Page 1 SECURE, ACCESSIBLE & FAIR ELECTIONS COMMISSION STATE OF GEORGIA ------------------------------------------------------------ The above-entitled SAFE Commission meeting was held before Patrick Stephens, Certified Court Reporter, in and for the State of Georgia, commencing at 10:00 a.m. on this, the 12th day of December, 2018, at Secretary of State’s Professional Licensing Boards Division, 237 Coliseum Drive, Macon, Georgia 31217. --------------------------------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT LEGEND - (Interjection of thought for clarification) -- (Interruption of thought) ... (Trailing off or did not complete thought) (ph) (Phonetically) [sic] (In its original form) Page 2 1 ( P R O C E E D I N G S ) 10:00 A.M. 2 SECRETARY CRITTENDEN: Good morning, and welcome to 3 the Secretary of State’s Professional Licensing Division 4 office here in Macon and the third Secure, Accessible, and 5 Fair Elections or SAFE Commission Meeting. 6 I am Robyn Crittenden and I’m the Secretary of State. 7 I was appointed by Governor Deal last month to fill the 8 remainder of Governor-elect Kemp’s term following -- it’s 9 not on? -- following his resignation. I am honored to 10 serve in this capacity, and my focus has been on integrity, 11 transparency and compliance with the law, which is what it 12 has been throughout my career in public service. 13 Prior to coming to the Secretary of State's office, I 14 spent time in several different areas of state government, 15 including working at the Georgia Student Finance Commission 16 and, most recently, serving as the commissioner of the 17 Department of Human Services. 18 Now, at this time, I’d like to lead the Pledge of 19 Allegiance, so if everyone would stand and join me. 20 (Collective Pledge.) 21 I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United 22 States of America, and to the Republic for which it 23 stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty 24 and justice for all. 25 Thank you. Now, from -- from what I understand, this Page 3 1 group has already heard from several different groups, and 2 stakeholders, and public comment and has already made a 3 great deal of progress, but I'm excited to continue the 4 important discussion about our state’s next voting system. 5 We're -- we’re joined here today by Representative 6 Brad Raffensperger, and he is going to be critical in 7 continuing to carry out these efforts forward and to 8 oversee the implementation of the work of the Legislature 9 and Governor-elect Kemp. 10 Representative Raffensperger, thank you so much for 11 being here. Would you like to give a few comments? 12 SECRETARY RAFFENSPERGER: Sure. From this -- here? 13 SECRETARY CRITTENDEN: Yeah. 14 SECRETARY RAFFENSPERGER: Is that good? 15 SECRETARY CRITTENDEN: Yeah, that’s fine. 16 SECRETARY RAFFENSPERGER: Thank you, Secretary 17 Crittenden and Co-chair Fleming. Thank you for this 18 opportunity to speak to the commission members and to all 19 of the attendees here. 20 Secretary Crittenden, I'd like to personally thank you 21 for your gracious welcome last week in the Secretary of 22 State’s office as we began our transition planning. I 23 realize how many demands you have on your time and I’m very 24 grateful for the support you’ve given us. 25 As you know, the Secretary of State’s office is the Page 4 1 focal point for elections because the priceless franchise 2 to vote requires free, clean and accurate elections 3 throughout every aspect of the election process. 4 Obviously, a key component of this is secure voting 5 machines. Our machines were state of the art in 2002 and, 6 today, it is imperative we complete our research for 7 security and technology for the next decade. 8 I have said that we need the most secure, updated 9 voting technology with a verifiable paper audit trail and a 10 system that moves voters faster through the line so we can 11 reduce wait times. Aside from that, I have no 12 predetermined outcome on the system or the vendor for our 13 next-generation voting machines. 14 Our next legislative session begins on January 14th 15 and I know that the General Assembly and our department is 16 looking forward to the completion and recommendations from 17 this commission’s very important work. Thanking -- thank 18 you for offering yourself for service in this critical and 19 noble effort. 20 SECRETARY CRITTENDEN: Thank you. At this time, I'm 21 going to turn the meeting over to Representative Barry 22 Fleming and he’s going to walk everyone through our agenda 23 for today. 24 REPRESENTATIVE FLEMING: Thank you, Madam Secretary, 25 and good morning to all. It’s -- it’s good to see all of Page 5 1 you again. I thank all of you for taking the time out of 2 your regular schedules and Christmas shopping that you 3 should be doing and -- and being here for -- once again, to 4 talk about something very important to Georgia; that is, 5 voting in our state. 6 We do have an agenda this morning and I know there are 7 copies on the way in right over there. We’re certainly 8 going to try to stick to it. There is a time on the agenda 9 for public comment. I know there are sign-up sheets that 10 should be circulating throughout the audience. And so, if 11 you need to sign up and, for some reason, don’t find the 12 sheet, Secretary of State Crittenden’s staff is right over 13 here to my left and -- and -- and they can, obviously, be 14 able to help you out. 15 As always, I appreciate all of you coming that has a 16 -- have an interest in our proceedings today. We've had 17 very good participation from the public at our prior 18 meetings. I know -- recognize a lot of faces out there. I 19 know all of you are well-intended citizens and we thank you 20 for being here. 21 As always, we would ask everyone to be civil with 22 their comments. Also, please recognize that we do have 23 time limits for our presentations today and we will gently 24 initially remind you of that and ask you to -- to help us 25 keep that in order. My goal is not to have to call anybody Page 6 1 down for not being civil, and it hasn’t happened so far, 2 and -- and I thank all of you for that. But let’s keep 3 those in mind as our rules. 4 We also have with us today, again, a court reporter. 5 Patrick Stephens is right over there with that thing 6 covering his mouth. He’s repeating everything I say, I 7 hope, and I -- I told Patrick, when I first met him, that 8 my dear wife is a court reporter and, as an attorney, I 9 have been trained well not to speak over other people 10 because the court reporter gets mad when you do that 11 because they're trying to take down everything we say 12 accurately. 13 So I would remind -- of course, members of the panel 14 know this, and the audience that as we have discussions, 15 that we want to be careful not to talk over one another so 16 the transcript can be taken down accurately. 17 As you see from your agenda this morning -- getting a 18 little feedback there. 19 STAFF MEMBER: Can you try turning off the microphones 20 that aren’t being used? 21 REPRESENTATIVE FLEMING: Turn off the ones that aren’t 22 being used. That would be... there we go. That will help 23 us a little bit. All right. 24 But, as you see from your agenda there, we’ll have 25 three presentations from -- starting now until about noon, Page 7 1 and then we'll have a lunch break and then probably come 2 back around the 1 o'clock hour, and we’ll adjust that as 3 need be. 4 Members of the Commission, we have brought lunch in 5 for you so that you can eat and we’ll have some -- some 6 comments there to make that time productive for us as well. 7 There is a, as I mentioned earlier, a time for public 8 comment and then we’ll end our meeting with a discussion 9 amongst the members of the commission. 10 Our hope is to begin now to formulate our thoughts, 11 our questions that we want the Secretary’s staff to -- to 12 work on for us. My anticipation is, is that we probably 13 will announce another meeting in January, maybe the -- 14 early January before the legislature meets for us to 15 actually formalize, hopefully, a recommendation to the 16 governor and to the legislature as far as our thoughts on 17 Georgia moving ahead with our -- our voting machines and -- 18 and what we do next basically. 19 So that’s -- that’s the tentative outline, the best 20 laid plan of mice and men, and we’ll see how it goes today. 21 But, once again, thank you all for being here. Are there 22 any questions from any of our commission members before we 23 get started into -- into the program? Anybody? 24 All right. Well, let's get going then. Garland -- 25 and I want to say Favorito. Did I get that right? Page 8 1 MR.