The Board of Elections serves to oversee the planning, validity, and execution of elections in Illinois. This encompasses dissemination of information, vetting the machines, recommending legislation, and training election officials, in addition to other functions.

See more about the Board of Elections on their website: elections.il.gov/AboutTheBoard/…

Today's meeting will be at 10:30 AM. It will cover campaign disclosure settlements and complaints, planning for the general election, the updates from bill 1863, and more. If you'd like to attend, you can go to the link in this notice. https://t.co/gXh9gfzBsG

Likely to be in attendance: the whole board, headed by Charles Scholz (pictured front center) https://t.co/yYC0otOlNU

Meeting has been called to order, after small talk about the coffee. Zoom makes the Pledge a little tricky. Here's the agenda for today https://t.co/7rCZePoJ75

Here's a snapshot of the meeting, as things get rolling https://t.co/CEWTKyNrks

They've approved the minutes of the last two meetings, everyone's voted in favor.

First item is the report of the general counsel. The Board is starting with settlement offers. There are three cases being seen today, SBE v. Citizens for Tyler Smith, SBE v. Illinois Family Action PAC, and SBE v. Friends of Robert Reyes.

Marni Malowitz is reporting back, starting with SBE v. Citizens for Tyler Smith is being fined for failure to file quarterly reports, and a failure to appear before the board.

The fines are over $13,000, but they are being offered a settlement of $366.56

Tyler Smith is present. "That's wonderful," Smith says, accepting the settlement offer.

They've moved on to SBE v. Illinois Family Action PAC. They are being fined $500, a settlement on a total of $1,000 in fines, for delinquent filing in 2019. They claim that family health was part of the reason they were unable to file their quarterly reports.

David Smith is representing the Family Action PAC. "I apologize... With Covid 19, the mail has not been arriving in a timely fashion." He also cites his the birth of his baby as a reason for the late filing.

He offered the settlement of $500 $1000, which Malowitz recommended denying. The board, however, has opted to accept the settlement.

Illinois Family Action is a 501(c)(4), non-profit political advocacy and lobbying organization and is dedicated to preserving and advancing the interests of family, faith, and freedom in the political arena.
illinoisfamilyaction.org/about/

They seem most interested in preventing safe access to abortions.

The board has confirmed that Smith has help with business matters in the future. They move onto Robert Reyes' case.

Robert Reyes is also being fined for delinquent filing. A settlement of $250 on a fine of $2750. The General Counsel recommends accepting the settlement, which the board approves.

The board votes to go into executive session in order to go over complaints. I will have to temporarily leave the call.

Waiting to get back in the meeting now.

*Correction: Should say "the settlement of $500 on a fine of $1000." Apologies for the typo.

Still waiting...

Apologies, accidentally started a new thread. See the main thread here twitter.com/jo_documenters…

Just got back in.

It seems like they're in the legislative updates portion of the meeting, item 3c. They're waiting on another member of the board for an earlier item.

Angela Ryan prevents. Apparently, the veto session has been extended, but there will be nothing related to elections ("Knock on wood").

Steve Sandvoss is presenting now, on preparations for the General Election. They're starting with election staff assignments, moving to a memo about bill 1863, and finishinng with an informational briefing on election judge training schools.

Smaller meeting now. https://t.co/sAAEB00S1A

Brent Davis: "We're down to just one jurisdiction with a shortage of judges."

Bill Cadigan emphasizing the work done to overcome the challenge posed by Covid with regard to recruiting election judges.

Currently thanking each other. Cadigan thanks Matt Dietrich for the work he did for transparency before the election. "Calming the waters."

Moving on to discussion of the CEIR grant. The board was granted $2,762,777.06, which they must spend by December 18th. This grant was given to every state.

CEIR stands for Center for Election Innovation & Research.

Scholzman says they're under-budget. They've spent 2 million, but still have another 2 million left before the grant.

Cadigan brings up the controversy behind accepting grants from private, "non-partisan" groups like CEIR. Kirk clarifies: "The funds have to spent on election information, media, mailing, that kind of thing."

Voting on complaints, seems like the order of the agenda got a little scrambled. This is item 2, supposedly under the general counsel.

Moving to general comments. It seems that whatever was not covered on the agenda was dealt with during the executive session.

One of the complainants is present, but the board has already voted to deny the complaint. The board is moving back into executive session. If the agenda is accurate, the meeting will end after this, so I believe this will be the end of my thread. Thank you for reading!