Council members, we are going to welcome a presentation, and leading the conversation is going to be our own council member.

But before I turn it over to him, uh one of the benefits of having this new structure is, of course, that we get to broaden our reach and broaden our expertise.

And I was so excited when Councilmember Bram was assigned to our committee because I know that elections reform is something that he's very passionate about, and he uh correctly and rightly so identified this presentation very early on.

Um more importantly than that, though, it is also a very important day uh for our council, and that is his birthday.

So happy birthday, council member.

And with that, please uh take it away.

You're a rock star.

All right.

So what stays in council what goes on in council stays in council, right?

Thank you very much.

Uh so just as as a way of background and as uh Chair Nash noted, um, we're taking a look at a range of things pertaining to elections.

We've had a presentation already about ranked choice voting, and it was suggested then that we have a presentation on approval voting.

And so thank you, Ms.

Wagner and Miss Sardinas for coming and sharing this with us.

Um by way of background, a third speaker, Walter Olson, who was part of the charter group as well as an expert on elections because of the weather, will not be able to join us today, and so I will reschedule his his presentation and comments later on.

So more to come on that.

Uh so Ms.

Wagner, I understood you were going to lead for a few minutes and then turn over to Ms.

Sardinas, is that correct?

Absolutely.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you both for joining us.

Thank you, and good afternoon, council members.

My name is Mary Kramer Wagner.

I'm with uh Pinnacle Strategies representing the Center for Election Science.

And I want to thank you for the opportunity to present to you the information on approval voting.

Just want to give a little bit of background about myself.

I spent 21 years in the wonderful world of elections, and that just never gets out of your bloodstream, I tell you what.

But um I also was a legislative liaison to the General Assembly during that time, and I just need to give a shout out to uh the former election director of Frederick, Stuart Harvey, who was my partner in crime during that whole time I was with elections because again, I'm state board.

I always used to say there wasn't enough love nor money for me to work at a local board because they do the yeoman's work, they do the heavy lifting, and I would come up with some really great ideas, and Stuart would look at me and say, No, go back to the drawing board.

So I always really welcomed his collaboration with me.

And a lot of questions, as you all can imagine.

What is the difference between ranked choice and approval voting?

And we go around and around, and the legislators were confused, and they didn't want to make that decision.

So after speaking to quite a few of the legislators, I said, how about a task force?

Uh and the task force would study the implementation of approval voting and ranked choice voting.

Let's get the best in the brightest in the room to hash this out, not showing favoritism from you know, for one or the other.

It would be give us your best.

And I present it to you all with the bill, and I'll be more than happy.

It's a bipartisan uh process between the House and the Senate.

Uh and um I can certainly get that back out to you.

Uh the hearing in both chambers is Wednesday at one o'clock.

So we will be dividing and conquering and testifying and whatnot.

There will be, I'm sure, amendments offered, which we welcome.

This is just a starting point to do that.

And so I'll keep you all posted about how we move forward with this these bills.

And with that, I would love to turn it over to Alison, who is the true person on approval voting.

Thank you so much, Mary.

Uh before I introduce myself, I'm so sorry, everyone.

I'm sick.

So if sometimes you see me like mute immediately, it's because I'm hacking a little bit.

Uh, but I promise it's not for any other reason.

I'm just, you know, a little stuffy.

Um my name is Alison Sardinas.

Um, I'm the director of public affairs for the Center for Election Science.

And the Center for Election Science is a national nonpartisan nonprofit uh focused on really broadly election innovation.

And one of the first election innovations that we decided we really should make some sort of decision on was which type of voting method we wanted to back in terms of support for implementation.

We were really agnostic about this process at first.

Um, and we looked at all of the methods.