Maureen Bugdon Superintendent of Elections and Commissioner of Registration at NAACP AC Meeting

further Ado my good friend Commissioner of registration and superintendent of Le for ATL County Mor [Applause] B you want behind sure good evening everybody thank you so much for having us good evening my my name is Moren bug thank you um and joining me are two members of my team Autumn Vasquez who's in charge of Outreach for our office and Dan mondorf who's in charge of voting machines um and part-time on the um voting machine Warehouse along with another fly woman who's not with us this evening so thank you for having me yes I wear several hats um just to give you a little background I was eight years On The Board of Elections as a commissioner before becoming super intendent of Elections and Commissioner of registration in 2013 um and I've been serving in that role ever since appointed under Republican and reappointed under a Democrat Governor twice um I also have a deputy superintendent of Elections for the last two years when the office was expanded in the way of Audrey miles who's been a fantastic addition to our team we have three offices one in the county office building on the fourth floor one in the County Seat in MA landing and then a non-public office in the way of the voting machine Warehouse which is the most secure of our three facilities for obvious reasons it houses our Fleek of brand new voting machines and electronic eole books um so for those of you who don't know me elections are really my passion prior to that I ran the Atlantic City Race Course um which was also a great Passion so I guess it's races of one kind or another that get my interest right um and I also sit proudly on the United States election commission the EAC as a local leadership member I'm the immediate past president of the New Jersey Association of election officials um the a founding um steering Committee Member for the partnership for large election jurisdictions and most recently the bipartisan policy group so trying to keep New Jersey and Atlanta County specifically not only on The Cutting Edge when it comes to election law and changes but on what's happening in so far as the election Arena itself um most especially my more recent um strides have been protecting election officials who were coming under siege Nationwide because of the rhetoric that you see in the news um and in our County alone where there's been some significant threats that some of you may not be aware of but where folks have talked about lining us up against the wall and shooting us dead um so we've had several indictments several arrests several prosecutions um for those of of us who do this in bipartisan teams of two particularly during those lockdown uh dates of the election calendar in other words once ballots have been designed and programmed into these machines our teams aren't even permitted in the rooms that house the election equipment unless they have a counterpart with them there's surveillance there's alarms there's you know the cameras um there's severe signin and things like this and I tell you this because this becomes an extraordinary patriotic Duty whether you're working in the polls or you're working as an election official helping to get these machines out and delivered making sure they're secure when they're returned to the warehouse and and things like that you know you're um you very quickly lose any affiliation whether you're Democrat Republican Green Party unaffiliated doesn't matter you you get into elections in our office and it really becomes about fairness um we don't tolerate any polit political discussion we don't talk about Trump Paris Biden Obama anybody it's off the table you want to talk about that you do that at home with your family friends and organizations don't bring it into the office we're here to conduct elections and represent everybody who is a registrant or voter in this County so I hope that gives you a little bit of background um about me uh more proudly I'm a mom of three who have all now entered College as of this year and a um was a 20e Survivor cancer survivor I got hit with another one a couple years ago but um for those of you who are old enough I'm like a time x I keep on ticking