[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] i appreciate everyone quieting down so fast. All right. Were about to embark on our second panel of the summit, and the second panel is on the topic that for those of you who know me and know my work over the last 25 years in the election space is near and dear to my heart. Its probably the most important thing is were talking about the nuts and bolts of elections for running smooth elections in the United States, and something where we have made fast strike in the last couple of decades, and that is maintaining accurate and complete voter list. Those two aspects are really important. Whereas women talk about Voter Registration come so much of the time when we talk so much of the oxygen is taken up by those who would seek to make it a choice between affording the franchise to all eligible voters and keeping clean lists and keeping those who are ineligible maybe because they moved or died off of the list. And what we know is that thats a false choice, that you can do both and that both are necessary to fully enfranchise voters. We put together a great panel for this conversation. Im really pleased of everyone here. First, its going to be moderated by pam fessler, formerly of npr for many of you know. Are so many reporters never, election and Election Administration issues and really did a great job of understanding the challenges. Just for most in the room, pam was at the forefront of that. She summit ive been working with and talking with for more years than i will say for her benefit and mine. Next to her is secretary mattis Toulouse Oliver of the mexico was also a former county election official in new mexico who ive also known for longer than i will say. Next to maggie is sector gregg amore from rhode island, just elected in 2022. Next to break his sector steve simon of minnesota who what term are you are now . This is your third term. Affective state of minnesota. Next to steve is jeramy grey goose achieve a deputy at the Los Angeles County registrar and Recorders Office in california, an office that oversees more voters that almost all of the states. And next to jeramy is ryan germany whos a former counsel for the georgia secretary of state office. So i will leave it to you, and, to take it from here. Thank you. Thank you very much, david david said earlier, election comfort is used to be very boring and among the most boring topics was list maintenance, but that is no longer the case. So under excited that we have this wonderful panel here to talk about very, very important topic. Groups trying to undermine confidence in our elections as proof the system is filled with fraud want to talk with each of you, why is it so important to have clean election rules for the work you do and where the biggest obstacles we are facing right now to achieve that . Thank you all for being here, pretty awesome panel. I started my career as the county clerk and process Voter Registrations myself because there are many times as anyone have worked in these elections, the job has to be done even if it means boss lady herself has the Voter Registrations process, thats what it means. Having been voting is important for Election Integrity because everybody wants to know political voters and only eligible voters are asking about so making sure it is critical to that effort. When i first came into office, clear about it, i remember ongoing dialogue with groups watching, its called Different Things in different places, referred to as the purge but the process we have to undertake every state every two years by federal law to have that was being done and what it was done properly and quickly realized the political side of things being electric minister but this is a crucial process because more duplicates, more issues and registered voters and more likely you are to have problems and questions about whether or not they are accurate. Their tools in our tool quit, a requirement for centralized statewide Voter Registration database. Across the country that have their own thats all we have. They been able to use Social Security numbers. We were grandfathered in the Social Security act would only have that tool in our toolkit tristate is going great. The Social Security file in our state the gold standard, the challenges moving forward ill be brief, weve talked quite a bit and we have plenty of panelists hello there and is an expectation perfect and its literally never going to happen and Voter Registration is voluntary. A high level of accuracy and confidence, thats our challenge moving forward. No only been in office for months, how do you see the challenge seeing accurate rules in rhode island. My list of students significantly. I sponsored what is known as the vote act expanded voter access in many ways, drop boxes and Community One drop box the opportunity to not have a witness or notary to expand the access but a key element of that bill was the requirement for the Department State to do voter maintenance prior state law prior. My primary opponent accused me of wanting to purchase a list member a relatively progressive guy. There is confusion so we talk about left and right where the nihilism come from and pressure points, both ends of the spectrum so we make sure explain what that means and the prior panel did a good job talking how important it is to take the time to respectfully explain the system and if i can speak to a small group of people and a republic based on that conversation we talked about the fact that we are receiving information from our department of correction twice a month where they indicate whos incarcerating and we receive permission in every other week from the department of health. Combs people and makes them feel better about the process. It is a process. Its not a soundbite situation, you have to make your case in small groups and large groups when you can and explain the system. When you do, you will gain confidence. Why is it so hard to have clean for rules . For the challenges . I agree with everything with my colleagues, obviously foundational. Its information, its only going to be as good as your information. Its really important to know the rules and only the people who should be are. I agree that risk maintenance is not the same as purging, it just isnt. You want clean photo goals and people who have moved, people who are deceased and otherwise do not belong those roles to be off. We are a sameday Voter Registration. It welcome, almost 50 years ago from this date 1973, minnesota was one of the first and sameday registration in the Previous Panel is a discussion about election misinformation and is so often the case in that realm, theres a kernel of truth that grows into something far uglier and more toxic. Naturally people register on the same day which is ride to conspiracy theories about one 104 voter turnout 109 voter turnout and very often the spiking turnout or registration is due to sameday Voter Registration. Its not a conspiracy, its not fraud. Its a function of the laws we have so that is a challenge in this, explaining the nature of our system. I know you have a different perspective because youre a deputy of the county Election Office so much more on the front lines. Do you get a lot of pushback from people who say voter rolls are a mess. Evidently. Larger than 40 of the 50 states in the country so we have a perspective and that we manage at the grassroots but size, scale and complexity gives us a birds eye view of National Challenges and issues we deal with throughout the country. It is important in this subject not to delineate voter rolls from any other entity based we have and any other factor. My background primary is information technology. The last ten years have been in and out of elections but ultimately important to understand financial institutions, healthcare institutions and Public Safety institutions are dealing with the same challenges as it relates to managing accurate data related to our constituents. Most individuals dont associate challenges we are having not just in california and l. A. County but throughout the nation in housing. Thirty years ago we moved into a home, stayed 30 or 40 years and hand the property down to your family and it stays in the family 50, 60, maybe even 100 years. That was tremendously easy to track at various Registrars Office and assessors and property tax organizations and etc. It is no longer like that. One of the earlier panelists stated we manage a fluid community now. Theres a lot of associated with that. We are a vote by mail state and the minute someone receives about the previous resident of that individual may have moved out a week prior. You have a perception we are not managing appropriate levels of Quality Control so a lot of complexity involved. Managing a large identity based management process. Maybe you can answer this. The average american looks of these and says why are the roles still inaccurate . Dont quite understand the challenges and companies are able to track down my list of people who are customers and there are others in our society and economy of today very accurate. How do you explain that in a state like georgia to the voters that there are all these issues . To have an education process or how do you deal with this . Thanks. My name is ryan, general counsel at general States Office in georgia. Generally 24th in january this year i told my wife for two to three year job and i missed that one but when it came out i had a lot of litigation experience which ended up serving pretty well in the office but i didnt know a lot about elections other than voting and turn on the tv and see if you want but i learned quickly running an election is a complicated logistical exercise that requires teamwork topdown from the state of the top of the county all the way down people at the polls and across the whole state whether the state like georgia or california, a conjugated logistic exercise and thats why this is so crucial because its two things. I want to say voter centric thing to do because it helped make sure when voter shows up to vote, everything is right. You want to show up at the polls and theres wrong information or something because it takes longer for the poll workers, people around it see it and think its not smooth so the voter centric exercise and a wise man told me this but less maintenance is in franchising because a lot of what youre doing is telling voters hey, heres what we have, it looks like it might be out of date, can you update this . That being said, the difficulties listening, you are the recipient of a lot of those tweets with filing fees. [laughter] particularly in the runup to the 2018 election in georgia and even 2016 election week were sued by groups on the left basically claiming any regular maintenance we were doing, use or lose it, all kinds of twitter friendly type of phrases and these were old, they were not new laws, they were existing laws passed by democrat journalists signed by democrat governor but because they had a narrative they wanted to forward about particularly my boss at the time is running for governor so these things had been very well accepted Election Administration practices all of a sudden became very controversial and wasnt really something we were prepared for and then on the other side of it, on the right 2020 election we saw lawsuits from people affiliated with trump theres this inaccuracy in these people voted here didnt live here and its a difficult process to run perfectly because of data in time and people notice so to answer your question, one thing we do is a lot of notices in the law given to voters and i would say a lot of times they are more accurate with listed companies have because it is a matter if they send a piece of mail to the wrong address and the political groups will send out mailings, they send it to the wrong person and causes all sorts of calls to Election Officials and they say what is this . Had them i think one group uses magazine subscriptions and absentee ballot or wrote Voter Registration and every time they send them out and its a great way to start a Conspiracy Theory so Election Officials have to be careful and i think they are more so than other groups. Im curious how much you think the problem is education, educating the public, this is how the system works, why we take people off the road, this is why there are sometimes inaccuracy in the roles or why he might be getting mail from a third party group, often think its from the Election Office but how much is actually educating voters how the system works versus the logistics of having an accurate system . One sub topic that comes to mind is a matter of common sense and ask a lot of folks in minnesota, how many people do you know, regular people, not people attuned to these issues like people at the conference here today but have any you know they move out of the state and after all the check listing do, change my magazine subscriptions in this and the christmas cards, how many know on the way out the door i better call my local Elections Office and let them know im leaving so they can take me out the list . I dont know anybody who does that. [laughter] i havent done that. [laughter] long time ago. When i was a College Student for example. I dont remember ever doing that when i went to college. Most people dont do that. With the reality that means their people on the boating rolls in more than one state. Its not a Conspiracy Theory and i dont mean to make this political but trump children and biden children it turns out when people look at luke records, it doesnt mean they were bad or perfect, it doesnt mean they were up to no good, it means they were normal National Americans who are busy and going a lot through clear lives. Its one example why this matters, not that people are doing anything that. We got to keep track of the stuff look at into the tools we can use. 40 million americans every year changing the address so to talk to your education points, we removed 61000 voters from our list in january and population of 1 million, thats a significant number. Its part of regular maintenance the reflective of the 2020 election mail ballot applications that were voters to the ones returned to us as undeliverable, they were made in active, placed in the inactive list to elections, they did not vote and we needed to issue a press release so we can talk about this. Wanted Rhode Islanders in the media to ask questions so we could explain the process. I read senator one afternoon and republican senator who said great job, he is very happy a joke. [laughter] but we want that conversation topic. The points are correct, the education is incredibly important. One big problem i see when i talk to people worried about these, people understand the difference as active or inactive so it comes back to education or trying to get the public to understand. I would add using early examples of Human Behavior in general, how many of us receive correspondence from previous residents are home or unfortunately received information from someone in our household since been deceased . My mother passed away in 2016 and i dont receive voting material for her but what i do receive in marketing material, material from previous initial institution and etc. So its important when we educate the public, we asked them to look through a rubber lens. It does not absolve us of any level of responsibility manage quality voter goals but take a step back and look at other variables all around us and they will see voter roles are probably one of the tighter processes in our communities. One thing that helps in georgia is sometimes in the media especially surrounding the political process, a lot of coverage can be coverage of and when to use that. [laughter] one thing we did in georgia and he cant remember those 2019 or 2021 work with a local reporter who went out and found people about to be went to the addresses and a lot of the coverage about to purge these people, he went and found they are not here and they didnt want to be registered so when you go and you on the ground reporting they found this is nothing to see here, everything is checking out and the other thing is, is asking a lot of Election Officials to educate voters on why somebody, 99 sure moved to a different state and remains on the board for years, thats a process in federal law and work in the federal government to . As i say, i know its a lot but they can look at the loss essay in the 90s, maybe that made sense when things were by mail and telephone things, its not the world we live in anymore. That federal election cycle, it one time once youve notified identified someone, they are no longer in this state. Especially when you have so many people moving every year. Lets talk about main tools out there, how you maintain voter roles and one of the biggest ones a couple of you refer to is eric, electronic Registration Information and this is a state run, state Member Organization or network where states can share Voter Registration information and compare their list against each other and compare their list against other National Databases like Social Security death tracker, change of address forms in an effort to identify anomalies, people who have died, people registered in two or three places. I think it is about 32, 33 states belong to eric but the past year weve seen seven states just recently pulled out of eric and its been subject to criticism and misinformation campaigns that its a leftwing effort funded by george soros to manipulate the border policy so if you can talk about how you see eric, why are these coming . You see any legitimacy . What impact its having on your ability to improve the accuracy . I will explain how new mexico came in, we were probably the middle set to come in after the first guinea pig. Started out and try to end at the time i was county election official and as the clerk of the largest county for me, i saw the greatest benefit in particular. Highly transient population in the county and wanting access to that Social Security after death information because it is the easiest thing for people to go without evidence so there are dead people on the roles. So at the time i was working with and then republican secretary of state and republican governor and we convince everybody this was a great nonpartisan tool we needed and it was passed and when we had a republican majority in the house of representatives in our state which is the one and only time in 80 years we had one because he made the case that this is good for data and keeping accurate voter list which is what everybody says they want so since then weve seen incredibly effective tool. We are looking at ramping up minimums that you have to do on your agreement, we are going to ramp up and do more on regular basis whether we have more tools in our toolkit but in terms of your question, i understand this is a highly political, its become a partisan issue and i realized i am not of the right party to make this argument but as my colleagues from minnesota said, it is the realm. The data is critical to my states ability to have the most accurate voter roles possible because eric is the one source in the country that has the most interconnectivity with other states and i think we will hear arguments about potential other contortions popping up and things like that, eric is tried and true in the security messages were tried and true and im sure my colleagues were talk about why the level of security in terms of sharing data is so critical so i reject the partisanship argument and the fact that the system especially when you look at how it is in my state. I will go to you, brian and then everybody else because you are the only republican i think on this panel or identifies as so what about georgia . You guys are in the eric system, have you seen pushback from groups to say this is not the most effective way . Because yes, you get the data but its not just about the data. Its what do you do with the data . You have to clean data, it formatted in a way that makes it usable. And that makes it usable and actionable quickly. So you got to have come a lot of time on the front and working with the formatting data takes a long time with all these people know to get signed up to make sure everything is in a format because then you can use it. Whereas consummate and dump a bunch of data on you thats not really usable. We have just seen this maintenance is so much better with it here is because of the cross state data but even without it makes it better. Endstate this maintenance, it makes for catching more dead people that we might not catch during normal state process. So i would say that. Secondly, i think, were so used to push back in georgia on kind of which ever this is the least of your worries. Which everything we do theres a lot of pushback so that is freeing anyway, okay, whats the best way to do it. I think we saw it, i think a lot of the pushback is so much what we saw pre2018 election where these were existing noncontroversial processes but all of a sudden fell victim to a narrative that was being pushed by people with our reason and resources to push that narrative. I think unfortunately eric is kind basically next in line of a narrative of the people who want to push the voter fraud narrative. I just think it would get out of, im stealing this line, too, but someone said if we could get out of the Voter Suppression and voter fraud voting wars, then theres a lot that can be accomplished. Secretary simon actually im interested why do you think we have seen this pushback against eric . Just in minnesota what impact is this controversy having in which you do . I will start with the second question first if you dont mind. Obviously the more states that are in eric the better. You want as rich and deep a data set as possible. You want states from as many come data from as many states as possible and its in every states selfish interest to have as much a data from the states that have as much as possible traffic between the states. In minnesota the premium states for us will be our surrounding states, wisconsin, iva, north dakota and south dakota. Or upper midwest in general. And so anytime the state leads its not a good thing although i do want to reassert some control over the narrative. I think eric is in very good shape. Over half the states, over half the people in the United States of america live in eric state furthermore state in with the recent departure than to worry 2020. Many more than a were in 2018, in 2016. Obviously this is a bump in the road but this is not cost for doom and gloom. It is set back no question. To your point about why. To be fair know what on this panel is in eric skeptic i want be fair about the fact that im not as good a spokesman for the folks as they are for themselves but ill do my best objectively and try to be faithful to what i understand the arguments to be. One argument has to do with soros funding and that is nonsense. Thats not the real instinct argument. The other is this idea that the duality of the mission of eric, as we discussed one of the missions here but theres another one that in my judgment at least is central to the founding of eric. In fact, if you go to eric psalm paid the first sentence of the entire homepage at the top talks about the dual mission. Not one but two, which is both voter outreach and i couldnt voter rolls. There are some of want to be faithful and fair who object to the manner in which the voter outreach component is being run. In other. In other words, there are certain duties, responsibilities that states and eric have with respect to that. They have to do certain kind of mailing. A sickly have to send out identify the people who are not registered and say hey, you might want to get registered. Right. There were some states that have expressed concerns with that requirement, that they dont like the requirement for various reasons. Maybe its cause, maybe dcs extraneous were not related to what they see as a primary mission of eric. I disagree. I think the language of the homepage states pretty clearly what the grand party was at the founding of eric, which is yet we will make sure all of us were members of eric and we do these new mail ends. Everyone knew when they signed and is really only quitey really about a year ago that a particular article appeared in a particular i think about four months ago. I think of a different one. At least i did some of the heightened skepticism to that, but to be fair and try to be faithful to the argument, it seems to be mostly centered around the obligation with respect to these cultural but unregistered mailings. Its interesting that was sort of a site of the controversy i didnt anticipate, sort of this argument that is not really our job to go out and register voters or to increase the voter rolls. I say our job coming Election Officials. That people dont want to be registered, thats their right. We should be pushing people who dont want to take this step themselves. As a something you are saying, sector . I i dont think the subjectie analysis of eric that doesnt come to the conclusion that voter rolls a more accurate if youre involving eric. Thats just the foundation but i mentioned rhode island vote act previously in my remarks, and the dual mission that secretary simon talked about is what we used going into the rhode island vote act people wanted to make sure we expanded access while at the same time made sure our voting rolls are accurate. I find it interesting that the eric system when it was first rolled out in the original states was lauded by republicans as way to avoid fraud. To the soros point its interesting because when we store start this conversation talk about the difference between voter list maintenance and voter purge, and some of the criticism was there may be purging here. Its fascinating to me its a pattern of projection that continues. I see no objective analysis that doesnt come to the conclusion that being a member of eric creates more accurate voter rolls. Its interesting in some of the states the secretaries of state, some of the states that have pulled out, the second use of state or other high Election Officials were praising the system weeks before they pulled out saying it was the best tool. Interestingly, jeramy, so california, stephen was talking about that the more states the better that are in eric california, maybe you can talk about, california has not been eric. We are optimistic at the local level that this date of california will become a member of eric. We are. There is a recent Assembly Bill 1206 and the california clerks and Elections Officials have taken a position of support. I think first and foremost let me say that for the most part local registrars dont have the burden of partisanship. So youre not going to hear me reference the right or any specific political party. Ultimately the objective is to administer fair, transparent, accurate elections. If you talk to a registrar within any state im going to sue they are going to state just in fact, to bed. At the end of the day if you are managing a large data set of any kind and the data set is insular, having no connectivity to other sources to ensure accuracy, i i assure you thats not best practice. For us in l. A. County we see eric as a potential vehicle to improve even further a lot of the activities that we go through rigorously and routinely on normal basis to keep accurate voter rolls. Thats very important to highlight. Why did it take so long for california to join . I cannot speak for the secretary of state. I understand that because of the size and complexity there were areas regarding cost and other factors that theyre looking at. But again we are optimistic that we were moving in the right direction, especially we take a certain level of responsibility as the largest local elect oral in the nation to be vocal on these matters. We have, in fact, supported california adopting this. Youve mentioned cost because states do, in fact, paid to be part of this network. Im just curious, any of the panelists, what do you see happening . Do you think theres going to be continued erosion in support for eric, or will it be just a little blip and its going to i think states will realize as they try to replicate eric that its very difficult. In our case, about 30 of our interstate movement is with florida. So as slaughter removes themselves of eric, we are working on the florida database and trying to lineup as best we can without the reporting mechanisms that eric provide and its burdensome. Its. Its burdensome. Where having difficulty with that. Florida is one of the states have pulled up. Correct. States will realize its difficult to replicate what eric provides, and i will go with the Previous Panels optimism and say that as time moves on i think states will return. I think so, too. And i do think there are some legitimate questions that have been raised. Eric is now a ten plus year old organization. I still personally believe strongly in founding principles of eric. I believe those of us who are current eric states pretty much ado. With anything as time moves on as technology moves on as the conditions under which we are operating evolved, it is necessary to sort of look at the inner workings and at the mechanics of the organization and say hey, is a room for improvement . The Global Political argument has ended up being sort of thought along these very fractious minor detail lines within say the bylaws of eric and things like that. I dont necessarily think that discussion and maybe even look at bylaw revamping and things like that are a bad thing. We all know over time as things change, but i do share my colleagues optimism that we can do that in a civil way. And if we can move away from sort of the Global Political argument and look at the mechanics of how eric functions and what does it need best to function for the states it serves for its Member States i think we can do that. What kind of improvements would you like to see . Well, i mean, theres a legitimate discussion about the eligible but unregistered mailing and whether or not the way it sort of being mandated now is the best way to do it. And i think those of us who even strongly support, steve and ive had so many side conversations about eric in this last several months. Even those of us who really support that are open to discussion about what that looks like moving forward. Not necessarily the whether or not but the how. We have states that are in eric. Mine is a brandnew backend automatic Voter Registration state councils minnesota. They are already existing and potential being accepted from that. Im not saying these are necessarily the directions it should go but im saying these are discussions that are worthwhile to at least have within the organization. We do know theres other concerns as well about making sure there are audits being conducted, about how the data is shared, things like that, or if it is ever shared or under what conditions. Because thats one of the concerns. Exactly. That critics have raised. Those are fair conversations to read and i think we cant and should happen in a civil discourse within the context of eric membership. Anybody else want to talk about any improvements they would like to see or changes they would like to see . Okay. Otherwise, everybody thinks its perfect. Lets change course a little bit. We hear so much about all of the laws that are then passed recently that look like they are restricting voter access. Weve also seen a lot of changes over the past four or five, six, seven years that actually have expanded voter access and make things a lot more efficient. I think you mentioned automatic Voter Registration. We now have i think about half the states, almost half the states now use automatic Voter Registration. For people who dont know, that means you to go to the dmv you basically are automatically registered if you are an eligible voter unless you opt out of the system. This has made things work more efficiently and also expanded the voter rolls. Theres a come most of the states now have online Voter Registration to make it more efficient. We also have sameday Voter Registration which i guess about 22 states i think think had that now. Im curious how these changes have affected your ability to maintain accurate voter rolls and just has it, some people will say thats led to some of the bloating of voter rolls. Could somebody address that . Ill speak to that from the georgia perspective. Georgia act actually committed automatic voter registry in september 2016. It was one of the first states to do so. I think second second behind only oregon. Its not something that was we talked about a lot when were getting criticized in the 2018 election cycle. But then studies have found georgia has won the most successful automatic Voter Registration programs. I think a couple reasons why and then maybe you guys if your implement in your states can help. Georgia was one of the first states the fully real id compliant at the dds, department of driver services, and so when you think about that, real id when people are going to the dmv or dds as a call in georgia, thats a very secure transaction when you think about the paperwork that is being shown. It is a highly trustworthy interaction. So use that as a basis for Voter Registration i think is really a secure and that helps with the integrity. What we found in georgia is the vast majority of those are people updating an address in state, or just renewing their license with no change. Whats helpful about that is thats kind of a touch point where its kind of confirming hey, im still here. Right, right. So i think that part of automatic Voter Registration i think is not talked about as much in activist community but really i think helps on that side of it. Jeramy, because california has automatic Voter Registration. I recall there were some bumps initially because the database with the dmv. How are you finding it working now . The process has matured significantly. We have recent legislation sb 450 within the state of california that dramatically change the Voter Experience within the state. It discussed things like early voting, sameday registration. We also have legislation that basically allows us to send a mailin ballot to every registered voter. And if you would like to cast that ballot or if they want to vote in person they actually have that option. Overall as time goes on the process matures your we have a system within the state of california called vote count and that has connectivity to county election management systems. And feeds that Realtime Data from the dmv and as inputs of deceased voters, et cetera. We implement a large complex system with sophisticated architecture, youre going at some bumps early on but over time it gets better and better. The feedback not only from l. A. County but many of our partner counties within the state is that things are a lot more smooth. Can i i just mention one example from minnesota, recent example which can bridge some of the ideological divide . Just last friday, i still feel the glow, there was a signing ceremony in minnesota the democracy for the people act which [applause] thank you. A lot of people speed is very supportive audience. We been working for a lot of years. One of the items was automatic Voter Registration and the minnesota let me tell you how i hope that will play out to amend some of these or heal some of these ideologically based wounds. So as i mentioned before, for just about 50 years to the date from where we are standing from the city through minnesota became one of the first dates to do same day. Current criticism is that from the standpoint of integrity, excellent registers sameday you cant do the filtering, screening and checking until that, till game day, till then and there. Thats when the process starts. My response as were trying to get automatic Voter Registration past is to the skeptics, if thats what you feel, and this avr, this is the bill for you. Because we estimate in minnesota that same day election registration will be cut by probably 80 or 90 for real. Because people simply will not have the need to do that. People will have already been in the system for weeks and more likely months before election day, meaning you can do the filtering and the checking and the screening and abetting months and months in advance of election day. You can have both at the same time and bedding. I hope we can get to what we see this as a winwin. Well, we no time for questions so if anybody who has a question we have mikes and it looks like where the couple already. Mics. How about p. M. No, no, no, we need the mic. [inaudible] its coming. Its coming. I actually thought secretary simon is going to save most minnesotans moved to california. Since the summer of 2016 we as an Organization Work on a project verified voting. We work on election security. We worked on a project to ask voters to check the registration. In fact, pam fessler of one of the first person to write about that project. We see it as a canary in the coal mine. If something is amiss with your registration, then that helps the election official when you let them know. They can see what happened there. We should add a component to the knock Election Officials over with a feather also by tell me when you move. I wonder if thats helpful to you, is that something that Election Officials also have campaigns that could pile on to and anything else you could say about that kind of practice, how we could help spread the word . I will say in my state before every election starting right around national Voter Registration day, a couple months before election day we really use that opportunity as a push not want to encourage folks register on my i would have you also to check your registration. I especially think one of the things we havent touched on yet is how critical any sort of online adr or sameday registration component was in 2020. Translator endemic avr. Because her spot we just had massively increased interest in the election because everything is going on in the world at that time, but nobody could leave their house. So i think being able to use those focal points but especially to have those tools and Resources Available to be able to let folks check and update and register is absolutely critical. Agreed. Agreed. In fact, one of the things that i do respect your group as i folks pull out the phone and go to our website and check their Voter Registration. We were recently testing our mail, online mail ballot application process which we plan to roll out the special election of what our Staff Members found a discrepancy in his Voter Registration. Its something we should do and ive made a point to do wherever we go, what are we to voters. Pam, we worked extensively with you here and i would say that its very important for voters to understand that the first layer of accountability is with us as a voter, to manage our footprint, our identity. So the best form of defense is to start with a voter, an active, engaged voter that is actively managing the accuracy of that record. So its very, very important. We do have outreach campaigns for that for the most part. We get a lot of engagement from voters, especially, unfortunately, or not, right before your election periods but we do find a high level of engagement and response to a outreach. When pam was talking about, i did one of the first stores but are actually on the key. At the time cant member what year it was to check my son who was a recent College Student and a saw he was still registered in the state of maryland. He gone to the university of michigan. He was still registered in michigan and he just recently moved to california and he was registered in california. But again like most americans didnt follow up with his Election Officials. There was another question. I am still do from a more perfect union, the Jewish Partnership for democracy and has spoken to some of you over it soon so snide to see you in all three dimensions. Theres been a lot of talk from the very beginning of the panel about the need to educate consumers and voters and all different sectors of society about the complexity of elections in addition to just sort of where to vote on what they. And im wondering what the best way is to utilize Civil Society actors in addition to helping to register voters. What are other ways that Civil Society in my situation, faithbased can reduce an clergy but it applies to all different Civil Society actors, like how can we be helping you see some of the information and habits and norms and behaviors that will make your life easier . At the great question. One thing that comes to mind for me is this idea that surprisingly of trusted messengers. I only have to joke to people all the time i will do whatever is helpful to the cost up to and including shutting up. Meaning, special for elected officials extended for all of us lets face it to think that we have the best messenger all the time because we are elected or i dont think thats necessarily the case. I think its up to many of us who work with people who are trusted messengers in a particular community could be a faith community, it could be other affinity communities, but finding out who those are. That extends to various dimensions of the work we do whether it is voter outreach or other things we do, finding the person who people trust and particular community who already have relationships that we cant possibly have any office of secretary of state findings people to be the trusted messengers. That may seem obvious but that is a guiding principle for our office. Youre right, you did do that in 2022 so maybe you can give us an example of how you did work with some of these trusted messengers. All give an example of immigrant communities new americans. There are growing and Vital Networks can sometimes in the faith community, sometimes no, sometimes in the economic realm. In minnesota among east africans come Southeast Asian communities in particular and is effective for us and others this goes back to 2020, the covid, covid election, scary time, great anxiety and certainty, and were able to enlist trusted voices in those communities to get across information of what the rules are and how they changed. Weve had some real success in new american committees in minnesota, finding the people who community i would get an already trust. Ryan . Thats a great question. We welcomed a lot of thirdparty groups were here to help in Georgia Special over the past couple of years. I think jeramy is right. First of all theres responsibility on the voter to be aware, and a registered . Is it uptodate . Was my polling place . Take our responsibility as government officials, formally in my case, was, is lets make sure they have the tools i can do that. Iphone is talked about the websites they have in georgia called my voter page. I think for you guys beware of those tools also. Weve had a lot of, we had thirdparty group that was here to help in georgia out to register voters and all they did was basically dumped boxes, disorganized and messy and sometimes fraudulent registrations on counties that were either illegible or just duplicate or in some cases even fraudulent. Whereas, if youre going, if youre interacting with a voter and you say lets check if you registered come here that we do that. Is that uptodate . Uk updated online. If you do the sink that makes the life of an elected official at the county so much easier, reduces the delay in processing. It decreases any errors because everything is electronic. Thats a great, just be aware of those tools and canada what works best for the local election official. Almost always going to be in electronic form of communication. For l. A. County we have thousands of microcommunities within the county pixel faithbased organizations for us plays a pivotal role in ensuring that we are providing services that are accessible. We provide language assistance for over 18 languages within l. A. County. Thats just one example. We work with various advocacy groups, faithbased organizations et cetera to ensure there are vote centers placed in a location thats relevant to specific communities. So please continue to engage at whatever level, and definitely continue to be vocal to ensure that the individuals to your congregation, to your communities have a voice at that table. Because when you manage these large bureaucracies, its very, very easy to have things lost in translation. So you want to make sure that you have the appropriate Committee Partners at the table. Community partners. Lisa, voting elections polling consultant. So thank you all for being here. I think this question is directed to all of you but im particularly interested in hearing from you, ryan. So i think given the current context, it is not surprising how much emphasis there is on making sure people are taken off of the rules if they have moved, deceased, incarcerated. But there are risks, right, on both sides and there are infrequent voters who could get a notice and they dont check their mail or whatever it is. I am curious especially in light of your comments about potentially revising, what are the kind of protections that you think are a good idea so that people who are properly registered but are not particularly active voters, maybe not particularly active male readers, i dont know, so they are not removed from the list . And estate like minnesota where you election day registration, you have that built and as a failsafe. Im just curious about, i would love to from all of you the protections you recommend for those infrequent voters and its hard to put you on the spot. Outgo quick because i think everyone has probably thought about that. One, from a policy perspective we do need to think about how are we communicating with voters. Mail is probably not the best way. In georgia were trying to collect more and more email addresses of voters. But even then you have to be careful. Thats one you think but howd you let people communicate quickly. Two, it happen in in the past where we have gotten good data but get data is not perfect and we removed someone who was not dead yet, right . They reached out and essentially prove it, hey, im not dead y. In that case, one, obviously if you did that prior to an election than and you can t then. If youre at an election, they have a personal ballot and can solve it. We have the same thing with felony conviction in georgia where they can say hey, this system is saying i have a felony conviction, i doubt, let me have a provisional ballot and resolve that. Thats one way to handle it. You want to become because you dont want to increase provisional ballots because that puts a lot on Election Officials, too, but i think those three things, basically how do we communicate with voters quickly and let them communicate with government officials easily, and two, that provisional ballot role. Automatic Voter Registration, online Voter Registration, sameday Voter Registration. We do all three in my state and i will see brian and raise him that in nabisco we just passed a democracy package that says that if youre out of jail you can vote. I know some of my colleagues actually even have voting in the states for folks who are incarcerated for felonies. We havent gone quite that far in my state yet the basically to your point if youre saying hey, im here, im not currently in prison just like him not currently dead, then you can cast a ballot. We think that is going to improve the situation there as well. And to your point we made an effort to let people know that we pulled of the 60,000 plus people off the rolls, at the same time we are vigorously promoting sameday Voter Registration. Its a priority of our administration, and we do have a vision ballot option for folks as well. I would use in minnesota i cringe at the term purge. Really i could get in minnesota people are put on inactive status. Its relatively easy to get off of inactive status. There are exceptions that like that people. Of course then its not easy. Right. They really are. They are, right. But if they show up . Even they are not purged. You can see you were built but you shouldnt have been. Exactly. Similar to minnesota replace voters on inactive status. And i agree with you. Right now at home on my dining room table is a stack of mail and and i dont get to that mail until hopefully sunday when the week slows down and everything like that. So you have to have diverse ways and modalities of engaging voters to educate them on their status as active and inactive voters. And we find that very, very critical. In l. A. County in the state of california we push accessibilit accessibility. The ways are here in front of you. It is accessible to you. If you are allowed by law to vote, we want it to be easy and accessible for you. Philosophy for us is pretty simple. Im curious to any of you see a live a couple of minutes left, Going Forward what kind of improvement would you like to see over all on this whole idea of maintaining accurate list . Is a something youd like to see happen that hasnt happened yet . We are a little stuck in the 90s. I know thats kind of pieinthesky but if you can you explain to people spitted national Voter Registration act which thats what puts in place requirement can also put in place the two general election cycles. Weve made a lot of progress injured with trying to kind of really what and how mailings look to try to increase their engagement because of the voters is hey i in fact, have moved you can go ahead and remove them immediately. That i think in franchises devoted because of calcium i did make sure im registered in my new state. And so i think if there, from a policy perspective, thinking in the 21st century how should we do this . Anybody else . I was a something thats not really a legal change but i was a continuing discussions of this kind to try to explain all of us as a community that keeping track of people like this as secretary amore said in an increasingly mobile society is difficult but doable. When you have somebody been registered in more than one state, dont jump to a bad inclusion for its human nature as weve all been saying for people not to tell their Voting Office when they leave that they are leaving. So there are reasons for some of these anomalies but they are anomalies and their correctable and they are fixable. Yeah, i think also managing mis and disinformation which is probably the biggest threat to democracy in my opinion. Because what we tried so hard to do is educate our electoral and educate voters. But ultimately mis and disinformation and educate them. It takes all of the time and effort that many of your organizations and your staffs, et cetera, have put into that process and and those that. Basically puts us three steps back. So finding more sophisticated contemporary ways to manage this and disinformation without sounding defensive but yet just factual mis and disinformation you may have heard of this but this is actually what you should be looking for. Right. I think it all comes back to the side of educating voters and the public about a topic that most of them really did not care about at all a few years ago, but now i think is quite important. So when you what i want to all very much, and to think the audience as well. [applause] thanks to this entire panel. Thank you pam to moderate. To cheer me these last point we do have a panel on disinformation that you find disinformation being a threat that bind all the panels together because i think it is as jeramy said probably the greatest threat right now. We will be talking about that through the day. We are now going to take a break for lunch. Please make your way over to the buffet, grabbed lunch. At 110 thymic you can stay intercedes, we will start every special lunchtime conversation which we hope youll enjoy. Thank you. Thanks thanks to the panel again. [inaudible conversations]