Four more people to donate their time, so we went to the Secretary of State's website. You can find out how you can sign up and register to be a part of that process. So with that I would like to introduce Congressman Dave Joyce and we'd like to thank Dave for everything that he's done on our behalf. Thank you, Justin and thank you for having me here today and it's always a pleasure to be here with the Secretary of the um Justin's way too shy about what he's uh in modest about what happened was uh you know as we all know PE was a shortage when the pandemic first struck people were talking about having it getting it. No uh when this gentleman rented a plane and went over to and headed brought back from China uh and then supply. State of Ohio I was amazed in this warehouse was filled with boxes and he said. I'm gonna take the profit from this and buy these machines made in America to make sure that we're manufacturing our own goods because if we've learned anything from this pandemic is we can never rely on China and we must start manufacturing here at home. He's got a great team and I see him all here. I think this is the American dream uh that they took a problem and found the solution with no complaints and you've done a tremendous job and Justin that's off to you. He was so generous and I was explaining to him that our federal government response to the Congressional Office was fifty of these mass in 418 ounce bottles of purell and he walked right over to the shelf and hand me a box of said, Make sure your people are taken care of that and they thank you as well. I know that uh one of the most important duties we have obviously is to make sure that we have uh the give everyone the opportunity so they can exercise their duty to vote and I know our our election is gonna be safe and secure when you have a gentleman like Frank LaRose, who's in charge of it. But of course we have to make sure all the people who come in and vote no matter how they. Whether it's by absentee or a polling place or also safe and can remain safe and healthy and so this donation today will help secretary excuse me Uh do the right thing because he always does the right thing and come November. We're gonna be able to vote safely. It's gonna be one of the most important elections and I guarantee that thanks to the generosity of Justin that the poll workers and everybody working for Frank and the people who are coming into the elections uh facilities are all gonna be safe. You for being here, this is America's success story. God bless. Congressman Thank you very much very kind words I I'm very very honored to announce the 51st Secretary of State for Ohio Uh secretary is a graduate of the Ohio State University. He is married with three daughters. It was a green beret that US Army and that really hits home with me because my grandfather was a Marine World War two, he was uh he was part of a machine gun crew and EOG and Guadalcanal, and he was he was running ammunition day in and day out to keep that team moving and so it was his role to play his troops with PE at that time and I feel like it's our role and my company's role to do that now. so with that, I'd like to introduce Secretary Secretary of State Frank LaRose. Thank you. Grandfather is very proud of you because the work that he was doing to keep his Marines supplied with the things they needed to stay alive. You're carrying that work on by keeping Ohio and supplied with the things that they need to stay alive and so thank you so much for doing that. uh Senator John Ecklund. My dear friend. Thank you for being here. Congressman Dave Joyce really appreciate it. I'm gonna introduce you to Dale Fellows in just a minute. We got a great gathering here uh uh my friend Jason Willer, who's uh a community leader and running for office this year himself. What we're here today. Out is um this generous donation, but as Justin was saying, uh what's done here is really uh the work of these skilled people back here these Ohioans that are taking machines from Michigan and make them work. Uh that's what Ohioans do. I'm sure it's great. I'm sure it's great equipment but this is. I'm sure it's great, but this is what Ohioans do we make things We're good at manufacturing things here in the state and we make things that supply the world and instead of relying on China, we're gonna make our own and that kind of resiliency and that kind of determination is what sets apart. Um it's great that you all are willing to step up and help make sure that our elections officials are going to have the masks that they need and that our voters are gonna have the mask that they need um we've been making it very clear that we need to recruit 35000 poll workers to work the polls on Election Day and to keep the. Analogy going and that's like two infantry divisions worth the poll workers. I mean it's a big mobilization of people that it takes to run Election day and I've been telling voters that you know when you show up at your at your voting location on uh Tuesday, November 3rd, you're gonna see a smiling face there to greet you just won't see them smiling because they'll be a mask on because we're gonna be making sure that every elections official that's working the polls on Election Day has a mask on and we're also making sure that any voter that shows up that doesn't have a mask on it is offered one uh so that we can create that. For everybody because no Ohio and should be afraid to come and vote. of course, we have great options here in the state and so I wanna make it clear that those same three options that we've had in Ohio for close to two decades are gonna be available. You'll have 4 weeks of absentee voting or if you choose to you can vote from the comfort of home. You're gonna have 4 weeks of early voting where you can come to your board of elections or or the local elections office and and cast your ballot including evening and weekend hours and by the way this over 400000 that are being provided today will be part of that making sure that those early voting locations are. Equipped as well and then if you wait until November 3rd, the polls are gonna open at 6:30 AM and they're gonna close at 7:30 PM and you're gonna have the opportunity to safely cast your ballot and so uh I just wanna make sure that the message goes out loud and clear that masks are required at Ohio polling locations. they're required for both our elections, officials and their required for the voters to come and this generous donation today by Justin and his team at RBC Sigma is making that happen uh please make sure that you vote. please make sure that you. To vote, please make sure that you sign up to be a poll worker that can be done at Ohio.Gov Vote. Ohio.Gov is our website and it's the place where you can not only get registered to vote, but also sign up before work can get any information you need by the way including go in there to print the form to request your absentee ballot now uh as much as I'm proud to serve as Ohio's chief elections officer uh I don't actually run elections the real work of running elections happens at 88 county boards of elections where you've got this bipartisan teams that come together to do this really. At work, it was this bipartisan teams that we ask several weeks ago. Hey, if we can get you some masks, how many do you need and so they put their orders in to us and Justin and his team are fulfilling that uh and it's an amazing thing that you're doing to help make sure that we can have a safe election but uh one of those great elections officials is Dale Fellas who works here as a member of the Board of Elections in Lake County. He was recognized by his colleagues all around the state uh as their elections official of the year and so uh ladies and gentlemen. Elections leader for Ohio fellows Thank you. Thank you and what a great day. This is Justin amazing. What you're doing for us. I appreciate very much and the leadership of our secretary of state is phenomenal uh and being able to get us through this pandemic and uh the congressman. Oh my gosh. what a great support he is to everybody uh in Northeast Ohio and our Senator John Ecklund uh at the statehouse uh my gosh we've got uh just a great great group of folks and our. Ross Mcdonald and our deputy director is Jan Clair. They're the ones that really make this happen in Lake County. And uh you know our number one priority as elections officials to make sure that everybody everyone has the right to vote and votes in a safe environment. So without a doubt that's what all of us throughout the state of Ohio are doing all 88 counties all directors Deputy directors board members and staff, and let me tell you some of the things that we're we're doing on behalf of the voters uh. Our staff, especially one we're recruiting as the Secretary of State, 35, said 35000 poll workers. We need an election day almost a thousand right here in Lake County alone, but it also takes that seasonal staff as well as our regular staff to be here as well uh on a regular basis for several months leading up to election day. Uh they all joke was that we only work 2 days a year right Well. That's not true I invite anyone, especially the media to come in and see what we have to do each and every day and how many long days there are. but. Masks are a key component to what our safety rules are gonna be in protocols are gonna be throughout this whole time between now and election Day for our staff, our seasonal workers and then our election day our poll workers uh in addition to that, we're looking to try and get a face Shields as well for those who want those uh Plexi uh shields in our boards of elections and hopefully even maybe at our polling locations. Those are just some of the. We're working with our staff to be careful in what they do outside of we're working hours to make sure that they understand how essential they are uh and making sure that they're safe and their families are safe and then we're safe. We're doing things like at the board of elections for us. We're doing split shifts like we did in the uh in the spring to make sure that uh if. Somebody got that we've got other shifts that are working and making sure that the process continues uh I've got a laundry list of things that we're also doing making sure that our we are using disposable stylus to make sure that when you're voting on our machines that you don't even have to touch the machine, you have a disposable a stylus some people call AQ tip and it actually works uh obviously the social distance thing that we're gonna be doing leading up to as the Secretary of State said. We're gonna be open. October 6th Time and some weekends and some late evenings that is one of the components that I found out that people don't really realize that that's one of the parts of voting that people forget about everyone thinks it's just male and election day. Well now you can go in and vote in person for starting October 6th during the week and then those last two Saturdays on the weekends and some late hours as well. so make sure people. Take care or know that and and take advantage of that situation. We're gonna be wiping down everything after everybody's use every machine is gonna be wiped down. We're obviously using the face masks and which is again huge donation here um our check-in tablets are gonna be wiped down at every point disinfectant hand sanitizer every place so uh additional mask as we talked about one way traffic. We can in those polling locations curbside is gonna be available for folks who believe that they would rather vote there uh, of course, curbside has been something that voters have had the ability to do in the past. so the list goes on and on about how we are making preparations to make sure that election day is safe and that every single voter that's eligible to vote comes out to the polls and votes on election day uh and our staff. As well as all the staffs throughout the state of Ohio are coming up with different ideas that work in their counties different ways to do it working in partnership with the private sector in the park and and the public sector at the polling locations to make sure everything is safe and proper in the protocols are followed and that we have a wonderful election day in Ohio and everybody comes out to vote and that's our goal is to make sure that everyone gets a chance to vote on. Day or before so, I'm proud to be here as the Lake County and proud to be here as a as a state of Ohio and a golden Flash. Kent State Well as you can hear Dale was uh was laying out the safe and secure environment that we're gonna have. It's a forty-eight point checklist that we set the county boards of elections um and uh everybody should feel comfortable and safe coming to vote. Justin Hold on. Let me put this back on here. Alright, on behalf of our Sigma, I'd like to present the donation to the state of Ohio. Thank you sir. Thank you. God bless you guys. Thank you. At any of the members of the press have any questions, I guess I'd be happy to answer them at this time. Yes, so you know we've used the two terms interchangeably for years because in Ohio, the only way to vote absentee is you know are the only the only male in voting that we have is absentee voting and so we've used those two terms interchangeably because when Ohioans vote absentee most often, they mail it in and of course, you can drop it off to the board of elections and every board of elections in the state now has a secure 24 hour drop box available at the people can take advantage of and that's a thing That's a big improvement, actually just in the in the last year um but the That the president has made with this is that uh when he talks about absentee voting, that's a process where you request a ballot and then one is mailed to you uh and when he talks about uh uh mail-in voting what he's really talking about is universal Mail-in voting, which is a system like they've had for a long time in Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Utah, Now they have it in in Nevada and California. I believe where everybody is mailed a ballot whether they requested one or not and so again that may confuse some people uh but in Ohio, what we have is an absentee process. It's a two-step process You have to. Your ballot, but once you do, you'll get it mailed starting October 6 by the board of elections and I should say uh that we're mailing an empty ballot request form to every registered voter in the state. Those roll out just in the next couple of weeks right around Labor Day weekend 7.8000000 of them and again thanks to the General Assembly for authorizing the funding of that and thanks to the federal government for granting us that money because it's Cares Act dollars that we're using uh to to fund that absentee ballot request mailing program that every ohioan is gonna see in their mailbox soon. Yeah. Yeah. so um I've always been supportive of the idea of adding extra Dropbox is what you need, though is the legal underpinning that the legal authority to do that. and I don't have that uh that's authority that can only come to the General Assembly in my opinion. Uh what we have done is we've provided one drop box in every county Board of elections now just think about this 6 months ago, there were only two or three in the whole state. Now they're eighty-eight Every county Board of elections has one that's a big improvement. We can add more drop boxes, but again that would require a change in law. really my. Solution and this is something I've been saying since April, but I'd like to do is provide absentee ballot envelopes with with paid postage on em. uh we did that in the in the spring primary. Uh I think we can do it again, but it requires controlling board authority to the state Legislature um and if we had that absentee ballot envelope with paid postage on it, then it would be a simple matter of dropping your envelope in any uh post office. You know any Postal box in the state. you wouldn't have to go find uh the special drop box at the library or whatever else. Other questions. All the way here. Yes, sir. Say it again. Yes, I would be in support of that. I think that uh there are many counties uh bigger counties in particular where uh getting to the board of elections, for example, to cast a early ballot or to drop off your absentee ballot uh is can be a real challenge and so I see uh all kinds of good uh voter participation benefits that could come from in Lake County, for example, instead of just having the board of elections here in Paynesville if you had a place in Willoughby. And maybe in uh far Eastern Lake County so that people wouldn't have to necessarily travel halfway across God's half-acre uh in order to Uh vote early, so I would support that yes. Any further questions alright, Thank you so much everybody take care.