MINUTES

                          City of Charlottesville Electoral Board
                                Meeting of May 10-11, 2022

The meeting was called to order by the Chair at 6:08 p.m. on Tuesday May 10 in the
office of the Charlottesville General Registrar. Those present were Electoral Board
members Jon Bright (Chair), Anne Hemenway (Vice Chair) and Jim Nix (Secretary), and
Director of Elections and General Registrar Taylor Yowell.

On a motion by the Vice Chair the agenda was unanimously approved without change.

On a motion by the Vice Chair, the minutes of the March 22, 2022 meeting were
unanimously approved without change.

Public Comment

Mr. Jeremy Jones, representing the Charlottesville Democratic Committee was present
but only for the May 10 portion of the meeting. He made no statement but asked about
the potential for moving the Alumni Hall polling place to another location and expressed
concern that doing so would inconvenience some UVa student voters.

Discussion Items

Reprecincting – Ms. Yowell informed the Board members that the City’s new GIS
Coordinator has been working on possible new precinct boundaries and expects to
provide an initial draft map in mid-May. Progress has been slowed by the fact that
combining voter data from VERIS with population data from the census is difficult and
time consuming.

Potential Replacement of Electronic Pollbooks (EPBs) – Significant shortcomings
have been noted with the DemTech EPBs currently used for Charlottesville elections
prompting the Registrar and Electoral Board members to consult with vendors
displaying competing equipment at the resent Virginia Electoral Board Association
annual meeting in March. Following that meeting the Registrar, with encouragement
from the Board, requested a demonstration of the KnowInk EPBs along with a written
proposal for a complete EPB package to include equipment, software, training, and
maintenance. A separate proposal was requested for purchase of ballot on demand
printers to facilitate early in-person voting under the new law requiring central absentee
reporting by precinct.

A key advantage advertised for the KnowInk EPB system is its ability to scan the
barcodes printed on absentee return envelopes by VERIS. This would markedly

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improve the speed and efficiency of processing ballots received by mail. Other features
of this equipment should improve the efficiency of in-person early voting, speed election
day voting and simplify the tasks of the Registrar in setting up the EPBs for the election.
The meeting was suspended at 7:30 pm with a plan to reconvene for a demonstration of
the KnowInk Poll Pad system on May 11 and a potential decision to purchase this
system.

The meeting was reconvened at 8:35 am on Wednesday, May 11 with the following
additional members of the office staff in attendance: Voter Registration Manager Jamie
Virostko, Assistant Registrar Laurel Isatchenko, Assistant Registrar Katherine Mauller,
Assistant Registrar Joshua Jenkins, and Assistant Registrar Grant Armstrong.

Ms. Trisha Bandstra, Marketing Director of KnowInk, gave a presentation on the
features and operation of the Poll Pad electronic pollbook followed by a demonstration
using an actual Poll Pad set up. Questions from the staff focused mainly on the use of
this system for in-person absentee voting and for processing ballots received by mail.
The presentation also covered the Poll Print ballot-on-demand printer as a tool for in-
person early voting under the new law mandating central absentee reporting by
precinct. The demonstration and answers to the questions reinforced a growing
consensus among the Board members and staff that purchase of this system would be
a cost-effective way to significantly improve the conduct of elections in Charlottesville.

Following the presentation Ms. Yowell reviewed the written proposal from KnowInk with
the Board and explained that funds were available in the budget for the current fiscal
year to purchase enough Poll Pad EPBs to equip the nine voting precincts, the central
absentee precinct and the early voting site in the registrar’s office and to purchase two
Poll Print ballot-on-demand printers for use in the office for early in-person voting.
There followed a brief discussion of the merits of the system and its potential to save
considerable time for staff, election officials and the Registrar as well as to speed voting
on election day. The Chair moved that the Registrar proceed with a procurement action
for this equipment using funds available in the current fiscal year budget. The motion
was seconded by the Vice Chair and approved unanimously.

The next meeting will be held in the office of the Charlottesville General Registrar
starting at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday June 14, 2022.

The meeting was adjourned at 10:25 am.

Respectfully submitted:



James Nix, Secretary

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Jon Bright, Chair         Anne Hemenway, Vice Chair




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