I was really honored to be invited to be here and i cant wait to hear what all of you had to say. Heres for a successful 2018. [applause] while doctor stewart is getting miked up i just want to say thank you to the chairman for getting us kicked off and to doug jason for those great remarks. Commissioner masterson mentioned the panel that we have here is called election efficiency and integrity, improving the Voter Experience, but most of this panel will be focused on data and the importance of data and how we use it in the Election Community. Weve got a great panel for you, you have biographies in front of you that my staff has provided some abbreviated biographies which i will read and we will start hearing from the panel. Ive asked each of them to speak for about five minutes, from their perspective on this panel and then i have some questions for them and then we will go to questions from you. Before i get started i want to thank you all for being here, im very excited to kick off the 2018 elections. Its hard to believe its already 2018. We are kicking off the election but officials have already started working on this the day after their last election. I know those of you who are Election Officials in the audience, this is not a kickoff for you. As others have said its just a kickoff in january but you all have been working on this election since the last election. I appreciate all the hard work that you have put in to making our election so good in this country. I will do some brief Panel Introductions and will get going. To my right is secretary barbara. She has served as the secretary of state since 2015, she has more than three decades of combined Public Service in Small Business experience. Prior to becoming secretary of state she represented clark county and before that she was elected to three consecutive terms representing clark County District five and the nevada assembly. Thank you for being here. To my left is doctor tricia and she is a Senior Researcher at the marsh group where she served as a lead researcher for the eac election administrating and voting or even they did fantastic job for us this year. Thats not an easy task, believe me. For more than a decade she has worked with a number of private and Public Partners including the future and will trust voting information project and our friends at the federal Voting Program over and the department of defense. Thank you for being here. To my far right is michael, he is the registrar of voters for San Bernardino california which is actually the largest geographical election jurisdiction in the country. Michael has been more than 18 years working as a director of elections in three states and his expertise is in improving operations, reporting results quickly and accurately and developing innovative programs to assist voters. While michael has made his mark at each post in San Bernardino county he has made the Election Office into a more Efficient Organization and i know that from visiting out there, its an impressive operation, including the launch of new applications, redesign of the county ballot, consolidation of underused polling places, he has improved poll worker efforts and much more. We are excited to hear about what youre doing in your office. To my far left, maybe politically, i dont know i have doctor Charles Stewart the third, am i saying that correct. Distinguished professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of technology, mit where he has taught since 1985. His extensive, and thats probably an understatement includes closed books inside politics, elections an important Clinical Development spread those of us in this room have come to rely on charles undeniable ability to help us better understand voters and how Election Administrators can best serve them. Thank you very much for taking time out to be with us today. So, if asked each of the panelists to make about a five minute presentation and i will start on my far right with michael and they all have some notes in front of them instead of power points so taken away, michael. Thank you for allowing me too serve on this panel. I have to warn you, i am an election geek also and i can go for hours about this. I know we have a short period of time so i will refer to my notes to keep me on track. The goal of a local election official is to conduct elections in fair, accurate, assessable, efficient and transparent manner. Meeting that goal is difficult because our budgets are tight, staffs are small, we rely on temp workers and poll workers, and the expectation is perfection. Thats very difficult. We are constantly thinking about new ways to improve our processes. One of the ways we can do this is to use data so we typically collect raw data but we analyze the data and then we use that data to converted information to improve our process. Traditionally the analysis to prepare that data has been simple. We look at the number of registered voters, we look at the historic turnout, we analyze how many locations, how many ballots and we put those computations, we have put them. The issue is many times they are based on averages across the county and averages are helpful but it can be problematic because if we basing on averages, sometimes we underestimate much supply we need and sometimes we overestimate and we waste money. In reaction, many officials around the country have spent a lot of time crunching data more to try to be more efficient. In my 18 years in this business, i have challenged my staff to crunch the numbers and i always tell them they should of paid attention in math class so i remind them everything we do has to be based on numbers. In fact we believe in it so much that we created an elections Analytic Department and we have an elections analytic who does nothing but crunch numbers and develop processes all day for our different departments. We currently analyze data in every area of our organization and the process, goes like this spread we collect data, im just to give you an example. Its how we look at polling places, for instance. We look, we collect data about the polling places. We inspect polling places at acceptable locations. We inventory the number of Parking Spaces at those locations, we measure the square footage. Then we collect data about voter behavior. We know that historically we look at voter turnout but we also look at where people live and we also look at when they vote. We measure when people vote by the hour and this is something thats kind of unique. I dont think too many counties do that. We also look at how people vote, do they vote regular ballot or provisional ballot or vote by mail or did they just drop off a vote by mail ballot at that location. Then we also predict with how the voter will behave on that election day. We do simulations, we look at how long it takes a voter to drive to their location. We look at how long it takes them to park their car, walk into the location, how long it takes to process that voter and then vote that ballot for that particular election. Is a long or short. Then return to their car. We gather that data. We also gather data about our poll worker behavior. How long does it take to process a person. How long does it take for provisional supervisor to process a provisional voter. Then we take all of this information we crunch it. We take this data and we calculate the capacity of each of our polling places. Then we take that information and we assign people to polling places because the goal is to keep every polling place busy and be efficient but not to have any polling place be overwhelmed and have too many voters and then have lines. We also project the number of voters by the hour at each polling place. We use this information to determine how many supplies we put at every location, how many booths, how many other supplies we need and how many ballots of each type. Keep in mind people always talk about how many ballots but most Election Officials, its not just a ballot, its 1400 different types of ballots we have to distribute. We have to calculate the number of each of those different types. Its very complicated and we also assign the number of poll workers based on projections at each polling place. We do that for the peak hour so that we dont have any problems for the number of poll workers very spread is not just three or five at any location. Its anywhere from 5 18 different pullers. We also plan our lunch and dinner breaks around those time times. We found this Data Analysis is helpful and it helps keep things smooth at the polling place but its also not always dependable. We also, in addition prior to election day on election day we actually survey each and every one of our polling places to find out what the turnout is like in the ballot usage and then we make corrections as necessary. but to expand our Services Like early voting site and a number of mail ballot dropoff locations. This is one example we conduct similar analysis for our early voting for our mail ballot dropoffs and will use similar logic in the future as california moves to a close center model and ill be tapping in to see what theyre doing in colorado to kind of crunch the numbers. A couple other examples of how we use data. The use to speed our ballot counting. Of our paper ballots in the project drive times to get ballots back and we monitor the progress here we analyze the time it takes to process ballots at each step of the way to process them, to count them, to duplicate ballots, to store them and then we adjust as necessary on election day. We use numbers to train and assign our poll workers but we have over 3500 poll workers in a county hereby to. But to get those 3500, with a contact over 10,000 people. We have to schedule over 7002 web to train over 5000 and the site over 4000 to get the 3500 work on election day. We must recruit and train people in six different languages and place people at different precincts. Because were a large area of 20,000 square miles we train and assigned by region. What we found is that in each region people behave or their behavior is a little bit different. More people are dependable than others. In different regions. We use the information from our analysis to look at that behavior to have different projections in each different type of region. So we are not short of workers at any particular region. Thats a quick look at how we use data. It made the Voter Experience better. We also then passed that information to state and federal officials to compile that data, and then we compare our performance against other jurisdictions. Great. Thank you so much. Doesnt i need the number of data points we can collect and do Different Things with, very interesting some of things you are doing. Just incredible. Thank you from the local level. We go now to the state level with secretary cegavske from nevada. Interested in hearing what you are to say. Thank you for adding here today. I want to thank the eac for putting on the summit, christie, for all of your assistance. In the state invest with 17 counties, and of those we have team that our elected clerks and then to voter registrars. We have a very large county in clark, so we understand sometimes the pain that you were going with. But one of the things i want to explain to everybody because one of the things that always an unusual for me is to acronyms. Many of you with your acronyms and they can mean Something Different i want to make sure that youre all aware of some of the acronyms i will be using just to talk about what we are required to do. One of them is the Election Administration and Voting Survey that we do get from the eac. Its a biannual survey administered by the eac after every federal election which is of course every two years, that data that is collected includes voter turnout, Voter Registration, preelection voting, absentee voting, military and overseas voting, polling places, poll workers and provisional voting. We also have what is that vra which is the Voter Registration agency and its a Government Agency designated by the federal or state law that is required to offer its customers or clients come in most circumstances, the opportunity to register to vote. The ra includes the dmv, assistance agencies like welfare or employment assistance agencies, agencies that provide service to people with disabilities act aging and Disabilities Service division, and military recruitment offices. The next one that you a little bit about is that covered transactions, and every time a customer or a client with the vra is requesting service, filling out a form or application, the vra is required by law to give the person the opportunity to register to vote. These interactions are called covered transactions, and two examples for us in the data that is when youre going into do anything with your drivers license at the dmv or a person submitting the application well for assistance. And then the national Voter Registration act, the and rva, that is a 1993 federal law also known as the motor voter law that requires the dmv and public assistance agencies to offer the opportunity to register to vote. So with those i just want to make sure that Everybody Knows our acronyms. In nevada we use data to improve the administration of elections and voters experience in several ways. And among other things the office of the secretary of state is currently focused, focusing on transactional data to monitor the effectiveness of Voter Registration agencies. So on a regular basis we look at what they give us to find out if its accurate and if theres any issues that we might see. We coordinate routine reporting with Voter Registration agencies in nevada local Election Officials as well, and the Voter Registration agencies record report the numbers of covered transactions, whether the clients choose to register drink a covered transaction or if theyre going to send in later or give it to somebody else. Those numbers are tracked. We know that they have that and thats where they got that application. And the number of Voter Registration applications each local vra office transmit to the county Election Office. The local officials track and report the number of ballot applications received from each Voter Registration agency as i said, and then send that information to the secretary of States Office. And the second estate receives mother reports from the department of Motor Vehicles. We get from also the health and Human Services, these reports are made available on line for the of state nevada at www. Nvsos. Gov. And we also have a program that monitors data to identify and correct any potential complaint or compliance issues as well as identify best practices. Ill give you an example. If a a significant decrease frm previous reporting is an identified in the number of completed Voter Registration applications being transmitted from a Voter Registration agency to local Election Office, the secretary of state Program Staff and the Voter Registration agency will investigate to determine the cause and whether any corrective action is necessary. We do that on a regular basis between the two agencies. Then we are evaluating the disposition of completed Voter Registration applications among offices is another metric Program Staff used to identify where review and corrective action might be necessary. And an example of that is a local Voter RegistrationAgency Office that exhibit slower than average completed Voter Registration applications or rejected applications can indicate potential issues during that covered transaction and the need for vra staff review training materials. The secretary of States Office puts this Data Collection into charts and graphs which allows for the review of large amounts of data adequate as well as that can vacation a significant statistical variations. It also allows for quick comparison of data over a period of time and other data sets. Example for this is the department of health and Human Services report multiple figures for more than 100 offices on a monthly basis. In the raw data format interpreting this data can be daunting, but by placing this data in a scatter plot or a line graph program, staff can easily determine if theres any deviations. Collecting this data on covered transactions from Voter Registration agencies allows the secretary of state to be proactive during conversations with any of the advocacy groups. And nevada uses