Electoral Board Meeting   10/6/2025

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

It is one o'clock and the Albemarle County Electoral Board is now in session with its October the 6th.

Excuse me, that's not right.

Yes, it is October the 6th.

All three of the members of the board are here.

We have members of the public on

remote, and a couple of members of the public here.

And I'd like to call the meeting to order.

Why don't we amend that, too, as given the September 18th minutes, because we don't seem to have a record of having done that.

Any other amendments to the agenda?

Aye.

Thank you.

Aye.

If everyone would remember, and I usually thank you later, if you need to speak, please raise your hand by pushing the reaction key at the very bottom of the screen

and it allows you to raise your hand.

On the agenda, the time was noted as 9 a.m.

Thank you very much.

It is one o'clock.

Okay, any announcements from the registrar who is busily working at her desk

trying to take care of the returned absentee ballots and get out requests for new absentee ballots.

Because as you may or may not know, the registrar, previous registrar has contracted with Printelect so that all of the mailed out absentee ballots are sent from New Bern, North Carolina so that no one in the office has to worry with

mailing out absentee ballots and twice a week at the end of the day, the registrar sends out the requests that have been submitted to the registrar's office electronically to Printelect and they send out, mailed out absentee ballots.

The code says that once a request is confirmed, it must be mailed within 24 hours.

So that's taking place.

So all mailed out absentee ballots are going out from

from elect in North Carolina.

Yeah, so we have about 4,708 people who have voted so far down in early voting.

Say that number again because it's big.

4,708.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

1478 returned absentee ballots.

76.

Dropbox and mail.

Correct.

All returned absentee ballots.

Do you know what our number sent out was?

It's a little bit over 7,000.

The registrar has gotten, the first batch went out was right at 7,000.

And she's gotten some since then.

Any other questions?

Justin, the registrar, because you're on the agenda later.

No, that's it.

OK. We'd like to open this key board meeting to public comments.

You should.

And it will.

Well, as we always have done, we open the comments to the public at the beginning of the meeting and then also during the meeting, if subject matter arises, they want to speak.

We ask that you keep your comments to three minutes.

Go ahead, Rick, unmute.

And while Rick is unmuting, for those of you who are on the electronic promote feed, the mute button should appear on your screen at the very far bottom left corner.

Looks like a little microphone.

Thanks.

Rick Garnett, chair of the Republican Party Election Integrity Committee.

I've been getting a lot of questions about the process for communicating to

election officers about the training schedule and their assignments.

Some of the assistant chiefs have gotten phone calls or emails from their chiefs.

Let me try to answer that.

And for some reason, Rick, we're having a hard time hearing you.

And it happens at every meeting.

It seems to be, I don't know why it is, but it seems to be the person who is in the slot where you are, the microphone is fuzzy.

So it may not be you, it may be the electronic system, but let me try to restate and answer your question at the same time.

At every board meeting, we have announced that we are working on the schedule for officers of election.

It is up to the board to approve the roster, meaning where all the officers of election are scheduled to work.

And after the November presidential election, when the board felt that there were an awful lot of extras

and we need more than you would in any other election.

We are rearranging or realize that we would look at it to make sure that people needed to be rearranged or not, whether maybe we didn't need as many people as we had in the presidential and regroup and reorganize.

And so the board will approve, will review all of these assignments in closed session today under personnel matters.

And when we come out, we will have approved the assignments for all the offices of election because until the board approves the assignments for offices of election, no one is assigned.

The board did approve.

the chiefs and the assistant chiefs.

So the assistant chiefs and the chiefs know where they're gonna be with one exception.

I believe this question was about assistant chiefs not being notified by their chief about training tomorrow.

Yeah, I've talked to some of ours and they have gotten the contact.

I haven't had any contact from my chief.

So that was my question is,

Should be both.

OK. Well, that's very good to know.

okay chiefs were approved several i don't know how many that were meetings and those people chiefs and assistant chiefs should have been notified both from the office and your chief should have spoken with you also if that hasn't happened

I don't think so unless I missed it in all the emails.

I haven't seen anything about training tomorrow.

I just knew about it because Lori had I guess been at one of the meetings and got the information and then I went on the portal and I saw it on the portal

Yeah, we've made some changes but I think the chiefs and assistant chief training was scheduled

several months ago.

Yeah, you might just make sure that all the assistant chiefs somehow have been notified because it's coming up really quick.

We'll check on it.

and send out remarks.

Thank you, thank you.

Do we have any other comments or questions from anybody in the public at this point?

Okay, I see none.

Mr. Secretary, excuse me, I'm so sorry.

I'll answer to any questions.

We've got September 18th, which is actually a little bit much better.

We have officially approved it and September 23rd, September 6th.

I move approval.

Period.

Well, you never tell.

This, the first, is the looming ADA inspection with the chief for all the polling places.

Folks from the county and the school system, some of them were out of pocket last week.

So we, at our meeting, we will come up with a schedule for all of us, because that's- Rick has his hand up again.

Yes, Rick.

You're having the same problem.

And that's why I said that earlier.

It always seems to be one microphone that's a problem.

Beth Barstow, would you unmute, please, and just

Okay, you can still, you can hear me, Beth.

Your voice is a lot,

less stowed than Ricks.

Ricks is very difficult to hear a lot.

Maybe I should try to speak more slowly.

Would it make sense for me to check out and check back in?

Now you're fine.

You sound much better.

Okay, you don't sound a whole lot better.

Okay, sorry, I don't want to interrupt.

I have a chair.

That's exactly what I was going to do.

Okay.

The code of Virginia requires that every polling place be inspected by the electoral board, make sure that every polling place meets the Americans with Disabilities Act requirements for access.

And we have so many schools

It's determined that it'll be a good idea to have someone from the school system go with us or provide written confirmation that the school system guarantees that the access that we need covers the ADA and I have contacted

Two nice people from the facilities management, and they are going deep with us, not with us, but they are willing to go with us to our other places.

And I've got phone calls for both of them, but I wanted to, for today, but I wanted the board, when we look at our schedule later on,

Each of the board members to pick a couple of days and let me know so I can contact members from the facilities management of their available days so we can all be available.

Unless you just go on your own.

I personally would be happy to have someone come with us.

So,

Also, we can speak to the part of the facility that is the polling place.

Exactly.

You don't need the whole breakdown on the whole high school.

That's what I'm going to tell them.

New business.

And this is our able elections manager.

We are very busy, you know, at Ober is, you know, swooping fast.

A lot of things going on with cages starting tomorrow, kind of being with Bucky to start, you know, getting the final preparations kind of starting for our LNA testing next week for our DS300 and also for our express vote.

Then the goal is sometime late next week, the cages will be loaded into the,

Kate, I can't talk.

The DS300s are gonna load into the cages sometime at the end of next week and then Debbie will go with me on the 20th to make sure everything is looking good, checking off everything in the following week.

The board will go down and do their checks and balances and that.

And you've contacted with people

You've been able to get the names of the people who do that delivery.

For those of you who may not know, when Alex says loading the cages, this is not a quickie procedure.

It takes a lot of effort, a lot of time, because there's one chief, one assistant chief in the room, and a couple of assistant chiefs on the call.

When you open this big red container, it's got a whole lot of stuff in it.

And every one of those little containers within that have equipment that the chiefs and the offices of election need.

Somebody has to get all of that across pieces of paper.

And it is the ultimate responsibility of the election manager

Sometime between next Friday and next Saturday.

So we should all mark our calendars to be there.

10 o'clock.

Alrighty.

If we check in early, can we get paid more?

Yeah.

You mean what we get?

Yeah, right.

Uh huh.

Sure.

So, well, let's say you brought cookies.

And Jonell bought a bag of candy.

So let me make sure.

It's only loading.

You guys are not doing your inspections.

It's different.

So, for everybody who's in the room and also online, I kind of, you know, every time we have chief and assistant chief training, we always go in binders and everything, but I found a nice new camera.

The awesome manual that is now spined, a little bit less condensed than the binder would be and everything, easy to take out sometimes.

I just have to say, I think this is great.

I mean, other board members, please chip in, but the old binders,

You have to take them apart, put them back together.

And the innards, which Alex just held up, were routinely, all of that, reprinted after every election.

And now Richard Banko and the board and other people have gone great lengths to create a chiefs and assistant chiefs manual that I think is one of the best in the state.

and it's got a wealth of information.

That's not to say that the code of Virginia may be changed by the General Assembly.

Technology may change, but pretty much that's good to go.

It doesn't need to be reprinted.

It'll get turned in with the chief's information election night, the way you've always done.

And if we need to add addenda to it, we can just slip in an extra piece of paper.

And it's, thank you, Bucky.

Which means that other localities can look at our wonderful manual and learn.

Yes, ma'am.

I'm Liz Ward-Wendy.

I am chief at Georgetown 203.

I mark up my book pretty heavily, and I'm not going to be allowed

But you do what we would like all chiefs to do.

You put notes in your manual.

And when we, as you well know, but so people who aren't chiefs or assistant chiefs, on election night, the chiefs and the assistant chiefs bring back

a lot of stuff.

And the first stop is turn in your manual.

If you want to keep the innards, you keep your innards, which we would like everybody to do.

But they had plastic binders, three-ring plastic binders that we wanted to reuse.

So the chiefs were asked, do you wanna keep the innards and the paperwork?

And we'll take the plastic and now

Oh, but we have these little things that are called folders.

And so Liz will say, I don't need a whole new binder.

I've got my binder.

Well, I was thinking if she wants to turn it in, all we have to do is tell the chiefs and assistants to put their name on the first page of it so we know it's there.

So if we're- Name and precinct.

Name and precinct.

But for those chiefs who might want to keep their manual to review, refresh, et cetera.

To have for early voting.

And be there for early voting.

All the reasons that,

a good chief might want to keep their stuff.

Yup.

I do the same thing.

I mark it up extensively.

I keep it, I review it before early voting next year.

So does this also apply to assistant chiefs?

Good.

We are an everybody learn locality.

Alex, you have anything else that you need to present at this time?

Okay.

Does anyone have any other items, board members, otherwise?

Any additional comments from the public at this point?

Good, which is okay.

I understand.

That's the next, this is number nine.

Yeah.

Thanks.

At 9.30.

So we are announcing our next meeting.

Oh, and I forgot to announce that our able counselor is on the Zoom call.

So madam, we are announcing our next meeting

And at that meeting, we may have to have other meetings, but we're okay for right now.

That sounds good.

Do you have anything you'd like to add?

I'm so sorry.

No, I'm good.

Okay.

I should have announced you at the beginning of the meeting.

No, that's all right.

That's all right.

Go announce.

We have a full week, the week of the 13th, but I'm still wondering if we don't actually have any meetings scheduled for the 13th.

Wednesday at nine o'clock.

I was just, my thinking was I'd rather do it on Monday to keep advancing the cause of hiring the next registrar.

Okay, nine o'clock on the 13th for an EB meeting.

If we need another one, we can schedule if we will have other days.

Does anyone have anything else they'd like to bring?

Thank you.

Alex Branch is now gonna present the election manager

I did want to say that to people online and also to the portal has been acting funny with signups.

So please don't trust that.

If you need to, I can send out again the training schedules just show up.

There will be definitely a sign-up sheet so we know that your attendance was there.

But if the portal's not working for you, we will have that option.

Just show up and we'll still be credited for it.

Thank you.

Sometimes electronics don't work the way you planned.

We are going to go into executive session.

for code 2.2-3700 section A, the electoral board, all three members, and Alex Branch, the election manager.

We'll go into closed session.

We will discuss only personnel matters, officer of election assignments, and review of registrar applications, which are all personnel matters.

If I hear no objections, we are going into executive session.

Thank you, everybody.

And then we will return after we've gotten all this.

But the only thing we would need to present if you wanted to come back afterwards would be

Please not.

They will be on the website.

No, they won't be on the website.

And then we will be working on training agendas.

The electoral board meeting is now back in regular session after having been in a closed session in times for 8 p.m. And the board affirms that under the code section 2.2-3700-1, section D, I think,

that we have discussed only those matters which we said we're gonna discuss the only people in the closed session with those people who we announced would be in the session.

And we discussed personnel matters, officer of election assignments, and review of officer election, excuse me, officer registrar, general registrar applications.

and the only thing we have to affirm now is that the election manager has made, along with the board, certain alterations to the roster for offices of election and he is making calls, some of us are making calls and should have the schedule out to the chiefs and to the officers as soon as everyone is contacted.

We also will note that those people who have been appointed as officers of election

are welcome to come to the officer of election training because they are technically open meetings.

Any other comments, Joe?

Anyone who has been appointed by the board to be an officer of election, even though they are not assigned to a precinct, we're welcome to come to any of our trainings because they may be on the reserve list

and besides all of our training sessions are open public meetings so anyone can come to them.

Hearing no other further discussion, Chair entertains a motion to adjourn.

So moved.