Electoral Board Meeting   10/17/2025

If she has any opening comments, we'd welcome them to this point.

Hope everyone's had a nice week.

I know our registrar is out of the office today.

So, very happy.

I'd like to note that we completed the logic and accuracy testing for the VS-300s and express votes yesterday.

Little red seals on them.

Going into the security cages today.

Exactly.

And I would note that as of five minutes ago, early in person was at 8,208.

and they are coming back.

Do we have a count of how many they processed?

that is being used by elect, which has been somewhat confusing in use of the English language.

But- Is this related to marked?

Rick, your hand is up.

And if so, did you do it before Phillip Hamilton arrived?

We tested the poll pads previously at a previous LNA.

Early voting.

The only testing we did yesterday was for the DS300 optical scan machines that are going into the polling places on election day.

So that'll be the weekend before the election.

Sunday before the election, okay.

And that's when- Okay, great.

That's helpful.

Thank you.

Good.

Would you like to forego minutes now?

I'd like to approve the October 6th minutes that you have in front of you.

Would you like to waive the reading of those?

I will waive the reading of those.

Does anyone have any comments or changes?

Is it ever necessary to read the minutes?

You have to ask to make sure nobody wants them red.

We've only doubled that since October 6th.

So we're expecting, but for this election, it's been pretty steady.

So my guess is we will go over that to some degree.

OK, do I have a motion to approve the minutes as written?

So moved.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

Try to get caught up on the minutes.

based on the information we're getting from the county schools, if that's okay with the rest of the board, then we can take the schools off our inspection.

Okay.

It's your choice, gentlemen.

Have we divvied up the polling places?

Jim's going to send us the list that you usually send for our... Do you want to feel like I missed a... ...tranquil around the county?

No, well, I sent the list of all the non-public schools and notes on each of those.

but you usually are kind enough to make a routing for the board members.

I did it for me.

Okay.

Right, right.

And the others had three, so.

If either of you would like to take that responsibility, please, I'll do it this weekend.

I'll look at that today.

Thank you very much.

When do you plan to do that?

We're not going to do it all on one day.

We have to reach out to the facility folks and make sure that's an opportunity with them and so forth and so on.

So it's okay.

Got it.

I feel like I did it.

I have some comments also on this.

that we provide some training on this tool that we instruct the officers of election to use this tool to determine where someone lives that if they have any questions at the end of that process to call the registrar's office and have the registrar's office look it up via GIS but for the most part to see if we can get a large majority of these same-day registration address lookups done on a cell phone in the polling place

Very difficult to do it on a cell phone.

It's not user friendly.

They seem to have gotten this one right.

High marks.

Excellent.

Do you notice that you say that to you, Alex?

The street file is cumbersome.

Just that every chief needs to have this on herself.

And there is an easy way to use it.

But I think that's why Debbie was saying she, everybody was going to have a paper file.

Ideally, you'd come in person, but we may do it.

I don't recall ever seeing a voter having any concern particularly if you explain what you were doing that you have to look up their address to make sure they're in the right polling place otherwise their vote won't count.

Does that delay your anxiety?

I'm happy to put together some slides and add those to the Same Day Registration Training Act.

For this website.

If you have any trouble with that, call the registrar's office.

This is not the citizen portal.

And I think it would probably be a good idea if we add this website on the Albemarle County Electoral Board registrar website so that people, if they wanted to, could look it up at home before they went to the wrong polling place.

So yes, I think that's a great idea.

from either the pole pads or our optical scans.

Any of the election machines.

I hope you give them really good instructions.

I'll try it tomorrow and see if I can find me.

So I can see somebody going in to vote, a person couldn't find them.

But if you have spent a few hours with it, you can do this.

a better understanding of how to use it.

You know, step one, two, three.

Yes.

So when are we going to go over what the provisional ballot training is going to look like and who's going to do what?

That's what you're asking, Jim?

Yeah, just to go over them and decide who to do it with.

Within the training we should do this.

We didn't do this in June, but we did do this back in the fall.

We did it in the fall.

And I know we had breakout sessions that did it.

We didn't.

But I think we also had sessions in room B.

We had

The last classes we did went, I thought, very well.

We could meet Monday after our regular meeting.

That's what I'm looking at.

Monday after our regular meeting Monday morning.

I'll update the slide deck and distribute that to everyone to review.

Yep.

It may not be until tomorrow.

before we go into executive session.

Do we want to schedule another meeting?

We can.

I'm asking if we want to.

Gentlemen, nine o'clock Friday?

We've got SDR training at one o'clock on Friday.

You want it closer, 11 o'clock?

They don't know what we're gonna do, so I'm not sure.

This is for our board meeting or for SDR training?

No, for our board meeting.

I'd just as soon have it at nine o'clock, or 9.30, Jim.

Well, no, I'm just thinking if we're back here for 1 p.m. Well, that's, I think, what Bucky's alluding to.

If we don't need them, we can cancel them.

Split the difference.

Okay, so we have a 9.30 meeting on Monday and a 10 o'clock on Friday.

And for members of the public, I want you to understand we changed the times just to make it hard to catch up with us.

We're not doing them.

We increased the likelihood that we'll have a mistake in something we post, not when the meeting's going to be.

Anything else before we, do I hear a motion to go into executive session?

So moved.

Thank you.

Good job.

And we are now back in open meeting.

And we all have to...

And we all agree to that.

And I agree to that.

Jim, you want to report that?

I move the appointment of five officers whose names will be left.

I'd like to have that discussion before you do this.

I was going to add to my thing that these be conditional appointments conditioned on their returning of paperwork in an expeditious manner.

And I hear that as a friendly motion being made by you.

put that into the record going forward if that's what you would like to do.

That's what I'm trying to do.

OK.

but they have now an appointment to be officers of election and that appointment runs out after a year but we need to keep them on the books all that time when in fact they've never returned any information so it would make our database a lot cleaner and easier to manage if we were able to not have them be officers of election and yet the process of removing someone from that appointment is not arduous but it's tedious and there's no reason to do that if they've never actually sent anything back so

That time frame is important.

And you kind of said that you said two weeks or such earlier time as the election manager deems necessary to be of service in the upcoming election.

I would say the board games.

And I'm willing to start with three weeks and work back from there.

And so three weeks is a good time.

When the person gets the appointment notice, it must say in the appointment notice, we must hear back from you within three weeks.

This appointment is contingent upon your response with materials enclosed within three weeks.

If we do not hear from you within three weeks, we're happy to take your application at a later date, but this application will expire.

Happy to have you reapply.

on the return of registration materials that the elections manager says.

How about application?

So we're just trying to get more information.

But these are the.

Return of the information.

Requested by.

three weeks from the date of their letter, email, communication, from the date of their communication, the date of their communication to respond.

And that communication will include all of the forms and information the applicant needs to complete and return.

From the beginning?

And then you start doing things like that.

May I suggest that we add the word all in front of the word information?

Yes, you do.

Start at the beginning.

There's a selective order when appointing is for when you're trying to make those appointments contingent upon the return of information.

All information.

Returning to some of it wouldn't really get the job done.

Would it be more forceful to say information and alarms?

And the last few words getting to communication and then we veered off.

The electric manager will give the new appointee three weeks from the date of their communication.

It's not emails, telephones, it's notification of the appointment.

Unless it starts out typically, the elections manager will give the new appointee three weeks in, notification of the appointment.

to submit to return.

Shorting time is all information.

Well, I was going to provide for the option for a shorter period of time due to an impending election.

at the request of the electoral board depending upon the timing of an upcoming election.

Do we have a complete sentence here yet?

Typically, the election manager will give the new appointees three weeks from the date of his or her notification of the appointment to return the requested materials.

You've used information before.

Just all information.

Both, though.

They don't have to come in and do their own.

It's information.

Then this three-week period might be altered.

This time frame may be altered at the direction of the electoral board to be extended or to be shortened.

Period.

Then we'll say why.

For any reason, we so do.

Get it in.

It's three weeks.

Yep, period.

I think that's the motion.

Now, we're really thinking in terms of new folks, disease, but when appointment time comes around, we reappoint a lot of people to another one-year term.

Sometimes we do.

Why would we do that?

Sometimes we do, if they're questionable.

It's one year to a three-year term.

Sometimes it's two years.

No, we don't do the two years.

We haven't in the past.

Yeah.

That's not, I mean, you don't hold that against them.

They're not a tenured.

Historically, I believe we have generally, even if the person seemed to be fine after one year, we give them another one year term that we don't go to that three year term until we really have history of the person working a couple of times, making sure they're all right.

and being a little more relaxed about people who are giving three-year terms too, for whatever reason we're doing that.

not new OEs.

We intended for it to say OEs because for whatever reason we're pointing someone to a one-year term, we are less committed to them and we need to determine if they're committed to us.

an additional term or an additional three-year term that they still have to return their information, whether it's yep, I wanna work or whatever information they're sent, they have to respond.

I'm done moving.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

I'm thinking about, I'll see you.

Go ahead.

I'm sorry, I interrupted you appointing new officers of election.

We haven't had a vote on that.

I guess I don't have to say conditional.

One-year term.

All in favor of appointing these five peoples to a one-year term, say aye.

Aye.

Now, Jim, you have other questions?

and also in last minute instructions, put it in there.

I think he, Alex, we're gonna direct Alex, we should direct Alex to send this web, this link and a hyperlink so that all the chiefs can download it.

I did, I think, about this.

I think we need to text that to all of the chiefs, they can forward that text on to their provisional officers, then it's a click.

And then they've got it on their phones.

I got it.

Not everybody reads their email on their phone.

The phone would blow up and beat me.

That's why I was just thinking we should send it out as a text.

as a hyperlink in a text messages to all the chiefs and assistant chiefs.

Now let's just say chiefs.

I think it ought to go to both because it's an interview.

I just think the chiefs can share it with their assistant chiefs if they want to.

so if we send it to the chiefs and the assistant chiefs because they both groups may be a person helping with same-day registration at any given moment in a precinct and you don't want somebody trying to send a text message when they're not able to know how to do that in the in the fit of election day send it to the chiefs and the assistant chiefs as hyperlinks to their text messages and

for the folks coming to provisional training will also have them do this.

Exactly.

I'm still saying chiefs because otherwise, because we don't have this group chat thing set together.

We don't need a group chat for this.

I think, I think just sending to the Chiefs say please share with your Chiefs.

Let's ask Alex if it's too much to do then just send it to the Chiefs and if it's not too much to do you can send it to both.

He could have somebody else in the office help.

So if somebody could just browse to the elections website, they can get to it as well.

I'm just going to say there's further discussion about getting links to the property.

the chiefs and the assistant chiefs to make sure everybody gets it.

Not if he needs assistance, if it's too much work for him.

Send it to, I think it's important that everybody gets it in a text message.

I'll just leave it as for discussion.

We're going back to the warehouse, correct?

OK. And we are?

We are.

Put things into cages.

Anything else we need to discuss?

We adjourn.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

The board adjourns 11.35.