Board of Election Commissioners of the City of Chicago met March 13.
Here is the minutes provided by the Board:
Board Members:
Marisel A. Hernandez, Chairwoman
William J. Kresse, Commissioner/Secretary
Jonathan T. Swain, Commissioner
Staff:
Lance Gough, Executive Director
Adam W. Lasker, General Counsel
Charles Holiday, Assistant Executive
James P. Allen, Communications Director
Bill Perez, Coordinator Hispanic Outreach
Peter Peso, Deputy Chief Administrative Officer
Lorel Blameuser, Purchasing Agent
Gary Rycyzyn, Consultant
Michal Czech, Videographer
Irish Sheehy
Guests:
Sue Casey, ES&S
Claire Tobin, Illinois Ballot Integrity
Helene Gabelnick, League of Women Voters of Chicago
C. Betty Magness, Rainbow PUSH Coalition
Tracy Hartlieb, Equip For Equality
Waldeep Singh, Dominion
John Poulos, Dominion
Sandy Hed, Election Works
I. Call to Order; The Chairwoman called the Regular Board Meeting to order at 9:35 a.m.
II. Roll Call: All members present.
III. Consideration of Agenda: The agenda was accepted as presented.
IV. Approval of Minutes:
A. Minutes of the Regular Board Meeting of February 13, 2018: Commissioner Swain moved to approve the Minutes of the Regular Board Meeting of February
13, 2018. Commissioner Kresse seconded the motion. The motion passed and the minutes were approved by unanimous vote of the Board.
V. Executive Director's Report
Executive Director Gough reported:
• Acting Undersecretary of the Department of Flomeland Security (DHS) Christopher Krebs will be stopping by our offices, along with the Cook County and the Illinois State Election Boards on Election Day to review and discuss Elections as critical infrastructure, and to determine how DFIS can secure equipment and processes.
• A representative from the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) will be visiting on Friday regarding language accessibility.
• Vote by Mail (VBM) is doing well. We are currently at 38,000 VBM right now and climbing. On Thursday at 5:00 p.m. our online VBM request line will be shut down.
• All the mailings are out. Our ballot fulfillment contractor, 3XData Is mailing twice a day.
• VBM returns are starting to pick up.
• We have been emailing voters for whom we have email addresses regarding VBM. We may send an email to those who have applied for VBM ballots to remind them to return their ballots.
• Early Voting (EV) has been busy. We have had some community groups take advantage of it and drive buses of voters to several EV sites.
• One Early Voting Site was temporarily down due to a water main break, but it was up and running quickly.
• We had a situation with the U. S. Postal Service (USPS). They were returning VBM ballots without postmarks. We use postmarks for time and date. Mr. Gough spoke with the Chicago Post Master, and by tomorrow all VBM ballots willed be postmarks correctly.
• There were news items about voting for pretrial detainees in Cook County Jail. There are still some issues that we need to clear up. We will have a debriefing before the pretrial detainee voting on March I?*''. We are working with the Sheriffs office on this.
• Only 426 pretrial detainees have used the in-person voting. In past elections we averaged around 1,300. The decrease could be due to population shrinkage.
• The Circuit Court ordered that we prepare notices to Democratic voters regarding two candidates who were removed from the ballots. When a voter requests a Democratic ballot the e-poll book has a popup message instructing the judge to issue the notice to the voter. Further, the Judges have to sign a form that states that they have read the instructions about issuing the notice to anyone who requests a Democratic ballot. (Mr. Lasker stated that the notice has been published in several newspapers and in multiple languages. It is also in every voting booth and in every polling place.
• Mr. Gough then introduced Tracy Hartlieb of Equip for Equality (EFE) who reported on the Voting Access Chicago project:
• EFE has trained more than 150 volunteers for Voting Access on Election Day. They have signed up for 4 or 8-hour shifts. Some are working in pairs.
• Youtube volunteer training will be online shortly.
• Board staff are inputting data into the database and updating the polling place list for the volunteers.
• Based on the data collected, EFE will provide information for the November general election.
Mr. Gough stated that the DoJ Attorney is very pleased with the work that E4E and the Board are doing as a partnership.
A. Assistant Executive Director
Assistant Executive Director Charles Holiday reported:
• 1.907 Election Coordinators (EC) have been assigned to precincts. There will be 1 EC in each polling place, except those polling places with 3 or more precincts, which will have 2 ECs.
• We have 62 standby ECs.
• There are 20 precincts with less than 3 Judges. This is due to resignations. We are working to have at least 3 judges of election in each precinct
• As of March 12^^^ 36,023 voters have used Early Voting. Total Grace Period voting (registrations) for ali sites as of March 12*^ is 1,227. Of that number 555 were new registrations and 672 were changes of address.
• All e-poll books have been updated and tested. They are ready to be sent to the polling places.
• Retraining for Election Day receiving and remote site supervisors and staff is underway.
Mr. Gough stated that there has been a situation with the Verizon jetpacks. Mr. Gough introduced Sue Casey of ES&S to report on this matter.
Ms. Casey reported that there was an update error message that pops up. ESSiS is working with Verizon to suppress the message, so that the Judges of election don't think that there's a problem with the e-poll books. The message is unrelated and does not affect the election process. Verizon said that it will be suppressed.
Mi-fis are working, and working well with the poll books. There is no problem with the updates and downloads.
B. Communications Director
Communications Director Jim Allen reported
• With over 36,000 EV ballots cast, we are at the approximate level of the 2014 election and we are still 7 days out. We will probably surpass the 45,000 EV votes of 8 years ago.
• The current VBM total of 38,000 ballots requested is 3 times more than 8 years ago and 5 times more than 4 years ago. However, Mr. Allen, like Mr. Gough, is concerned about the VBM return rates, which is rather low.
• Most activity has been in preparing the Court ordered notices for the Assessor and the Clerk races.
(Colloquy ensued between Commissioner Swain and Mr. Allen regarding newspaper advertising.
• We have all the various Canvass documents posted on our website.
VI. Old Business
A. Infrastructure Projects and Changes in Election Administration: ongoing
B. Electronic Poll Books: Beyond what has already been covered, Mr. Allen reported that a past about 17 year-olds voting in the primary has been resolved. Mr. Allen stated that we have approximately 2,000 registered 17 year-olds who will be 18 by the November 6, 2018 general election. The e-poll books have been tested. Commissioner Kresse Inquired about the precautionary feature to prevent Judges of Election from going back to a previous screen without actually checking In the current voter. Mr. Allen said that this feature has been Implemented and tested.
C. Voting Equipment: ongoing
D. Legislation
• General Counsel Lasker has provided the Commissioners with a chart of the bills we are tracking in Springfield and will follow up with individual Commissioners regarding the Board's position on each.
• There has been no substantial movement on most of the legislation.
VII. New Business
A. Approve option to extend the Service Maintenance Agreement (SMA) with Dominion Voting Systems Inc. pursuant to Section 2.02 of the 2016 Support and Maintenance Agreement.
Mr. Gough requests permission to sign off on this contract and review it with Dominion. The terms are basically the same as the original contract. Mr. Lasker stated that it is a 6-month extension, for the primary only not the general election.
Commissioner Kresse moved to approve the 6-month extension of the Service Maintenance Agreement with Dominion Voting Systems Inc. pursuant to section 2-02 of the 2016 Support and Maintenance Agreement with Dominion, not to exceed $400,000. Commissioner Swain seconded the motion. The motion passed by unanimous vote of the Board.
B. Approval of emergency purchase: Printing of Ballot Notices and Polling Place Accessibility Guide Sheets with EPIQ Global.
Purchasing Agent Lorel Blameuser explained that due to court rulings we had to notify the registered voters of the changes. The job was directed to EPIQ Global because of their capacity and turn-around time for the printing. They have worked with us before and have signed confidentiality agreements with the Board. EPIQ Global was formerly known as DTI. We have a rapport with them, and they will expedite our notices. They currently print our poll lists and ward maps.
Mr. Lasker advised the Board's Purchasing Director that this should be treated as an Emergency as we had to comply with court orders.
Commissioner Swain moved to approve the emergency purchase Printing of Ballot Notices and Polling Place Accessibility Guide Sheets with EPIQ Global in the amount of $226,030. Commissioner Kresse seconded the motion. The Board approved the purchase by a 3:0 vote of the Board.
VIII. Legal Report
IX. General Counsel Adam Lasker reported:)
• The County Assessor case of Andrea Ralla is still pending before First District Appellate Court. Mr. Lasker expects a ruling this week from the Appellate Court.
• There was a court ruling in a case in which the Board is not a party, but the Board is a party in a similar case. This is the case involving Republican Ward Committeemen. The Circuit Court ruled last week that the Republican Party of Chicago is not allowed to remove Its statutorlly elected committeemen office based on its internal by-laws. There are 3 similar cases pending in the Circuit Court; the Board is a named defendant in at least one of those cases.
X. Financial Report: None
XI. Public Comment
ClairTobIn commented that Illinois Ballot Integrity is looking forward to a cordial, transparent, and not too time consuming 5% retabulation. Illinois Ballot Integrity have their volunteers and they will be present.
Ms. Tobi asked how it is determined which offices will have write-in lines added on the ballot.
The General Counsel explained that as by law we may only count write-In votes for persons who have filed declarations of intent to be a write-in with our office, we only add write-in lines where we have received such declarations of intent.
XII. Executive Session none
XIII. Adjournment: Commissioner Kresse moved to adjourn until 7:00 a.m. Election Day, March 20, 2018. Commissioner Swain seconded the motion. The motion passed by unanimous vote. The meeting was adjourned at 10:07 a.m.
https://app.chicagoelections.com/documents/general/BoardMeetingMinutes-2018-03-13.pdf
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