Good morning everyone.

My name is Brian Chatfield.

I'd like to call this meeting to order on October this Marion County Election Board meeting to order today, October 2nd at 9 a.m.

Next, uh ask Patrick to um maybe discuss a little bit about the commencement of the public center.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Uh so uh the staff uh along with our vendor um election systems and software has been working over the last um three or four weeks to uh test all of the equipment um the ballot marking devices, um thank you, the tabulation devices um for Marion County.

So that's um around 2300 pieces of equipment.

Um what state law requires us to do uh today is to test a minimum of five percent of that um fleet.

Uh that is uh the machines in front of us are provided to us by the state as the machines that we need to test, um, and it represents five percent of our total fleet.

Uh so these machines have been tested already.

Uh what staff will be coming in to do uh in in a few minutes once we uh begin is actually um open up the ballot marking devices, create ballots, run them through the tabulators.

Um our vendor just provided us a report, which is called our zero report, um, which I will pass around to you all.

This is showing that zero votes have been uh entered into our election reporting management software.

Um and at the conclusion of the test today, what we'll have is a report that has uh totals of our test of votes that were entered into the system, as well as a predicted um outcome.

So the way that public tests or testing your equipment works is you pre-mark ballots, test ballots, um, and you have a predicted outcome for each race that you're expecting to hit, um, and you run those ballots through the tabulators and you make sure that you hit your predicted outcomes.

So, in a general sense, uh, if you have um you know three positions, three people running for an office, uh, you would have the first position get one vote, the second position get two votes, third position get one vote.

So then you would be able to know how many ballots you're tabulating and how many votes each of those people would be able to get.

Uh so that is what you'll see at the end of this is our predicted outcome, and then what was actually tabulated.

Okay.

Uh so the test ballots that you're using, what happens just so people can understand what happens to those test ballots when you're done, and what ballots are you using?

So we use ballots um, we call them test ballots for a number of reasons.

Number one, they don't have all of the required material on them by the state as far as uh the signature of the clerk, the seal of the clerk, um, or initials.

So we don't initial any of our test ballots, and uh we have stock, for example, of uh signatures of a clerk that cannot uh appear on the ballot, uh such as yourself.

And so we have ballots that um we can use that are not going to be used for election day, and there are uh ways for us to determine that.

After we tabulate everything, you'll see all of these envelopes on the table.

Um, all of the ballots are taken, put in order, and then they are secured in archive boxes and stored away uh prior to uh any of our voting.

So that'll happen today at the conclusion.

We'll store all of these in boxes and put them in a secure place.

Um and again, they're different ballots than what we use for uh in-person voting.

Just just it I think it's important for the public to know with with this national discourse on the security of elections that what we're doing and what we're using that we understand it, but the public deserves to understand it too, and that is why these proceedings are so important because uh you get to

you

get to see how the sausage is made.

So uh thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

And if I could just to clarify as well, um we're required by law to store all um election materials documentation uh for 22 months.

So these fall into that I'm sorry, 36 months.

Madam Clerk.

Uh so for 36 months, and so uh these fall into that same category.

These will get um archived and stored securely in our favor uh for 36 months after the election.

All right, so the test is uh beginning right now.

The um these experts are getting ready to uh open up the express votes and uh commence the test.

So I I guess we we go on uh with our agenda.

And and this process will take probably about two and a half hours.

Um yep, you guys can start.

Um, and so we're gonna go ahead and have them get started uh just so that we can uh move the process along.

So for anybody watching um or following along at home, uh there will be a good break after we get business done here uh to be able to see what's happening out at the testing floor.

Okay,

thank you.

Um next on our agenda we have um amended 2026 general election vote center plan and um

Mr.

Becker Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Uh so again uh required by law any time that the the vote center plan uh is changed, amended um or adopted by the county, um it does require a vote of the board, a unanimous vote of the board.

Uh staff learned a few weeks ago that the Indy Global Village Marketplace at Lafayette 38th and Lafayette area has closed and is uh no longer um open to the public, and so um we've confirmed that and remove them as a voting site because they will not be accessible to us.

Um so the only change uh to the the only amendment to that the plan in front of you is the removal of Indy Global Village Marketplace.

I did want to say for the public there are three locations nearby, uh Guy and Creek Middle School, John Wesley Three Methodist Church, and Jonathan Jennings School number 109.

Uh so those are all locations uh within about a mile and a half to two miles uh that you can that if you were planning to go there, there's there's plenty of locations nearby that you can get to.

Uh so uh would ask the board to uh vote to approve the amended plan, um, and then uh after this, we certify this plan with the state um Indiana election division.

We'll also update um our website.