Minutes of Democrats Abroad Guatemala

Executive Committee meeting on Thursday, September 24, 2020 at 11:00am via WebEx

Members in Attendance: John Chudy, Chair; Mary Lou Ridinger, Vice Chair; Vincent D’Agati,
Treasurer; Phyllis MacCartney, Secretary; Juan Pablo Aris, Counsel; Kee Adams Evans, Events
Coordinator; Rachael Shenyo, Occidente MeetUp Chair; Traci Styner, Lago Atitlan MeetUp
Chair; Blaine Stokes Member At Large; Karl Holzwarth, Interim Member at Large, Michael
Shan, Member; Jose Ordenez, Member.

Per our bylaws (paragraph 19.3), all meetings are open to all members.

Called to order at 11:01am

Approval of Agenda and Minutes: Minutes from August meeting and agenda for September
meeting were approved unanimously.

Pending Approval of Interim Positions: Karl Holzwarth, interim Member at Large was
approved and waiting final approval by membership vote, pending.
Treasurer's report: Vincent reported that as of September 16th Q1020 deposit into account at
banco Promerica and along with petty cash total for DAGT is Q7336. Approved. A few Biden t-
shirts are still available in sizes medium and large. John Chudy is collecting the money for t-shirt
sales and will submit it to the treasurer in the near future.
Chair’s Report: Positions remaining vacant after the formal vote to fill the remaining Member
at Large position will be Guatemala City MeetUp group chair, and Media Contact and
Communications chair. Carla Perez has expressed some interest in filling the Media Contact
position.

Anyone interested in participating in the Zoom Voter Assistance team and Drop-in Sundays for
ballot request help that needs volunteers to guide voters wanting help should contact John Chudy
https://www.democratsabroad.org/154943/zoom_voter_assistance.

As a result of contacting Opt Out Email members by phone (153 members had opted out) we
reduced the membership numbers by 55 because they were not reachable by phone or email and
may be no longer residing in the country. DAGT membership is down to 553. As a result of
Facebook advertising and interest in the election 13 more members have joined in the past week.
Currently there are 566 members in Democrats Abroad Guatemala

GET Out the Vote Efforts continue. There continues to be a need for outreach to get out the
vote. Traci mentioned that people around the lake have arranged with DHL to send multiple
ballots for a reduced price. There is a general feeling around the lake that people do not fully
trust the embassy to send in ballots.

Anyone using Cargo Express or Guatex to send envelopes to the Embassy needs to clearly mark
that ballot information is contained within to ensure timely delivery and proper handling at the
Embassy.

Juan Pablo mentioned that there have been glitches using his Fax service due to electronic noise
on the land lines or perhaps because they are Voice Over Internet Protocol. Karl mentioned that
his Fax service in Guatemala works well and those interested can contact him. Juan Pablo will
coordinate with Karl to send ballots he is having difficulty with Traci said Fax Zero app works.

Traci and others mentioned there are several free fax apps available for iPhones, iPads and
androids that seem to work well for sending faxes.

Rachel told us they are using Cargo Express in Xela and also using Facebook Guatemala groups
to contact voters. The site email-to-fax service provided by the Federal Voter Assistance
Program, fax@fvap.gov, works well for sending of ballots to Fax ballot return states.

John has been making trips to drop off ballots at the embassy. Last one will be September 24,
2020.

Voters or their friends may drop ballots in person at the Embassy from 7am to 2pm Monday
through Thursday. The drop off window at the embassy is located at 7th Calle “A” and 1st
Avenida. In HueHue and Xela ballots can be sent to Rachael Shenyo in Xela, and then forwarded
to John in Antigua for delivery. The deadline for ballots arriving in Antigua is September 29th.
The final date for delivery to the Embassy or via DHL is October 2nd. We should strive for
deliveries much earlier than that, however.

If for some reason a ballot is not received there is an option for a federal write-in absentee ballot
(FWAB).

CallHub outreach to members to use VoteFromAbroad.org will continue. Country committee

campaigns have been replaced with regional campaigns to reach postal mail only voters to
encourage them to vote a FWAB now to ensure their ballot reaches by November 3rd. They
should also vote their official state ballot when it arrives. Only one of the two will be counted,
but doing the FWAB now will ensure that at least one arrives on time. Volunteers are needed.

Incident Regarding Facebook Ads: Kristen Berg, who is based in Dublin and long resided in
London while working for Facebook, is coordinating Democrats Abroad’s global Facebook
campaigns. DA Guatemala has run two of these global campaigns so far. Kee reported on two
malicious threats posted in response. The threats are from one local person warning us to get out
of “his” country. Kee suggested that we may want to consider stopping advertising via FB
because the threats. A motion to discontinue posting on Facebook was made. Discussing the
motion to discontinue ads, Juan Pablo said that we can legally respond to such threats as they are
punishable by law in Guatemala, and that DAGT should not give in to threats from Trump
supporters because that is what they want. Juan Pablo will coordinate with Kee about the source
of the malicious posts and will follow up. The motion failed and DAGT will continue to post Get
Out the Vote ads on Facebook (which are non-partisan).

Supreme Court Nomination: Mary Lou called her U.S. Senators in Mississippi (Roger Wicker
and Cindy Hyde-Smith) to withhold voting for the Supreme Court nominee until after the
election and encouraged everyone to do this. Mary Lou also mentioned that she is hearing that
some belief groups in Guatemala are urging congregants to oppose Biden and Harris which
might explain negative comments seen on social media.

Next DAGT Excom meeting via WebEx is scheduled for October 15th at 11am.

Next Regional Meeting October 13th.

Adjourned: 12:41pm