it clarified that particular. If I can get a copy of that from you or at least the name of that, that would be great. I think if we do not rectify this, we have a serious problem in Minnesota and people are going to continue to think there's major misconduct going on in our elections, which there could be. Can can I ask a clarifying question? And and again, I I I I was on the ballot, but I wasn't up here this this last time, but I I I thought this commission, this board um committed to equal number of um judges from each party. Correct. I mean, that that's what I heard sitting in the audience, Mr. Anderson, and and Mr. Chair and board members in the public. Um so, yes. So, just for a couple things. Um, this is one of those, you know, don't know if you're you're happy about it or not, but 203b.121 is the statute that talks about the absentee ballot boards and the composition and goes into speaking to that it can be either deputized county auditors or election judges. So that's 203b.121. Um, and as far as the election judges on the ballot board, they were all from the party list. We had no election judge hat people, as I call them. So, we say somebody's either wearing a deputized county auditor hat on our ballot board or they're wearing an election judge hat. The people that were on the ballot board for Carver County um were from the party list. We had three of one party, two of another. There will be more in future elections. Just talking about the volumes and some of the things that we can do going forward. Um, and the statute says that at any given time, no more than half of the election judges can be from one party, unless you have an odd number, and then you can have one more. So that's why we're okay with having three of one party and two of the other. Correct. Yep. So, um, but just to clarify, we did not have any election judges on our ballot board that were not from the party list. Okay. So, you only can I Mr. Mr. Meisner and Miss Ray, I'm going to give you each one more comment. So, uh, this county board, my last question, maybe we can meet go get some nutrition, maybe healthcare, other but, um, so let's I this is going to string on for a long time. And I know and I think we've got a few things to try and straighten out behind the scenes and Mr. Fishman, maybe he'll announce his retirement tomorrow. We don't need that, but I hope not, too. But, uh, I'll I'll limit it to the one dual part question. No. Um, so you're basically saying that in the county uh at the county office, you only had five election judges for the whole on the ballot board for the whole 46 days or whatever. Is that correct? Because of the statutory duties that they're required to be to do. How are the B are there any election judges then you know I guess present at all the precincts and how are they how are they selected? Because isn't it your responsibility to select them all or so they select their own at the precinct level from the major party list. Is that to your understanding? Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Miser. Yep. Thanks. My pen, one of my favorites. I'm glad I saw it up here. I just wanted to clarify that Mr. Fishman is not our auditor. I know that I looked at you and I'm I'm sorry if that confused anyone here. He he's not our auditor because other people have said that to me in the past that he's our auditor and I'm like he's not our auditor. Our auditor never shows up. He's the buffer between the auditor because we don't vote elect our auditor in um oh Mr. He's director of finance. I'll let you I can answer that one. Uh Dave Freshman, property and finance director. I I oversee the uh county auditor who who handles our property taxes. Um, I oversee Kendra, who's our elections administrator, um, and does our licensing. I oversee the county assessor, uh, the county recorder, um, and Dave, you're being register. And they're all, and I'm also ditcher. They're all statutory positions. So, the county auditor, county treasurer, um, who's Mary Kay, um, elections administrator, deputy registar, and the county recorder, all statuto positions. Uh, some used to be elected, as we talked about. They're not anymore. Um, but yeah, so I'm not I'm You're correct. I'm not the county auditor. Kendra's a excuse me, Crystal's the county auditor. I am. And then my comment. Yes. And then my comment is it it is actually very clear in the law and I'm surprised you guys don't know the law and that you don't read the law because it's super simple and it's been repeated dozens, well, let's be more accurate, dozen and a half times in front of you all. They must exhaust the major party list where it leaves a little wiggle room is if nobody signs up to be an election judge and the major party lists then it gives the ability to use county employees and make them deputized auditors in that case that um no deputized auditors actually um so in that case that like nobody signs up. Everyone says I'm not going to be a judge and they have to use that. There are two areas that they cannot use the deputized auditors that they have to use election judges. That that I talked about on December or uh voting day November 5th that I brought up was number one verifying signatures which we threw out the baby with the bathwater in 2024. used to have to do that in 2022. And number two is duplicating ballots. And those have to be election judges. You can't use deputized auditors. So what Simon has done with his revisor statutes instead of the actual law is say all you have to do is use election judges for those two items. The rest fill them with employees. And that's where the confusion is coming in. Hopefully that clarified a few things. Miss Ray, thank you. I I would say that this county board is not nearly as ignorant as you might think. So none of that information was brand new except maybe the last little piece she gave about the election judge. And we'll talk to Kendra about that maybe some other time. somewhere between nothing to see here and having a wary eye on this very important process of a of voting is where all of us fall. And I probably lean more towards the wary eye because I've watched the legislature. Uh and I think I think the board should not uh uh question the uh individual legislators because they're all brilliant people even if they were formerly in there in the legislature. Um I probably do more to kick kick some of those people. Uh but it's politics. But uh but anyway, I don't I don't get the feeling this is maybe done. We have some loose ends that we're going to track down, police reports and other and uh to make sure that our Carver County elections are by golly fair and honest. And so I appreciate everybody's input. It was great to see the mayor of Chanhasson here and the city administrator and uh and all the great citizens. So I'm going to call this meeting adjourned. Thank you.