Okay, good afternoon everyone. I would like to call it an order this meeting of the Board of Elections on Monday, September 9th at 3 PM. Uh roll call? Uh Member Hallam. Here. Member Demarco. Here. Chair Anna Marano. Present. Chair all present. Great. Thank you. Comment. Public comment. Mister Bandis. Ron Bandis. Good afternoon. I'm Ron Bandis. I hold a master's degree in information security from Carnegie Melon. I briefed the Secretary of the
Commonwealth in a previous administration on election integrity. I've been an invited speaker at the Pennsylvania Election Policy Summit and at the National Security Agency where I briefed 40 odd analysts for two hours on election integrity. The last time I addressed this body, I implored the board and Division of Elections to improve transparency. The county manager told me I was being negative and I didn't know that the division got gets accolades from unspecified entities. I hadn't realize this was a fan club meeting In 2020, the
division used the company to print and mail absentee and mail-in ballots. This company wasn't licensed to operate in Pennsylvania or even in their home state of Ohio because the company president's fraud conviction. They put bar codes right on the absentee and mail in ballots and the identical bar codes on the declaration envelopes which have the voters names. I identified that these bar codes were unique to each voter and thus they violated Pennsylvania Constitution's guarantee of a secret ballot. The division promised not to print
personal identifiable barcodes on the ballots or use that company again but in twenty twenty-two, they did. Subsequently, vote Allegheny asks for a written ask for a written commitment to not do these things again and the division refused. A member of Vote Allegheny sought to demonstrate to the public that the division and this Ohio company were able to identify the voters on these ballots. We requested to take images of the ballots and declaration envelopes which are public At first, the division gave us an appointment to do that. The day before the
appointment, they cancelled. The vote Allegheny member took them to court over this and related issues The division argued that the ballots, which say, official ballot on them are not official after voters marked them. The voter is then supposed to put his marked ballot into a secrecy envelope marked official election ballot. The county only has to provide images of ballots mail ballots that are official. In a previous board meeting, the division argued that the ballots are both official and
unofficial. Depending on which is advantageous for the division. It's official so it can be counted and it's unofficial so the division and the assistant county solicitors can cover up the malfeasance of their constitutional violation. The division claims that they can't make public images of absentee mail in ballots from those elections because it would allow the public to identify whose ballots are whose. Yes, it it would do so because they violated the Pennsylvania Constitution and our ballot secrecy twice and yet the division told the
board at a recent public meeting that the county has never had the ability to go back and see how a voter has voted. The same day as that meeting, the county filed a brief in court saying that they could tell who who are the voters associated with those ballots as an argument for denying a public records request. I don't think that the Division of Elections and its accounting assistant county solicitors understand the importance of transparency in a democracy. I don't think they're able to better but the board could do better and make reforms to promote transparency.
Next Matt Van Bibber Hello, Borg. So, I will back up what Ron just said. I actually have a court case that goes along with that and part of the department that stated said, reading all these sections together, we must see in section 1 PACS 1932. It is clear that plane meeting of official mail in ballots and official absentee ballots refers to official ballots prepared by the county for an upcoming election and not to the voted ballots cast by individual voters in return to the county election office. So,
that's. Basically what he just said. Um some other things that I dug into was some of the reporting from the machines from the precincts. I found that things were missing that should be required such as zero tapes, configuration reports, and voting results. I also found that some things that were supposed to be officially signed are not signed. I looked over like from twenty twenty to twenty twenty-three elections. So there's some things missing within there that that should be there. I also identified that serial numbers on the machines on some of those are coming back as all zero which each machine should have an
identifiable unique serial number which is an issue. I noticed after an upgrade that some of the serial numbers actually got reset. Looks like probably to the proper serial number which is very concerning. Um the other issue too is there's a protected count on the machines and this protected account is like an odometer in a car. It should never get reset and it's supposed to keep the mileage. Basically, how many ballots went to the machine? Unfortunately, the law, it looks like law is probably broken there as well because the machines were set to zero on the account. I did get the reports from the county from the
machines to verify this. I did verify this that indeed that these things did happen. Um and I also verified like past elections where we did get ballot images and CVRs where there were duplicates in our election. Um I brought it to the board. I brought it to the county. Nobody has really come to me and asked me for more information about this. Um which is kind of concerning. Um and I've sent emails. I've talked to you guys personally. Wants to hear about it. Maybe it's because there's legal liability. I don't know but and bring it to the public now because I don't
feel like I'm being hurt oh I also noticed that it looks like the polls are being opened early like at 6: 12 AM on the reports which I can see that's okay to because you gotta set the machines up but I am concerned because it doesn't look like we actually have there's no logging that says when an actual first ballot in was scanned so there is a prompt there should be a prompted machine that says okay yeah you've done the zero reports the polls open but you have to hit this button to show hey we started poll polling that's not any reports and it doesn't look like we're required probably keep the
logs in the machines which I think we should probably start keeping those logs so we can identify issues like that. Um I'm still waiting for the county to get back with me on that. Um so, from a high-level surface, things look okay sometimes but when I actually start digging into rights and nose and getting information, that's when I kind of started finding issues. So, again, I'm bringing it to you guys and try to bring it to you publicly to try to get some of these issues fixed. So, thank you. Next is Caroline Derazio. Good afternoon, Bort. First time I've been to one of these meetings.
Concerned citizen. I've been an attorney for 30 years and I wanted to pose a few questions to the board as well as to the public to think about. And I honestly don't know the answers. At every exchange spot in the process. And I've only gotten recently involved in in election act. Integrity and Election Activities. We should have monitors on both sides, both the
Republicans, Democrats, even the independents monitoring whenever these ballots are scanned or any activity whatsoever regarding that particular ballot. To assure the public that one person, one vote. I've heard of crazy stories like in the last midterm election, boxes of ballots showing up at a university.
You know, just boxes and boxes already, already designated who those ballots were voting for and they were multiple ballots for each student. I also know of a personal story from a friend of mine whose father passed away and yet he voted in the last election. So, I know it's top of mind for everyone these days is what assurance do we have as citizens
of America, the United States of America that it is one person, one vote and I'd love to know what the county which Pennsylvania is very much going to be in play in the general election. What the county is doing that is different from the 2020 election. And we all know Pennsylvania was definitely in the news in the twentytwenty election. Fourth and final speaker, Ben Wainwright Good afternoon, members of the Allegheny County Board of Elections. I stand before you today
as one of the thousands of registered student voters in Allegheny County to advocate for a critical initiative that will significantly impact our upcoming election. The establishment of a satellite office in Oakland, the heart of Pittsburgh student community. Oakland is not just another neighborhood. It's the most densely populated area in our county, home to tens of thousands of students from multiple universities with multiple precincts dividing it. These young voters represent the future of our democracy and we must do everything in our power to ensure that all eligible voice is or heard on election day. So, why Oakland? First, Oakland's population
density exceeds any other area in Allegheny County. By opening a satellite office here, we can serve the greatest number of voters in the most efficient manner possible. Furthermore, if I'm not mistaken, not only are they the most voters by area in Oakland, but there is nowhere in Allegheny County with more first-time voters in Oakland as well, and to top it all off, there's nowhere in Allegheny County, where people update the registration more often than Oakland. With major institutions like the University of Pittsburgh, Carlow University, and Cardi Mill University, all located in Oakland, a satellite office would be within walking distance for
thousand students. This proximity is truly crucial for encouraging youth participation in our democratic process. Students often face specific challenges when it comes to voting such as unfamiliar with local procedures or difficulty in obtaining proper identification. If this excuse me, it is this board's responsibility to ensure that its constituents have an accessible place to address these issues. So it may suggest that areas like Squirrel Hill could serve the same purposes. However, I must emphasize that Squirrel Hill simply is not Oakland. The difference in location, those small on a map
significant in practice. Students are more likely to engage in office they can easily walk to between classes or to and from their way to campus. This satellite office would be one of the most important if not the most crucial office for this election. By facilitating voting access for such a large and concentrated population of young voters, we had the opportunity one, increase overall voter turnout to specifically increase youth voter turnout. Two, engage first-time voters in the democratic process, empirically proven to create lifelong voters, three alleviate
pressure on other voting locations. Four, demonstrate our commitment to our country's democracy. As has been said by this Elections Division 2 weeks ago, we have tried the geographic approach, it's time for us to try the people approach. This right here is how you serve the great American voters of Allegheny County, our great commonwealth, and our great country. In conclusion, I urge the board to approve the establishment of a satellite office in Oakland. This decision is not just so convenience, so at empowering the next generation of voters in strengthening the foundation of our democracy. Let's make Oakland a
engagement in Allegheny County. Thank you for your time and consideration. There's an additional speaker of the chair permits. Uh somebody by the name of Haley. Haley, when you speak, give us your last name, please. Good afternoon. Uh my last name is Philips. I am here. I'm a judge of Elections for Pittsburgh's District six, Ward three or Ward six District three, sorry. Um this too is also my first time ever speaking at
something like this. Uh I am actually here to discuss raising the poll worker wage but what I have from with my experience working Elections as the judge of Elections since 2022. Um what my knowledge can touch base on a couple of things that the other speakers have pointed out. Um I have had multiple people that were scheduled to be on my board leave on lunch break and not come back. That
leaves tape unsigned at the end of the day because we can't print out the end tape until the end of the day. So if Poll workers had a meaningful wage raise that would increase weight for worker retention and although the county does offer paid training for poll workers, the best training is election day unfortunately. We have people that come in and for various
different reasons would need to remit their mail-in ballot. Other things and there's different paperworks. It all needs to be done in Triple Kit. Some of it quadruplicate and have worked three elections with just myself on my board. So, if I I'm a single mom and I work and I have to rearrange my custody schedule for three days to
make sure I can work election day because I can't because it's an all-day event that affects my Monday and my Wednesday. So, I do this because I want to this but I do believe that we should be compensated especially if we're continuing to come back to serve our communities, our neighborhoods, and this is the only way to build trust with voters is for them to see familiar faces and
ask questions because if you ask me, I can tell you in quadruplicate, a lot of the things that people say are happening are not happening and I have and I have the experience and I highly suggest everybody to sign up to be a worker at least once. If you have all of these thoughts about what's going on, please don't speak on them until you put yourself in a poll worker's shoes and see what is going on. For an entire day. Thank
you. Thanks. The chair permits we have some emailed comments. They everything gets posted but if you permit, I'd summarize those. It'll take me a minute or two. Yes, please proceed. Um from Daniel Hardwick in essence, may questioning voter role maintenance in terms of people on the rules and the removal from Brenda Foreman who raises questions about funding streams, certain line
items, expense, and some technical questions. From Williamtown who his comments were in essence made by by mister Bandis in terms of voter unique codes and official ballots and the like and again, mister Bandy's covered the high points there and that will be posted from Ryan Joyce favoring more satellite election offices from Nick DeWalt
supporting satellite election offices for Matthew Trickett supporting and satellite offices and asking that they'd be expanded. Um from Mary Zacaro, supports accessible satellite offices. From somebody named Misbah M I S B A H wants to add satellite offices. Those are all the comments that we received by Email and they'll all be posted. Thank you.
Thank you. Moving on to the approval of the minutes from May 13th meeting. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Thank you. Okay 20 twenty-four General preparations. Thank you very much. Um currently voter registration is very busy. I'm taking in a lot of over-the-counter registrations by drives. Uh we received an additional 22, 000 voter registration since May first. Now, there are a lot of duplicates in there and a lot of them are just change of
addresses and stuff like that but currently, we're about 11, 000 voters higher than we were for the primary. Um as well as polling places. We've changed twenty-four for this election with 14 or pending. Um that is all the locations that moved from the primary due to Passover. They're moving back to the original locations. They're not included in this. Um the applications for mailing and mail in and absentee ballots this afternoon. We had 1 160, 000 Um we'll
probably top out around 200, 000 for this election which is considerably less than four years ago. And we currently have confirmed poll workers at 5, 950. We have about eight and 50 to go and a month and a half to do so. I think we're in really good shape there. That's about all the updates I have at this point. Just following up really quickly. Um most of you know, we did a public meeting on August 28th to talk about ballot return sites and
off-site voting options and we also had a survey that was made public. So, that survey closed last week. We had just shy of 2000 people take the survey and just kind of quick, high level about half of the people that took the survey said that they typically vote in person. The other half do some combination of vote by mail or over-the-counter voting. Uh we also had mixed results on the return site hours and days. Uh some people want it early, some people want it late, weekday weekends. It was all over the place but the one
majority at I think 36% was people wanted them one week prior to election day for ballot return sites. 53% of people also said that satellites which are different than ballot return sites were very important. 25% said somewhat important. 22%, said not important. And for the in-person voters majority said that they would like better location advertising. So something. We're going to work with our marketing group on and communications on moving towards November.
Thank you, director. Does anyone have a questions? Councilperson Helen. Thank you very much. I have a couple questions. Um the first question is about the poll workers for election day. So, I know that at the information session, we talked about how the workers at the warehouse are not poll workers and those are county employees. Um are any county employees included in that 5950 number? We have not assigned any county employees as of yet. Okay. Thank you. And I just want to say that more than
any other year, I mean, I spent a lot of my time on Twitter and I, every other ad see an ad to be a poll worker. So, thank you whoever is doing, maybe that's just my algorithm but I've seen it so much and it catches your eye and I just think it's great. So, I wanted to give props where it's due. Um my next question is about, I keep hearing a lot about this official ballot versus unofficial ballot and unique barcodes, I know, were brought up today just for my own information people who I assume are hearing it and you know, have the same
questions as I have, is it the number that's like down here? Can you show, tell me where on my ballot, I would see this unique barcode? That barcode on your ballot, I'm, we're using a different print vendor now. That barcode on your ballot indicates your precinct number. Yup. That no, no way identifies you as a voter. Okay, great. And so, every single person who lives in my precinct who's voting by and mail would have the exact same numbers on their bottom of their ballot as I would. That is correct. Perfect thank you very much. I was wondering about that. Um and then I have a couple questions
about you know when we get down to ballot return sites and satellite voting. So, I will save my questions for them. Thanks. Councilperson Demarco. Thank you. Uh mister Voy, when you come before us here in the future, I would appreciate if you guys could provide us a sheet of paper with the statistics that you're rattling off. Talking about how many of this or how many of that or something like that so that we have that. We're able to look at that during your remarks instead of
trying to capture them and perhaps miss something, okay? Um miss Garfield, you talked about the survey responses. You said you had about and I'm paraphra said you had about 2000 total responses. You know, they were split between folks who voted in person and then you started giving percentages as to the people that wanted satellite voting offices. Did you ask any questions on the survey? Why? They requested or filed a satellite voting office was important. We did not. We just asked their level of interest in the
satellite voting. Okay. Could you tell me how many people from a numerical perspective weighed in on those questions? You were giving me like you said 22%. I think it's the last one that you the last figure you quoted say that they said it was very important. How many actual responses does that 22 percent represent? Uh if you give me a minute, I can get my calculator out and do 22% of 1900 change. Well, the people that voted in person thought the satellite voting offices were important? I don't know. Yeah, he said 1900 people vote. Well, I I don't
know if the people that said satellites were very important were also the people that said that they vote in person. I I didn't track the to see, you know, if, if person A said they typically vote in person, how the rest of their survey responses tallied up. Yeah, I'm just trying to gauge. We have 918, 000 plus registered voters in Allegheny County. You know, so I'm just trying to gauge the, from a response perspective and response rate. You know, how many of these people felt and try to understand why? Sure, understand. Okay, thank you. I need it. Okay. Moving on to agenda
item five. Ballot return sites. So, based on the feedback that we received from the survey, from comments that we had during the primaries ballot return sites, Emailed comments we received, and at the public meeting, we're presenting the board with the motion and a plan for ballot return sites for November. For those listening at home or those in the public, we're proposing to host ten ballot return sites. Uh nine
of them will be offsite AKA not the county office building. Uh three of those locations will be new locations and we have one change. So, we are proposing to once again hosted the county office building as we always do. We'll also be going back to the emergency services building in Moon Township will be going to Boyce Park in Plum, Carnegie Library, and Squirrel Hill, the North Park Ice Rink, the South Park Ice Rink,
the one change that we had rather than going to the Cane McKees port, we would like to switch that location to the Greater Pittsburgh Food Bank in Duquesne and then we've added three new locations for the ballot return sites which are the Dormont Pool, CCAC, Homewood, and the Avalon Public Library. Uh when we took data from prior elections to see where we just weren't getting returns. There was a really dense population of people not returning in the Dormont area. Kind of Route 19. And along
Route sixty-five in particular and then over on the east side of the city. So, that's what drove the three additional locations. Okay, Councilman Demarco. Sure. Um miss Carfall, you said you presented a plan. I have the resolution which was mailed over on Friday but I don't have a plan. What's the plan? And I asked because in the primary, I've supported ballot return sites. Because we had a plan that you guys submitted to the Department of State. And it talked about the things that you were providing at these
locations. Finage, accessibility to voters with disabilities, county police officers states in each location. Video surveillance and things. All these different things that were here. But none of this was submitted here. So it might understand that these nine sites that you've identified that everything that was on here that you provided in the primary will be provided here in the general election. Yes. We will be repeating the setup that we had in the primary. We'll have county staff working the ballot box. We will have the county
police officer. We'll have the county police officer escort the staff back to the warehouse at the end of the night We will have video surveillance on the premise as well. Okay, let me ask you this question. How much is this anticipated to cost? For the ballot return sites? Significantly less. We'll be doing this on the weekdays, Monday through Friday. So, it'll be a normal eight-hour shift for the staff. So, the only overtime that will be incurred will be the staff person that drives the ballot box along with the police officer from the location back to the warehouse. I don't know. Uh because I did some
calculations. I think it's going to be a bit more. Uh in the April primary Allegheny County spent just on the sixth ballot return sites over those two weekends. Three 00 and twenty-four thousand three hundred and 9two dollars and eight cents. We got a return of 2779 ballots. which if you divide those, it comes out to a cost of approximately one hundred and sixteen dollars and seventy-three cents per ballot returned. Now, that's not a great ROI in anybody's book. Now, When we talk
to the primary in the meeting we had after the primary, you folks talked about how part of that cost included the cost to purchase the video equipment and so, that was 220, 000 in change. So, if I subtract that out and I just use just the labor cost. The labor cost is a hundred and three thousand eight hundred and seventy-one dollars and 40 cents, which again divided by 2779 ballots equals 37 dollars and thirty-eight cents per ballot return. Now, we're going from from six sites to nine
sites. How many sets of video surveillance equipment do we have? We have 12 total cameras. Uh some locations. We have two locations that do require two separate mobile units. We already have those. We purchase those. As you said, we own those. The ten sites including the weekend hours were operating on about $2500 per site per day. So, it equals out to about $25, 000. Yeah, I looked at. Why about the return sites? I looked at the sites the five weekdays and I came up with the cost of
$350 and two dollars and eighty-nine cents per day per location based upon the wages and the fringes from the report that you guys provided at the primary so when I take the ballot return sites five weekdays times thirty-five oh two dot 89 times nine sites that's a hundred and 5-7 thousand 6 hundred and thirty of five when I look at the two weekend days there the average cost there based upon the numbers you provided after the primary were $4, 328, $4, 328, 4 3 28 dollars and 56 cents. Multiply
that times nine. That's seventy-seven thousand nine fourteen oh eight. So, total cost there just on labor alone would be 235 44. Which is about 120 some 000 more than the labor cost us. Well, wait a minute, twothirty-five, one03, 132, 000 more than labor cost us. In the primary. We did have some high-level personnel that were working in the primary. We dialed that back. I carry a high salary. A lot of the people sitting up here do we're
not necessarily going to be on site nine, 10 hours a day like we were in the primary. Um we have other managers that are fully capable of doing this. They're trained. They worked in the primary and carry a lower salary. So you think that that lower salary is going to make up that $100, 000 difference? No. Okay, thank you. That's it. Councilperson Hallam. Yeah, I am not here to do math. Uh so, my question is specifically about where the ballot return sites are. I'm so excited about the new ones. I love the new locations. I do know that
over the past few meetings that we've had some folks coming who are students in Oakland including tonight who were asking about an Oakland either satellite office or ballot return site and so, I remember seeing that heat map of where the folks are and so, is that the satellite one? Yeah, for the one. So, is that the reason that we're not going to have the ballot return site in Oakland is because we're having the satellite location and you're trying to do two separately. Correct. Correct. Cool. Oh, and that math question from earlier was four
hundred and forty. Uh I Googled it. What was 440? The one that you were talking about about 22%. It was four 40. Okay. Okay. Any additional questions? I just also want to say that of course, we did a a new thing in the primary and getting folks to, you know, participate in our ballot return sites. You know, it's going to take some time to change people's behaviors and make sure that they
know that that's an option for them to vote and if we're talking about ensuring that every single citizen here has the opportunity to exercise their right to vote. You know, we're creating and infrastructure that is new that will require time for people to adopt. So, you know, I want to emphasize that I think that this is a noble investment and it's an investment not only in the folks who are going to be voting in November but the voters that are going to come after that. So, appreciate you being
thoughtful and intentional and data driven as you present these new locations to the Board of Elections and with that a motion to adopt resolution to. So moved. Second. Any discussion? I would just say in looking over the numbers from the primary, only 2. 9%. 2. 9% of the ballots that were requested were returned at the ballot return sites. When we talk about accessibility and
ease of use for voting, people already have tremendous access and ease of use in voting. In regards to applying for mail and ballot application, they have the ability to do it through the mail. They have the ability to do it online. They can do it over the at the County Elections Office. In addition, numerous third-party groups like the voter participation center and others. I've even seen pre-populated mail-in ballot applications sent out using the governor's name and the county executive's name. All these folks need to do is enter out their
identifying information, sign the application to return it. When it comes to returning their ballot, there are six with these bail return sites. There are six different options. You have the option to place it in the state's most office mailbox on your block. You have the option of putting it in the mailbox at your own front door for pickup. You can return it to the drop box at the county office building. You can return it directly to Elections Division employees at the Elections Office. You can take it to the polls the entire package on
election day. 1, 3 hundred and 27 of them. Where they will be given a bell which to vote. In addition with the bell return sites, that's six sites, that's six ways to return their ballot. So, I think we're providing a tremendous amount of flexibility and access. Again, bending over backwards. We're talking about 2. 9% of the ballots. If we take and you said a hundred and 000 people have applied so far, that's about 4500 ballots. So, we're going to be spending $500,
000. Collect 5, 000 ballots. That's all. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. May I call the roll for voting? Please do. Mister Member Demarco. I'll vote for the bail return sites. Okay. They'll like em but I'll vote for it. Okay. Miss Hallam. Yes. Chair Anna Murano. Yes. Resolution passes three zero. Next item is resolution three regarding satellite sites.
So again, based on public feedback and the data that we reviewed for prior elections, we would like to host five satellites. So, as a reminder for everyone, satellite office, it's kind of the whole shebang. You can apply for a mail-in ballot. People have the option to register. You can get your mail-in ballot printed on site. You can fill it out and turn it in. You can take it home with you. If you want to mull it over but you can do everything all in
one very similar to what we did in 2020 just on a a smaller scale. So, 2020, we had Ted terminals at every location. We had upwards I think of 40 or 50 staff at the locations that we hosted and we had roving locations for this go around. We would like to host a weekday site at Soldiers and Sailors in Oakland on October 15th, 16th, and 17th during business hours, 8AM to 4 PM. And then
on two weekends in October, the nineteenth and 20th and 26th and twenty-seventh from nine to five. We would like to host satellite offices at the CCAC Homewood, North Park Ice Rink, South Park Ice Rink, and County Office Building. Any discussion on the resolution? Of course. Councilperson Demarco. Folks, one of the concerns that I have here is since twenty twenty, we've been able to get by fine without the satellite voting locations, okay?
But wait, what happens here is in a presidential election year, all of a sudden, now, in addition to ballot return sites, which we haven't had before, we're going to put these in place. I've spent a tremendous amount of time trying to assure people of Allegheny County, as well as anywhere else I've been asked in Pennsylvania, that our elections are secure. You know, I've done my best trying to take a knockdown. What I viewed as conspiracy theories, things of this nature, etcetera but when we take and we introduce things
that can create additional ambiguity, it's concerning. The state's law here, Pennsylvania State and the Department of State. When people go to vote at the polls, you're allowed to have a poll watcher. When we do the pre canvassing and the canvassing of the absentee and the mail-in ballots, you're allowed to have observers. But according to the state's rules here, it doesn't permit poll watchers or authorized representatives or even observers to be at these facilities. You have
when we talk about Oakland and I appreciate trying to take in and serve our student population. But they are the most technologically astute and capable of our population. When I take a look at the figures here, let's look at Bethany here in our math. Again, we have approximately ninehundred 000 registered voters. And our population estimated in 20 twenty-four of a million two hundred seventeen thousand. Uh residents in Elgin County. Approximately 96% of
our people are already registered to vote. I just can't see when the county is is running at a in a trend where we're spending $23 million dollars more per year than we're taking in. We're going to lose additional millions in real estate revenue. When we're taking and doing this and when I when I factor in folks, Democrat applications are running 4 to 1 on Republican applications. I have people calling me up, telling me
that this is nothing more than a Democrat get out the vote plan. Funded by the taxpayers. How do I push back on that again when we have 2. 9% is the number of ballots being returned. So, it's minuscule and now, we're going to take and open this up where people can go in and register at these different locations and all kinds of other things in addition to just returning their ballot and I'm supposed to assure everybody that everything is hunky dory and secure. It's just
difficult to do. I'd appreciate any help. You folks might want to give me in being able to take and assure the public that that's the case. Thank you. Council Bears and Allen? Yes, I am really excited to vote yes on this. I would say that I agree we should treat every year the same and I would be excited to support this proposal for the primary and general elections in non-presidential years as well. So, hopefully that's something we can talk about in the future and also just wanted to point
out that many more people in Allegheny County vote in presidential elections so I am glad that you guys are on that and ready to go with these additional measures to remove all obstacle the people who want to vote because as we all agree, our elections are safe and secure and we want everybody to participate of all parties. So, excited to vote yes. Great. Thank you, Council Person Hallam. Um director, could you just speak briefly to the safety and security that is surrounding these satellite locations and just touch on maybe a few other counties within
the Commonwealth that already offer the service and have for many election cycles? So, I may let somebody on the other side of the room talk to the other counties that utilize them but as far as our security goes, again, this is all full-time county employees predominantly from the Elections Division. They're all trained to use the state shore system which we've acquired laptops from the Department of State that are sure enabled. So, everything will be processed via that on secure networks. Again, we'll have two
staff on the ballot box just like we do in the ballot return sites. We'll have a county sheriff outside, can't be inside but they can be outside to monitor. Um so, it's very similar to what we did in twenty twenty. Um I honestly, other than the sheer size of it, I can't think of any differences off the top of my head. I think really some of the other counties out east are Philadelphia, Montgomery, Park. Some of those counties do utilize satellite voting. I think we'll be the only on this side of the state though. Great.
Thank you. Um and just want to reiterate my tremendous amount of respect and trust I have for our elections employees and their ability to administer elections. Um so with that motion to consider the resolution. So moved. Okay second. Okay. Um called the role. Um I think it's Miss Allen this time. Yes. Mister Demarco. Yeah. Okay. Cherry Namarado. Yes. A resolution three passes two to one. Thank you. Thank you and moving on to new
business. Um member Hallam. Thank you so much. Uh so, I know a lot of folks who have reached out to me. We had a poll worker come and speak tonight. Um I'm sure we have some other ones in the room that I've seen and a concern the folks have expressed is they really want to participate in this process of being a poll worker. They want to learn how our elections work and also do their civic duty but the pay is really the barrier for them. Currently, we are paying 1 hundred
and fifty for most poll workers, a hundred and seventy-five for the judges of elections. Now, if they do a complete training, they can get 25 additional dollars for training and so, I propose via this resolution to raise the wage. Uh we are capped in Pennsylvania at $200 but that does not include training, any additional compensation for travel to and from, dropping off the ballots
so we can add an additional amounts for that. So, I propose to pay $200 to the regular poll workers, 250 to the judge of Elections. Keep the training and keep the mileage reimbursement the way it is now. And I would like to open that up for any discussion for my colleagues. I do know that every year, this year is the best I've seen in a really long time that this far ahead of the election, we only need 850 poll workers. That is
great but I really do believe that I personally have talked to a number that's in the least hundred or so who would love to do this if they could afford to take a day of PTO, take an unpaid day off work, pay for childcare, do all the costs that are associated with spending. I mean, 14, 15 hours at the polling place for the day. So, I think it is the least that we can do especially in a county where we really prioritize our workers and also democracy. So. Mister Boy, how many workers do we
have currently signed up today? As of today, right before the meeting of 5, 950. Have we had any problem getting those folks? Recently and no. Not not for presidential elections. It's normally a lot easier. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you. So, I would say, you know, I think to Councilman Demarco's point is that we've had an incredible amount of success recruiting poll workers and you know, we have so much gratitude at the county for the people who give Election Day to make our elections happen. You know,
we're also entering budget season where we know that we have a fixed budget that the Elections Department is is working with. So, I would encourage us to look at what the cost would be associated with these increases and come back to the Board of Elections and and kind of give us a full picture of the increased cost that we would incur and what the potential benefit could be in doing
that. So. Yeah, that is actually the reason for the timing of this for not waiting until after the election is because of the timing of the budget season. I know that that's coming up. I do know that we will have to incur an additional cost obviously to raise the pay even if it is only what 50 or seventyfive per person. Uh so that is why I would like to approve this now so that we know how much we need to allocate in the budget for Elections Division four poll workers for next year. So just to clarify, you you're
asking for a motion to raise the wages. Beginning January 1st. Beginning January 1st. Sure. Do we do not have a written motion in our pocket? Is that can our solicitor speak to that? We do not but I think we can verbalize it but Bethany what you forget is you said the judge $2 fifty. The compensation has to be matched to two hundred. Now, you did touch on training and things like that but but a component for compensation,
actual compensation cannot exceed $200. Right. So, we could delineate it to make it so that it's $200 per serving because that would work both for both of them and then $50 plus the mileage that they're already getting for the judges of elections who do go to the warehouse, drop off ballots. Respectfully, could we table this until our next meeting, which is going to be in October, two weeks prior to the election, that will give us time to actually calculate how much of a financial
burden that's going to be on elections. Um, obviously have already submitted our budgets to the administration and that will get presented to council but that will give us time to give you a concrete number on the type of increase we're looking at. Sure and would that October meeting be early enough for you to amend your proposal to the administration to be included in the 20 twenty-5 budget? I'm not sure what day it's being presented to council. October 15th, mid October. Yeah, I just don't want, oh, it's too
late now and not to be used as a reason why we can't do it. So, if you think that that gives your team enough time, I am willing. I don't want to table it but I'll just kind of pull it until the next Board of Elections Meeting. I just didn't want to kind of, I know we're going to be busy with the meeting before the election and any subsequent meetings after the election. I didn't want this to kind of get lost. Sure, understood. I just think like I said, that would give us time to actually present you with a hard number of here's the type of increase we're at because I think it's going to be pretty significant. That would be great. I'd be cool with that. Thank you.
Thank you, director and thank you, Member Hallam. Okay. Do I have a motion to adjourn? Salute. So move. It's great. Thank you. In favor. Thank you guys.