Monday August 27, 2018
To the Honorable members of the State Board of Elections for the Commonwealth of Kentucky,
I am submitting this letter to you today to inform you of several serious issues and concerns that
have arisen since I was hired to serve as Executive Director of the State Board of Elections,
issues I feel need the immediate consideration of the Members of the Board.
I would like to start by saying that this position has been highlight of my career, and has been
more rewarding then I can express in this letter alone. When I took this position, Assistant
Director and General Counsel Jennifer Scutchfield and I pledged to each other that we would
take our political party hats off and administer the Commonwealth’s election systems with a
sense of equity and fairness. We agreed we would make no decisions that would benefit one
political party at the expense of the other and I feel that, to the best of our ability, we have done
that. However, over the past year, both AD Scutchfield and I have been asked by Secretary of
State Alison Lundergan-Grimes, and/or a representative of her office, to do things we have
found to be inappropriate, unethical and potentially illegal. Both AD Scutchfield and I have
protested each of these requests and, in one case, refused to comply, and in response, a
campaign of harassment and retaliation by Secretary Lundergan-Grimes has occurred and
increased to a point that is now affecting the security and safety of the Commonwealth’s
election systems.
Therefore, pursuant to KRS 61.102(1), I am notifying you, the members of the State Board of
Elections, that I have submitted a referral (similar in description to this report) to the Executive
Branch Ethics Commission.
Below is a brief summary of several of the issues and concerns that need the attention of the
Board and other relevant regulatory agencies:


Secretary of State (SOS) staff continue to have access to and use the Voter Registration
Database (also known as “VRS”) for inappropriate reasons, which include, but may not
be limited to, the use of VRS to look up potential SBE state employees during the
interview process.
During the discovery process for the lawsuit filed against the SBE and SOS by
former SBE Assistant Director Matt Selph for wrongful termination, it was brought
to light that SOS staff (during my tenure) have looked up the voter registration
and party affiliation information of current SBE staff and potential SBE staff
during their interview process. These employees include both merit and
contracted employees.



In or around January 2018, AD Scutchfield and myself were told by SOS staff that we
were not to have any communication with members of the State Board of Election that
was not first reviewed and approved by the Secretary.
This has isolated SBE staff and precluded us from keeping the bipartisan State
Board of Elections informed of concerns and possible conflicts between the
interests of the SBE and those of the Office of the Secretary of State.

 

On July 3, 2018, Secretary Lundergan-Grimes instructed SBE staff to not comply with a
judicially-ordered Department of Justice Consent Decree.
After several months of joint negations between SBE counsel, SOS staff and the
Department of Justice, the SBE entered into a Federal Consent Decree on July
3, 2018. The consent decree mandated SBE to proceed with, and in a timely
manner, the completion of a voter registration address confirmation and inactive
voter process. It should be noted that reason for DOJ involvement and ultimately
for entering into this consent decree, is the past failure of SBE (under the day to
day management of the SOS) to adhere to and/or follow portions of the National
Voter Rights Act (NVRA) for the previous six years. On July 3, 2018 US District
Judge Tatenhove signed this Consent Decree making it legally binding. Later that
same day, I was called in to speak to Secretary Lundergan-Grimes in her office.
In this meeting I was specifically told to immediately stop the scanning of all
returned voter address confirmation cards, which was in direct contradiction to
the consent decree. At that time, SBE had already mailed over 600,000
postcards and had received back over 100,000, all of which were to be scanned.
By not scanning the returned cards, we would not be able to generate the second
mailing, which was required per the signed consent decree.
After leaving this meeting, having voiced my concern about the nature of this
request, both AD Scutchfield and I continued to question the legality of this
request to SOS staff. By the following Monday, both AD Scutchfield and I were
told by SOS staff that we were allowed to continue the scanning process,
however, we were (per SOS staff) to “slow-walk” them. Neither AD Scutchfield or
I complied with the demands to either “stop” or “slow-walk” this process. At the
time of this report, SBE has scanned approximately 220,000 postcards. It is
important to also note that during the negotiations with the DOJ, SOS staff
mandated that neither AD Scutchfield (who was, at the time, also the General
Counsel to the SBE) nor I were to have any further contact with the DOJ and that
all further communication with DOJ would immediately go through outside
counsel, Luke Morgan, and SOS staff.



The Secretary has been given emergency authority from the Board to send poll workers
across county lines into any location in the Commonwealth at her discretion.
In our first month at SBE, AD Scutchfield and I identified that many of the
Commonwealth’s voting precincts were not being filled with the statutorily
required two Democrats and two Republicans. We brought this to the attention of
SOS staff along with a three- to four-year plan to holistically fix the problem
without damaging it further, either tangibly or by reputation. However, the
Secretary brought an emergency regulation to the Board for passage, which, in
my opinion, did not fully explain to the Board the complexity of the problem
and/or the potential negative externalities of its passage. My main opposition with
this regulation was that there was not a reserve of poll workers that represent an
equal percentage of party affiliation that could be tapped into. This was made
evident before the primary election, when the Secretary launched a statewide
media push for the recruitment of poll workers, and the overwhelming percentage

 of volunteers were Democrats from Jefferson and Fayette Counties. This is a
problem because the current imbalance of poll workers already leans heavily
Democratic, therefore, exacerbating the problem of equal representation for both
parties. Both AD Scutchfield and I stated we were unwilling to send troops of
Democrats throughout the Commonwealth’s counties without the equitable
distribution of Republicans as well.


Secretary Lundergan-Grimes has given the Office of the SOS the ability to recruit poll
workers, side stepping a process that was built to have checks and balances within the
two-party structure. This potentially allows for the Office of the SOS to pick and choose
poll workers with no opposing party oversight.
Part of SBE’s plan to rectify the imbalance of poll workers, originally presented to
SOS staff, was that SBE would create a web service and backend database that
would allow both political parties, county Boards of Election and County Clerks to
recruit poll workers and further give the voters of Kentucky a place to log in to
volunteer, receive information, and potentially training.
The Secretary decided that the Office of the SOS would build the service
proposed by SBE. When SBE was consulted, we responded with our concerns
that their build timeline was unreasonable to also account for the prerequisite
security and stability a system of this complexity and size would need. In the end,
they had one SOS developer build this system in less than one week. For
comparison, SBE’s proposed production schedule for this product would have
taken multiple developers several months to design, build and test a system
before deployment, ensuring the appropriate stability and security for an election
system.
Although my concerns about the security and stability of the platform that was
built are incredibly important, I am more concerned with the erosion of the
foundation of checks and balances that that govern the recruitment and
placement of poll workers. The system the SOS has built resides in the office of a
politically-elected official, whereas a system built by SBE would have been
housed and administered in an office with bipartisan administration and Board
oversight.



The Secretary has requested, and is now in possession of, the names, addresses,
counties, precincts and party affiliations of all 15,000 state poll workers. This information
was requested by the Office of the SOS in order to mail a letter of gratitude directly from
Secretary Lundergan-Grimes on SOS letterhead, prior to one of the most contentious
elections for the Commonwealth in many years.
AD Scutchfield and I have, at multiple times, insisted that the Secretary’s request
be presented to the full membership of the Board, with a full explanation of its
use and history. We have also suggested that the letter come from the Board on
SBE letterhead to remove any perception of inappropriate influence on the
November General Election. Additionally, we have requested that the letter be
sent after the election, rather than before.

 Several weeks ago, a member of the SOS staff pulled me aside and requested
that I send this poll worker file to the Secretary and not tell SBE staff that I had
done so. After SBE staff’s continued reluctance in sharing the information with
the Office of the SOS, we were notified by Assistant Secretary Galyon that we
were to “immediately” comply with the request, referencing in an email the KRS
code that states the Secretary is the Commonwealth’s Chief Election Officer.
These last three complaints may or may not seem fairly innocuous individually, however they
must be placed in an appropriate context. The Executive Branch Ethics Commission Advisory
Opinion 10-01 released on March 19, 2010, answered the question of what authority the
Secretary of State has to influence a statewide election, specifically, when running for another
elected office. These are the three most salient parts of this opinion:
“The Secretary of State does not have access to the Statewide Voter
Registration Database.”
“If any one individual had the intent to affect a statewide race, that person would
need the complicity or acquiescence of a majority of the more than 14,300
precinct workers…”
The Secretary “quite simply, under normal circumstances, lacks the ability to
affect the election’s outcome. So long as the Secretary of State remains
cognizant of the Executive Branch Code of Ethics during the election process,
and there is no reason to believe he (Secretary Trey Grayson) will do otherwise,
it seems unlikely that his participation would affect the public’s confidence in the
integrity of the executive branch.”
The full Opinion can be found at: https://ethics.ky.gov/Advisory%20Opinions/10-01.pdf
The legislators who created the laws that govern our elections placed a system of checks and
balances within them; checks and balances that would allow no one individual or one political
party to have an unfair advantage within the system. During Secretary of State Alison
Lundergan-Grimes term in office, many of these checks have been slowly chipped away. To
illustrate this point, neither former Secretary of State, Trey Grayson, nor his staff, had access to
the voter registration database and yet Secretary Lundergan-Grimes has given herself this
access and continually uses it for inappropriate reasons. And, this use of the VRS has taken
place despite the strikingly similar protests of multiple Kentucky SBE Directors (of both political
parties) who have been terminated at the Secretary’s recommendation.
Further, the recruitment of poll workers has always been the responsibility of the county political
parties and county boards of elections at the local level. And yet, Secretary Lundergan-Grimes
has now consolidated this authority within her office giving herself or representatives the ability
to both recruit (without any oversight from County Clerks or the opposing political party) and
place poll workers from the county of her choice into counties across the Commonwealth. I am
not suggesting that the Secretary has, or plans to, manipulate the Commonwealth’s elections,
however, the damage done is in the appearance of this ability and to the confidence the voting
electorate must have in our elections being free and fair, unfettered by corruption and
malfeasance.
In retaliation to my protest of the items above and other actions, Secretary Lundergan-Grimes
has yelled at me, screamed at me, and spoken to me in derogatory terms that have offended

 me to the core of who I am as an individual. In every instance this has taken place, it was a
direct reaction to me bringing up my concerns as to the ethical appropriateness of a specific
issue (several of these incidents of harassment were witnessed by both SOS staff and SBE
staff). It should be noted that in the majority of these instances my protest took the form of me
suggesting “this might be something the Board should look at” and not a direct defiance. It is my
understanding, through the testimony of others, that my predecessors were treated in this same
manner as well, and that on some occasions this was done in the presence of SBE staff. I say
this so you will understand this is not an isolated incident, but rather a pattern of behavior, a
pattern of hostility, abuse and retaliation not specific to myself alone.
On a regular basis, both the Secretary and SOS staff speak of the Commonwealth’s 120 County
Clerks in disparaging terms. It has been explained to AD Scutchfield and I that there are “good
clerks and bad clerks,” the inference being some are Democrats and others are Republicans. If
a Clerk is deemed to be “too Republican” or a Clerk unwilling to work with the Secretary on her
terms, we have been told to not work with these individuals. It is important to understand why
this impacts the working relationship between County Clerks and SBE. In short, SBE has been
hamstrung in its abilities to serve the entirety of the Commonwealth; to exclude a Clerk, any
clerk, is to exclude an entire county of registered Kentuckians and is unacceptable on any level.
In working with the 120 County Clerks and their deputies (regardless of party affiliation), I have
found a group of individuals who truly exemplify what it means to be a Kentuckian. I have found
them to be intelligent, hardworking, thoughtful and fiercely independent to the benefit of the men
and women whom they have sworn an oath to serve. And, with very limited resources, they
administer the Commonwealths election systems and elections with excellence.
Over the past several weeks this situation has come to a point in which I now have no other
option but to communicate my concerns with you, the Board, and with the Executive Branch
Ethics Commission. I have come to the conclusion that what was a hostile work environment
has now intensified to a) involve my family and b) endanger SBE’s ability to safeguard our
election systems. More importantly, it has grown past my ability to handle internally.
At the beginning of August, Secretary of State Lundergan-Grimes appointed a new Assistant
Secretary. When Assistant Secretary of State Erica Galyon started in her new capacity, one of
her first interactions with SBE was the collection of the poll worker information (referenced
above). Both AD Scutchfield and I expressed our concerns and asked that the Secretary take
this request to the Board. After the meeting I also expressed to her (as my direct supervisor)
that not only did this make me uncomfortable, but that in previous situations where I voiced my
concerns I was met with harassment. Specifically, I told her that I had been yelled at, screamed
at and spoken to in derogatory terms, and that I was no longer willing to accept this. As of
Friday, August 24, 2018, my HR representative has not been contacted about this claim, nor
has ASOS Galyon proposed any remedy that would rectify this serious matter.
Instead, over the past weeks, several events have taken place that have led me to this letter:


At some point on or around August 13, 2018, Secretary Lundergan-Grimes personally
contacted a member of my immediate family (whose name I do not wish to include in this
statement). On this call, she stated that I was not being loyal to her personally, that I was
not doing what I was told and that I was being hostile towards her. My family member
was incredibly offended by this call and notified me promptly.

 In my opinion, this call was not made for my family member to “deal with” me, this call
was made so that I would understand that I have family members that work in similar
arenas, and that their livelihoods can be affected by my unwillingness to equivocate to
the Secretary’s demands. It is one thing to suffer in a hostile work environment,
especially when the person harassing you is an elected official, as there is often very
little recourse or relief, but when that harassment and threatening behavior turns towards
your family members, it has gone past the point of any tolerance. There is no
circumstance that permits the threating of one’s family, period.


After several months of planning, SBE and the State Fusion Center were to take part in
a training session that would include multiple state agencies, in the preparation and
response for a statewide cyber-attack. In my opinion, our local officials (for SBE that is
the County Clerks) need as many resources and training opportunities as we can offer
them. Because of this, I asked the Fusion center to include four of our County Clerks,
and we tailored much of the training to be specifically for Clerks. Prior to the training, and
after I made my complaint of harassment to ASOS Galyon (only a week and a half away
from this event), I was told that the Secretary was not made aware of this training and
that she did not approve it. I was then told to call each of these Clerks and cancel this
training. I was also notified that SOS staff would be attending the training in their place.
I had made the SOS staff aware of this event several months prior and had asked
Fusion Center Director Jason Childers to also make SOS staff aware of this event (as
this was a Fusion Center event and not run by SBE), and I know for a fact that he did.
When I reminded ASOS Galyon of this, I was told it did not matter, and that the
Secretary had made her decision. It is my opinion that the cancellation of this training
was meant to embarrass me with Clerks in retaliation for my complaint made to ASOS
Galyon. Unfortunately, the only thing it did was make the Commonwealth’s election
officials less prepared for a very real and serious challenge.



SBE runs a large and very complicated enterprise level system. VRS and the other
software solutions operated by SBE should be operated by 10 to 15 IT and software
development professionals, at a minimum. At this current date we have four (4); two (2)
IT professionals and two (2) software engineers. We are also short-staffed on the
administrative side, but that is not relevant to this situation. Several months ago, AD
Scutchfield and I realized that we could hire at least 3 more engineers if we rewrote a
grant that pays for our military and overseas voting portal. Because this grant was
originally processed through the Office of SOS we worked with SOS staff to redraft and
resubmit this to the federal government (the grantor) and were granted the funds. After
weeks of reviewing applications and administering personnel interviews, we had
narrowed down to one applicant to fill one of the senior engineers positions.
After our interview with this candidate, we let SOS staff know that we were ready to offer
this individual a position. We were first told that ASOS Galyon would need to also
interview this individual, and we facilitated this interview. After my continued requests to
SOS staff to allow us to move forward with hiring, we were told that Secretary
Lundergan-Grimes would also need to interview this individual, which we also facilitated.
After this interview, I was called by the vendor who was confused, as was the applicant,
because it had been conveyed to the applicant during the interview that he would not be
working at SBE but rather for SOS at the State Capitol. Ultimately, we still have never

 been notified of this change, however, the remaining interviews that had been set up
through SBE have now been moved to SOS as well, and to my knowledge, the original
applicant still has not been offered any position.
This concerns me for several reasons, besides of the poor way in which we have treated
both the applicant, as well as the vendor, and the damage this does to SBE’s ability to
recruit qualified candidates in the future. Much of my concern stems from the
appearance that this is clearly tied to the retaliatory behavior towards me. Similar to the
cancelling of the Fusion Center training, this does not hurt me as much as it creates a
failure point in the protection and stability of our election systems. The Secretary is more
than aware of how short staffed SBE is and this is beyond negligent in both its action
and reasoning.
I was not born in Kentucky, but over the past several years it has become my adopted and
forever home, a home where I have found community and fellowship. A community where I
have found my neighbors, my fellow Kentuckians to be honest, hardworking and resilient in the
face of any challenge. I say this because in a time of political contention and contempt, I have
found a workplace that sees not our differences in policy and ideology, but sees our sameness
in our love for home and family, and for community and Commonwealth. I am privileged to come
to work every day and work with individuals of amazing character, with an intense drive and
passion to protect our system of governance and its foundational underpinning, the
Commonwealth’s Election Systems.
I am fairly confident that once I send this letter, any career I had or would have had as a public
servant in government is over. Despite the fact that I have been the one who has been
harassed (for questioning the ethical nature of the Secretary’s requests), and despite the fact I
have taken the appropriate steps in notifying my direct supervisor of the unethical nature of
these requests as well as the retaliatory action taken by the Secretary, I am now in a position
where I will be penalized for doing the right thing. However, given the choice between the failure
of the Commonwealth’s Election Systems and my ability to continue in a career that I love, I will
choose the safeguarding of our election systems. Despite being the second person to come
forward in less than a year to make similar accusations, my genuine hope is that in coming
forward, the State Board and all relevant regulatory agencies will take action to protect our
election systems and the reputation of the Commonwealth’s elections.
I would most respectively recommend to the Board the following actions:
1) The State Board of Elections resumes the responsibility of all day-to-day SBE
operations.
 The Board has given Secretary of State Alison Lundergan-Grimes the
responsibility of the day-to-day management of SBE administration and staff.
Due to the current conflict and hostile work environment created by the Secretary
and SOS staff, contact between the offices should be discontinued until after
these issues and concerns have been considered and adjudicated by the Board.
2) The Board request that the Commonwealth’s Executive Branch Ethics Commission
conduct a thorough investigation of these and any other allegations and assertions.
 Due to the nature of the relationship between SOS and SBE, it is suggested an
advisory opinion be created to better define the relationship between SOS and
SBE staff to adhere to moving forward.

 3) The Board request the Commonwealth Office of Technology (COT) review SBE systems
and safeguards and report all findings to the Board.
 The Board should not have to rely only on internal SBE staff assessment of SBE
systems alone, they should have access to and receive an unbiased report about
the health of SBE systems. This will help ensure that all current work product
meets and adheres to industry best practices and standards in line with the
resources provided to SBE.
4) The Board recommend the State Auditor begin an audit of the poll worker volunteer
portal created by SOS.
 Due to the inability of any bipartisan checks and balances related to the new poll
worker recruitment portal housed and maintained by SOS staff, an audit should
be conducted. The audit should specifically review
 how many individuals volunteered through this portal, and if all of those
individuals have been appropriately and timely referred to their resident
home county Board of Elections.
 How this data is stored and maintained, and whether or not it meets
current standards for the protection of election systems and critical
infrastructure.
5) The Board request information from relevant agencies (Federal Elections Commission,
Kentucky Registry of Election Finance and the Kentucky Finance and Administration
Cabinet) related to the appropriateness of all SBE contracts.
 Due to the continued use of vendors who SBE administration has requested not
be used, due to security and or work product concerns, and that despite these
protests SOS staff continues to use these vendors on behalf of SBE often without
the foreknowledge of SBE, it is recommended that an audit be conducted to
determine the relationship between any and all vendors, their owners,
subsidiaries, employees and or all contractors used by SBE who may have given
or donated campaign funds to any and all SOS staff including, but not limited to,
Secretary Lundergan-Grimes, and any Political Action Committees associated
with said campaigns.
 All resulting information should be passed on to the relevant investigative body
for further action.
6) The Board request an investigation from the State Personnel Cabinet to determine if any
laws or regulations were violated by the Secretary’s use of the VRS to look at the voter
and party registration information of state merit employees.
 If a violation of personnel regulations has been violated, the Commonwealth
Attorney General should be contacted and notified of any possible wrongdoing.
7) The Board request an investigation by the Attorney General into the veracity of the
claims recently made by an SOS employee about Secretary Lundergan-Grimes and her
staff’s misuse of the VRS database and the potential harm to the State Board and
Commonwealth Election Systems. Further, if there is any merit to these claims, the FBI
should be contacted to perform a forensic analysis of all relevant data and systems
associated with this matter.
 Please see attached addendum (per KRS 61.878 E,F, security systems being
exempted from open records).

 Thank you for your time and consideration. I serve at the Board’s pleasure and I am available to speak
with you at your discretion.

Sincerely,

Jared Dearing
Executive Director
State Board of Elections