I like the ones I count.

I don't like the ones we don't count.

I have to call the Marion County Elections Board meeting to order here May 14th.

Before we get started, we'll do introductions.

We'll start with the board, and then have stab and then council.

Begin with myself, Nelia Stewart, Chair.

Hi, good afternoon, Jennifer Bean, Vice Chair.

Kate Sweeney Bill, Secretary.

Patrick Becker, Director of Elections.

Brad Boswell, outside council.

Helen Gabrich, Office of Corporation Council.

Okay.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

So we get started.

Now that we have a call order, have a few things that go over today as we're coming off of the election.

I guess it's two weeks ago already.

Time flies.

Can you provide an update for us?

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair.

The um staff is uh the board knows it goes through after election day uh what we call our canvassing process as essentially going through all the materials that come back from election day.

Um so we have a couple of different uh things for the board to uh essentially review and then hopefully tabulate uh in front of you.

Um, and I'm just gonna start with the the smallest number of them, uh, which is this one ballot here, which was an absentee by mail ballot that was set aside um on election day by central count counters, and they set it aside for a no signature, uh, but you can see that the um the person that was signing had an assistant here, and the person assisting um you know signed uh for the voter.

Um, so the one staff wanted uh board to review that, and then um, so that's the first one.

Yeah, I don't think we have so I don't know if they were able to make the mark or not.

For that, um next we have um the these were absentee ballots that were vote by mail ballots that were returned to um polls on election day to vote centers.

Uh they were received timely, they were not put in the proper place when the materials came back.

So these were discovered um you know in the days after election day as we continued going through uh the materials.

Uh so staff was able to go through and match them with the applications.

Uh, we did have a bipartisan team also review the signatures on all of these.

Uh, but this is here for the board to either review or um approve us to count.

Um we went through our normal process of matching these uh to their application, uh providing a bipartisan team the app and the ballot for them to do signature review, um, and then these are hopefully ones that the board will consider for tabulation as well.

If the board would like to do signature review, uh the applications are attached, uh, but you can also see the report where they've been checked off by our colleagues in voter registration.

And then the last batch of absentee ballots um are four unreadable ballots that were from election day.

Um those were um ballots that were at the tabulator that went through the tabulator and were not tabulated, they were put into an unreadable envelope and were not gathered um with the rest of that material when that machine was closed down for the night for tabulation.

So this again was discovered after election day as we were going through the central count materials and starting to put those and archive them.

Uh one of our staff discovered that this had unreadable ballots in it, and they had not been remade.

Um, and so staff with uh our colleagues in voter registration went through uh and had a bipartisan team remake the ballots.

Um what I did do is um I I paper clipped essentially the remade ballot to the original ballot.

Um on the back of the ballot, you can see uh there's a remake sticker and then a corresponding number uh of the original so that uh again if the board wanted to review these uh the board uh the staff would would request the board considered tabulating uh these ballots.

Are they all from uh the same vote center?

These here.

These are central countries.

Uh that went went up to the tabulator, uh, got sorted out as unreadable, and then never actually got remade on election day.

Okay, uh, and then went back uh to go back through the tabulator.

Um these are ones that did come, uh and I don't know if they all came from the same vote center, but I think it was two vote centers, um that had uh this is a total of ten uh from the election day sites.

How many other unreadable?

Four unreadable and these are supposed to go into an envelope that uh is opened immediately upon arrival here on election night, correct?

Yeah, so what what staff does is goes through materials on election night and specifically starts looking for absentee ballots, um provisional ballots, um ballot accounting certificates, uh zero tapes and totals tapes, uh things that we kind of need to help us uh kind of put together the pieces from what happened on election day.

Uh and sometimes what happens um they're not where you expect them to be.

Uh so uh as staff will uh kind of roll their eyes.

Sometimes we go through everything and we check uh every nook and cranny um before this meeting because this is kind of our last chance to bring things before the board.

And you said everything has been checked by a bipartisan team prior.

Yeah, I don't uh there's a question I think about this one as to whether or not the board would actually be able to count this one.

Uh we did want to bring it to the board for review.

Um I don't know if you had a chance to look at this one.

Um, how did you require it?

Just so this came through the um the central count and was rejected um on the central count floor, and when staff went to put it in the cent uh to reject it, uh they believe that this was I guess they this might have been the voter signature.

Um but it looks like it's the person assisting the voter.

Is there a power of attorney in it?