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This text is being provided in a rough draft format.  Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.
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4/7/2020

SARAH SAYEED:  Hi, everyone. It's Sarah.  
We're just going to give a few more minutes because we don't have a quorum right now. Hang tight and we're hoping to get a few more people on. Thank you. Hi, Anthony. 
>> This is Anastasia. I'm here as well. Hi, Sarah. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Hi. 
>> I'll be turning on the video in a few. Can everybody hear me? 
SARAH SAYEED:  Yes. 
>> It's best for us to mute unless we're speaking, right? 
SARAH SAYEED:  Yes. Only because of potential background noise that we might have. Yeah. Thank you. 
>> Hello, everyone. It's Jose. Give me a second to figure out ‑‑ 
SARAH SAYEED:  Take your time with it hi, Dr. Sayeed. 
SARAH SAYEED:  I'm going to give one more minute and then we will begin. Can everyone hear me okay? 
>> Sorry, I had to unmute to say yes. 
SARAH SAYEED:  We're going to call the meeting to order. I have a couple of technical assistance directions for everyone. Just so that we can try to run this meeting as smoothly as possible. To all the commissioners who are on, your audio is going to be enabled. But in order to avoid just as I said a little while ago, avoiding the background noise we're asking everyone to mute yourselves if you're not speaking. And click on the raise hand icon next to your name if you'd like to respond or make a comment. I think you can just unmute yourself. 
That is for the commissioners. Since this is a public meeting. And then for the other participants ‑‑ sorry. You might also be on the phone. In which case if you are on the phone and not here through WebEx video, please do mute yourself. And then if you'd like to speak, I guess unmute and say what you'd like to say. And then to all the other participants, everyone is going to be on mute upon entry. And during the public comment period we'll enable audio for people. And then for anyone who needs these instructions, if you want closed captioning, you can look on your screen and you will see an i con with three...ellipses. If you click on that, you should see an option for closed captioning and you can select that for the duration of this meeting. 
During the public comment period, we will enable audio for people who will be speaking. And we are going to ask that you sign up to make comment. Because we'll be calling on you in the order that we receive your request. There were some instructions on the meeting notice about how to sign up but I'll just repeat them here. 
What you need to do is click on the icon that outlines a person that's underneath ‑‑ bottom menu. And you will ‑‑ when you click on that you'll see the participant list open at the right of your screen and you can see that there's a raise hand icon next to your name. You would click on the raise hand, and you can also send ‑‑ we'd like you to send a chat message using the chat icon on the menu control bar. Just write your name and affiliation to make a comment, and we will enable audio for you when we're going to call on you. 
There are also some instructions for those who are dialling in via phone during the meeting and want to comment. You can text your name and affiliation to a number which is 646‑763/0628 to offer comment. And then we will enable the audio for you. 
That's for the comment period. To begin the meeting since we can't pass around a physical sign in sheet I'm just going to begin with an attendance call because I can't see all the commissioners on my screen because there are about so far 47 people in this meeting. 
As I call your name, please just unmute your mic and let me know if you are here. 
Charles Apelian. Murad Awewdeh? Eve Baron. 
EVE BARON:  Here. Holly oner? Amy Breedlove, present. Mark Diller 
MARK DILLER:  I'm here. Lori Fiorito? Donna Gill. 
DONNA GILL:  Here. 
>> Anthony Harmon I heard earlier. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Jose Hernandez? 
>> He's present but his mic is off. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Okay. Linda Lee. 
>> Here. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Lilliam Perez? Annetta Seecherran? I know she's having issues getting on. I'm not sure if she's here. Anastasia 
>> I'm here. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Great. Sorry, I thought we had a quorum and we could start but since ‑‑ let me just circle back. Anthony Harmon, are you still on? 
>> I'm here. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Amazing. Jose we said. I think we're good to start. 
>> Can you hear me? 
SARAH SAYEED:  Yes. Thank you, Jose. Great. I just wanted to ‑‑ in addition to all the commissioners, I want to thank everyone else who is in this meeting today. Members of the administration, and our CBO colleagues and members of the public. As we all know, we are going through an incredibly difficult time. It's been very painful the past couple of weeks. Because of that, we really value your time here today.  By coming together in this space, what we're saying is in moments of crisis and enormous struggle for our city we take civic engagement really seriously and we want to make sure that government is continuing to work for everyone, for everyone that needs to be served, for people who want to have a better understanding of how government works. And who want to hold government accountable. We want to keep the lines of communication open and we want to keep working on transparency for our work, and for all New Yorkers. 
I think this pandemic, the COVID‑19 pandemic has profoundly shifted how we conceptualize and understand civic engagement. Most engagement today has been in face‑to‑face, broadly speaking over the years. More recently in disasters like Hurricane Sandy we were able to meet face‑to‑face and at this moment we cannot do that. As you know the requirement for open meetings, to discuss government business transparentally with the public was suspended temporarily due to the health hazards of meeting in person. The commission was due to meet March 25th. And we had to reschedule this to today's telephone and video meeting. I think we're all really aware that even as we're trying to do this meeting together online, a lot of New Yorkers and a lot of Americans actually don't even have access to either a mobile phone or service. In New York that's about 40 percent of people. And 18 percent of people lack both. There's a gap in infrastructure for broad band. So in thinking about civic engagement, we've been concerned about who is not in the room as we're engaging. I think we need to just keep those questions very alive as we continue to do our work digitally. To think about who is not in the digital public square and keep working to bring as many voices as possible into this conversation. 
It was kind of a long intro, but I felt moved to just kind of situate us in the context we are in today. 
So the first item after attendance on our agenda is just voting on the minutes of our January meeting which we didn't do during the public hearing. Everyone should have received the minutes by email. I want to ask if there are any additions or corrections to the minutes that we sent you from the January meeting. 
MARK DILLER:  Hearing none I move to adopt. 
DONNA GILL:  I second. 
SARAH SAYEED:  I guess I was going to do a roll call vote but I guess we can do it the way we usually do it. Are there ‑‑ is anyone opposed? The minutes without edits are approved by the commission. 
Great. So I have also ‑‑ we have on the agenda a couple of programatic updates before we move into discussing the final methodology which we'll vote on towards the latter part of the meeting. 
Programatic update. For participatory budgeting we are continuing to have meetings with the advisory committee, also having regular internal check ins including with OMB. As everyone probably will understand, the city is really prioritizing needs that relate directly to the public health emergency right now. Particularly for the executive budget. I think given all the uncertainty it's going to be tough to really make a solid decision on participatory budgeting until this health crisis stabilizes. Meeting the needs of all New Yorkers during the COVID‑19 response is really a whole of government priority for everyone. The PB allocation may be deferred to the adopted budget which won't be released until June. However, O and B did indicate we should continue our planning. And we do have a charter mandate to begin ‑‑ to implement PB by July. We're going to keep pressing on that front. However we're recommending, given all the uncertainty, we're looking to do a scaled back pilot program in the first year and we are working with the advisory committee on program design. We're going to ask them and ask ‑‑ 
>> Looks like she dropped off. 
>> This is Anastasia. I can't hear Sarah anymore. 
>> I got a message that said due to low bandwidth the video was being deleted. I'm not sure how to fix that. In case that's useful. 
>> If you could bear with us a moment I believe we're finding a solution. Sorry about that. 
MARK DILLER:  No worries. I'm sure this is uncharted territory for all of us. 
>> It's a new world. 

>> I hope everyone is healthy and safe. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Can everyone hear me okay? 
>> I'm not sure who that was but yes. 
SARAH SAYEED:  This is Sarah. 
>> Your video is freezing but we can hear you. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Maybe I should get off the video and see how that works. Let me know if it's a problem. 
So continuing to work with our agency partners, we are trying to get a sense of the gaps in community boards tech resources to help them avail and get ready to avail only meeting tools. 
And in other program areas we're starting to talk about how we build a more robust youth engagement. We've met with groups like generation citizen, the citizens campaign who have been working in the space of youth engagement. Over the course of the next couple of weeks we'll be reaching out to more CBO partners who are working in youth engagement as well as in other areas related to our mandate. To just build partnerships. 
On Friday we actually had a really great opportunity to participate in a civic tech workshop online with Columbia University. It brought together people from government, academia, and philanthropy to discuss digital civic engagement. That was really great and we're going to try to stay connected with that group of people. That's kind of it for the program updates. 
Are there any questions or comments on the updates? 
MARK DILLER:  Hi. That sounds quite reasonable and the right focus of priorities in this time. As for the future work on community boards, obviously that is something that I feel strongly about. And would hope that can be something that can wait until we have back to in person meetings and the opportunity to take back to our communities in person those things that might be the topic of discussion. So I join in that. Thank you for that. 
SARAH SAYEED:  You're welcome. Others? 
DONNA GILL:  I had a question. The participatory budget advisory committee, we were supposed to get a schedule of the meetings. I know the times are really strange but I don't believe I have seen that. Did somebody send it out and I just didn't pay attention? 
SARAH SAYEED:  No. Thank you for the reminder, Donna. We'll make sure to send that out. 
DONNA GILL:  Thank you. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Can you say that again? 
>> The scale back program. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Yes. 
>> Can you go over the first program? 
SARAH SAYEED:  We are just looking ‑‑ we're trying to think about given that we don't have ‑‑ we're unlikely to know what the allocation will be until later on. Maybe closer to the time that we ‑‑ the charter mandates that we implement PB. We're thinking about what is reasonable to accomplish over the course of the coming year. And also trying to keep in mind that this pandemic is going to, and is now impacting processes of procurement and contracting. Which will then impact how we interface with partners. So just trying to think about what's reasonable. And to accomplish over the course of next year. We're just starting to talk about what that could look like. Does that make sense? 
>> Yes. Thank you. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Anything else on this piece?  Okay. I'm going to turn to the poll site language assistance program. Everyone probably already is aware that the Presidential primary which was due in April is postponed until June. And the commission is really putting forward this methodology assuming that we will be in the field with our program in November as mandated by the charter. We're certainly hoping very much that's the case. But I think it's important to caveat that we've started to discuss with our agency partners what might happen or what could be possible in the event that in person voting is not possible. We're not sure what that would look like. But we're starting to have that conversation. And as ideas develop we'll be sure to bring them back to the commission for how we might implement poll site interpretation in different ways. 
As you all know, the methodology that we're talking about today is really for in person voting specifically. 
Another update that I wanted to mention because we talked about it in the hearing and beforehand, we did meet with the New York City board of elections. And we started to talk about operational coordination on the day of election, and also ways to streamline and communicate more effectively. 
So I'm going to now move into just providing an overview of the methodology document that has been posted. And we will then move into the FAQ, which summarizes some of the comments and concerns that we heard. I'm going to for that section I'll turn to gagan to take us through some of the concerns. After that we'll have the opportunity to vote on the methodology. Just as a quick reminder, for anyone who might be new to this conversation, the New York City charter requires the civic engagement commission to propose and finalize the methodology for how the commission will provide interpretation services at poll sites for limited English proficient voters. And the methodology is meant to explain how the commission will identify the languages and locations in which interpretation services will be offered during the November 2020 election and beyond. 
As we all know, these services are meant to supplement the interpretation assistance provided by the board of elections. We were required to post a preliminary methodology on or before Jan 1, publish it for public comment for a minimum of 30 days, and revise the methodology, post the final on or before April 1. We intend to use this methodology for November 2020 general election and all primary and special elections going forward. 
Review and update the methodology on or before September 1, 2020, and at least every five years after that date. 
Just a summary of what we have done to date, we did post the proposed methodology on Jan 1. We accepted public comments until March 1. And then we held a public hearing which many people ‑‑ we were really heartened to see the participation from the diverse organizations and people who came to tell us what they thought. And also the folks who sent in comments through email, and through our website comment forum. Thanking everyone who participated in that. 
The hearing recording and the transcript are available online. Francis, if you could just post in the chat the link to the transcript and recordings. It's available on our website. And then also the methodology and the frequently asked questions document are also available on our website for anyone who might not have them. 
To provide an overview of the methodology, we're starting first people ask what's the total number of poll sites you will be serving? The total number of poll sites is really going to depend on the number ‑‑ the amount of money allocated to this program; the availability of qualified interpreters for the program languages; and the time that will be needed to recruit interpreters. 
Again, I want to caveat, or clarify that given where things are today we may need to factor into account that the amount allocated to this program could change over time. The city's program to provide interpretation services is a voluntary program. It's a service that we are opting to provide and it's consistent with our values on fair access for diverse language communities. So just remember that that's an important consideration and that is going to determine the scope of this program. The languages that we are serving, we've talked about this before but the charter sets forth some guidelines for us to select the languages. And we are ‑‑ based on those criteria we have selected languages that we'll be serving. And those languages are Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, French, Haitian Creole, Italian, Korean, Polish, Russian, Urdu, Yiddish. We will be providing services in Bengali, Korean and Chinese only in counties where the board of elections is not mandated to provide such services. The charter also ‑‑ we talked about the revision. This list of languages that I mentioned overlaps with the designated citywide languages and approximately 86 percent of the population with limited English proficiency speaks these languages. The charter also permits the commission to provide interpretation services to additional languages beyond the designated citywide languages. There are two criteria that we've used to choose those languages. One is the number of people who speak that language and are limited English proficient is greater than the number of people with limited English proficiency that speak the lowest ranked citywide language based on U.S. census data determined by the office of language services coordinator and department of city planning. And in addition to that, we look for at least one poll site that has a significant concentration of speakers with limited English proficiently of that language. So in this methodology, Yiddish and Italian are included because they each have a greater number of speakers with limited English proficiency than the lowest ranked citywide designated language which is urdu. In the methodology document on page 10, table one, you'll find the number of LEP New Yorkers who speak each of the program eligible languages. 
The next question is who is the target population we're trying to serve? The program is going to serve target people who are eligible to vote. They speak a program eligible language. They're limited English proficient. And their home address is served by the selected poll site. 
Anyone who meets these criteria can walk into a poll site and request the services and should be served. 
One of the important steps that we have to determine in this methodology is that there are many languages that we're trying to serve. So we've got to figure out the number of poll sites that we are going to serve for each language. The ideal data we'd need is limited English proficiency data for registered voters in all of the program languages. We do not have that data. 
So what we are proposing or what we've said in the final methodology is that we are going to use the limited English proficiency of citizens of voting age as a substitute or proxy measure of need. Using that measure, we are going to rank the program eligible languages in order of magnitude of the number of people who are citizens of voting age and limited English proficient. And then distribute poll sites to each language based on the ranking for that language. The number of poll sites that will receive services in any given language are going to depend on each language's share of the total citizen voting age LEP eligible to be served. As an example, according to U.S. census data approximately 200926 New Yorkers are LEP and speak a language served by this program. In table two and table three of the methodology document, you'll find that Russian citizen voting age LEP make up the largest share. About 39 percent of the whole. And if hypothetically the commission is allocated resources to serve 100 poll sites, the interpretation will be provided in Russian and up to 39 percent of the total poll sites or up to 39 poll sites out of 100. What we're doing in this proportionality approach is trying to balance goals of diverse language communities with fair access to the total number of eligible voters within the language communities. So the percent of people who are registered to vote varies by language community as you can imagine. And for the communities that are larger, and have had a longer standing presence in New York, obviously makes sense that they would have a larger number of registered voters in that community. So we're anticipating that this is going to change over time. The percent of people who as was brought up in the hearing who naturalized will increase and it will change for different communities. So we did discuss that, and we do think that the year‑to‑year data from the American community survey should capture those changes of who is becoming a citizen from different communities. 
Once we figure out the proportion of how many poll sites per language actually designated the poll site where we'll provide services. Here we're looking at the concentration of citizen voting age LEP people who speak these languages and live around each poll site. And what we did is we ordered the poll site for each language by descending order of concentration of CVLEP. And then we went down that list and chose poll sites until that language's share is met. 
For Russian, for example, we ordered from highest to lowest concentration of CVALEP and chose the top 39 sites of highest concentration to meet that 39 percent share for that language. 
We're ensuring the poll sites with the greatest concentration of citizen voting age LEP individuals are going to be served in this program. We'll be doing that for each language. We might find based on analysis of the data that there might be languages where there isn't a very high concentration or if the population is spread out. If that happens we might face a situation where we might need to reassign or consider reassigning. If that should happen we will retain at least the minimum of one poll site per language. To clarify, we are not going to be doing that for November 2020. This is just after the first try. There's a possibility that could happen for November 2020. We will keep the percentages as described in the methodology for every language. We also talked about administrative data within each poll site, interpreter journals on service utilization rate. The possibility of using that may occur ‑‑ like we might actually do that in the future but we will not be doing that for November 2020. Once this information becomes accessible, available, we could use it to cross check and validate the specific poll sites that were selected based on ACS data for any given year. 
In the methodology, in the appendix there's a list of hypothetical poll sites that could have been served using the poll sites that were given ‑‑ that were listed by the board of elections from last November. Obviously we would update this list every year. That list in the appendix of the methodology is really just to give you an understanding of where these poll sites are and how this methodology would be applied. 
So I think I'm going to now turn to Gagan to take us through some of the comments that we heard during the hearing. And how we're responding. Which are also listed in the FAQ document that was posted on the website. You might also find it in the chat. On the get involved page if you click on that link. It should take you to the FAQ. The floor is yours. 
GAGAN KAUR:  Can everyone hear me? 
SARAH SAYEED:  I think we're good. 
>> I had to unmute to say yes. 
GAGAN KAUR:  Great. I wanted to make sure it was clear. I just started sharing a PowerPoint. Can folks see the PowerPoint? 
SARAH SAYEED:  Yes. 
GAGAN KAUR:  Awesome. I appreciate that. Thank you. First off I want to thank everyone who joined this call, and folks who offered feedback not just during the public hearing but who joined some of our CBO briefing calls and folks who amplified this process in any way. I just wanted to start my piece by sharing some of the comments and some comments that we heard during public comment period and folks who offered testimony. I'm just going to share a few of those with you all before jumping into the FAQ. 
During public comment period and the testimony and the public hearing, some of the things we heard was asking the CEC not to rely on administrative data that includes surnames and utilization data. Expanding source data to select program eligible languages. The inclusion of noncitizens and New Yorkers 15 + in our analysis. Additional ‑‑ creating additional mechanisms for the public to provide comment or to request language assistance at their poll sites. Standardization of language assistance for all elections during the early voting period to build ‑‑ and providing operational details on how the CEC plans to recruit and train interpreters. Also includes incorporating community feedback on interpretation services. 
Another comment that we heard was revising the methodology more frequently than stated in the charter which allows the CEC to provide methodology every five years. 
Some questions that we're going to jump through the FAQ to provide some responses to the concerns that were raised by both individuals and organizations. The first question is when will the CEC begin providing interpretation services at poll sites? As Sarah mentioned the general election being held on November third will be the first one that is informed by this methodology. Then this methodology will be used to provide services and allocate services for all elections thereafter. 
Will the CEC provide interpretation services during the early voting period? The CEC will provide interpretation on the full day on the last two weekend days before Election Day for all special elections ‑‑ the CEC might also consider providing expanding early voting services based on utilization rates and based on trends of when folks go to vote during the ten day period. 
I wanted to resurface or bump this up. These are the requirements the CEC must consider when developing methodology, which includes utilizing relevant data from the most recent American community survey, which gathers social economic characteristics of the U.S. population from the census bureau. CEC must consider data from the board of elections on locations of poll sites and boundaries of election districts, information on voter turn out and any other information deemed appropriate by the CEC which may include the results ‑‑ as Sarah already stated we will not be using surname analysis. 
The data the CEC is using in this methodology is the American community survey five‑year estimates that includes the 2014 to 2018 five year estimates and the 2013 to 2017 five‑year estimates. Additional data we're considering is board of elections data on the location of election districts and poll sites. 
Why is the CEC using data from the American community survey? This methodology uses current data from the ACS five‑year estimates which is the most accurate data available on resident New Yorkers at a neighborhood level. Or at the census track level which is equivalent to about a neighborhood. The ACS five‑year estimates provide a smaller margin of error than one year estimates. And have a ‑‑ one year is ‑‑ five year estimates have an increased statistical reliability for smaller geographic areas and small population groups like the ones we're working with. 
ACS collects samples from 3143 counties, and County equivalents in the U.S..   Since 2011 the ACS sampled 3.54 million housing unit addresses in the U.S. and the ACS gathers the social and economic characteristics that are listed on this slide.  Relevant for this analysis which include information on citizenship, information on language, does an individual speak a language other than English at home? Information on English proficiency, and that is defined by the ACS as ‑‑ pose the question of how well does the person speak English. Offer four responses which is very well, well, not well, or not at all. Individuals who choose anything outside of very well are defined as limited English proficient by that definition. 
We also consider information on age. Is the individual 18 plus? Which captures the universe of CVALEP, citizens of voting age with limited English proficiency. The only data we're missing from the ACS is information on voter registration which we get from the voter rolls. 
Why is the ‑‑ sorry, I'm very thirsty today. Why is the CEC using ACS data on citizenship and voting age? Why not use data about residents and younger New Yorkers? Why not use data on ethnicity and race? As Sarah said the poll site language program is to facilitate participation of registered voters with limited English proficiency. The ACS captures population changes. For example, the ACS provides a snapshot of changes in the population, meaning the CVALEP population. In the early part of the decade they showed the population growing by 7500 annually. By 12,000 annually in the middle part of the decade. And by 25,000 in the most recent period. Thus the ACS is able to track how this population changes each year. The average increase over the last decade was roughly 10,000 per year. 
The reason that we don't use data on ethnicity and race is because it's not really relevant for this data analysis. As I said the best indicator of LEP is a measure of how well a person speaks English. That variable in conjunction with language spoken at home helps us determine the languages across the city. I also want to share that our colleague Peter Lobo from the department of city planning is on the line and I invite Peter to chime in on any population changes as he's the expert. Peter, any time you want to expand on anything I say, please jump in. 
How often does the U.S. census bureau update the ACS? And are there gaps in data because it is not updated frequently enough? As folks know ACS is conducted annually and takes several months to prepare the data for public use, for public release. If the most recent data was used, the data would be no more than 14 months old. At the neighborhood level there is nothing more accurate on the CVALEP population than the five‑year estimate. 
How often does the U.S. census bureau update the American community survey and are there gaps in the data because it is not updated frequently enough? It's supposed to address if utilizing ACS five year data captures individuals who have recently naturalized or have recently become of voting age. New Yorkers who recently became eligible to vote through naturalization or by turning 18 the most recent sample would reflect this voter population. ACS is able to track how population changes each year. The average increase over the last decade was 33,000 annually. That's able to track that. 
Will the CEC update this methodology to incorporate new data from the American community survey? The charter requires the CEC to review and revise the methodology on or before September 1, 2022. And at least five years thereafter. However, the CEC will review its analysis annually to incorporate data from the most recent American community survey five‑year estimates to capture any population changes especially for folks who have recently naturalized or have become voting age. 
This ‑‑ Sarah spoke about this briefly. How many voters with limited English proficiently will potentially be served for each program eligible language? This information can be found in the appendix of the methodology as well. The table shows all of the program eligible languages, and potential number of individuals that may be served by allocating services at the poll sites and the grand total is around ‑‑ again these are estimates ‑‑ but in the hypothetical we're providing, assuming we're providing services at 100 sites it would be around 69,940 individuals served through this program. For one election. 
Another question ‑‑ another concern and comment that we heard from individuals and organizations was how will the CEC ensure quality in interpreter services, and how will the CEC recruit interpreters? The CEC will recruit interpreters using through social media channels, through job posting web sites. By conducting outreach to civic and community based organizations. Community based language and additional avenues that surface out of the language assistance advisory committee. I want to share quickly the language assistance advisory committee is a committee composed of 18 members. Their role is to provide feedback and inform the implementation of this program. Also be helping with amplifying and developing the outreach strategy for this program. And will review trainer material that the CEC develops for interpreters along with additional community based organizations that are interested in providing feedback on that as well. 
Interpreters will be assessed for children and spoken fluency in English and at least one of the program eligible languages. Returning interpreters will continue to be screened on a yearly basis to maintain quality. Although an interpreter may work several elections in one year, they will be rescreened on an annual basis. 
Training material will be reviewed by members of the language assistance advisory committee prior to utilization. 
Will the public be able to provide feedback on interpretation services? The CEC will hold public convenings to establish a regular feedback loop during which individuals may provide feedback on the quality of interpretation services. They can also provide anecdotal comment on their experience, or in addition needs they see emerging, or perhaps there is a high need for a specific language service to be provided at this poll site in this neighborhood. We rely on building community partnerships to further learn how to shift our allocation and inform programming. 
The public is encouraged to submit comments and feedback through the CEC website as well. To ensure that the program is reflective of community need and experience. You may do that any time. The CEC also convenes the LAAC quarterly although we've met more, like every two months, individuals interested in joining the committee may review the criteria on the CEC website and submit an application. 
We accept applications on a rolling basis. So please if you know individuals who are interested in joining and informing this work, I can also ‑‑ Francis, if you can also share that link in the chat as well. That would be great. 
That's it. One other thing that I wanted to share on the recruitment, the training and recruitment piece is that although we are very likely to use a third party vendor in the November general election to ensure that operations smoothly transition, we have not made a final decision if we'll be using a third party vendor for elections thereafter. I just also wanted to share that piece as well. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Thank you for that, Gagan. I'm going to now open it up for any questions on anything that Gagan and I said before ‑‑ we'll take about I guess a couple of minutes for Q & A. And then we need to move to the resolution. 
>> It's Murad. I asked in the group chat, I'm not sure if we're asking questions there. How many languages is the ACS administered in? Because that's what we're using as the main form of data. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Peter, do you know the answer to that question? How many languages is the ACS measure given in? MOIA, if you're on the line, does anyone have an answer to that question? Francis, are they unmuted? 
FRANCIS URROZ:  Yes. They are. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Thank you. Well, we might not have an answer to that question right now, Murad. Unless someone ‑‑ 
>> This is asher. Hi. I'm sorry. I know the decennial census is administered in 12 nonEnglish languages. The ACS I think is the same but I'm not completely certain of that. 
SARAH SAYEED:  We should be able to get the list. Thank you, Asher, so much. 
>> I have a question. This is Khady. Hello? I have a question please. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Okay. This period right now, if you could hold until the comment period please. We're actually just for this particular section of the meeting we're focusing on questions and comments from the commissioners so that we can move to vote on the methodology if that's okay. 
>> Okay. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Thank you so much. 
>> I have another comment to say but I wanted to leave space if someone else had a question or comment. 
The recommendation that we're voting on today doesn't take into account 15 and 17‑year‑olds that we had requested be included. As well as even in the census bureau acknowledges the under count of immigrant communities. And immigrant populations. So while using that alone, it further perpetuates the gaps and leaves communities further under counted and out of this methodology. I think that is a slight and potentially big oversight in moving a program like this forward. 
I'd like to understand why those two are ‑‑ I'm sorry for joining late, by the way. But I had another commitment right before this. 
So if that was ‑‑ I'd like to hear the answer to that. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Thank you so much, Murad. That's a really important question. We know that came up a couple of times during the comments and also written comments that we received. I'm just going to start answering that question. And then if other folks from other departments and/or Gagan want to chime in, please do. 
I think our concern here is that this service, as we all agree, is meant to be for people who are registered voters of age. Right? They have to be a certain age and they have to be registered to vote. 
The question is how do we decide where those people are residing and how we pick those locations. The best measure that we have of that data is the LEP data by citizenship status. The point about residents who become citizens, and people who become of age, I think that our selection of poll sites doesn't mean that those people are excluded. I just want to be clear that this methodology chooses a location, or chooses a certain number of poll sites, decides which languages are in which poll site. But any poll site that's chosen using this methodology ‑‑ let's say give me a location for a poll site, Murad. 
MURAD AWAWDEH:  Let's say 7115 Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn, New York. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Right. Let's assume this methodology says that's a poll site that we want to serve people at today. And we got to that poll site by using the 2018 data. We're now in 2020. So your concern is are we leaving people out who might become citizens between 2018 and 2020 and who might become of age? I would answer that by saying by understanding, anyone who becomes a citizen and anyone who is of voting age and is registered will be able to come to that poll site and be served. It's just like a question of whether ‑‑ excuse me. Whether we would be ‑‑ they would be eligible to walk in and receive services. I don't think we're necessarily leaving them out. The question is whether we have a good estimate of where the poll site should be. And we think using the citizenship measure combined with LEP gives us a good sense of the poll sites with the highest concentration of eligible voters. We have to remember also just that the measure itself of eligible voters, the citizen voting age measure isn't taking into account whether or not those people are actually registered. So it's just ‑‑ it's a little bit of data analytic puzzle because we don't have the actual variable that we need. It's like what's the next best approximation. The thing that we were struggling with in doing this analysis. 
Does anyone else want to add anything to what I've said to clarify maybe? 
MURAD AWAWDEH:  Just to add to my initial comment, there's more than 80,000 people who become new voters each year. In that, you have over 100,000 + people who become new Americans a year. And for us to not incorporate another measure to account for those people, and to put that waiting period in, we're looking at 2018 data as you mentioned but sometimes that 2018 data isn't even accurate because the people who are receiving the ACS forms may not even return it. And we're not sure at what point ‑‑ how it can be most helpful to the communities that are ‑‑ who we're trying to help in this process. 
So I think with the new amount of voters and the new amount of new Americans, and anticipating who is turning of age, I think that can potentially be a short fall of this program. 
SARAH SAYEED:  I think you're identifying an important and ongoing challenge. We just don't have the type of data that we ‑‑ the exact type of data that we need. Right? In the volume that we need it in. We need a large representative data set that will help us look all across the city that is inclusive, and representative. 
The only data set that is close to that is the ACS. There's no other data that we have access to that lets us get to the actual thing we need. ACS year‑to‑year, we think that if we check the ACS year‑to‑year we'll be able to see changes in citizenship year‑to‑year. And we've said that for this methodology, and we'll run the data every year using the new survey that we get from every year. Whatever the most recent data is we'll use that to recheck how we're doing and to make sure that we're capturing changes. 
MURAD AWAWDEH:  I think ACS isn't going to the largest data set. I think we should be trying to expand the data that we're getting as much as possible. Because looking at people who are getting services isn't a good way of determining who ‑‑ how to properly be allocating resources based on that initial need. Do you understand what I mean?  I think that we just have to figure out a different way of doing it. I'm happy that we're doing this annually and revising the formula annually but I do think that it's really important that we get it right. So we can continue to build off of the program to be successful continually. 
>> I believe Peter Lobo is trying to speak. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Yes, Peter. 
GAGAN KAUR:  He's having trouble connecting so he's going to try hopping on through the phone. 
MARK DILLER:  Can I jump in meanwhile, while you're getting Peter? This is Mark Diller. I did a quick look while Murad was speaking and it's a little hard to tell from the census website but it appears the written ACS materials are available in the six usual suspect languages. But that interviewers are equipped in 30 languages. So it is some measure of comfort although not as much as we might want. 
My overall comment on the presentation and on this resolution when we get to it is that we are building the capacity we need. It is far from perfect right now but that's because as the Chair mentioned, the precise data set that we need doesn't exist. So we may become the tool to collect it. I am supportive of the effort for that reason. And it is not for lack of trying that we don't have a better data set. And that perhaps we can be the instrument of moving that forward in some positive way. Recognizing that there's a cost to that, which is that it would be better if it were better now. But if I understand the presentation correctly, and the previous presentations and the ways in which the staff has very helpfully taken back all the comments that have been offered around this virtual table and the physical one before it, I think that{ENTER}that is a very good effort. And an appropriate one for this commission. So I offer my support. Thank you. 
DONNA GILL:  Can everybody hear me? 
>> We can hear you. 
DONNA GILL:  I agree with Mark. I would like to ask Murad if you know of a better system or a system that will be more inclusive so you can share that with us? As Mark said, so we could be the change agent for that data. Which is good because I understand your frustration with the ACS data. But as everyone indicates, that's all we have. Going forward, I think we may need to, as Mark said, we need to be the change agent of data or finding ways, a method in which to make data more encompassing. 
My second comment is that we have ‑‑ I made this at the public hearing ‑‑ we have a huge Albanian population in the Bronx and in Queens. And I don't see that language as one of the languages that we are proposing. I was just wondering if anyone in the community had reached out to us just to give us some information. That's all. Thank you. 
>> To quickly answer your question, there are two ways of doing it. The first way would be using the ACS data and ensuring ‑‑ it's not perfect but ensuring that you're incorporating and including the 15 and 17‑year‑olds as well as the noncitizens. And then the second way would be using citywide population data. Not CVAP. 
>> Peter, are you able to speak now? 
PETER LOBO:  Can you hear me? Great. I just want to mention a couple of things and address Murad's question. If you look at citizens 18 +, who are limited English proficient, the total population we'd be serving would be about 208,000. Now, if we look at those 15 years and over who are LEP, we're talking about a population of about 317,000. Now, you have about 100,000 people more. Okay? What does that do in terms of the distribution of poll sites? I think it's important to take a look in terms of a distribution. If you have a hundred poll sites, and you speak a particular language and say you account for four percent of the CVALEP population, you will get four poll sites maximum. Despite ‑‑ no matter what number you go with. Whether you go with citizens 18 +, LEP, or all residents ‑‑ or residents 15 + LEP. You will still get a maximum of four poll sites. But what this does though, it privileges those who are noncitizens over citizens. Because some groups have a propensity to naturalize. They've been here longer. And so their LEP 18 + population is higher proportionately. That's what they're doing. There are subtle increases for one group versus another. One group gains one poll site, another one may lose one poll site. But basically you're privileging noncitizens in this scenario. Some of whom may become citizens. But you're privileging noncitizens over naturalized citizens who are eligible to vote. That's what you do. 
In terms of the poll sites themselves, you still get four the maximum. You may be bumped up to five. That's where the real difference lies. 
SARAH SAYEED: I think part of our challenge here is also that the ways in which communities are becoming citizens, there are emerging language communities that are becoming more eligible to vote. 			Naturalizing, registering. That's happening more and more and we see that reality on the ground for so many of the communities we're working with. And I think at the same time, again, a data challenge is that there are varying degrees of that. Naturalization, and aging into voting, will differ for different language communities as well. But Peter made a good point, which is that when you look at the proportions across the languages, it really doesn't change that much. But let's just take a very concrete example. If using the data for residents and younger people, we get a different proportion for a particular language. Let's say we increase the poll site for Arabic but decrease them for another language. I don't know. Like Polish or Russian. One of the languages, the concentration where it's higher. What would actually happen is if we drop a poll site from one of the communities that have more people who speak that language, ultimately the number of voters would drop because there are more people who are citizens of voting age and eligible to vote in the larger language community. 
And then adding a poll site where the population is smaller would maybe add like 100 people. But if we drop a poll site from one of the language communities that is strongly represented we might lose a thousand eligible people. That's another thing to keep in mind. It's about individual languages, and how they're served. But then also how we try to be as fair and inclusive as possible across all the languages. And one of the ways that we found to do that was to try to do this proportionality model. 
MURAD AWAWDEH:  I think for me, to respond back to some of the comments that were made, I think that we're trying to ensure that the people who need language access the most at polls are getting it. And looking at how things are shifting within communities, I'd want to look at the entire picture of a community, not citizenship data. Because when you only include citizenship data you're excluding a good portion of the community by not looking at who is becoming to come up as a new American or citizen down the road. Even with that rationale and response to my question, what about citizens who are 15 and 17‑year‑olds? How are they being incorporated into the formula, or captured out of date ‑‑ from out of date ACS data? 
PETER LOBO:  There is not much difference at all actually if you look at citizens 15 + LEP and citizens 18 + LEP. In fact the proportions are virtually unchanged. Generally speaking, if you're going to sort of open up a group, or open up an age group for one language group, you're opening it up for every other group. Right? And so basically you'll have increases across groups. And where 15 + LEP versus 18 + LEP citizens are concerned, the overall number goes from 208 to 212,000. You're adding 4,000 people. But in terms of the distribution, there's minimal change. We're talking about .1 and .2. The big difference occurs when you open it up to noncitizens. And then you're adding over 100,000 people more when you're adding noncitizens. And then as I said, either you have some groups ‑‑ like French speakers, many of whom are French nationals, may not want to naturalize. So those numbers are higher compared to citizens 18 +. 

MURAD AWAWDEH:  I don't want to continue to hijack this conversation. But the last piece I'll say is if we're looking at next year's voting, elections that are coming up in 2021 we're going to be looking at 2018 data and that's going to really be past time data that's excluding a ton of people. My comment here are not to try to be arbitrary in any way, or slowing down the process. I really do want to ensure that we get the best formula that we can to ensure that most people are counted in this process; to ensure that we're allowing as many people as possible to be engaged in the process. To get the assistance that they need. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Murad, I don't think you're hijacking the conversation. I think you're continuing to raise an important consideration that again we did go back and we did look at the numbers. And we still believe that the best way to do this in a way that gets to the closest possible ‑‑ I think it's a big data question. Data analysis and how we approach it. Usually ‑‑ in this work. I think we do think that we have a good reasonable accounting of where the languages ‑‑ where people reside and where these poll sites are where we could begin to serve people who need these interpretation services. But I think as Donna also mentioned, we should continue to talk about how we improve the data. And if there are other things that we should consider, we should keep talking about it. We have the opportunity every year to relook at the data. We have the opportunity to revise the methodology, 2022 or maybe even sooner if we feel compelled to. So I think there is flexibility in the process for us to say this is where we're going to start but we're going to keep these concerns in mind. 
To me, again, even though ‑‑ I'm not so sure that if we start with residents 15 +, that we're actually going to come up with markedly different poll sites than we would serve. Because proportions aren't changing that much. If the actual poll site isn't changing, to me if a poll site is in this methodology, and anyone ‑‑ again like I said before, maybe I'm being simplistic. Anyone who becomes a registered voter in between 2018 and 2020, if a poll site is picked ‑‑ they can still be served. Right? I think I'm probably being simplistic. To be mindful of time, I think we need to move to resolutions. I'm hoping that we can definitely continue this conversation. To move to the resolution, again this was sent to you all, and we are going to ‑‑ I'm just going to go through it really quickly. The resolution is basically summarizing the charge we have in section 3202 to provide a poll site assistance program. It reviews that we proposed a methodology and we posted it. We took in public comment. And we provided interpretation. We helped people meaningfully participate in that hearing. To the best degree possible. And we also received comments on this proposed methodology on our agency partners MOIA and DCP. We were able to in spite of all this transitions that had to be made, we were able to publish we were able to publish in accordance with the charter deadline. The preliminary that was posted would be approved as a final methodology and this final shall determine poll sites and languages covered by the language assistance program until further action is taken by I as a commission with respect to this methodology. 
There's also on the resolution, there's a final methodologies procedure to implement, to summarize the implementation of the program. And I wanted to just ask if to ask if Quami (phonetic) would say anything. 
>> Good afternoon. I'm in the Law Department. To be brief, the appendix attached to the resolution is intended to summarize the final methodology proposed on April 1 by the commission. The intent was to describe that methodology in a very succinct fashion and to use language that is basically legislative in nature. To be very precise about what the commission is promulgating here. And the audience here is the public could rely on this to understand the methodology. But primarily this would be used for government officials who are trying to understand the poll site methodology and how to implement it. Does anyone have questions to raise about the resolution? 
>> I'm ready to vote. 
SARAH SAYEED:  We have no changes to the resolution. I think what I'm going to do here, because again I just want to be sure that I'm going to do a roll call vote on this. I'm going to call your name and if you could just say where you stand with this resolution. Murad. 
MURAD AWAWDEH:  For me I was planning on abstaining. I'll vote in favor just because it's better than what they have now. I think we need to be able to better modify it in the future. I'm hopeful that we can do that with these beginning steps that we're taking today. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Okay. Eve? 
EVE BARON:  I vote to approve it. And I would like to use the roll out in this coming year as a way to do some analysis and get better data. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Okay. Amy? 
AMY BREEDLOVE:  I want to thank Murad for his very thoughtful comments, first of all. And I would vote to approve. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Mark? 
MARK DILLER:  I want to thank Murad as well but Amy already beat me to it. I'm go right to I vote aye. 
DONNA GILL:  I vote to approve. 
>> Anthony? 
>> Support. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Jose? 
>> I vote to approve. 
>> Linda. 
>> Approve and agree with other comments that it would be great to look at other methodology in the future. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Lilliam? 
>> I think Lilliam Perez is on the phone. Are you there, Lilliam? 
SARAH SAYEED:  Annetta is also on the phone. Or at least I saw you were. 
>> Approve. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Anastasia. 
>> Hi, everyone. I vote to approve. And I agree with a lot of the things that Murad was saying. So thank you for your comments, Murad. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Okay. I'm going to try to see if we can get Lilliam. Are you still on the line, by any chance? I think Lori Fiorito, I don't think you joined. 
>> Lilliam is speaking but we're not hearing her. 
SARAH SAYEED:  I don't think she's on the call. So it looks like the resolution is approved. No one opposed. Thank you. 
MURAD AWAWDEH:  I want to make sure you got my vote as approved, right? 
SARAH SAYEED:  Got it as approved. I'm glad you didn't abstain, Murad. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. What? 
MURAD AWAWDEH:  It's a nail biter of a vote. 
(Laughter).

SARAH SAYEED:  I was biting my nails, to be honest. I'm grateful that we got through this. This is really exciting and amazing. And amazing that we did it online. That's pretty cool too. And very much right on time to see if we have comments from the public on this. Francis, has anyone signed up with you? 
FRANCIS URROZ:  Yes. We have Khady, and Gregory. We can have Khady go first. Would you like to comment? Khady? Gregory? 
>> Yes, I'm here. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Hi, Lilliam. 
>> I'm here. I just hear other voices. 
SARAH SAYEED:  I think the tricky part of this is ‑‑ Francis, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think we can mute ‑‑ 
FRANCIS URROZ:  Gregory is unmuted. He should be able to comment. Everyone else is muted. 
>> I am coming into this discussion I guess late. I first wanted to just comment on the process. I'm curious why there was a vote without public input. It would seem like ‑‑ just seems slightly off putting that I would be asked to comment on something that has already been voted on. 
But beyond that issue, I'm really surprised that you would rely on a method that would actually exclude a group like Albanians which are pretty active both politically and culturally in the city. It baffles me to the extent that I wonder how many other groups are being excluded by this method. And how many languages might be included that are actually irrelevant. And may have some historical significance but not any significance in the present day. I don't know what other groups are excluded. But the fact that Albanian people who are pretty active in the area are excluded is very troubling. And suggests to me that the method has some serious problems. If it didn't pick up Albanians. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Thank you, Gregory. Just out of fairness to anyone who has signed up but would love to move to another person, and then if we have time at the end we can try to respond to some of the concerns that are raised during this period. 
FRANCIS URROZ:  Amy Torres. 
>> Hi. This is Amy with the Chinese American planning council, CPC. I wanted to ask for clarification on the final report on page 14 at the bottom, use of administrative data. In our testimony for the draft plan, we cautioned against the use of administrative data because it's reactive to voter turn out with the current plan. And so while we know that the language has been modified a little bit, it says administrative data would be used additively to verify analysis from census ACS data.  Additively. I think I'd like to hear some explanation from the commission on what does that additively mean? Because if it is going to then invalidate what the ACS data shows, it kind of doesn't ease our concern about why we wanted less reliance on administrative data to begin with. Because that's administrative data that's reactive to a past plan, or to plans that have not yet been implemented. That's my question. And I'd appreciate any follow up. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Thanks, Amy. Who is next on the list? 
FRANCIS URROZ:  That was it. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Okay. There was someone else who you said but I guess they're not here anymore. The first person you called on. 
FRANCIS URROZ:  Khady is still here but not commenting. 
SARAH SAYEED:  If there isn't anyone else who wants to comment, I can try to pick up on some of the questions and I would ask my colleagues, Gagan or Peter, or anyone from MOIA or Asher if they want to answer these questions. 
The first question about the process and why we voted without input, just as a reminder to everyone, we did have a period of two months where we took in comments on the proposed methodology. And we reviewed those comments and tried our best to answer them in the FAQ and as we reworked the language. Revised the methodology, taking into account that people did have certain concerns. That's part of why we didn't include that type of input in today's meeting. Because we held a public hearing, and took comments by email and by website before this. 
As far as the exclusion of languages that should be served, we are confident that we are reaching the language communities that have the highest concentration in New York City. However, I would like to say that we're excluding a lot of languages. And we are also not going to every poll site, even for the languages that we are selecting. So there are a lot of people who are not going to be able to access New York City's interpretation services, which is again a voluntary interpretation program. There's nothing compelling us by law to provide these services which will mean that the resources for this type of program will always be constrained. We won't be able to serve everyone. That's part of why we really need to make sure that people in these languages who speak these designated languages, the poll site program eligible languages, people who don't speak these languages but are limited English proficient ‑‑ that we do our very best to increase awareness about people's right to interpretation. And that they can even bring their own interpreters with them to the poll site. This is something else we're working on as a commission is to try to promote more education around knowing your rights. We are looking to collaborate with MOIA on that. They've already been doing some of this work and other partners as well. A lot of the folks, the CBO partners are doing this work. We really want to amplify that message that even for languages who aren't represented here, they do have their rights. And we can also explore whether there's possibility it is to support those language communities through other ways. That should definitely be an ongoing conversation. 
Does anyone want to add anything on that first question? I'm not sure about the numbers for Albanians. I don't know if the demographers, asher, or anyone wants to say anything about that. 
>> For the languages, Korean comes at 11. There are 5100 Korean speakers who are citizens 18 + LEP.  Albanian obviously is lower. If you don't make that threshold, you're off the list. There are just a limited number of languages that can be served. 
>> And the services providing are consistent with language services the city provides. And the New York City charter requires the CEC to prioritize designated citywide languages. And then in addition, we can add additional languages if, like Peter said, the speakers of that language are greater than the lowest ranked citywide language.  Albanian doesn't meet those two criteria. We're bound by the charter. It's not a program eligible language because of that reason. 
>> Hi. I'm with the New York immigration coalition. Can you hear? Hi. I have a quick question. Hello. I'm not sure who that was. We had mentioned that we encouraged the commission expand their services to include both weekends of the early voting period instead of one. It seemed to me at the present that recommendation was not adopted and I wanted to understand what was the understanding and what was the reason behind that? Also wanted to echo some concerns raised earlier by Murad relating to the age. We really believe that we need to have an inclusive and representative data set. But as this data that is presented at the moment, we believe that the way the ACS has delineated is not representative of the needs of this community. I want to echo that it is ‑‑ we're looking back at passing instead of what is needing for the future. We really encourage visiting ‑‑ I know it's voted ‑‑ but visiting the expansion of this data either now or in the future. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Thank you, Wenni. To go back to Amy's ‑‑ is there anyone else who would like to comment? Okay. To go back to the question on admin data, we share a lot of the concerns about the admin data. So as you noted, we are ‑‑ and as we said in the methodology we are not using admin data at all for November 2020. We're also recommending that for particular poll sites we get data for at least three election cycles. In order to verify that data itself. We wouldn't just take one election, and use admin data from that, and cross check it with the ACS. We'd wait for three cycles and see if there's a pattern in that administrative data in terms of usage. And then see if we're really off. 
I think we have to be able to see how people might be using services at the poll sites because part of what we need to report on for this methodology is the usage. For any provision of services in any agency, in any organization, all of us have to report out on the number of people using our services. If we find, including our CBO partners, if we're finding that we're offering a service that is not being used, we are always asked to think, rethink whether that service is being provided in the way it should be provided, to the people it should be provided. Or if it needs to be directed elsewhere. I think this methodology is allowing us the time to collect that data. We're seeing at least three general elections for any given poll site. Just check whether we're right in terms of the poll sites that we targeted. 
I think we can't throw it out. Again going back to the need to report on number. Because once we start implementing this program, people will want to know who is using the services. And when it comes to our tax dollars, people want to know that's being used well. So if we get to a scenario where we have poll sites with no usage over multiple years, that's going to become a question about efficiency of resources. We're trying to think about that in noting that we could potentially use administrative data going forward. Not this year. I don't know if that makes sense. 
If it's not clear, let's continue to talk about it. I wanted to go to the last comment about weekends and early voting. 
We are at the moment, without knowing clearly the resources allocated to this program, this is a question of allocating or using ‑‑ sorry, providing services in both weekends for early voting is right now mostly about resources. And also getting a clearer understanding of how many people are going to vote early, which days. But mostly I think it's for a lot of us it's about resources. 
Does anyone want to add anything to what I said? I continue to invite MOIA to comment here if you'd like to based on your experience. Okay. 
Are there any other questions or comments? 
>> I have a question. Can you hear me? Has anyone thought about education around (inaudible) voting given the fact that elections may be pushed or not. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Can you identify yourself? 
>> I'm ayesha, district manager of Bronx community board 7. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Thanks for joining us. It's not a part of this methodology. But it's definitely on our minds that the voting process is due to change. And I think we're all going to be thinking about how we are going to educate multiple language communities in that process. We're going to need to do that, for sure. 
>> Is that something I'm guessing you'll discuss in the future, right? 
SARAH SAYEED:  Yes. We'll need to. If we're going to ‑‑ if we're trying to provide interpretation services, and the whole way we're voting is changing, we're going to definitely need to make sure that we're doing a lot of education around the changes. 
>> Thank you. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Thank you. Lilliam, did you want to say anything? Because I don't know if you can hear us. 
FRANCIS URROZ:  Lilliam is unmuted so she should be able to speak. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Not sure. Okay. Well, if there is ‑‑ do the commissioners want to make any comments? Have any questions? 
>> I'm all set, thanks. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Okay. Well, if there isn't ‑‑ we don't know ‑‑ actually let me say quickly we don't know when the next meeting will be right now. I think we're just waiting a little bit longer to see what will happen with the health crisis that we're in at the moment. We will have some other things to talk with you about. We are working on a language access plan for the commission. And we'll need to continue our conversations around budgeting and the community board stuff. But we'll be reaching out to schedule a meeting. It would be amazing if our next meeting could be face‑to‑face. I hope ‑‑ I hold out for that. It may not be possible. But we'll stay in touch about that. 
So if there are no additions, not leaving anything out, could I hear a motion to adjourn the meeting? 
>> I make a motion to adjourn. 
>> Second. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Motion to adjourn has been seconded. All in favor? 
>> Many voices saying aye. 
SARAH SAYEED:  Okay. Any opposed to adjourning the meeting? Okay. So I'm going to ‑‑ motion passes. I call this meeting adjourned. I just want to thank everyone so much for taking the time to be on this call. I don't know what the number we had but it was over 50 at some point. It's really, really so exciting and heartening  to me to see that you came, listened, and that you're interested in our work. And we really look forward to staying in touch with everyone over the next couple of months. Thank you so much again. Take care of yourselves. And everyone stay safe. To you and your families and your loved ones. Good‑bye. 
>> Good‑bye.