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1 1 NORTH CAROLINA STATE BOARD of ELECTIONS 2 COUNTY of WAKE ETHICS ENFORCEMENT 3 4 in RE: | | 5 North Ca

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1 1 NORTH CAROLINA STATE BOARD of ELECTIONS 2 COUNTY of WAKE ETHICS ENFORCEMENT 3 4 in RE: | | 5 North Ca 1 1 NORTH CAROLINA STATE BOARD OF ELECTIONS 2 COUNTY OF WAKE ETHICS ENFORCEMENT 3 4 IN RE: | | 5 North Carolina State Board | of Elections and Ethics Enforcement | 6 Public Comment Hearing | | 7 ______________________________________| 8 9 North Carolina State Board of Elections 10 and Ethics Enforcement 11 441 N. Harrington Street 12 Raleigh, North Carolina 13 14 15 MONDAY, JULY 31, 2017 16 12:05 p.m. 17 18 VOLUME I OF I 19 Pages 1 through 53 20 21 22 23 Board personnel present: 24 Mr. Joshua Lawson, General Counsel Ms. Katelyn Love, Deputy General Counsel 25 Ms. Emily Lippolis, Special Counsel 2 1 T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S 2 3 Call to Order 4 by Katelyn Love 4 North Carolina State Board of Elections 5 and Ethics Enforcement Public Comment Hearing 6 Speakers: 7 Jasmine Nethels 12 8 Lauren Williamson 14 9 Catherine Hipps 18 10 Glenda Clendenin 20 11 Dallas Woodhouse 22 12 Edmund Tiryakian 25 13 Bob Hall 29 14 Jay Delancy 32 15 Isela Gutierrez 37 16 Aylett Colston 41 17 Tom Stark 44 18 Laura Holley 47 19 Marguerite Creel 49 20 Kim Coley 52 21 Adjournment 52 22 Certificate 53 23 24 25 3 1 E X H I B I T S 2 3 Exhibits submitted by the speakers For Identification 4 5 1 (Letter to Kim Westbrook Strach 25 and Katelyn Love from Robin 6 C. Hayes, RE: Notice of Publication and Public Comment 7 on Proposed Rules, 7/31/17, 33 pages) 8 2 (Democracy North Carolina 30 9 Statement to State Board of Elections, RE: 08 NCAC 02.0111 10 Election Protest Form, 7/31/17, 2 pages) 11 3 (Democracy North Carolina article 32 12 Entitled The Deceit of Voter Fraud, 4/17, 18 pages) 13 4 (Memorandum to North Carolina County 34 14 Boards of Elections, North Carolina Democratic Party, North 15 Carolina Libertarian Party, North Carolina Republican Party from 16 Gary O. Bartlett, RE: Observers and use of Electronic Devices, 17 10/18/2010, 2 pages) 18 5 (General Assembly of North Carolina 35 Session 2017, House Bill 697, 19 4/11/2017, 1 page) 20 6 (Comments on Proposed NC Election 52 Rules, Marguerite R. Creel, 21 7/31/17, 1 page) 22 23 24 25 4 1 PROCEEDINGS 12:05 p.m. 2 MS. LOVE: We'll go ahead and get 3 started. Welcome to the North Carolina State Board of 4 Elections and Ethics Enforcement Public Comment Hearing. 5 My name is Katelyn Love. I'm deputy general 6 counsel here, and I am also the rule making coordinator. 7 Do you guys want to introduce yourselves? 8 MS. LIPPOLIS: I am Emily Lippolis. I'm 9 special counsel. 10 MR. LAWSON: Josh Lawson, general counsel. 11 MS. LOVE: So I'll start out giving a 12 brief overview of the process, and then after that, we'll 13 open up the hearing to public comments. 14 We have a sign-in sheet that's by the front door 15 so make sure, if you want to come up and give a comment, 16 that your name is on the sign-in sheet so we know to call 17 you up. 18 The purpose of this hearing is to allow the public 19 to provide oral comments on proposed rules that would amend 20 the North Carolina Administrative Code. The public plays 21 an important role in the rule making process by commenting 22 on proposed rules, and those comments can help shape the 23 text of the final rules. 24 Today's hearing will create a written transcript 25 of public comments on the proposed rules. A 5 1 transcriptionist is here to create a written transcript of 2 the entire proceeding, and that transcript will be provided 3 to the state board members prior to their consideration of 4 the text of the rules. 5 Notice of the rules, the comment period--notice 6 of the proposed rules, the notice of the comment period, 7 and notice of the hearing schedule was published on May 26th 8 and also appeared in the June edition of the North Carolina 9 Register. 10 The public comment period is open until the end 11 of the day today. So make sure that if you want to submit 12 a written comment, you can still do that at our 13 [email protected] e-mail address or using the public comment 14 portal that is available on our website. 15 I'll give a quick overview of the rule making 16 process next. A rule is any agency regulation, standard, 17 or statement of general applicability that implements or 18 interprets a law or that describes a practice or procedure 19 of the agency. 20 In North Carolina, a rule must meet certain 21 requirements. It must be within the authority delegated to 22 the agency by the General Assembly. It must be clear and 23 unambiguous, and it must be reasonably necessary to 24 implement or interpret state or federal law. It also must 25 be adopted according to the requirements of Chapter 150 B. 6 1 The current rule making process started earlier 2 this year when the state board voted to publish proposed 3 rules and open the public comment period, which, as I say, 4 ran from June 1st until today. 5 The state board currently has positions for eight 6 members, but board members have not been appointed so the 7 board's membership is vacant. Once board members are 8 appointed, the board will consider the rules of any 9 revisions, including the revisions resulting from any public 10 comments. 11 After that, the rules will be--if they're approved 12 by the board, they will be sent to the Rules Review 13 Commission, and if the Rules Review Commission approves the 14 rules, they will, then, be published and become final rules. 15 We're going to give a brief overview of a few of 16 the highlights from our rules. We're not going to read off 17 all the rules or go over every single proposed changed. All 18 of that is available on our website on our home page. 19 There's a notice of rule making, and that has the text 20 there, so these are just a few highlights. 21 The first is O8 NCAC 01.0106 which addresses 22 emergency powers. This rule provides standards for the 23 executive director's exercise of emergency powers in the 24 event of certain occurrences, which include a natural 25 disaster, extremely inclement weather, or an armed conflict. 7 1 The authority for the executive director to 2 exercise these powers already exists in statute, and the 3 reason that this rule was proposed was after last year when 4 Hurricane Matthew occurred, a superior court judge entered 5 an order extending the voter registration deadline in 6 certain counties that were affected by the storm, and it 7 became clear that we needed standards for the exercise of 8 that authority. 9 So what this rules does is it proposes standards 10 that define terms, including "natural disaster" and 11 "extremely inclement weather," and it also provides certain 12 things that the executive director is required to consider 13 in exercising her authority. 14 And then Josh is going to talk about a couple of 15 the other rules. 16 MR. LAWSON: Yes. I'll go over the ones 17 about the protests. So 08 NCAC 02.0110 is a lot of numbers. 18 This is an amended rule, and it follows the Board's 19 unanimous action last November in a case called In Re: 20 Consolidated Protests, specifically sub E of it adds a 21 requirement that clarifies that certification processes for 22 elections continues unless a protest involves the tabulation 23 of ballots or involves a number sufficient to cast doubt on 24 the outcome of the election. 25 So there are protests that would involve neither 8 1 of those, fewer than the number to cast doubt or does not 2 involve tabulation of ballots, and in those cases this rule 3 makes clear that certification of the election continues so 4 that there's no unnecessary delay in certification. 5 02.0111, this amendment highlights key statutory 6 requirements through revisions to the protest form itself. 7 The form now makes clear the standards of review, requires 8 certification of facts that are alleged. It also requires 9 that attorneys, if they're involved at all, state that they, 10 in fact, represent the protestor. So you don't have 11 represented parties that the county boards and the state 12 board don't know are represented by counsel. 13 02.0114, this proposed rule would provide a 14 process whereby the executive director may recommend to the 15 board members that a protest be dismissed for failure to 16 meet statutory requirements. 17 If any one board member, any one board member 18 objects to that, then it's heard as normal, and if they 19 don't, then an administrative dismissal can be brought, and 20 if the protestor believes that that was an error, they can 21 re-file or they can cure whatever defect was in the original 22 filing. 23 The rule does the same process for a county board 24 of elections as well, so one member can object. One member 25 can force a hearing.
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