By Patrick Mcardle
Staff Writer
After almost 10 years on the job, Secretary of State Jim Condos is still eager to be re-elected and bring new ideas to the office.
Condos, 69, said he was flattered by people who suggested he should run for governor, but he said he is happy being Secretary of State.
“My position is, I enjoy what I’m doing, I know I make a difference, and I know I’m helping Vermont. Too often people have jobs where they don’t always enjoy going to work. I enjoy going to work. I enjoy working with the team around me. We’ve done a lot of good things to put good government solutions in place,” he said.
Condos spent 18 years on the South Burlington City Council, the last eight years as chairman.
He was a member of the Vermont State Senate from 2001 to 2008, spending time as the chairman of the government operations and education committees.
Before being secretary of state, Condos worked in sales and marketing including a Fortune 100 company.
Since becoming secretary of state in 2011, Condos said he believes he has brought some positive changes to the office.
“We have completely modernized and transformed the office to what was a paper-driven system to an efficient, productive visual environment. When I first took office, we had literally zero percent online activity, and we’re now up over 97%, 98% online activity,” he said.
According to Condos, there were some web pages connected to the secretary of state’s website when he first took office that couldn’t even be reached to make changes.
After a two-year project to update the website, Condos said the office is increasingly transparent because of the information posted to the website.
The registration system for new corporations has been updated as well, Condos said.
“Essentially what we’ve done is put in all-new IT solutions for all aspects of the secretary of state’s office so we are now a more efficient, productive, accurate and transparent agency,” he said.
From his previous career, Condos said he had learned the importance of customer service.
“When I first took office, the first day I walked through the door, after being sworn in, I said that we were going to be an office that was known for customer service. That we were going to return phone calls, we were going to answer the phone, we were going to reply to emails, we were going to find the information that people need,” he said.
Condos said he has been an advocate for open meeting laws and access to public records and, as the chief election officer for the state, has refrained from endorsing any federal, state or local candidates.
A change in state law, that makes it easier for a plaintiff who wins a case to recover legal fees, is another change he said he thinks is an improvement.
While Condos has been secretary of state for some time, the last year has been like no other for the state and the world.
Condos said he had been paying attention to COVID as something that could affect the operations of his office since February. At the time, he polled his staff to learn who was prepared if an order came to work remotely.
“We found out whether people had computers at home, whether they had internet access, if they had those capabilities. Then, accordingly, we ordered additional laptops to make sure that the staff would have what they needed to be able to go home should they (need to work from home) and shortly after we started to receive the laptops, of course, the governor in March started the shutdown,” he said.
Staff members are having calls forwarded and can still access email.
Condos said the work he initiated to make the office digital-driven allowed the staff to be “flexible and nimble” in order to keep the secretary of state’s office active.
With the pandemic coming during a federal election year, Condos said he had two goals: Protect every eligible Vermonter’s right to vote and protect all Vermonters who planned to vote or work in the municipalities’ polling places to run the election.
Condos addressed concerns about voter fraud by saying it was his experience, and he believed the experience of others who supported actual elections, that it was hard enough to get people to vote so he didn’t believe there was a genuine problem with people casting multiple votes.
“I mean that sincerely. I also want to say that the true voter fraud in this country is denying any eligible American the right to vote, and there have been many cases across the country of systems that have been put in place, where the real result is to suppress voter turnout. That, to me, is the real shame that we should all be upset about,” he said.
patrick.mcardle @rutlandherald.com
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