Transcript of the Public Meeting of the Board of Advisors to the United States Election Assistance Commission Held at The Sphinx Club Oasis Room 1315 K Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20005 Held on Tuesday, June 2, 2009 VERBATIM TRANSCRIPT 1 The following is the verbatim transcript of the Public Meeting of the Board of Advisors to the United States Election Assistance Commission (“EAC”) held on Tuesday, June 2, 2009. The meeting convened at 9:16 a.m., EDT. The meeting was recessed at 5:48 p.m., EDT. PUBLIC MEETING CHAIR THOMAS: I'd like to call the Board of Advisors to order and thank you all for coming. Glad you all made it in good shape and our first order of business, we will Pledge Allegiance to the Flag. If you would please stand. ALL PARTICIPANTS: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. CHAIR THOMAS: I'm Chris Thomas, the Chair of the Board. I'm the Director of Elections from Michigan and represent NASED here. And I would, at this time, ask the Secretary, Terri Hegarty, to call the roll. MS. HEGARTY: LuAnn Adams? MS. ADAMS: Here. MS. HEGARTY: Thomas Bush? MR. BUSH: Here. MS. HEGARTY: 2 Robert, excuse me, Robin Carnahan? [No response.] MS. HEGARTY: Pedro Cortès? SECRETARY CORTES: Here. MS. HEGARTY: Bill Cowles? MR. COWLES: Here. MS. HEGARTY: Joseph Crangle? MR. CRANGLE: Here. MS. HEGARTY: Keith Cunningham? MR. CUNNINGHAM: Present. MS. HEGARTY: James Dickson? MR. DICKSON: Here. MS. HEGARTY: Craig Donsanto? MR. DONSANTO: Here. MS. HEGARTY: 3 Libby Ensley? MS. ENSLEY: Here. MS. HEGARTY: Tom Fuentes? MR. FUENTES: Here. MS. HEGARTY: Ron Gardner? MR. GARDNER: Here. MS. HEGARTY: Ernie Hawkins? MR. LEWIS: Here by proxy. MS. HEGARTY: Here by proxy? Terri Hegarty is here. Gary Herbert? MR. HERBERT: Here. MS. HEGARTY: Mary Herrera? SECRETARY HERRERA: Here. MS. HEGARTY: Philip Jenkins? MR. JENKINS: Here. 4 MS. HEGARTY: Sarah Ball Johnson? MS. JOHNSON: Here. MS. HEGARTY: Donald Jones? MR. JONES: Here. MS. HEGARTY: Neal Kelley? MR. KELLEY: Here. MS. HEGARTY: Linda Lamone? MS. LAMONE: Here. MS. HEGARTY: Sue Landske? SENATOR LANDSKE: Present. MS. HEGARTY: Doug Lewis? MR. LEWIS: Here. MS. HEGARTY: Rhine McLin? [No response.] 5 MS. HEGARTY: Arlan Melendez? MR. MELENDEZ: Here. MS. HEGARTY: Chris Nelson? SECRETARY NELSON: Here. MS. HEGARTY: Wendy Noren? [No response.] MS. HEGARTY: David Orr? [No response.] MS. HEGARTY: Frank Ortis? [No response.] MS. HEGARTY: Helen Purcell? MS. PURCELL: Here. MS. HEGARTY: Thomas Upton Reynolds? REPRESENTATIVE REYNOLDS: Here. MS. HEGARTY: Todd Rokita? 6 SECRETARY ROKITA: Here. MS. HEGARTY: Barbara Simons? DR. SIMONS: Here. MS. HEGARTY: Abigail Thernstrom? MS. THERNSTROM: Here. MS. HEGARTY: And Chair Chris Thomas? CHAIR THOMAS: Here. COMMISSIONER HILLMAN: Mr. Chair, if I might, Robin Carnahan has assigned a proxy to Wendy Noren, but Wendy won't be here until tomorrow. CHAIR THOMAS: Okay, and the number? MS. HEGARTY: We have one, two, three, four, five, six, six absent, but two by proxy. So, four absent, two by proxy and of the 35 people, 29 present, sir. CHAIR THOMAS: Okay, we do have a quorum and my Robert's Rules of Order tells me that's when I should call this to order, not prior to having a quorum. We do have a quorum, so we will continue on. 7 I would ask you to review the agenda that's in your packet. The only change that I'm aware of in the agenda is the Board photo, so all of you who primped for today, you're actually going to have that photo tomorrow. We've got a couple members who are coming in that will be in tomorrow, and I think all of you will continue to be with us tomorrow. So, that's the only substantive change to the agenda. Do I have a motion on adoption? MR. DONSANTO: So moved. CHAIR THOMAS: If you would say your name before you speak or beginning your remarks. MR. DONSANTO: Craig Donsanto, so moved. CHAIR THOMAS: A second please? MR. GARDNER: Ron Gardner, second. CHAIR THOMAS: Thank you Ron. All in favor? [Multiple responses in affirmation.] CHAIR THOMAS: Opposed? [No response.] CHAIR THOMAS: Okay, the agenda is adopted. At this point, I'm going to call on Secretary Herrera to give a report from a special committee that 8 she chaired that is looking at the structure of our meetings. And you can find the report on Tab 8 in your agenda, or pardon me, in your notebook. This, like all our committees, were very hard working and I very much appreciate the efforts of each of the members to take time to look at the meetings. I found that after our last couple meetings that we really needed to take another look at exactly how we handle resolutions and handle the meeting itself. We found that on the last day there's a lot of wordsmithing going on with resolutions, people trying to get to airports, and it just, it got a little unruly, if you will. So we have a committee which Secretary Herrera chaired, Jim Dickson is on it, Elizabeth Ensley, Ron Gardner and Ernie Hawkins and Terri Hegarty, along with Gracia Hillman. So, at this point, Secretary? SECRETARY HERRERA: Mr. Chair, members of the committee, the committee was asked to review the structure and proceedings of the EAC Board of Advisors meetings and to develop recommendations for the Chair's consideration. The Chair was interested in suggestions as to how the consideration of resolutions should be interwoven throughout the meeting agenda in a manner that will be more efficient than in the past. The committee met by telephone conference calls on February 24th, March 11th, March 25th and April 29th. Summary notes were recorded at the meetings and distributed to all the members. The committee developed a set of recommendations which are contained in the April 29th memo to Chris Thomas, Chair 9 Thomas, excuse me. Attached is the report. Recommendations are as follows: 1. The annual board meeting should be 2-1/2 days in length, beginning at 9:00 a.m. on Day 1 and ending at 12:00 noon on Day 3. 2. Board members should be encouraged to make their travel plans such that they will be present for the entire meeting. 3. Motions from the floor. The committee recommends and strongly urges that board members be encouraged to offer motions from the floor in lieu of resolutions. The committee believes this will streamline and expedite consideration of matters and allow for more efficient use of time at the board meetings. This is really new. This is different from the past, what we've been doing in the past, we've been required to submit resolutions if we wanted any changes. So the committee felt real strongly on this for motions from the floor. 4. With respect to the submission of resolutions, the committee recognizes that members may want to introduce a resolution. To that end, the committee 10 considered the variations of resolutions that could be presented to the board and offers the following recommendations: Resolutions are to be submitted according to the standard format. Resolutions being offered by standing, ad hoc and special committees should be submitted to the DFO at least 25 days before the meeting so that they can be included in the board member briefing books, which are sent to you about two weeks before the meeting. Resolutions offered by individual members should be submitted to the DFO 25 days before the meeting if possible. In advance of the meeting, if possible. Once the meeting begins, resolutions would be submitted to the Chair of the Resolutions Committee, but no later than the end of the lunch break on Day 2. Resolutions presented after the deadline should not be considered for the meeting. 5. With respect to the Consideration of Resolutions, the committee recommends the following timelines to provide ample time for board members to fully 11 consider the resolution and work out proposed amendments directly with the maker of the resolutions before it is brought to the body for a vote. Committee Resolutions should be discussed at the time the committees make their reports to the board. For Day 1 and 2 of the meeting, if the committee report is made in the morning, then the resolutions should be voted on in the afternoon. If the committee report is made in the afternoon, then the resolutions should be voted on the next morning. Individual Resolutions should be considered at regular intervals throughout the meeting agenda, following the same timeline above. If a resolution is discussed in the morning, then it should be voted that afternoon. If a resolution is discussed in the afternoon, then it should be voted on the following morning. So, those are our recommendations. CHAIR THOMAS: Thank you very much. This committee brought some very interesting ideas to the table, one of which, that I'm very pleased with, is the 2-1/2 day meeting. That really will give us time to do our work. As I indicated before, it was quite clear that we really didn't have enough time, and as people, again, dash for afternoon flights, it started to affect our quorum. And we certainly wouldn't 12 want to leave a meeting sort of in a lurch, so I think the 2-1/2 days, we'll see how this works. It seems like a good way to go. One of the major things that the Secretary's committee has put together is this idea of using motions.