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United States Election Assistance Commission

Standards Board Annual Meeting

Held at 

1:30 p.m. EST

Thursday, April 14, 2022

Via Zoom Meeting

VERBATIM TRANSCRIPT
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The following is the verbatim transcript of the United States Election Assistance 

Commission (EAC) Standards Board Annual Meeting that was held on Thursday, 

April 14, 2022. The meeting convened at 1:30 p.m. and adjourned at 3:37 p.m.

***

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

Good afternoon. Well, I guess depending on where you are,

maybe good morning. It's great to see all of your faces. My name 

is Mandi Grandjean. I'm pleased to serve as the Director of 

Elections and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Secretary of 

State Frank LaRose. And I've taken over the role of Chair of the 

EAC Standards Board in the wake of Chris Piper's departure. I just 

want to publicly state thank you to Chris for all of his work 

previously with the EAC and for the State of Virginia and the 

election community. We'll certainly miss him in his official role.

But I'm excited to step in today and see all of you. Hopefully,

this is the last time, virtually, we'll see each other and we'll be in 

person here soon. But we have a great agenda lined up for 

everyone today, a lot of thought has gone into it, and I just wanted 

to say thank you very much to all the Commissioners and also all of 

the staff at the EAC who has been excellent to work with and for all 

of the very time-consuming effort that they've put into helping this 

agenda come together and to get me up to speed in the role of 

Chair, so thank you so very much. I'm excited to get started. And I 

think I will start with recognizing EAC Chairman Thomas Hicks. 

COMMISSIONER HICKS:
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Thank you, Ms. Grandjean, for giving me a moment to 

address the Standards Board annual meeting. I'd like to echo your 

comments by saying I hope to also see everyone in person very 

soon. And I would like to thank all the members for their service on 

this board. Your participation and feedback is incredibly valuable to 

the EAC. I'd also like to recognize and express my thanks for your 

hard work as State and local election officials. Election officials are 

great public servants who I know you all are in the middle for 

preparing for your elections in your jurisdictions. 

As you get ready, please remember that the EAC has new 

resources at your disposal. These range from toolkits to 

communicate elections and post-voting processes to guides about 

accessibility issues, language minorities, and poll worker training. 

Thank you so much for your service to America's voters. 

Today's meeting has a full agenda, so I'll turn it back over to 

Ms. Grandjean and thank her again for her service. And I look 

forward to hearing from you all during today's meeting. Thank you. 

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

Thank you, Chairman Hicks. 

Next, I would like to recognize DFO Commissioner Palmer. 

COMMISSIONER PALMER:

Thank you, Chair Grandjean. I'd like to give my sincere 

welcome to the Standards Board members joining today. It's great 
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to see some new members joining, and hopefully next year we'll all 

be back in person for our next meeting, back with in-person 

meetings together. Thank you for your steady stewardship 

administering elections in your State and the leadership you show 

in your State. Please know that we deeply appreciate your ongoing 

efforts as we head into the 2022 election. We admire the 

professionalism and resolve you show to maintain the integrity of 

our system and facilitate the right to vote for Americans. So, thank 

you so much for making the election community stronger by 

participating in the Standards Board. 

On this 20th anniversary of HAVA, this is an exciting time to 

be a member of the Standards Board. We have recently adopted 

VVSG 2.0 and a lifecycle policy adding more structure and 

predictability to that process of which you are a major part. And we 

are prepared to implement the new security, auditability, and 

transparency standards in this version of the VVSG. That's why I'm 

so thankful to our team and your advice as we implement these 

new standards and develop a process to test and certify this next 

generation of systems. We're also developing a new security 

standard for electronic poll books that the VVSG subcommittee and 

board will be able to review and comment on. 

Today's agenda will cover a lot of topics that we know are 

important to you all, and I'd like to thank the members and 
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presenters attending today's meeting. You'll hear from our team, 

the EAC, the VSTLs, which are accredited labs, and a 

representative from the manufacturers on how we get from 

standards to audits and accreditation of those labs to actual 2.0 

voting equipment designed by the manufacturers, and then have 

those systems certified by the EAC and ready for procurement by

States and localities. It's a lot to talk about and to sort of sort out, 

but we want to bring this information to you so that you can share it 

with your State and localities and your legislatures on the 

importance of these new standards and the timeline for acquisition 

of this new system. Your Chair Mandi Grandjean will also discuss 

new and exciting possibility of review and certification of voter 

registration systems in Ohio and how that process might proceed. 

As we go through the various panels, I encourage you to ask 

questions and give feedback. Hearing directly from you as State

and local election officials is critical to the EAC. Providing feedback 

on what you need and your thoughts on EAC resources, programs 

after the meeting and during the meeting is welcome and makes us 

better as an agency. We'd like to know, I'd like to know -- the 

election environment -- we all know that the election environment 

can change very quickly, and we want to be responsive to you and 

our partners. 
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There's a couple highlights from the agenda I'll mention. I 

already mentioned the Chair's presentation. We're going to hear an 

update on the EAC e-pollbook pilot program. Again, your feedback 

is vital in aiding in the development of that program. As we look at 

that program and beyond, it will be also helpful in the year to come 

to gain information on State practices regarding ballot delivery, 

security, and accessibility in that arena as we sort of develop the 

standards for ballot delivery and get suggestions from you on how 

that takes place in a number of your States. 

There will be a panel addressing the supply-chain 

challenges, which I know is on election officials' minds and as the 

elections approach us. You should have received the latest EAC 

resources on this issue, and of course, we're going to talk about 

that today. 

And lastly, you're going to hear about the implementation of 

VVSG. Again, I encourage you to share this information with your 

members, your States, and your localities on the availability and the 

questions that we have on the manufacturers to demonstrate your 

interest and ensure the prompt development of voting systems 

tested to those standards. 

Thank you for your participation on the Standards Board. I 

look forward to working with you this election cycle. Again, at this 
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point I'm going to turn it back to the Chair. Thank you for the 

opportunity to talk to the Standards Board. 

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

Thank you, Commissioner Palmer. And no organization 

would be strong, unbiased without a good attorney, so I'm going to 

turn it over to acting General Counsel Amanda Joiner for an 

overview of our membership guidelines, so thank you, Amanda. 

MS. JOINER:

Hello, everyone. Good morning and good afternoon. Give 

me one moment here. I will share my screen. 

Okay. So, thank you, Chair. Again, my name is Amanda 

Joiner. I am the acting General Counsel for the EAC and the 

Committee Management Officer for our FACA boards. Thank you 

all for being here today. I'm going to give you a brief overview of 

what it means to be a member of a FACA board, which is the three 

permanent advisory boards that were established by the Help 

America Vote Act. That includes the Standards Board, Board of 

Advisors, and the Technical Guidelines Development Committee. 

In 2021 the EAC also established a fourth advisory board, the Local 

Leadership Council. 

Each of these boards is subject to FACA, which is the 

Federal Advisory Committee Act. FACA governs the 

establishment, operation, and termination of advisory committees 
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and was enacted to ensure advice by advisory committees is 

objective and accessible to the public. To that end, the act contains 

several requirements for the management of these FACA boards, 

including the naming of a Designated Federal Officer and 

Committee Management Officer to maintain compliance with the 

law, various records management requirements, and availability 

requirements, and charter renewal procedures. 

Each advisory committee has specific duties. The 

Standards Board objective and duties include advising the EAC 

through a review of the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines and 

functioning in an advisory capacity to the EAC. The Board of 

Advisors has similar duties. Technical Guidelines Development 

Committee assists the Executive Director of the EAC in developing 

the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines, also known as the VVSG, 

and the new Local Leadership Council provides recommendations 

and feedback to the EAC on a range of topics that the local 

representatives that make up the council have quite a bit of 

expertise on. 

As Standards Board members, your duties and 

responsibilities include participating in meetings and on 

subcommittees, comporting yourself with integrity so as not to trade

upon your position as a member of an advisory board for your own 

personal benefit, and the law also requires that any permissible 
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direct communications with Congress in your official capacity as a 

board member may be made only through official channels of the 

EAC. To that end, too, Federal law prohibits you from being a 

federally registered lobbyist. However, these restrictions do not 

prohibit you from lobbying Members of Congress or the State

legislatures or urging others to do so on your own time in your 

personal capacity. If you do embark on that type of activity, please 

make sure that you make it clear you're not representing the EAC 

or the EAC advisory board and are not acting in your official 

capacity as an advisory board member. 

There are general committee management guidances that 

we all follow. As I mentioned earlier, agency heads require an 

appointed Designated Federal Officer who's responsible for 

management and supervision of the agency committees. Each 

committee must have a charter filed with the EAC and other 

Federal agencies as required, and these charters must be renewed 

every two years or be terminated under the sunset provisions of the 

law. 

Generally speaking, these committee members must all be 

balanced in terms of point of view represented and the 

geographical representation. Meetings are required to be open to 

the public except for the subcommittee meetings, and the locations 

must accommodate public access and participation. Even in a 
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virtual setting, we are live on YouTube right now so that members 

of the public are able to watch this meeting today. 

The DFO approves all committee and subcommittee 

meetings and agendas, and the DFO is responsible for posting 

agendas and minutes to the website and attends all the meetings. 

Finally, detailed minutes of each committee meeting, 

including those that are closed, will be kept and must contain 

certain criteria, including the date, time, location, record of 

attendees, and descriptions of each matter discussed. As a note, 

our minutes for these meetings are included on our website and on 

our event pages. 

Finally, as a reminder, of , your Designated Federal Officer is 

Commissioner Don Palmer. Commissioner Ben Hovland is the 

DFO for the Board of Advisors. Chairman Hicks is the DFO for the 

Technical Guidelines Development Committee. And Vice 

Chairman Christy McCormick is the DFO for the new Local 

Leadership Council. 

Here are the applicable laws and regulations in case you 

want to look them over yourself, but I'm also here and happy to 

answer questions at another time if you do have them on how this 

relates to your activity here today. 

Finally, here is my contact information, my phone number 

and email address. If you should have any questions, please feel 
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free to reach out to me at any time. And with that, I'll turn it back to 

you, Chairman Grandjean. 

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

Thanks, Amanda. 

Commissioner Palmer is now going to administer the oath of 

office. 

COMMISSIONER PALMER:

So, ladies and gentleman, I think that what we do on this, the 

instructions are we're going to take the oath. I'm going to ask you 

to mute yourselves so we don't have 100-plus people repeating the 

entire oath, but you will repeat the oath, but just do it under mute. I 

will give you the opportunity to give you a few seconds before I then 

go into the full oath. 

So, with that, please raise your hand. If you have your 

screen, you can go ahead and turn that on and please raise your 

hand and repeat after me. 

***

[Commissioner Donald Palmer led the recitation of the Oath of Office.]

***

COMMISSIONER PALMER:

Chair Grandjean, I'm turning this back to you. 

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:
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Thank you, and congratulations. Everyone has taken the 

oath. How wonderful. 

I am now going to recognize our Secretary Dag Robinson for 

taking the role and using the roster. 

MR. ROBINSON:

Thank you, Chair Grandjean. Good morning, everyone. For 

administrative organization, I'm going to do roll call by State or 

Territory in alphabetical order. I would like the State or Territory 

official to respond first by name and then the respective local official 

by name as we get through this in a unique fashion. All right. And 

I'll give time for everyone to unmute so that they can answer. 

***

[Derrin Robinson, Secretary of the Standards Board, called roll.] 

***

MR. ROBINSON:

Madam Chair, it looks like we have a quorum with 69 

members present. 

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

Excellent. Thank you, Dag. Dag, correct me if I'm wrong, 

but did you note the proxies are also present? The proxy is also 

present? 

MR. ROBINSON:

Yes, those were included, thank you. 
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CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

Great, thank you. 

MR. ROBINSON:

Yes. 

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

I'm now going to ask Kristen to show the agenda on the 

screen and call a vote to approve this agenda. 

MR. MERRILL:

Madam Chair, this is John Merrill. Motion to approve is 

submitted. 

MR. KING:

This is Brad King of Indiana, seconded. 

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

Thank you. Are there any objections? 

It is moved and seconded that this body adopts the agenda 

before you. And I will now take a voice vote to adopt the agenda. 

All in favor, please say aye. 

[Chorus of ayes]

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

All opposed, say nay. 

[No response]

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

The ayes have it, and the agenda is adopted. Thank you all. 
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I am now going to call for a voice vote on approval for our 

previous meeting minutes, so, Kristen, could you please show 

those on the screen? 

Thank you so much. These are from June 17th, 2021. I will 

now entertain a motion to adopt the previous meeting minutes, as 

presented. 

MR. ALBENCE:

Anthony Albence, motion to approve as presented. 

MS. MEADOWS:

Secondra Meadows, State of Tennessee, second. 

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

Excellent. It is moved and seconded that this body adopts 

the minutes before you. I will now take a voice vote to adopt the 

minutes. 

All in favor, please say aye. 

[Chorus of ayes]

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

All opposed, Say nay. 

[No response]

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

The ayes have it, and the minutes are adopted. Thank you 

all so much. 
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I'm now going to announce the Election Certification 

Committee and spokesperson. Pursuant to the bylaws, I will now 

appoint the Election Certification Committee. I am appointing the 

following: Dag Robinson, Anthony Albence, Brad King, Deborah 

Scroggin, and Batina Dodge to the committee. The committee will 

receive the results of the election from Ken Smith of the EAC. They 

will review and confirm voting procedures and that those voting 

procedures were properly implemented and followed. And finally, 

they will certify the results. 

I believe that appointment has been made. And I'm now 

going to move on to a report of the Proxy Committee. This is a little 

bit of Robert's Rules and bylaws that I was given a crash course on 

earlier by our General Counsel Amanda Joiner, so I appreciate all 

of her help. But we will now accept a report from our Proxy 

Committee that has reviewed the appointment of a proxy. And I 

believe Mandy Vigil of New Mexico is our committee spokesman. 

MS. VIGIL:

Yes, good afternoon, Madam Chair. On behalf of the Proxy 

Committee, we have verified one proxy. So, Andrew Buller from 

Nebraska proxies his ability to vote for today's Standards Board

meeting to Brian Hughes, who was also from Nebraska. 

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:
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Thank you so much, Mandy. Without objection, this proxy is 

accepted. As a reminder, proxy voting is allowed for all business 

matters. However, the bylaws do not permit proxy voting for 

Executive Board elections. 

I'm now going to recognize Kim Smith, who hails from the 

great State of Ohio and is our Standards Board Assistant DFO for 

information on our election process. 

MS. SMITH:

On March 30th you all should have received an email from 

me containing election information and the biographies for all of the 

nominees. There are two vacancies to fill on the Executive Board. 

Initially, we had five nominees. However, one has withdrawn, so 

there will be four candidates on the ballot today. 

HAVA dictates that the Executive Board can have no more 

than five local representatives, five State representatives, or five 

representatives of the same political party affiliation. So based on 

the current Executive Board membership, either one local and one 

State representative or two State representatives can be elected 

today. The political party affiliation of the ele cted candidates is not 

going to be a consequence as no matter their affiliations, we will not 

exceed HAVA's limitations. 

Yesterday, I sent another email with instructions on how to 

cast your ballot and the password for the ballot. As indicated in that 
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email, we sent the link to the ballot after roll call today, so all 

members who are present should have received the link a few 

minutes ago. The link is not yet active. Once I conclude, we will 

activate the link and you'll have 30 minutes to cast your ballot. We 

will provide warnings at 15 minutes and five minutes remaining via 

the chat, but please pay attention to the time as the 30 minutes are 

likely to expire during one of our presentations. Once voting is 

closed, we will forward those results to the Election Certification 

Committee, who will review them and declare the winners. 

If you did not receive one of the emails that I have described 

or you're having any technical difficulties, please leave a message 

in the chat. EAC staff are monitoring that, and they'll be able to 

assist you. If you do not have access to the chat, you can call or 

text Kammi at 202-740-7244. Again, her number is 202-740-7244, 

and she'll be able to assist you by phone. 

So that is it for me. We will go ahead and activate the ballot 

link now, so it should be up and running here in a few seconds. 

And again, you have 30 minutes to cast your ballot. And I will pass 

this back to the Chair. 

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

Thank you, Kim. Happy voting to all of you. 
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We are now going to move on to our general EAC update, 

and I'd love to welcome Mark Robbins, our interim Executive 

Director of the EAC. 

MR. ROBBINS:

Thank you, Chair Grandjean. It is a pleasure to be here. 

Thank you, Commissioner Palmer and Chairman Hicks. And I want 

to do a special shoutout to EAC staff, to Kim Smith, to Kristen 

Muthig, and to Amanda Joiner who really were the back and the 

legs of putting this meeting together. It takes an effort, and I 

appreciate the effort that they've put in. 

It is good, it is interesting to be back with the EAC. For 

those who don't know me, I served as General Counsel of the EAC 

from 2010 to 2012, which included six months at the end of my 

service as acting Executive Director. Had someone told me three 

months ago that I'd be back here addressing all of you, I'd have 

asked for a sip of whatever cocktail they were drinking at the time. 

But quite fortuitously and unexpectedly the Commission lost both its

Executive Director and General Counsel in short order and in quick 

succession, neither of which had anything to do with the other. And 

I got a call from one of the Commissioners, and then a second 

Commissioner, and then a third Commissioner, and then a fourth 

Commissioner, asking me if I would consider coming back as, at 

least, interim Executive Director. And I considered that a 
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challenge, and I accepted the offer with the understanding that I 

would not be applying for the job on a full-time basis. 

I'm here because I believe in the Commission. I believe in 

its mission. I'm here to prove something to myself really, which is 

that when I left the Commission in 2012, those were the dark days. 

I started out with four Commissioners, and I quickly went down to 

three, and then down to two, and then to one, and then we had no 

Commissioners. And we had an active movement within the States 

and in Congress to abolish the EAC. Those were truly dark times. 

And for me to return 10 years later and see where the board is now 

and to see the working relationship it has with stakeholders in the 

States and localities, with stakeholders in Congress and with the 

general public, it warms my heart. It really does. It's night and day, 

and it's a pleasure for me to be here to experience the difference. 

And I've only got a couple of minutes here, and what I would 

really like to do is address just a couple of the things that, evidence

to me, true progress for the Commission. The first is the fact that 

we're having this meeting at all. One of my last chores as acting 

Executive Director and General Counsel in 2012 was to issue a 

memorandum which said that the FACA boards had to stand down 

because we no longer had DFOs. And because we had no 

Commissioners, there was no way to appoint DFOs. And under the 

Federal Advisory Committee Act, you can't have a FACA if you 
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don't have a DFO. So, I issued the opinion to stand down. That 

quickly turned me into the Darth Vader of the elections community. 

It was not a popular decision. And I'm happy to report that the 

Commission, since the restoration of a quorum, has addressed that 

kind of situation and I doubt that it could ever happen again. So 

regardless of what happens with the board and its staff, the FACA

boards should be able to constitute themselves and fulfill their 

statutory missions. 

Another big difference is the fact that the President just 

signed into law the fiscal '22 Federal budget. Granted, we're 

halfway through the fiscal year, but, you know, better late than 

never in these kinds of situations. And the EAC received a $3 

million or 19 percent increase in its operational budget. It's a $20 

million appropriations, of which $1.5 million, of course, will go to 

NIST. One big difference this year, though, is that the NIST money 

is no longer an automatic transfer. It's an expenditure, which is 

Federal talk. It just means we need to reach an interagency 

agreement with NIST so that the money can be transferred and we 

agree on a statement of work. The good news for NIST, however, 

is that because this is now an expenditure, whatever questions 

existed early on about working through a continuing resolution, 

preventing that money from being transferred is now resolved. So,

if we should find ourselves moving into a continuing resolution 
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sometime into the future, NIST will continue to get paid for work 

done under the interagency agreement that we reach with them. 

As I'm putting together and working with the Commissioners 

on our fiscal '22 budget, it is important to be realistic about this. 

This is the first time in a long time the Federal Government has 

been operating on an enacted appropriations budget. But I have no 

doubt that the chance of that moving into fiscal '23 is probably rare, 

at least until fiscal '23 is well underway. We've got elections 

coming up, of course, and budgets are difficult even in the easiest 

of times. So, the Congressional budget justification that the 

Administration submitted on our behalf a couple of weeks ago calls 

for another increase in our budget, and there are a couple of issues 

I'll raise in just a second. But we have to be realistic here. I have 

to craft an '22 budget that can be sustained through a series of 

continuing resolutions moving into the new fiscal year, at least until 

Congress gives us whatever budget they end up agreeing to with 

regard to the EAC. 

So, working with the Commissioners, we've got a number of 

priorities. We're going to immediately start backfilling open 

positions that were in existence in '21, but we put on hold during the 

continuing resolutions. We have built-in monies for expanding staff. 

The Commissioners are interested in making sure our testing and 

certification process is top-notch and beyond repute. We want to 
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take our website and modernize it because we've got a lot of things 

that we're pushing now onto the website, including the new portal 

that's being developed for you all, for State and local elections 

officials, and just for you, so you have an ability to communicate 

and participate in downloading data and programs and what have 

you. And we've got the new clearinghouse buildup that we've been 

working on for the last year or so. 

But before I get to clearinghouse, let me touch very quickly 

on an issue in our fiscal '23 budget proposal. It includes two grant 

programs. And I will say when I left the EAC, we were still working 

-- and Monica Evans can confirm this. We were still working on the 

initial two grants that totaled about $3.2 billion. And we were 

getting that out. We were monitoring its expenditures and what 

have you. Since then, there have been a couple of other -- the 

Congress has once again begun funding grant money for us. We 

got $805 million for HAVA election security grants, and that was 

over 2018 to 2020. And then we received $400 million in CARES 

Act. That was the coronavirus monies for use in the 2020 election. 

That period has ended, and we're in the process of closing out and 

balancing the books on that. And then, as you all may know, we 

just recently in the '22 budget got $75 million to be distributed 

pursuant to the formulas. Now, I'm the first to recognize $75 

million, once you've divided it up, is not a lot of money, but I've got 
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to tell you, it's a lot better than those days when we were getting 

cut, so I'm pleased to have staff figure out what the current formula 

is and distribute that money. 

Now, with a fiscal '23 budget, these two grant programs that 

have been included, one would be a competitive grant program 

called innovation grants, and the budget proposal calls for $250 

million. And then there is a $10 billion grant program to be 

expended over 10 years, which is to address Federal funding 

shortfalls and a lack of a steady stream in helping you all do your 

jobs to meet Federal elections issues. This would be a formula 

grant, and both grants would technically be available to States and 

localities. 

Now, this became an issue of discussion with our colleagues 

in the Office of Management and Budget in the White House 

because the EAC's relationship is through whatever the State

apparatus is. We've never dealt, at least on the money front, with 

localities. So, you know, the Administration clearly wants to get 

money pushed down as part of the grassroots as possible. But the 

compromise we came up with was that localities, especially for the 

competitive grants, the innovation grants can apply if State law 

allows them. 

Now, having said all of that, these programs are still on the 

drafting board. We don't have parameters around them. We don't 
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know exactly how we would implement this. There's going to be a 

lot of thinking going into this. What does innovation mean? Do we 

want to take $10 billion if Congress ever deemed it appropriate to 

appropriate that kind of money up front? Do we want there to be a 

consistency across the States, or do we literally just plug holes 

where holes are identified? We would need to issue guidance to 

make sure that we're following the Administrative Procedures Act in 

getting this money out. 

While I'm skeptical that we will get both of these programs 

enacted as proposed at least initially, what I do take from it is a vote 

of confidence from the Administration and from the committees that 

are dealing with this that if we find this appropriate, if we want to 

appropriate this kind of money, we do see the EAC as being 

competent to distribute it and monitor the progress. So, again, 

that's a big, big change from where we were 10 years ago. 

Finally, as you all know, the three functions, the big functions 

that HAVA anticipates EAC working on are the testing and 

certification of systems, voting systems; the grants, distributing, 

monitoring, and auditing grants; and then best practices, the 

clearinghouse function. And because clearinghouse is the one that 

doesn't have legal definitions and legal deadlines and procedures 

and processes around it, it's always been sort of the orphan in the 

room when it comes to funding and staffing. And I will tell you that 
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that has changed. We now have a clearinghouse staff staffed by 

subject matter experts, most of whom come from the local or State

management of elections. They are doing top-rate work. And if 

you haven't checked it out, I know that, for instance, the DFOs have 

been pushing out some of the most recent work product dealing 

with election security issues and the supply-chain problems that, 

you know, most of us can anticipate in the next few months leading 

up to the primaries and general election. This is good work 

product. But to get this work product out, this goes back to one of 

the priorities for fiscal '22, which is to update our webpage. Our 

webpage has an awful lot of information on it, but I'll be the first to 

admit, it isn't very well organized, and I can actually take credit for 

that because I helped stand it up 10 to 12 years ago. It's easier 

when you're on the EAC webpage if you want to find something you 

just Google the issue and wait for the links to come through 

Google, and then click the one that's on EAC. Frankly, that's 

unacceptable, and the four Commissioners have made that very 

clear to me. So, in order to support our clearinghouse function, in 

order to support the portal that will be available as a tool to you all 

very shortly, we've got to update our technical capabilities, and we 

will be doing that. 

And with regard to the clearinghouse function, we are always 

ready, willing, and able to accept recommendations on what we 
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should be prioritizing, what we should be looking into and clearly 

are interested in issues that are common across the country, both 

at the State and local jurisdictions and something that we, the EAC,

can actually do something about. 

Now, maybe like supply chain that's simply identifying the 

problem and proposing potential mitigation strategies to be adopted 

by the State or the localities. There may not be something that we 

actually have a statutory ability to put our hands on and correct so 

to speak, but if any of you or several of you have ideas and you 

don't see us addressing them now, let us know. We would be more 

than happy to consider those proposals and to the extent we've got 

the resources focused on them.

Again, I'm thrilled. I'm thrilled to be back. I don't see my job 

really as initiating fundamental change at the agency. My job right 

now is to make sure that the Commissioners have what they need 

to do their statutory responsibilities, to make sure those of you who 

are representing your localities on the FACA boards have what you 

need, to make sure that my staff has what it needs to do and 

service all of you, and then to hand off to the new Executive 

Director an organization that's running well and can move in a 

direction that the new Executive Director and the Commissioners 

deemed appropriate within, you know, the coming years. 
27

So, again, thank you, Chairman. Thank you, 

Commissioners, and I'll hand it back to the Chair. 

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

Thank you so much, Interim Executive Director. 

We are now going to move into our e-pollbook program 

update, and I'd like to recognize Jon Panek, Director of Testing and 

Certification at the EAC, for an update and presentation on the 

status of the e-pollbook pilot program. 

MR. PANEK:

Thank you, Ms. Grandjean, and good afternoon, Standards

Board members. Give me a second here to share my screen. 

Okay. So, this presentation, I'm just going to give a very 

brief update on the status of the EAC's efforts on establishing an 

e-pollbook evaluation pilot program. Over the last eight months,

the EAC has been working on developing a pilot program for testing 

and certification of e-pollbook systems. This pilot is going to 

contour the existing Voting System Testing and Certification 

Program. This leverages a well-understood process we already 

have established with the Voting System Testing and Cert 

Program, and it allows us to utilize existing expertise via the VSTLs,

test labs, and organizational structure to determine the 

effectiveness of this type of program. 
28

The pilot will develop the following key elements: 

requirements and responsibilities for manufacturer participants in 

the program, a way for manufacturers to register to formally 

participate, testing requirements and procedures, reporting and 

certification artifacts, as well as a quality monitoring program. As 

with the Voting System Testing and Certification Program, 

participation will be voluntary. 

So, EAC staff did some research on State e-pollbook testing 

programs and found that there's a little bit of a gap in accessibility 

and security requirements, and so we are currently in the process 

of drafting a document with requirements for these areas of 

accessibility and security for e-pollbook systems. This is no simple 

effort. We're taking the time necessary to ensure that the 

requirements are well thought out. We have reported out on this 

through FACA board meetings last year and anticipated that we 

would be done a little bit sooner, but it is taking a little bit longer to 

complete than we originally expected. But at this point the security 

requirements portion of the draft is nearly complete. 

We are still working on accessibility requirements. Those 

are in progress. We are looking at the VVSG to draw some 

requirements from there and incorporate them where appropriate 

and applicable into the draft requirements. 
29

We have shared the draft with NIST, and at this time they 

are providing feedback. We're going back and forth and discussing 

some of the final elements of the security requirements right now. 

Last November, the EAC held a roundtable discussion on 

considerations for this pilot. A video of this roundtable can be 

found on our website, as well as the EAC YouTube channel. 

E-pollbook manufacturers, Voting System Test Labs, and election 

officials participated in three different panels. We feel it was an 

excellent discussion, and a lot of substantive feedback was 

provided from each of their perspectives. And at this point our next 

steps are to complete the draft requirements and to share with 

stakeholders for feedback. The draft requirements should be ready 

to share out for external review in about the next month or so. 

And I mentioned it would be brief, so that concludes my 

presentation on updates for the e-pollbook evaluation pilot, and I'll 

turn it back to you, Ms. Grandjean. 

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

Thank you so much for that update. I appreciate it. 

We are now going to move to a great discussion, very 

important discussion for all of us and all of our States and 

Territories is the VVSG 2.0 implementation discussion. I want to 

thank Rob Rock of New Jersey for volunteering to moderate this 

exciting discussion. And, Rob, I will let you take it away. 
30

MR. ROCK:

Thanks, Mandi. And while I love the State of New Jersey, I 

am from Rhode Island, although I can understand --

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

Excuse me.

MR. ROCK:

-- you confusing me with Bob Giles. 

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

Oops. 

MR. ROCK:

That's fine.

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

Rhode Island, not New Jersey. 

MR. ROCK:

Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Rob Rock, Director of 

Elections for the Secretary of State's Office in Rhode Island. And 

we've got a great panel discussion today. It is a short discussion so 

it's only about 20 minutes so I want to get right to it. But we've got 

some great panelists. We're going to hear from Jon again, from the 

EAC. We're going to hear from Ed Smith from Smartmatic and also 

was part of the Sector Coordinating Council, Traci Mapps from SLI 

Compliance, and Wendy Owens and Michael Walker from Pro 

V&V. 
31

Basically, I just have, you know, it'll be two questions for the 

panelists to talk a little bit about how they see the VVSG moving 

forward, but I do want to start by turning it over to Jon Panek from 

the EAC, who's going to discuss things from the EAC’s end for a 

couple minutes and then we'll go to our panelists. There will be,

hopefully, some time at the end for questions, so if you have 

questions, you can either put them in the chat, you can raise your 

hand, or we'll open it up at the end so long as there is time. But 

again, we do have a short amount of time, so I'll start right away 

turning it over to Jon. So, Jon, take it away. 

MR. PANEK:

All right, thank you, Rob. First, I'll give a brief background on 

what's necessary for testing to any new VVSG standard once it's 

been adopted. The EAC's Voting System Test Labs or VSTLs, they 

are both present on this panel, must be accredited to test to the 

new standard. This is a two-part audit process. NIST's National 

Voluntary Lab Accreditation Program, or NVLAP, audits the labs to 

their Handbook 150-22. And following successful completion of 

that audit, the EAC then audits the labs for ISO 17025 for

competence, impartiality, and consistency of operations for testing 

and calibration services. Last year, the EAC worked with NVLAP

on updates to their Handbook 150-22 for voting system testing to 

include VVSG 2.0. And that was published last October. Also, the 
32

EAC Testing and Certification staff are currently certified lead 

assessors for ISO 17025. So, with that, both the EAC and NVLAP

are prepared to accredit the labs at this time. 

The next steps at this point are for the labs to apply for their 

accreditation. It's important to note that when to do so is a 

business decision for each lab to make. However, once they apply, 

each audit takes a few weeks to complete from the date they are 

scheduled. That's assuming there's no critical nonconformances 

that need to be addressed. 

And the answer to the question on when VVSG 2.0 

equipment will be certified depends on several variables. Once the 

labs are accredited and testing to the new standard is actually 

possible, the manufacturers then need to submit systems for 

certification testing. We've heard some comparisons made to 

VVSG 1.0 regarding how long test campaigns will take for full 

systems to VVSG 2.0. While it is the precedent, those comparisons 

are a little bit unfair as it was a brand-new program at the time, and 

things needed to be worked out from the program and, you know, 

with the parties working together and everything at that time. So, 

with that, we feel that it will take significantly less time for 2.0 

because the program is mature, the labs are very experienced

working with the EAC and with the manufacturers, and the 

manufacturers have had time to understand VVSG 2.0 and what is 
33

necessary to design hardware and software. So, the time frame 

from submission to certification could be eight months to over a 

year depending on how prepared the manufacturers are and the 

number of issues encountered during test campaigns that need to 

be resolved. 

Rob, back to you. 

MR. ROCK:

Thanks, Jon. That was great. Thanks for the update there. 

Now we're going to turn it over to the three, you know, 

panelists. Jon's part of the panel, too, but we're going to talk to Ed

Smith, who is one of the manufacturers, Traci, Max, and then 

Wendy Owens and Michael Walker from the VSTLs so that they 

can give a little bit, you know, from their end. Ultimately what I 

think the body is looking for as we look forward to procuring new 

equipment and working with our legislatures and appropriators, you 

know, how we see things going for the next few years. 

So basically, if each of you could answer the two questions, 

what are your next steps regarding the implementation of VVSG 

2.0? And then what is the estimated timeline that a system could 

be realistically certified? So those are the two questions I think all 

of us are anticipating or eager to hear the answers to or at least 

your sense of it. So, we'll start with Ed Smith from Smartmatic. Ed, 

are you with us? 
34

MR. SMITH:

Yes, I am. 

MR. ROCK:

Perfect. Thanks. 

MR. SMITH:

Thank you, Rob, and my thanks to the Commissioners and 

the Standards Board today for the opportunity to speak. So, I'm 

actually going to meld the two questions together and come up with 

answers as I speak and thread my comments. 

So first off, you know, this question has come up before. It 

came up in the National Association of Secretaries of State 

conference last summer and Sam Derheimer at Hart spoke and told 

the group there that they can expect to see systems, multiple 

systems pass through certification, not before the presidential, but 

after the November 2024 presidential. And this is because of a 

number of factors. One, as Jon Panek mentioned, the labs have 

not yet been accredited. Secondly, there is a significant lift 

between VVSG 1.0 and 1.1 to VVSG 2.0. And every individual 

manufacturer is developing their system to their timeline and will 

submit ultimately as their system readiness dictates. And so there 

will be a time frame after that. 

Unlike Mr. Panek, I have a little less optimism around the 

program and its speed. It is a new VVSG. We will find, although 
35

there is an incredible amount of work done, by all parties to sift 

through VVSG for any gaps and issues that will emerge but 

sometimes only when you actually bring a system in and the rubber 

meets the road do you find situations where VVSG is not clear, the 

test cases at the labs develop to test against are not sufficient in 

some way, or there's ambiguity which needs to be resolved. Also, 

the requirements, for instance, to pass the test readiness review, 

the very, very first stage of testing, have been increased, and so, I 

know I told my management, as have other my colleagues and 

certification and other manufacturers, that this is a 12-month-plus 

process and I'm not optimistic that it would take less than a year. 

That's really what I have to say, so in short, a multitude of 

systems available, but after the next presidential, once again, the 

labs need to take on accreditation. We need to have the rest of the 

EAC processes and clarifications of VVSG, where those are open 

taken care of, and then, of course finish system development and 

submit. Thank you. 

MR. ROCK:

Thanks, Ed. Thanks for those comments. Next, we're going 

to turn it over to Traci Mapps from SLI Compliance. Traci, are you 

with us? 

MS. MAPPS:
36

I'm so sorry. Thank you, Rob. There had to have been 

someone that leaves their phone on mute first, right? Sorry about 

that. 

To answer your first question, next steps, right now, SLI 

compliance is wrapping up our updates to our internal processes 

and procedures in preparation for testing to the VVSG 2.0. We are 

planning for our audit with NVLAP and also for the EAC, and we 

anticipate being ready in time for the manufacturers to bring in their 

systems for certification. 

As far as the question about how long it takes for a voting 

system or a voting system to be tested to the VVSG 2.0, it's a hard 

question. I think that I would like to be a little bit more optimistic 

than Ed, maybe aligned a bit more with Jon Panek in regards to the 

eight months to over 12 months, but I'm hoping that we can get a 

voting system through much quicker. I do think that we have to all 

assume that there's going to be some RFIs, requests for 

interpretation, with the rollout of the VVSG 2.0 very similar to the 

rollout of 1.0. But hopefully, with the test assertions in place, it'll 

help to minimize these RFIs. I think that, like Ed said and like Jon

said, based on the system's production readiness and the number 

of discrepancies that a system has it's going to help to move the 

system through the process much quicker. 

I think that that's all I really have to say right now. 
37

MR. ROCK:

Thank you. Thanks, Traci. 

Next up, we're going to hear from Wendy Owens and/or 

Michael Walker from Pro V&V. 

MR. WALKER:

Yes, so this is Michael Walker with Pro V&V. As for our 

current place we're at right now, we're working on updating our 

internal documentation, getting ready for the audits for the 2.0. We 

currently have our NVLAP audit scheduled for later this year, and 

part of the manual is you have to have that recommendation to go, 

so we'll be applying to the EAC to follow that up. So, our hope is to 

have the accreditation done by the end of 2022. 

Let's see. The timeline for certifying a system, I agree with 

everybody. It's kind of an unknown based on RFIs, readiness of 

the system. I would like to be optimistic if somebody comes in, you 

know, ready, and I would guesstimate, I would say nine months, 

possibly up to a year, but I think it could be on the shorter side. 

That will improve as time goes along. The initial systems of course 

will take the longest, especially with RFIs, should there be any. But 

I do believe that will improve as, you know, the 2.0 requirements 

are tested and it matures along, as it has with 1.0 as we've seen 

that decrease over time for a system to get through. 

And that's pretty much where we are at this point. 
38

MR. ROCK:

All right, thanks. Thanks, Michael, for that. 

We do have a few minutes. If anyone has any questions, 

you can either put it in the chat, raise your hand, or just unmute 

yourself and ask. I think we've got time for a few questions, 

Chairwoman, so if anyone has anything to add or any questions, 

we'll leave a minute open for anyone to speak up. 

All right. I don't see anything in the chat. I don't see any 

hands. And unless someone forgot to unmute, I think we're good 

on the questions. I want to thank Jon and Ed and Traci and 

Michael for giving us that update. We appreciate it. We know 

there's a lot of unknowns, but I think it is helpful as we move on 

over the next few months on voting equipment and how it's going to 

look. So, we appreciate it. And I will turn it back over to you, 

Chairwoman, for the next panel for the next event. 

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

Thank you, Rob from Rhode Island. 

We are now going to take a five-minute break, and we will 

reconvene here shortly. So, we have a five-minute break. Enjoy it, 

and we'll see you here soon. 

[Recess]

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

And we are going to resume our meeting. 
39

So next up I am going to recognize the subcommittee Chairs 

for a brief update on all of the work that they've been doing over the 

past several months in their various subcommittee subject matters. 

So, Rob Rock, we are going to start with you as the Chair of the 

VVSG Subcommittee. 

MR. ROCK:

Thanks, Madam Chair. Rob Rock, Director of Elections for 

the Secretary of State's Office in Rhode Island and also the Chair of 

the VVSG Subcommittee. The subcommittee is made up of six 

election officials, Mandy Vigil of New Mexico, Brian Wood from 

West Virginia, Janine Petty from Arizona, Ken Matta from Arizona,

and Debbie Erickson from Minnesota. And we've met three times 

over the last few months, and our first order of business was to 

develop a charter, which we did, and we adopted it as a 

subcommittee to give us some guidance moving forward 

throughout the year. We have had pretty good discussions about 

three different topics, mainly the e-pollbook pilot program, which 

Jon spoke about a little bit ago; the VVSG lifecycle policy; and then 

also, most recently we brought up the electronic transmission of 

mail ballots is also something that we're going to discuss over the 

course of the year. 

We have six members, but if there's anyone that's interested 

in joining, we'd love to have as much input as possible. Our next 
40

meeting is April 28th. Although I think that, you know, our next 

business is going to be to work with the EAC's draft of the 

requirements for the e-pollbook pilot and kind of work from there, 

we have a real good group of people that are interested, so there 

have been good conversations so far, and we're just going to 

continue to move. And we hope to have something out by the end 

of the year, kind of an informal update or some suggestions and 

requirements and things of that sort from the full body so that we 

can assist the EAC in these endeavors. It's really important that we 

as election officials have a seat at the table, and we're grateful for 

the opportunity to discuss these items. 

So, again, if anybody's interested in joining the group, we're 

happy to have you. You can either email me directly or through the 

EAC. But I'm grateful for the five other members of the committee. 

We've had really good discussions, and so, if anyone is interested 

in either e-pollbook pilot certification, the VVSG lifecycle policy, or 

the electronic transmission of mail ballots, we'd love to have you. 

So that's a quick update from the VVSG Committee, and I'll 

turn it back to you, Mandi. 

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

Thank you, Rob. Next, I'm going to turn it over to Andy 

Dowd, Chair of the Grants and Resources Subcommittee. 

MR. DOWD:
41

Good afternoon. Thank you very much. It's tough going 

after Rob, but I'll do my best. 

And here our committee is going to strive to promote the 

availability of grants and resources that are available to our 

members, and, most importantly, we're hoping to highlight some of 

the success stories that people have had using available funds. 

As you know, the EAC awards two distinct types of grants, 

the HAVA operational grants and discretionary grants. The good 

news on funding, which was covered earlier, not to be repetitive, 

but the HAVA election security funds received appropriations in 

2018, 2020, and 2022, which is good news given that the last 

appropriations prior was back in 2010, so it was quite a long dry 

spell there. And as was mentioned earlier, the 2018 appropriation 

was $380 million, 2020 another $425 million of new HAVA funds, 

and then a much lower appropriation in the current year '22 of $75 

million, but certainly good news to hear earlier regarding the 

potential of a $10 billion grant that would be administered by the 

EAC. 

So, we're hoping to just get more information out to the 

members and share that and, as I said, share some of the 

successes that people have had around the country and Territories. 

So, thank you very much. 

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:
42

Thanks, Andy. Next up, I will recognize myself as the Chair

of the Standards and Practices Subcommittee. 

We met and came up with the mission and goal of 

information-sharing and really being able to share really important 

information and work that States have already done on their own 

with other States. So, you may have seen a survey come across 

your inboxes. I know we all get a ton of surveys, but a shameless 

plug, if you could please fill out the survey -- it takes two seconds --

from Kim Smith that Kim sent out on my behalf and on our 

subcommittee's behalf to get an understanding of the topics in 

election administration that you all are most interested in, receiving 

other information or other work that States have already completed. 

So, for example, if a State has an e-pollbook certification program 

already and that State is willing to provide that information to the 

EAC in conjunction with their clearinghouse function, other States 

will be able to access a portal or, you know, a tab on their webpage 

that says Ohio, e-pollbook certification program and access all of 

that information very easily in one place. 

We know that we all have very little resources and very little 

time, and so we want to make information-sharing as efficient as 

possible and make the sharing of best practices and standards very 

easy and transparent across the States. So, this is really the goal 

of the Standards and Best Practices Committee, and your input on 
43

what you want to see from other States is greatly appreciated so 

we can move, you know, this project forward in conjunction with the 

clearinghouse function of the EAC so that we can share best 

practices and information that everyone has already done the work 

on. 

So, thank you, and that is my update from the committee. 

Take the survey, please and thank you. 

Next, I will recognize Mandy Vigil as the Chair of the EAVS

Subcommittee. 

MS. VIGIL:

Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon, everyone. My 

name is Mandy Vigil. I am the State Election Director in New 

Mexico. I have the pleasure of being the Chair of the EAVS

Subcommittee. Our committee is made up of five individuals, so 

we have three State members and two local members. So, I kind 

of just want to highlight them. We have Janine Petty. She is the 

local member from Arizona. We have Nikki Charlson from 

Maryland, State official. We also have Michelle Tassinari from

Massachusetts as a State official. And last but definitely not least, 

Ms. Rene Maas from Colorado as a local election official. 

So, our committee has convened. We have had a couple of 

visits to discuss kind of our goal and mission. What we're looking 

to accomplish is really to be able to highlight either challenge areas 
44

or areas of success in all aspects of the EAVS report. We know 

that data is incredibly important now more than ever. It is being 

highlighted, you know, across the Nation, so it's important that 

we're getting it right. So, we want to be able to give feedback to the 

EAC on how they can maybe improve that process, whether it be 

through the timing of that survey, through the training on how to 

actually complete the survey, or ways that we can try to really be 

able to express the data in a form that is going to make sense. 

Every State has very unique, you know, challenges and/or ways 

that this data should or shouldn't be reviewed depending on your 

State laws, so we've really had some great conversations. 

You may recall several months ago that you received a 

survey, so that survey was kind of circulated pretty quickly to 

Standards Board members to try to expedite information to the 

subcommittee. I would like to see about recirculating that. And 

unfortunately, we didn't get a huge response, but certainly 

appreciate those of you that did respond. So, we'll try to get some 

more information and get some additional feedback. As I 

mentioned, our goal is to take that feedback, take our own 

experience, and really be able to highlight areas to do better in this 

process. 

With that being said, be on the lookout for another survey. 

We'll work with the EAC to get that back out. 
45

And, you know, we have five individuals on the committee. 

We lost one, so we would be happy to welcome any members that 

have interest. I think more is going to be better in this case. But I 

appreciate all of the effort of our current committee, very 

responsive, willing to kind of communicate and share a lot of 

information, so I look forward to working with them. 

For those that might have interest, we are looking at meeting 

once a month going forward, so, anyway, that's our update for now. 

Thank you. 

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

Thank you, Mandy. 

I will now recognize Dwight Shellman as the Chair of the 

Election Security Subcommittee. Dwight, you're muted, my friend. 

MR. SHELLMAN:

Oh, the multiple levels of secret mutage on Zoom. I 

apologize. Thank you, Mandy. 

Good afternoon or good morning, everyone, wherever you 

happen to be. It's a pleasure to join you today. And may I just say I 

for one look forward to the time when we can resume these annual 

meetings in person because the thing I most enjoy about being a 

member of the Standards Board is being able to hang out and 

network with my colleagues from other States, so hopefully, one 

day that will happen soon. 
46

In the meantime, the Executive Board asked that I chair the 

Election Security Subcommittee. The portfolio of this subcommittee 

is generally to review and assess the material security protocols

generally applicable to the conduct of elections in the United 

States, when appropriate, identify enhancements to existing 

protocols that State and local election officials should consider 

implementing in response to a very dynamic and constantly 

changing threat environment. Specifically, we want to identify, to 

the extent we can, best practices and successful strategies to 

mitigate and actually counter election-related disinformation and 

misinformation, which is so prevalent in this space at the moment. 

And then finally, prepare a written report in advance of the 

Standards Board 2023 annual meeting and also recommend to the 

Commissioners additional election security tools and resources that 

the EAC could or should provide. 

The current membership of the committee, it currently 

consists of six members, myself, again as Chair and, as a 

reminder, I'm with the Colorado Secretary of State's Office, so I'm a 

State official here in Colorado; Nikki Charlson, also a State official 

in Maryland, Kenny Barger from Madison County, Kentucky; Patty 

Weeks from Nez Perce County, Idaho; Rina Fontana Moore, 

Cascade County Clerk and Recorder in Montana; and Derrin "Dag"
47

Robinson, the Harney County Clerk in Oregon. That is our current 

membership. 

This is a big committee, as all of these subcommittees are, 

and there's a lot of work to do. So, we invite any other Standards 

Board members who may be interested in joining. You can request 

to become a member by emailing Kim Smith or you can email me 

directly. My email address is Dwight.Shellman@ColoradoSOS.gov. 

Unlike the other committees, we have not yet met. I assure 

you that is my responsibility, not our other committee members. 

But we do want to schedule an initial meeting during the week of 

April 24th. And once I receive expressions of interest from other 

prospective committee members, we will set a day and time that's 

convenient to all the committee members for that week. And the 

things we want to address in our initial meeting are, first and 

foremost, schedule recurring monthly meetings at dates and times 

convenient to all the members, draft a subcommittee charter 

mission statement and priorities. That may take us a couple 

meetings to work through and formalize. And then finally, 

obviously, any other business that additional members want to 

bring. So, if you're interested in this area of election administration, 

we invite your participation and look forward to a very productive 

and busy year ahead. Thank you. 

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:
48

Thank you, Dwight. 

Next up, I am going to recognize moderator Jamie Shew. 

Thank you for volunteering to walk us through this next panel 

discussion on mitigating supply-chain issues. I know we're all 

super interested to hear about this issue, so take it away, panel. 

MR. SHEW:

I don't know if we're thrilled about hearing the issue, but 

we're interested, right? My name is Jamie Shew. For the past 17 

years I've been the County Clerk and local election official for 

Douglas County, Kansas. If you're not familiar with where we are 

located, we are the home of the 2022 national basketball 

champions from the University of Kansas, so Rock Chalk, Jayhawk.

The executive committee, we kind of discussed a couple 

things that we could have a panel on, and many of you may be 

aware that there are some supply-chain issues that are being 

discussed. So, we kind of put together a panel of experts. I'm 

pleased to have three people. I have Ford Bowers, who's President 

and CEO at PRINTING United Alliance; Jim Suver, Vice President 

of Business Development at Runbeck Election Services; and Chris

Wlaschin, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Security 

Officer for Election Systems and Software. So welcome to our 

panel. 
49

Ford, let's start with you. Recently, I've had conversations 

with our printer that are pretty concerning, and I'm sure your 

membership is having a lot of conversations about the supply-chain 

issues with paper. Could you kind of walk us through the current 

situation and the factors that are causing this to happen? 

MR. BOWERS:

I'd be happy to. Thank you, Jamie, for having me. 

Yes, for a lot of printers, this is going to be existential the 

particular problem that we're in. This is a confluence of several 

things that have taken place. You just mentioned supply-chain 

issues. I'm sure everybody's familiar with all of the supply-chain 

issues that have pretty much hit every sector in the economy and, 

you know, produced labor shortages and transportation snafus, 

rising costs, you know, in fuel and labor, so on, and so forth. So,

it's no less affecting the paper supply. 

What you might not be aware of, however, is that the supply 

of paper in North America for the types of papers that you rely on to 

run elections has been in decline for probably 20 or 30 years. This 

is because the mills that produce those papers and those materials, 

they have been closing down over the last 20 or 30 years as they 

become old and obsolete. No new mills are coming online. And 

even some of the mills that are still operating are being converted 

to other types of products. So, we already had a tight supply going 
50

into the pandemic. The pandemic has made it worse in terms of 

the ability to deliver those paper products. So that's on the supply 

side. 

On the demand side, we've seen shifts and demands that 

are fairly unprecedented, so, for example, if you consider all of the 

online ordering that has taken place over the last two years, all of 

that requires boxes and craft paper and packaging. And so, this is 

what the mills are chasing. The mills are saying, well, there's more 

money there. There's demand there. It's a lot less refining of the 

paper stock to get it to that State. We make more money off that, 

so they're converting mills in order to be able to chase that money, 

which, of course, makes perfect sense. 

Then you have the fact that competitive products, books, for 

example, which use very similar stocks or the same types of stocks 

that you use in the balloting process and envelope process, book 

sales jumped 13 percent last year alone. That's a pretty massive 

jump for one thing to do over the course of 12 months. And of 

course, that's also pandemic-driven. 

So, what you have is you kind of have this perfect, you 

know, whirlwind of shifts in demand and shifts in supply 

exacerbated by the pandemic that are really creating a problem that 

has led to, I'd say, between last year and this year, up to 40 percent 

increase in the cost of these stocks and lead times that went from 
51

generally a week to two weeks to get stock in to 12 weeks or more 

to get stock in to run a job. We have never seen this before in

printing, at least not in anyone's collective memory. So, this is a 

pretty serious crisis for the printers in this country. 

MR. SHEW:

Ford, I have a follow-up question for you. Could you tell us, 

you've probably looked at timeline, how far out -- or maybe you 

don't know. Like is this 2022, 2023, 2024? What's kind of the 

timeline of this? 

MR. BOWERS:

Before it resolves itself? 

MR. SHEW:

Yes. 

MR. BOWERS:

I do not believe that this will resolve itself in the next few 

years, because once you convert a mill to something else or close it 

down, you're not bringing that mill back online or converting it back, 

so the only thing that would mitigate this I think is to -- we might see 

an increase, but mills are pretty much now running at capacity. I 

mean, they're running at 97, 98 percent capacity. There's just no 

more capacity in North America to produce this stuff.

Paper, as you might know, is a worldwide commodity. We 

use to import a lot from Europe and the Far East. They're keeping 
52

all of their paper now. Finland, all the mills in Finland went on strike 

for three months. I'm not sure if they're back online yet. It's 

probably going to be a long-term structural issue, so there won't be 

really more paper capacity for us to tap into. And, you know, 

unless something happens to shift demand patterns back to prepandemic demand patterns, which I also don't see happening --

once people start ordering online, they're going to continue to do 

so, so I don't see a resolution. I think that this is going to be with us 

for a while. I think it will ameliorate, but the prices, I don't think, will 

drop back down significantly. I think we're looking at least a couple 

of years, you know, before we see any significant changes. I'm 

more concerned of course with the 2024 election cycle, where the 

volume for this type of materials that you use would be even 

perhaps 50 percent more than in this year. So, I think it's still going 

to be a problem. 

MR. SHEW:

Well, thank you. I think that's good for all of us to kind of 

know this is long term versus short term. 

Jim, you and Chris were Co-Chairs of a working group of the 

Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Council that recently 

released a report on this topic. Could you talk to us a little bit about 

what are the mitigation efforts that you see that election officials 

should be thinking about for this upcoming election cycle? 
53

MR. SUVER:

Sure, certainly. Thank you, Jamie.

So, the biggest mitigation that we can address to this supplychain risk is if you would go back or your States, continue to 

communicate this issue and this challenge. And we just need 

dialogue between your jurisdictions and their respective ballot 

manufacturers, as well as communication to the envelope and mail 

houses, the mail fulfillment centers. They need to know, those 

ballot printers and the mail fulfillment centers, they need to know 

estimates. Is it a one-card ballot, is it a two-card ballot, what are 

they expecting for November? 

And we are at the threshold. Ford had mentioned our lead

time for ordering. Vendors are at the threshold for ordering now for 

November. We've been working on this challenge, this problem 

since the end of last year and the beginning of this year. So, our 

message is just to talk with your jurisdictions in your respective 

States and make sure they are coordinating and planning and 

deciding now for their November orders. 

What we are doing is we are actively and daily involved in 

procurement that we had not done before. We had not purchased 

or been active in daily purchasing of paper, but we now have stood 

up someone dedicated to that on a daily and week-in, week-out 

basis to make sure we have enough for November. Thank you. 
54

MR. SHEW:

Yes, Jim, you know, Ford just mentioned this is a multi-year 

situation. It's not just this election cycle. So, are there other things 

that you think will change in election administration both on the 

vendor side and for us for a couple years? 

MR. SUVER:

Yes, I don't think we're going to see a lot of changes in this 

process, especially just with the demand for paper ballots across 

the U.S. And we do see possibly some ease in Q1 of 2023, but to 

yield back to Ford's point, I don't think this will be fully resolved 

whatsoever for some time. 

MR. SHEW:

Okay, thank you. 

Chris, the relationship with vendors and suppliers is really a 

huge part of election administration, as we all know. As I 

mentioned, you've worked with the Coordinating Council to really 

improve the vendor's relationship with all of us. What are the 

efforts that vendors are making to kind of reach out to their clients, 

and what are conversations that you think we should be having with 

our vendors? 

MR. WLASCHIN:

Thanks, Jamie, and good afternoon, everybody. Yes, during 

the process of the Sector Coordinating Council investigating this 
55

issue with our print and envelope partners, we quickly realized that 

the scope of the problem is not really well understood. The large 

jurisdictions, election jurisdictions who have mature partnerships 

with their print suppliers, their paper suppliers were acting early, as 

usual. But our feedback, the feedback that we've been getting is 

that many medium-sized jurisdictions, small jurisdictions, people

who rely on local printers are not aware of the issue. 

And so, our outreach when Jim and I and the SEC produced 

that paper, our outreach first was to the Government Coordinating 

Council leadership immediately followed by NASS and NASED 

members communicating through their organizations to get the 

word out that what really needs to happen is that you need to get 

your paper orders in early. Jim said we're almost at the threshold 

now for November 2022 ordering. Getting those orders in early, 

establishing a relationship with a secondary or a backup print 

partner, ES&S and Runbeck have a network of print partners that 

we work with. We have heard from many of those partners that 

they are starting to experience stock problems not just for ballots 

and envelopes but all the paper products that are involved in 

elections from paper voter registration cards, even the "I voted"

stickers are getting tough to find. 

So, our outreach, we've advised our print partners, Runbeck

and ES&S and others, to communicate to your customers 
56

proactively, for example, to reach out to the customers in the 

election jurisdictions and say, hey, we haven't heard from you. We 

need to plan for your paper needs well before you're used to and 

ballot proofing is going to be more important than ever because it is 

harder and harder to obtain stock for reprints if a ballot goes out 

with an error on it. That affects vote-by-mail mailings, absentee 

ballot mailings, so communicating early between small and medium 

jurisdictions and their print partners, establishing a secondary or 

backup supplier, if that's necessary. And not just for paper electionrelated consumables, but, please, think about things like USB 

thumb drives, the secure thumb drives and all the election 

consumables that a jurisdiction might need. Plan early, start 

communicating now. Thank you. 

MR. SHEW:

Thank you, Chris. We have some time for questions. As we 

mentioned, these three panelists have quite a bit of experience and 

have been thinking about this problem well before we were, so if 

you want to leave your question in a chat or just unmute yourself 

and ask a question, there is time for that. 

Everybody has it figured out? Okay. If there aren't any 

questions, thank you to our panelists. You know, election 

administrators and vendors are very resourceful and resilient and 

will figure this out. We might have to get creative, but we always 
57

pull off an election, so we look forward to working with our vendors 

for the upcoming election, so thank you very much. 

MR. BOWERS:

Thank you. 

MR. SUVER:

Thank you. 

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

Thank you, Jamie, I appreciate it, and thanks to all of our 

panelists. 

We are now going to move on to a presentation that's near 

and dear to my heart, which is about voter registration systems and 

their security and integrity. So, I would like to, Kristen, present my 

PowerPoint. 

Thank you. And I'm going to run through this, Kristen, really 

quickly because I know I don't have a lot of time. 

So, as you all may or may not know, Ohio has a certification 

program in the State of Ohio. But I first want to start with what does

voter registration look like in the State of Ohio. We are one of the 

very rare States that are bottom-up and decentralized. It is really 

fun and makes things very easy when you are a bottom-up 

decentralized State. That is sarcasm at its finest. 

We do have a statewide voter registration database of 

course pursuant to HAVA. However, our statewide voter 
58

registration database is merely a reflection of what is in the county's

voter registration database. We do not have any control over the 

data in the SWVRD. We simply just publish this voter file and 

statewide voter registration database. 

Next slide, please. 

Our certification program currently is run by the Board of 

Voting Machine Examiners, and that is a bipartisan board that is 

made up of four election officials, two from each political party, so 

completely bipartisan people that are interacting with this 

equipment on a daily basis. They recommend for certification 

voting systems and equipment, remote ballot marking devices, and 

electronic pollbooks. And that is a really nice thing to have at the 

State level. We go further than the EAC, VVSG, et cetera, and we 

have that remote ballot marking device and e-pollbook addition to 

our certification. 

Next slide, please. 

So, I hope that we can all agree that accurate and secure 

voter registration systems and data are foundational to protecting 

the integrity of our democratic process and electoral system, right? 

It is really the foundation and the gateway more or less to security 

for elections. So, one of the first things that became apparent, at 

least to me, and our administration on coming into office in 2019 

that voter registration systems were missing from the systems that 
59

could in fact be certified by the BVME. So, we recognized very 

early on that we wanted to draft legislation to change this to include 

voter registration systems under the BVME's review and 

recommendation for certification. Simultaneously, we wanted to 

create a testing matrix that included testing for security and data 

integrity within voter registration systems. 

Next slide, please. 

So, Senate Bill 14 was introduced in our legislature, and it 

does essentially just what I said it does. If you are interested in 

more information, this slide deck, you know, happy to send it your 

way. It includes a lot of information about what the bill technically 

does. But what it allows the Board of Voting Machine Examiners to 

do is examine the voter registration systems themselves pursuant 

to the matrix. It also, you know, permits or it requires the voter 

registration systems to go to VSTL labs for independent testing 

before it comes back to the BVME, which is standard practice in the 

State of Ohio for voting systems and remote ballot marking devices 

and e-pollbooks. 

Next slide, please. 

So, this is some more detail about the bill itself. Of course, if 

a voter registration system is not certified, it cannot be used under 

the proposal of this bill in the State of Ohio. All Board of Voting 

Machine Examiner meetings are public, which we think is really 
60

important from a transparency perspective, so the public can

observe the meeting and the examination of the equipment itself, 

and the discussion between the board members and the vendors 

on the requirements of the matrix as the board members 

themselves walk through those requirements to ensure that they 

have been met by the vendor itself. 

There is some grandfathering-in provisions in there. We 

understand obviously that voter registration systems -- really all 

election technology is expensive and there's not -- especially in a 

bottom-up decentralized system, there's no metaphorical button 

that you can press that just makes everything new and redone and 

consistent. If only that existed. 

Next slide, please. 

So, the bill itself sets forth an approval and certification 

submission process for the vendors in pretty clear terms that very 

much mirrors exactly our current system for voting systems, remote 

ballot marking devices, and e-pollbooks.

Next slide.

So, this is more as far as the process and the timeline. So,

this written report is filed with the Secretary of State within 60 days 

of the vendor's submission to allow the Secretary of State's Office 

and the Board of Voting Machine Examiners to review that 

information before the meeting. And again, this goes through in 
61

more detail that you can read and the process and what the report 

itself must include. 

Next slide. 

Ultimately, the board, just as they currently do for the other 

voting technology that they certify in the State, they recommend to 

the Secretary of State whether or not that equipment should be 

certified for use in the State of Ohio. And then, the Secretary will 

make his determination upon receiving that recommendation for the 

board. Of course, our office would notify the Boards of Elections 

that a new system at least for voter registration has been approved 

for use in the State. 

Next slide. 

There is a periodic examination and test and inspection 

requirement as well. Currently, that's on a five-year track for other 

equipment. We're going through that process right now actually for 

our other election technology that's under the purview of the BVME, 

but we think that's a good thing to continue to stay up-to-date with 

technology. And, as we all know, in election security things change 

a mile a minute, so getting that fresh eye on the technology and 

making sure that it's all up-to-date. 

Next slide.

And finally, with the bill there is a withdrawal of certification, 

so there's a process that sets forth that, you know, provides I guess 
62

the vendor itself, you know, some due process for the withdrawal in 

the event that something goes wrong with the technology or the 

vendor themselves are not following the law and the guideline and 

the matrix and the technology is failing in the State of Ohio. So,

there is a withdrawal process that we can go through. We hope to 

obviously never have to use that, but it's a good contingency plan to 

have within the proposal.

Next slide.

And of course, this is more about really the due process, the 

notification that the vendor would receive.

Next slide.

Same. Next slide. Next slide.

We give a lot of due process and notification for withdrawal. 

We take that very seriously, as you can see. 

So, I know I gave you a lot of information in a very short 

period of time. I don't want to bore you. You know, I'm very 

passionate about certification, you know, processes at the State

level. We think it's really important, and we do believe that our 

system here in Ohio has worked very well. 

We appreciate all of the vendors' support in our current 

technology that is within the purview of the BVME currently, but we 

certainly want to bring voter registration systems under that same 

umbrella. 
63

I think I saw a hand up from Paul, but I don't know if I am 

making that up or not. 

MR. LUX:

No, I had my hand up, Mandy, and then I saw you said email 

you questions. I was just going to ask because on one slide you 

mentioned grandfathering in existing systems, and then further on 

you were talking about how they could become decertified if they 

didn't meet standards. Is there like a time frame for the ones being 

grandfathered in, that they are allowed to continue using before it 

gets certified or, you know, eventually just face decertification and 

have to buy new systems? 

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

Yes, so it's the former. Yes. So, you know, we want to give 

the flexibility to transition out from the current system to a certified 

system if that makes sense. We don't want to say, oh, you have to 

do something that currently doesn't exist, so we want to work with 

the counties because our counties are also -- elections are funded 

at the local level generally speaking, so we certainly want to make 

sure that we're being mindful of costs and taxpayer dollars as well. 

It's always the balance, right, with election technology. But that's a 

great question. Grandfathering in is always -- I know we're having 

these conversations with VVSG lifecycle and we're having those 

conversations in Ohio with our State certification program of 
64

election equipment and voting systems because we're making 

some changes. We've made some changes to our matrix and our 

security protocols but, you know, it's certainly a yin and a yang to 

make sure that we're getting everybody where they need to be, but 

over a period of time. 

MR. LUX:

Thanks. 

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

All right. Please email me any other questions that you may 

have. We're happy to talk to any State about State certification 

programs and voter registrations. I'm sad to say this bill has not 

passed yet. I'm hoping that it will, because I think it's really 

important from a data integrity perspective as well. 

Thank you all so much for listening to one of my favorite 

topics, list maintenance and voter registration. We are now going 

to move on to the long-awaited results of the Executive Board 

election. So, I would like to recognize Mr. Dag Robinson, the 

special election committee spokesperson, to announce the results. 

MR. ROBINSON:

Thank you, Chair Grandjean. The Election Certification 

Committee met during the break. We have reviewed and certified 

the results of the Executive Board committee election. And that 

being said, I am pleased to announce the committee certifies that 
65

Bryan Caskey of Kansas and Janine Petty of Arizona have been 

duly elected to the executive committee. Congratulations, and 

thank you to both of you. 

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

Thank you so much, Dag, and congratulations to Bryan and 

Janine. Welcome aboard. 

And I would like to recognize Commissioner Palmer to 

administer the oath of office. 

COMMISSIONER PALMER:

And congratulations. I'm going to swear in the new 

Executive Board members if you could raise your hand and repeat 

after me. 

***

[Commissioner Donald Palmer led the recitation of the Oath of Office.]

***

COMMISSIONER PALMER:

Congratulations, folks. Back to you, Chair. 

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

Wonderful. Congratulations again. 

Well, I guess I'm going to take this as somewhat of a 

success of potentially giving you some time back in your extremely, 

extremely busy schedules. We are at closing remarks time. So, I 

want to thank you all for your time today, not only for your service to 
66

the EAC and the Standards Board, but to each of your States and 

to the voters of the United States of America. It is certainly a duty 

that we should never take lightly ever. I know that we have all gone

through a tremendous amount over the last two years. Some are 

still going through it with redistricting. That's really directed at 

myself. And I hope that all of you have an excellent rest of the 

year, and we look forward to seeing you in person hopefully very 

soon. So, thank you all for your service and attendance. And I am 

going to open it up to any other members at this time who want to 

give closing thoughts or remarks. 

MR. GILES:

Hi, Mandy, it's Bob Giles from New Jersey. 

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

But you're Rob Rock I thought. I'm sorry. 

MR. GILES:

I'm not that good-looking, so I'll just stick with New Jersey. 

I just wanted to make an announcement to everyone I am 

going to be retiring from the State of New Jersey effective May 1st. 

I've accepted a position with Dominion Voting Systems as their Vice 

President of Certification and Compliance, and I'll start May 2nd. 

But we will have a replacement for me on the Standards Board. 

I just want to say it's been great serving with everyone. I 

look forward to still working with all of you from a different
67

perspective, but, again, thank you for your service, and I've made 

so many tremendous friends and what I consider family through this 

board, so thank you. 

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

Thank you so much, Bob, and we are very excited to keep 

you in the elections industry and know that you will bring a great 

deal of expertise to Dominion, and we're lucky to work with you in 

that capacity as well. 

MR. GILES:

Thank you. 

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

Does anyone else have any other remarks that they would 

like to make? 

MR. KING:

This is Brad King from Indiana. I think I speak for everybody 

who serves as a member of the Standards Board when I convey 

the thanks of the membership to the EAC staff and in particular to 

the DFO and others who've assisted with this meeting and likewise 

to the entire Executive Board for conducting and planning that goes 

into this meeting. It's not to be underestimated, and you've done a 

great job. Thank you. 

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:
68

Hear, hear, Brad. Thank you. And with that, I will entertain 

a motion to adjourn this meeting. 

MR. ROCK:

So moved, Rob Rock from Rhode Island. 

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

Is there a second? 

MR. INGRAM:

Second, Keith Ingram of Texas. 

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

It is moved and seconded that this body adjourns the 

meeting. I will now take a voice vote to adjourn. 

All those in favor, say aye. 

[Chorus of ayes]

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

All opposed, say nay. 

[No response]

CHAIRWOMAN GRANDJEAN:

The ayes have it. Thank you all so much, and best of luck. 

***

[The Virtual Public Hearing of the United States Election Assistance Commission 

adjourned at 3:37 p.m.]

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