hello and welcome to the c c t v channel seventeen in town meeting television i'm matt kelly with another candidate forum for our twenty eight thousand general election we are joined the seedling by jim condo's and each book page candidates for secretary of state we do have news that mary alice herbert was not available to join us this evening she is still running you will see her name on the ballot time for opening statements from each of our candidates book page will begin with you very good thank you for having  little town of washington vermont where i take great pride in doing that over the past few election cycles i've been to become concerned about the process we have in the elections and several aspects on the open primary system is basically some sort of prancing pony show that really doesn't get a lot done and at the same time cost the secretary of state's office a fair amount of money i think there's better ways to do that and so that's one educational function that they no longer seem to do a lot as far as civics not so much as as far educating tat town clerks and things that nature and so there's a lot of things i think areas for improvement jim is not doing a bad job by any stretch of the imagination but i think there's other things and we'll get into some of this that can be improved very good jim connaughton your opening statement please thank you very much matt and first and foremost i love my job i love going to work in the morning  by i see the opportunity of serving from honors and providing customer service i have a background working for over thirty years in business and i have worked for a fortune one hundred company a vermont regulated utility and a vermont family on thirty million dollar distribution company my public sector i was a city councillor for the city of south burlington for eighteen years eight of those years i was the chair i served in the state senate chaired two different committees education and government operations government operations is the committee that actually has the authority over the secretary of state's office and i've been eight years now as secretary of state i also this year was elected by my peers republican and democrat to be the president of the national association of secretaries of state we've completed six i t projects all successfully and on budget maybe we have gone we have really reformed our our office from a paper driven system that was inefficient that was inaccurate to one that is very accurate very efficient and we continue to look at all the business practices to make sure that we're doing things the right way with regards to corporations the registration system we actually went from zero percent online to now ninety eight percent on line with the office of professional regulation we've gone from zero percent online to now ninety eight percent online and elections will get into more as we go just a reminder that if you are a viewer has a common or a question for our candidates our phone lines are open at eight six to three nine six six and we welcome all our viewers enjoying our online stream at c eight seventeen dot tv and our minor to our candidates we have a limited time so if we can get to a minute or two minutes to our responses that be great we're going to begin with you jim here public records they just seem to be really in the space today there are numerous lawsuits about access to these public works or records news organizations are having to spend limited funds  to pursue these these documents what is the balance and you know isn't it ultimately vermonters right now a need to know absolutely and frankly i've been right on top of that we've worked since the first day i walked in the office with the legislature to increase the management of our public records but also to improve how they're dealt with let's be clear public records are all records that are created by by government whether they're acquired or created and so they're all public there is there are certain exemptions that are allowed by law that protect some of the identity information that's in those public records so what we do is i've been really clear with the legislature that that is something we need to address completely i have actually been pushing for an ombuds to actually act as a if you want to call an intermediary between the the final denial by an agency before you go to court because really that's all you have you know the media and i talk with the media all the time the only response they have to go to court and that's a real problem and i have been adamantly in favor of increasing the public records access in fact to the point where we change the law that allows not makes it mandatory for for attorneys fees if a whether it's a citizen or a media outlet whether they will if they win substantially they will get their attorney's fees back so i've been really up front about that documents and you know news organizations and their limited funds to have to sued for the right to review some of my work i think that all of government records should be open and transparent i think that only when there confidentiality of employees or something of that nature should there be any restrictions at all i know under bill sharelle t j donovan's predecessor there was a whole lot of not wanting to show things up and i think they w it going to court and finding that the at least mr soros position as far as e mails and and other electronic communications couldn't be held back and so i think that was a good thing i had taken this when we were sent the questions i think it was being a little bit more of a local records rather than open the state and and i know that in our our little town our town clerk carol davis is extremely efficient make sure all the records are available any time you know and so that aspect of it is another another thing that for us access to local and town records but you know i think it's important that more transparency one problem that i've had i can promote is that the documents that are kept in archives which are also under the secretary of state's control is somewhat less or more or more disoriented i've had a great deal of problem retrieving old election records and do in your opening statement you had some concerns about the open primary and the dollars and cents that that costs can you speak to that and some of your other concerns that you see or why you might be running for your office price one of the primary things have been involved in my efforts in the past reelection cycles in two thousand and fourteen in two thousand and sixteen i ran as a democrat for governor and attorney general trying to make the point that our open primary system is just totally out of control anybody i need to preface a lifetime republican and you know in our current system anybody can run for anything or more than any one office you can a lifelong republican could run as a democrat democrats from republicans democrats can cross over since they get wind up with all three ballots in the primary and right all the democratic published candidates in  the on the republican ballot which has been done a number of times in my fact my efforts this go around made it the first time since i think two thousand and two that a democrat was unable to secure by write ins the republican nomination  for office so this whole thing the cost that i've been told by folks in the elections office is that the primary cost just the state about two hundred fifty to three hundred thousand dollars in an off year and another one hundred thousand or so to run the presidential primary which has all of the same problems do it i'd really like to see this either go to a close primary system which would really save us that much money or more importantly that we go to a caucus system not like iowa has where they're all running around in a gymnasium folding tables or something but where the parties would each come up with the set of rules and how they're going to select their candidates and then they would have a statewide convention where as i envision it the county committees where the candidates have gone to do their sales pitch would all send delegates the state convention and so this would it's a little bit you are not in favor of the open primary process the primary process in fact where you were on a ballot for several different offices  we have a candidate third party candidate on the ballot for several offices as well and you are not in favor of that system is that what you are advocating i'm exclusively speaking to the primary system ok i'm not saying that it's inappropriate for a candidate to be in more running for more than one office in the general election how they would do that would as they do now they would have signed had people sign and petition as the running as an independent for each of those offices they sought to seek so there would be no exclusion of any cat it would still have quite a few dates on the general election ballot but this would concentrate the efforts of the democratic party republican party liberty union party progressives to come up with their champions for the general election and all of the time money and efforts that are wasted in the primary here in vermont currently for the most part to no avail i mean many of the many of the offices that were made at parties don't really want to have competitions in the primary said basically becomes like rush or there's one name for each office ok so jim we asked him a bout the open primary thoughts on on on that and some of the issues that he's weight well first i need to correct a couple things that he said one one is that in the presidential primary you don't actually get to you get to pick which ballot you want to fill out at the time that you  checking in you don't get two ballots and then decide which one you're going to fill in that the other is that the the primary process that we have now does not require party registration if you went to a closed primary we would have to have primary  party registration and a good thing or bad thing well i would say by the number of calls we get just because of the presidential primary it's a bad thing most people do not want to be pigeonholed into a party as a republican or democrat or or a progressive and i think that that that is something that you know where it's a public information you are a registered republican you are a registered democrat you don't have that in vermont right now and it hasn't been that way since around  eighty so i would say that that the general public would not support that having said that i don't have a problem with talking about with the legislature it's not my office that makes that decision it's the legislature that would make those decisions  but i would not have a problem with talking to them about caucuses i have in the past talked to them about whether we offer an opportunity for a party to declare that they want to do a proper caucus rather than a primary election  it's you know there are costs to it and there's cost to everything but i think that we have a system right now that allows for open and i do want to you know my opponent here has said that you know the democrats have manipulated the republican  e i can tell you that i've won the republican nomination in the previous three elections i did it without even asking one person to cross over and vote for me this time in the election the  speaking and i think this is one thing that i am very concerned about is to make sure that that's the people of vermont have the opportunity to voice their concerns and that's how they do it your voices your your voters your voice that's what would let you advocating for a caucus system because jim is correct if you had a close primary and have to declare your party but that's exactly what we have in the presidential primary when you go in and ask for which ballot which ballot you've asked for is recorded and that's a public record that is available to the parties matter of fact that i think the parties have insisted on that because they use it as a method for for calling their information doing their data mining jim said oh look ninety percent of the republicans write ins were for him well kind of the percent of those people were not republicans because you can take a look and the exact same people down at least based upon the statistics the exact same number of people crossed over and voted for beth pierce and doug hot for a d j donovan on the republican ballot it's qadri of democrats who regularly do this and i guess the fact that i none of the offices were open this time pursue dissuade them from doing so you know i mean you know the whole open primary thing is just just a real circus that need to be put an end to it we do have a caller and i will go right to that right now caller we didn't realize that we still have that because all the progressives are running as democrats and all the democrats seem to be progressive so basically we still have a two party system a progressive i think felt underneath the democratic  democrats and i think that was because the progressives didn't seem to be at least on statewide basis didn't seem to be able to get a lot of traction and so they have now recast themselves as democrats and i think the caller to that extent is true and we have a multi party system it's not only the  would say no it's not i mean i think there are differences between all three parties and i think he did the fact that you have somebody running as a democrat and then they switch over become a progressive in the in the general election that's that's a tactic that they use to show that they're a progressive democrat versus a democrat progressive and you know what that's the system we have and if the if the legislature wants to to debate that system we can change that but but it's it's the current system that we have and you know it's the people that are voting the people know when someone is running for as a democrat or as a progressive they understand that they know who they're voting for i mean for instance david zuckerman has run a as a democratic nominee in the in the primary and then he becomes a progressive first as a statewide candidate  he's up front about that he tells people that he's running as a democrat in the in the primary but will become a primary a progressive in the in the in the general election he still has a democrat after his name brooke here in what he writes about in terms of the open primary senators president senate president tim ash has floated the possibility of raising a constitutional amendment to make the governor a four year term do you support a four year term for the governor and also do you think that the governor and the lieutenant governor should both be at the same party elected as a slate candidacy that might take a constitutional  and i believe that i don't think there's anything wrong with the system we have i do believe that all statewide should be a four year term i don't think it's a good idea to have two year terms when i was in the state senate i sponsored actually at least two constitutional amendments to change that i don't think it's a good idea to do just the governor and not every any of the other state wides and i also think that whether it's the senate or the house in the senate that they also should have for you for your seats as well maybe split them up so that they're off yours but i think you know if you have a governor with a four year term and everybody else is to your term that means the governor is free in that second term the second two years of his term to go out and campaign for anybody he wants without repercussion and i don't think that's a good idea from a balance of power so i do think it's a good idea though for a four year term for at least the  statewide and preferably at least that's the senate i know that will many of the house members have said that they would rather stay as a two year term because that they're considered closer to the people they have a smaller district and it's closer to the people but i think that there's essentially what has to happen is it has to start the constitutional moment start in the senate has to be approved by two thirds majority then it goes to the set of the house has to be approved by a simple majority it does not go to the governor you have a new legislature elected new biennium at that point it's simple by a majority by both bodies and if it passes both of that at that point then it goes to a referendum vote of the people and that's the process  page four year governor term and a slate candidacy for the governor and the lieutenant governor your thoughts well first of all i'm i'm not in favor of four year term i think i think that the two year term that we've had the foundation of the kind of the state is not necessarily a bad thing if they voters have a good fellow that's in there they're going to readily return him to office if we get a bit of a rascal in there it's only two years that we have the opportunity to maybe show them the door the other part of this it's never discussed and about this four year term thing is nobody ever talks about term limits if suddenly i mean our my thing is the best term limits we have is a two year cycle if we have somebody good in there they can be in there for three four five terms it if they're doing a good job and everybody's pleased with them but if you have a four year term without term limits then they have a lot of damage that they can do before we can show them the door like i said i'm really in favor of keeping it as a two year term i know for incumbents that tends to be a little bit more of a problem but it keeps them on their toes and honestly candidate i've heard that advance several times i'm not sure that i'm displeased with the system we have now you know having both of the people on the same ticket which would be the same as when we have presidential and vice presidential candidates running together really becomes incumbent on the governor at that point and then whoever he chooses to come along with him rather than each of the candidates having to stand on their own ground and you know makes for an interesting mix certainly when we returned to  office and howard dean was lieutenant governor we had an unexpected turn of events and some some think that was good a lot of people other people think it wasn't so good but you know i think that each here before we get to a final candidate statements and that really is about voter fraud you know there's such national concern here about the russians hacked our elections how co you that the secretary of state is doing everything that they can to protect vermonters in their privacy data as well as our voter systems being protected against  fraud two totally different questions both internally i'm not sure that the that our personal data is necessarily well protected by the secretary of state because i don't know if that's really within within the  wheel house of the secretary of state's office that you know so much of that in and processing and all of this thing that is subject to hacking is really outside of the control not only the balances between the paper ballots in the optical readers and then that data being transmitted that i think there's not a great opportunity for fraud on that scale i think that a lot of people perceive that there in the state when you're out just out about talking with people there it strikes me that ten or fifteen percent of people really think that something the ferias is going on i know randy brock a number of years ago when he was an auditor of accounts did a fairly extensive survey taking a look at voter registration and what they found a significant number of dead folks and folks that had moved away were still on the voter registration rolls he found very little evidence that the dead people were rising from their slumber to go vote but at the same time i think it is the other aspect of this and jim talks all about voter suppression i think there's a big thing that with ten or fifteen percent of the people thinking that a significant number and  all subject to somebody actually going out and analyzing this and getting data on it but i would i think that fifteen percent of people think that eight or ten or twelve percent of the boat is somehow compromised and many of these people who i've talked to have said i've given up on voting i've not voting of stop being involved in the process because it's all corrupt and i'm sitting there saying i don't think it's that bad i think the perception is far worse than the reality but the same time these are people that have basically been subject to because there hasn't been a strong statement put out there that you know the ballot is secure that the process is secure that a lot of people have become disenfranchised jim it's a big question there are we secure we our let me first say we are not on the state system we are on our own separate server and so we are protected this is been at the forefront of of the secretaries of state across this country red states and blue states for the last two years here in vermont we actually started back in two thousand and thirteen with a cyber security risk billeted assessments to understand better what we are the the study that  my opponent had referenced about randy brock that have had to do with an old database that we used to use that system was gone as a two thousand and fifteen it is no longer in service we have now a more sophisticated system as far as dead people being on the on the voter registration database there will always be on every database across this country dead people on the on the it just doesn't change that quickly so there will always be people there will always be people on it who have moved to another state the problem is if they vote in more than one place right that is the issue and we have a system in place now where when someone is registered in vermont there are system automatically audits this audits the database and lets the person know the town clerk no because it all starts at the town clerk and works its way up to us we don't maintain we just maintain the big database but it all is the actual maintenance is done by the each town clerk so there is an audit system in place that allows the town clerk to see when john smith from washington registers to vote oh they're already registered in burlington then it will send a notice burlington to let them know to remove that person for a new system so we actually have a system in place and i will say this clearly voter fraud the true voter fraud in this country is denying any eligible american the right to cast a ballot that's the true voter fraud and by the way just this week we announced publicly that vermont set a record for the number of a voter registrations we crossed one hundred four hundred eighty thousand  in two thousand and sixteen election day was around four hundred sixty five ninety two point five percent exactly this wonderful my thanks to both our candidates here are unfortunately we are out of time so we cannot do closing statements but we thank them both for joining us here this evening and a reminder that early voting has already begun here in the state of vermont and continues up until election day you can register to vote and cast your ballot on the same day all the way up until tuesday november sixth for a complete calendar  upcoming forums candidate forums please visit our website c h seventeen dot tv and we hope you will join us all here tuesday november sixth for complete election results beginning at seven pm for all of us a town meeting television i met kelly thank you watching jim thank you