2021 chair of civil rights and Civil Justice for remarks. Welcome angela. Thank you. And then to thank you for planning this timely panel is my pleasure to welcome everyone who was watching it before i began im also speaking in a personal capacity this is not on behalf of my employer nothing that i or the panel says today represents any view of any component of the federal government i want to make that clear. So this day and age of a Global Pandemic flu that we would be living through Something Like this was 10000 americans were passed away from covid so they can cast their ballots safely with the pandemic. And those that have obstacles to barriers to voting even before the pandemic moving the elderly individual with longterm care facilities those are increase because of the pandemic there also homelessi individuals and those with the president address so they cannot cast a vote. So there are new laws that require your purging identification that may not be easily available to some people all of these constitute obstacles in many cases. And with those efforts to ameliorate we will highlight these efforts to our programming and engaging to provide our members to volunteer to serve in ways so people can vote this upcoming election. And that the poll Workers Initiative and those with those official poor workers or that commit to a long day like that there are Election Protection opportunities so the we are hoping to connect members and attorneys with nonpartisan organizations with the National Bar Association and those under the law we are hoping to connect those individuals to help engage in nonpartisan Election Protection efforts. Now looking at Community Organizations and we all know there are Many Organizations wellintentioned we just want to make sure they have the facts and information that will be helpful for them to help other people. And then to have programming to take a deep dive into overcoming some of these obstacles. De that we have another program called obstacles that every tur turn, our fifth annual Voting Rights programs coming up. And then dignity rights and democracy so we encourage you all to join us for all of this and all of these efforts thank you to all of the panelist in the Committee Members and the staff for putting this together elections are quintessential to our democracy. And those of the social justice section that are committed to being a part of the solutions to ensure all eligible votes are counted we look forward to you joining us. Thats it i will turn it back over. Thank you for those comments angela. We encourage you to ask questions through the q and a, not the chat function make sure your screen is not idle we will address the questions at the end of the panel we will be sharing recording of this program to everyone who has registered so you can share with your networks. Captions are available on the recording. We are thrilled to bring todays program there are four members of the panel you will hear from them about their perspective and expertise on the issues discussed today open questions from the audience i will provide a fuller bio before they speak the french one initial introductions welcome our esteemed panel of elected officials and scholars and practitioners and the honorable rosenblum and the attorney general of oregon law professor and justin love it and attorney general in the assistant counsel naacp and education fund. Welcome and thank you all. More americans are expected to vote by mail and the upcoming president ial election than any previous election in our country. They would rather do a by mail then go in person but most who have not voted by mail before that leads to some hunters uncertainty of whats ahead for the next few weeks. Jim wyman is washingtons 15th secretary of state first elected in 2012 serving her second term only the second female secretary of state and washingtons history prior to being elected served as election county director for nearly a decade and elected the county auditor 2001 throughec 2013 as washingtonians we have had vote by mail for a number of years now so can you tell us about Washington State experience with the by mail and how you address the issues of security . Thank you for allowing me to be on this panel and the work the committee has done its an important topic and then hopefully to bring up a Powerpoint Presentation and with the speed version of the Washington State elections. So now low technology. Okay. And talking about while i get thee tech support. So those Election Officials across the country we are election geeks by nature and then if it goes wrong we have aa pandemic so real quick in the next five or ten minutes share with you washingtons path and what we do to ensure every eligible washingtonian can register to w vote and also have their ballot cast. So right now about four. 7 million registered voters and i anticipate will be knocking on the door of 5 millions over the last 20 years to catapult washington forward to be in a position that create one quite frankly was good for the pandemicin it begins with voter id washington did adopt that served our voters well we do not have issue with the Brennan Center challenge i am part of the way because it was not politicized too much and has worked well with our system. Online votert. Registration since 2008 and a vote by mail state completely since 2011. So in the last ten years the activities and advancements have expanded access with a prepaid postage in 2018 and in 2019 and all of these really great advancements and im not taking credit for apply have been the election administrator to enact the laws. Build out the commentating controls and security measures. And then in 2019 to roll out a near realtime statewide Voter Registration system. This is the backbone for the activity we do so these ballots will be available 20 days before election and then with the elections director 18 days prior to election day. Is with those drop boxes that voters can drop in their ballot if they dont want to put into the usps we are thankful for that because certainly that is an issue now oregon and washington differ washington is a postmark state so as long as we receive a ballot withhi a postmark on or before within the 20 days following it can be counted and is as long as it meets all other eligibility requirements. Lets talk about what we do to inspire that confidence in those to have disparaging remarks with the safety of by mail and i have been running vote by mail elections for almost 20 years in the security controls we have in place by checking and verifying every signature and return ballot is really the linchpin for security and of course we dont want to disenfranchise so we contacted voter if the signature doesnt match the sometimes they forget to sign their envelopes. We give the voter an opportunity that is the empowering move starting 15 years ago. Also another Security Check because i guarantee if you get from the county election official your ballot has been returned in your signature doesnt match and you have not voted you will be on the phone right away to make sure it has been set aside and prosecuted. Thing we are seeing in washington in the last five or ten years and those whose signatures dont match and will follow up on that reducing the rejection rate thats another reason that the counties reach out because it equalizes this with the finance campaigns have that advantage. And eight days beforee election day with that same day registration through l8 00 oclock Election Night voters can track their ballots and once we put it in to the ballot dropbox in the county perceives that they can follow the path of signature checking and if there is a problem they can contact Election Officials to rectify that. And with that certification. In washington so those late arriving ballots so one of the things i think is important to get on your radar if not already there will be a shift in november oregon and washington voters are used to this our counterparts will be shocked to know who will not know who won the election on Election Night i think all the lawyers know thats not the case because we are working after election day to certify those results. This is a typical return pattern of the august primary election. This is off the chart in a way of never seen before because typically we do see about 50 or 60 percent of our ballots come in election week so we see a spike not only on wednesday after election day , but thursday and what we saw in august the volume was so crushing for our counties it took them an entire day to get through their late arriving ballots through the ballot dropbox the closer the pm Election Night so those late arrivingn ballots will happen because potentially you will see hundreds of thousands of ballotsn. With those postmarks arriving the day after the election and will not be eligible to be counted in those p states and i think we will see more but then to delay the results the dark blue states have a history of earl by mail those that have very restrictive efforts and probably the lowest turnout and those that are ramping up the operations we will have a wide array of election activity and i can assure you my colleagues have been reaching out to our office and countyty partners the best thing that comes out from cybersecurity so working to get ready for 2020 we have a National Campaign is trying to have the trusted source of information the state Election Officers those that you can trust for information so people know what they need to do thank you for letting me present. Thank you very much secretary weinman now here for attorney general rosenblum a former federal prosecutor in the privilege of one appellate judge with the 70 the attorney general november 2012 and reelected to a second term november 82016 the first woman to serve as over again attorney general and has served as secretary of the aba of the state and local Government Law attorney general rosenblum you represent another of the five states that exclusively booked on world by mail you have been dealing with recent litigation can you tell us about this or other legal issues . Thank you want to go like this when you say we are a vote by mail state. Gave. We understand it is a lot more difficult if you cannot get up to speed and im so proud of those in so many states to make this effort because its so important any state that allows for absentee voting can easily make this transition in one year and is so important to do that i love working with you and thank you to the fellow t panelist and for everyone who is shown up virtually wanting to talk about Election Protection we have 250 people on m the Panel Webinar so thank you for joining us obviously elections are at the heart of our democracy and states are facingmo unprecedented challenges and with the concerns of the diminished faithh i think the secretary would agree having a bit less scrambling thats because what i call vote by home system solves the problem of the crowded voting polling places and thats already in place in our state and mentioning the state here actually spent 40 years unofficially 20 years since we voted state wide although there are some differences sold over again to have a ballots in the mail postagepaid return envelope and and optional, optional i emphasize it is not required to use it. They typically arrive in two weeks before election day. And they can be returned by dropping them in the mail or our official dropbox locations. I think we have about a comparable number 500 here so historically about 40 percent those that have used the mail and 60 percent those that use those drop boxes so we can emphasize so we dont worry about the postmark is much as i think we should but we get them in early but if not 60 percentnt use the dropbox as the term of the offices down at Pioneer Square in places that are convenient you dont even have to get out of your car you also have the option to go to the county Election Office and book there with assistance with that twoto week period and then with that potential exposure to the virus instead you can get that help at any time its open during the two week period. Election day. A postmark on election day is not good enough and that means if youre going to use the mail, you do need to allow time for delivery and the post office this year is recommending one full week. We are telling people, even more than a week if you do intend to use the mail. Given the intent to which oregon has successfully relied on the mail system for elections, i was very concerned and i know that you were as well in washington, when news broke out about the changes that the postmaster general was unilaterally making. I want to talk about that a little bit. The Postal Service was dismantling mail sorting machines, disallowing overtime and requiring trucks to leave at scheduled time, even if that meant mail got left behind in the post offices. They were suggesting that they would no longer treat outgoing election mail as first class mail unless states paid the higher first class rate. The post Office General counsel was blunt about the impacts these changes could have on election mail. Oregon got a letter indicating that the state the service in our state would be slower than it has ever been. In fact, the suggestion was that if our Election Officials used the time allotted to design ballots and got everything in place, voters actually might need to send their ballots back on the same day they got them which is obviously unrealistic. So we were very concerned. Here we were thinking, a ha, we got it made. Were a vote by mail state and we realize that our vote by mail could be endangered. If this was the worst case possibility in oregon where we have the infrastructure in place, the consequences in other states of course might have been very dire indeed. Fortunately the Postal Service is designed so that changes that affect nationwide mail delivery are supposed to go through a regulatory process that allows for public input. These are not the kinds of things that a postmaster general can decide to do and then immediately implement. So i was very pleased to join with my neighbor to the north, attorney general ferguson, the washington ag and colleagues from a dozen other states in a lawsuit to these changes. And were all, guess what, winning our lawsuits. Austral as recently as yesterday, the pennsylvania case, the federal judge ruled in their favor as well. Not quite two weeks ago, we obtained the judgment we asked for. So the u. S. Postal service has been asked to do the following things, one, abandon the leave mail behind policy under which postal trucks were required to leave at specified times even if the mail was nearly ready for them, two, continue its practice of treating all election mail as first class mail regardless of the paid postage. Three, fix or otherwise replace machines needed to timely process and deliver election mail and, four, suspend recent policy changes until after the election. So with this injunction in place, i am reasonably confident that our mail election will once again be very successful. But, as other panelists will describe in more detail, there remains significant legal issues surrounding the upcoming election. Advocates are seeking a number of accommodations to enable a meaningful vote during this unprecedented time. And interestingly, a lot of what theyre asking for is consistent with oregon practice after 20 years of successful experimentation and experience, not requiring mailed ballots to have witness signatures or a notary. When i say that, i mean we have consistently have good if not great, most of the time, voter turnout, both in primaries and general elections, and almost zero voter fraud. There are several lawsuits challenging the kinds of accommodations that state and local Election Officials are making in light of the pandemic. And i imagine we will be talking about some of those too during our discussion. For now, i would just say, having an existing votebymail system means theres no basis for those types of challenges in oregon in washington or the other vote by mail states. And if anything good can come out of this circumstance, make it will be that other states will follow our lead and adopt vote at home or whats also known as vote by mail which has a long track record of avoiding fraud and making it easy for every voter to vote and have it counted. Thank you. Thank you so much, attorney general. Next we will here from professor levit. Hes the professor of law and fellow at loyola. He was a Deputy Assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division of u. S. Department of justice where he primarily supported the Civil Rights Divisions work on Voting Rights and protections. He holds a law degree and a masters degree in Public Administration from harvard university. Professor, can you tell us about your professional and Academic Experience on these issues and whats some of the issues may be Going Forward . Sure, and i try to do that by giving some context to some of the states that arent in as good of a position as oregon and washington are. Ive been a civil rights lawyer for a very long time. I still consider myself doing civil rights law. Im delighted to join you all and im delighted to join my fellow panelists. This is an Allstar Group that youve managed to put together, including people who are very much on the front lines of all of these