Board of Registrars - Regular Meeting

Okay. So, welcome everyone. Um, it is November 10th. Can't believe that one, right? I know. And it is um 9:58 a.m. Welcome to the board registar meeting. Um, so I'd like to call that to order and start out with our first agenda item to approve the minutes from August 4th. Um, so does everybody get a chance to review it? Any comments or concerns? Relatively short meeting, so yeah. No, it's fine. Okay. Yep. Nothing. Okay. Make a motion to approve. Okay. Second.

Second. All in favor? I I you trained me well then. He trained me well. [laughter] All right. So all opposed. Um [laughter] we don't have any. All right. The math didn't know if it was formality. [laughter] Okay. So um so our next agenda item is to uh discuss the uh preparation for the draft end of year report. And you sent us great deal of information. Yeah. And uh so you probably have lots of other stuff to talk about.

Yep. Okay. So this is the end of year report that was turned in last year and I if you want to change any of the wording, but as far as the data, that's all in my office and I'll pull it at the end of December. It's due on January 31st and last year Mike submitted it the year previous Candy did. um if you want to change the wording of any of it, but most of it is fixed information in regards to the election data and the financial report. Okay. Yeah, cuz D Oh, sorry.

Um yeah, cuz Dan had drafted that kind of new format last year. So if there's no there's no other different requirements or um data that needs to be included in that for this year that there is not I reached out to Cindy because this will be my first time submitting for Grafton and she said no this format is great this data is great and it's all numbers from what we have. Yeah. Good. Yeah. We had um done a couple of different events last year that I think we included in um the report of the elections. Um it was just related to the activities of the board of registars from last year. Yeah.

Last Yeah. Yeah. Where we had gone to uh what's that? Um we went to Crescent Manor. We did the the night out. The night out. Yeah. Mhm. Um so but I don't think we did anything really this year. No, she was pretty quiet. Yeah. The only thing was the special um not special election but the uh state um required audit. Oh, okay. Yeah. So, we attended that. Um that was last year last year. That was last year as well. Last year for the November election. So, yeah. Yeah. It's been quiet this year.

Yeah, it has been off here. Yep. Okay. Well, I'll draft it up and send you a copy prior, but there's I mean, we might as well hold off till closer to the time so all the financial numbers and stuff are in there. No, that's great. All right. Thanks. Thank you. Okay. Um, so our next agenda item is the the replacement system. The status of that. Yes. So, I did reach out to the state. I've heard nothing about testing or implementation. They said that there is not a date for the roll out and that they they just have no information of any dates coming. Okay. So, they're still replacing it. They didn't even promise that.

I thought it was all in the works and was supposed to be implemented in June. It was, but they just haven't done it. I'm I'm sure they're still going to do it, but they do not have any dates. They said there's no information. I've called like three people. Okay. Okay. We can't we can't make them do it, right? I think they probably will. I think, you know, I mean, they put a lot of work and money into it. It's just when is it coming? I don't know. They're just not releasing that information yet. Yeah. Do you have any idea what it would look like? I mean, is there any draft or anything that

No, nothing. Um the clerk that I worked with in Southboro was on the team to develop it and he doesn't have any information either, but it was um a more userfriendly screen because this one is a very old system. I see. And so it it was also that you could request reports and then they would be populated. Okay. More than the twice a day. Okay. Well, I'm sure I get information. I'll tell you as soon as I hear I just haven't heard anything and I did reach out to three separate people including the former clerk that I worked with but that there's nobody has even tested it yet.

Wow. Yeah. No, it seems like everything was like really gung-ho and yep it's coming. Yep. Get ready. We're going to do training and yeah. So I was like whatever happened to that? Yeah. It's just quiet right now. Mhm. But I'll keep you posted. Okay. Great. Thank you. So, um well, thank you for that. Um the next agenda item is uh uh creating a calendar of voter voting and registration events, requirements, and deadlines for 2026.

And you put it's a very nice packet together here. Um and um yeah, so if we want to just review it um brief summary. Sure. Okay.

So, the census I'll be using the same vendor. I already have the template um with them. I'll pull the extract in um December. I've been continuing to check that monthly as I promised when I started in March for duplicates. So, I feel like our list is pretty clean. Um and then I'll send that to them. It'll go out the first week in January. But that is slightly flexible. It has to do with postage. That's a two-part payment. and when the payments received from here. So, um, but everything from my end is all set. Okay. Yep. Good.

And then the annual report, I already talked to the town administrator's office. I know the data I have to provide. So, that will I'll take care of that. Um, the election worker training, I plan to do that myself. I'll do um probably four sessions um a daytime and an evening. um a couple just because there's so many people. I want it to be a little bit smaller um sessions so that we can have questions and answers. So, I'll do that. Is that the one that the state comes? Well, typically the state comes, but you don't have to have the state do it so I can do it. Oh, really? Yep. Oh, so okay. I was curious why we always waited for the state to come do it every year. I'm not sure. Okay.

Um and then we have the appointment at the end of March. Um but the um Democratic and Republican parties will send their lists in. Um we'll have to determine whether we want to do in-person early voting and let the select board know 45 days before our local election. Um we have the town meeting and the local election on the same warrant. That's why the date to register is the first. Um, the ballot testing is always dependent on when I get the cards for the um, tabulator and the ballots. The state does require I do it 4 days before, but I would just do it as soon as I have everything. I have to post the notice 48 hours before. So,

can I hold on? Can I go back just a second? Um, there was one that was 45 days before an election. Is that to Is that to request in personally voting? Okay. 45 days before I know that one has always that one's come up as to when we need to have our meeting and so it's Yeah. handy to know. Yeah. It's okay.

Okay. And so then um the state primary um we'll do in in-person early voting for that. Um, we have the date on there for the last day to register to vote. We'll do the ballot testing. Again, it's dependent on the cards and the ballots. Um, we'll set up the inperson early voting here like last year. And then we'll have the state primary. Um, and then the rules are different uh depending on how the ballot is received about when we have to like if I mail the ballot out, it's just and then we receive it back in the mail versus electronic. So I put all those dates on there.

So for the Yukava, those people Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And we'll do like we did for the local, we'll set a meeting and if we have any that come in, then we'll do it that way. Um and again the fall town meeting last day to register to vote the meeting and then we'll have the general election. We'll have the uh two weeks before for the in-person early voting again the ballot testing I'll do it as soon as I have everything in order. Um and then again the yokavas I have the dates written down there depending on how we do the ballots. Is that it? Great. Okay.

It's great. It's very helpful just to know what's going on, right? What's coming up and uh yes, good. Great. Thank you very much for putting that together. Yeah. Really good. Thank you. Yep. the uh description, you know, all these the um absentee voting and by mail and that was helpful as well. Um you know it's this this is state requirements, right? Yes. Yes, it is.

Okay. Yep. So good. Um it's helpful to you know for uh you know the board of registars to know about the process too. Um and um I think that kind of uh leads into my uh the next agenda item which I kind of brought up to you. Yes.

That I thought we could have some discussion about. Um the um I I think that you know just want to start out by saying I think that you know we have this is small town of Grafton. we have good procedures and uh in place and all but you know it's it strikes me as I you know become aware of the the the news and what's happening across the country and um how there seems to be such a lack of confidence in government in general and election process in particular um for a lot of uh a lot of people really question you know

um Is this is this really um you know um are things going by the book here or things happening you know

um and all of that. So what I was thinking this kind of works into that um how do we as a board of registars um you know help the community to u understand that what our process is um and um you know that they can have confidence in the fact that there are steps involved in all of this that are reviewed and um you know that are in place at the local level and the state level. Um so what I was thinking was some sort of a um a way of um having uh a um presentation of sorts of what you know what goes on with our election process. You know who how do we recruit poll workers? How do we train them? Um you know um how do we decide dates? you know, how do we decide um uh the um early voting stuff, you know, and I I think for most people, they don't pay attention to it. And then it and something doesn't fit their paradigm of what, you know, it should be, then there's all sorts of questioning, you know. So, if there were a u a you know, some sort of a um presentation that perhaps was documented, you know, uh on video that people could refer to, it might might help just to do our part to kind of make this process transparent and um build confidence in the elections in general. Well, I did talk to Bob to and he said that we can sign up to do like an interview with him and then we can go over the topics and discuss it. So, I can do it by myself, I can do it with Todd and Mike or I can do it with

all of you. If we have all the topics, then we can have a discussion with him and we can do different, you know, a couple different ones if you want to. So you just mentioned pole workers. Mhm. How they are recruited and um well you the the timing. Yeah. And what was the other uh just in general the process both the state and the local level the oversight like what you do and what we all do. Right. Right. To understand that there's a citizens involvement here. you know this uh a process that is good you know that's

well and that can live on our website too so people can see that we can break it up into small smaller bits and then people can watch like you know little ones about how do I vote in person how do I early vote how do I you know be on Tik Tok yeah I guess there is a Tik Tok but not in [laughter] my I don't even have Tik Tok. Well, I had a couple ideas of how to do this. Um, one would be to just bake it into a select board meeting because, you know, sort of a public service for the town and then there's a built-in audience. Okay. You know, and if we tell them, okay, we'd like to take whatever 10 minutes. I can't imagine like they're going to they're going to say no. No, they wouldn't.

Right. So, I think that's good just because it's easy for people. There's Zoom, you know, so that might be the easiest. The select board also has like ask a member times. I don't think they're as well attended but at least there's the infrastructure. So sometimes they have two people so they get one person and us.

And then the third thing which I think is more heavy lifting is just ask lead women voters to do an event right where like they really help with the logistics. They have a built in like you know mailing list and and whatever. Um and then it can be publicized to other groups. But like as a standalone event, I mean, no offense, but I'm just like think having like a bakedin audience like with the select board. I think it's reasonable and maybe if they say no, we could, you know, think about something freestanding, but I don't think they will say no. I can reach out and ask and then communicate that with you. What's the viewership of select board meetings? Do we know how many people would actually see it or tune in?

Well, it depends on the agenda. I think a decent number of people check the agenda and then like if there's anything like interesting like there's all the seats are full and yeah you know there's a zoom option so if you know we help all you know get the word out. Yeah. No I was just curious if we had any statistics on on what the viewership is now but yeah I'd have to bother that. No I'm just curious. Yeah. I mean, what I was thinking was that um uh this would be a reference, you know, kind of video of some some sort that people can refer to that it can be shown on a regular basis. Yeah. If it's on the website, it can be easily accessed for anybody

anytime. Do you think we could really do justice to it 10 minutes at a select board meeting? Well, we could do both. No. Yeah. May maybe the select board meeting is just the fact that hey we're going to be putting this out there. These are the different video sessions that we're going to do the top you know given the topic. So it's a more of a hey come to our website and see these videos kind of thing. More of an advertisement quick overview maybe because you're right otherwise I don't think 10 minutes is enough to explain everything that needs to be explained. Yeah.

I mean, I don't know off I don't know popularity what their what their time limit would be, but even that even if it's just like 10 minutes to say we're going to be providing this information, but then if it's on the agenda that people can ask questions, I think that's a valuable like way to engage public. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I I wouldn't, you know, be opposed at all to presenting it at at the select board meeting. Um, but um, you know, maybe there should be something else, too, that that they could be referred to. Yeah. No, absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah. Um, so that would be the bigger picture that I was thinking about. Um, so what would you envision like presenting at 10 minutes at a select board meeting? like what what do you think would uh kind of uh do justice to that? Like um well, I mean the one of the most important things is people know where to find out the dates for everything. Right. Right. Um and they know where to find out like when is when is town meeting, when is town election, right?

Um like you see people, you know, I see it on Facebook, people complain like, "Oh, I didn't know that there was a meeting." It's like, "Well, you don't have to like look that hard." But, you know, if it's a couple layers into the website, like people just, you know, might not make it. And we don't really have like a true community-based, you know, newspaper anymore, right? So, that's that's an impediment. So, when does everything happen? Where can I get the the information? Um and then you know explain you know your role and what in and what you do and the you know the fact that we have you know quite a cadre of election workers who are like you know pretty carefully trained. And I think those are, you know, and then just the whole oversight process after the voting

like just sort of the maybe the highlights of all those things, not like a lot of detail, but just encourage people like, you know, this is an effort at transparency. You know, there's plenty of information that that we're we're going to put out more, but there's, you know, there's information like on the website, you know, for your office for the, you know, state secretary of, you know, secretary of Y.

Yeah. who oversees, you know, has responsibility for the for the oversight. And also like even people just knowing like elections still live at the regulated by the state level. There's state laws, you know, state oversight, you know, they send the information when it's a federal election, they send the information in, but it's all, you know, it's all controlled like relatively locally. So, we all can play our part, you know, in in supporting that, too.

Yeah. Yeah, I think it's really important for the board of registars to be presenting this together, you know, because we're all part of the board registring uh Amy, you know, so she has a different role as a town clerk, but um I think it's important for people to know that there is a citizen component to it, you know, that we could present it in that way.

Yeah. If you if you pulled people, they wouldn't necessar not that many people know that we, you know, this this role. No, I I remember when I was um appointed um uh or I think it wasn't after that um I presented one time at the border registars meeting I mean not border registers the board of select select board um and uh yeah just you know turned to the audience to say you know this is what we do you know this is the board of registars users and [snorts] this is what I didn't didn't even have enough info to present about what what the election process is at that point because I was uh so new at it but just to let people know that

yeah your fellow citizens are involved in this process and we have open meetings people can come and ask questions right so sure that alone is worth you know getting out there we exist what's our composition what's our charge and that there's open meetings has a concern they can come and that's right. Yeah. People should know that. Yeah. Cuz that's also a level of transparency. Like I wouldn't know that there were open meetings unless somebody you know Yeah. [clears throat and cough] I mean they are on on the uh access channel. So I [snorts] don't know if you've looked at yourelves on the access channel. Yeah. Unfortunately

really astounding. [laughter] But anyway, um, you know, I mean, it is there for people to to find it and all, but how many people actually do it, I don't know. But it's nice to have reference to something like this. That's what I was thinking of.

If u people have question about what you do or what we do or, you know, what the uh election process is, [snorts] they can refer to it, you know, say, "Ah, I'll look it up on the access channel." So, but um so how to proceed with it um would be the next step. I I guess that what we would need to do would be to um have you know there'd be two parts to this. One would be um the select board presentation and then the other would be working on something a little bit more elaborate that we could put on the access channel. That sounds good. Yeah. So, um I'll reach out to the select board. We'll probably want to do it in January just because we don't want to do it this year. People if they send me their applications, they're on a yearly cycle. So, probably January

would be a better time to do that. So, okay.

Yeah. It really is uh [snorts] important kind of thing. Democracy at that works. [laughter] All right. So good. Thank you Amy and everybody for your comments. Like that was uh makes a lot of sense. Um okay. So you know what? We made it through um most of our agenda here. um except for scheduling our next meeting.

So, could I add a little note to that? I talked to Bob in regards to the taping. Mondays and Fridays are not the best days for him. I don't know what your schedules are um because they're taping it now, but Okay. He said um those aren't always the best days. Okay. I could I don't know. I don't know what your schedule's like or I mean different weeks are different, you know. Okay. quickly propose something. Try me for Thank you. Tuesday mornings are good for me. Tuesday mornings are usually good for me. They're pretty good. Yeah, I'm here for 100 hours on Tuesdays. [laughter] I can break it up a little. That's nice. We could try that. Tuesdays. Yeah, that's good.

Okay. Yeah. So, um, terms of our next meeting, if we're going to present in January, we probably need to get together and figure out what we're presenting. [laughter] So, do you want to find a time in December, which I know is a tough time to uh for people. It's so such a busy month, but [clears throat] Yeah. How about the How about the 16th? 16th of December. Yeah.

Yeah. I won't be here. I'm gone for a week [clears throat] in December and then the holidays. What if we did early January and then did a later January meeting with the select board? Okay. That sounds very s Yeah, that would work. Yeah. So, January, um, we do the 6th or the 13th. Either one of those are good for me. Yep. Six is mine for me. The sixth.

Well, that brings up a question. Can I participate by Zoom? Yes. Okay, then whatever. Okay. Is 10 a good time? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. I'll make sure that was the same kind.

All right. January 86. Good. Okay. 2026. All right. So, do we have some um public comments? Huh? How are you? I'm good. How are you? Good. Good. Welcome.

Please introduce yourself. I'm sorry.

Can you introduce yourself? Of course. Uh my name is Dan Fitzgerald. I live at 11 Patricia Drive in Grafton. Good morning members of the board. Today I come before you to respectfully make a request of registars Bonina and Gerstein. I ask that you encourage the Grafton Democratic Town Committee to fill a current statement of organization with both the Grafton Town Clerk's Office and the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance as required under Massachusetts General Law Chapter 52 section 5. The Democratic Town Committee statement of organization which I obtain I have obtained from both the town and the office of campaign and political finance is dated April 7th 2022. It is now more than 3 and 1/2 years old and appears to be inaccurate in identifying the committee's current members and the title of officers held by those members. Both of you are appointed as Grafton registars through a regulated process that gave you preference over other Grafton residents who may have been interested interested in serving in that capacity. Your appointments were made in part because of your affiliation with the Grafton Democratic Town Committee. The correct identification of town committee officers and members not only ensures transparency but also strengthens the integrity of the registar appointment process itself. As registars, you each refer to and abide by Massachusetts laws in carrying out your sworn duties to the town of Grafton. The same expectation should apply to the committee through which your appointments were made possible. Thank you for your time and your continued service to Grafton.

Thank you. Any uh discussion? Well, I guess I just have a comment that it's a reasonable request and it seems like it's in keeping with, you know, how things are supposed to work. Yep. I think that, you know, I just want to be clear like me personally, can I be responsible for that? No. Right. We can encourage uh but you know, we'll we'll see what you think that's a fair enough. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, as members of Democratic Town Committee, we should, you know, bring it forth and u have our leadership uh

do that. Do that. Yeah. I mean, I I I agree with that. Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay, we shall do that. Thank you. Okay, so um well, there are no other comments or agenda items. Um I suggest that we adjourn. Do I have a motion? I motion we adjourn. Second. All in favor? I.

Okay. Opposed. Okay. Thank you.