We're a few weeks away from Ohio’s May 5 primary, and the noise surrounding voting in America can be deafening.
To hear President Trump tell it, our elections are corrupt and the federal government should get involved, but our Constitution gave that power to the states for a reason.
Election officials across the U.S., including Ohio, say fraud is rare and non-citizen voting is rare, yet Republicans are putting forth bills to make changes.
Democrats say any measure to make voting harder serves to disenfranchise the very people whose interests are most at stake. Then there’s the question of who to vote for. What should voters do?
Confusion helps no one, in fact, it may make potential voters throw up their hands in frustration.
We’re spending the next hour walking you through when to register, new rules on voting absentee and what’s on the ballot. It’s our Voting 101 show.
Guests:
- David Becker, executive director/founder, The Center for Election Innovation and Research
- Jen Miller, executive director, League of Women Voters of Ohio
- Aaron Ockerman, executive director, Ohio Association of Election Officials
Related:
- Primary Election 2026: Everything Ohio voters need to know before heading to the polls
- League of Women Voters of Metropolitan Columbus webinar registration: Local Election Integrity: Are We Secure Enough?
Transcript
This transcript is generated with AI. To ensure its accuracy, review the audio file.
Amy Juravich: Welcome to All Sides with Amy Juravich. We're weeks away from Ohio's May 5th primary, and the noise surrounding voting in America can be deafening. To hear President Trump tell it, our elections are corrupt, and only the federal government should run them. But our Constitution gave that power to the states for a reason.
Nonetheless, the president wants to impose more steps into the voting process, and he's lobbying hard for what he calls the Save America Act. Which stands for Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility. To help us sort through the latest is David Becker, executive director and founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research. The nonpartisan nonprofit center works with election officials of both parties all around the country to ensure elections happen that voters can trust. Welcome back to All Sides, David.
David Becker: Hey, thanks, Amy.
Juravich: So the U.S. Senate is dealing with pressure from President Trump right now to pass what's called the SAVE Act, the Save America Act, ahead of a planned recess at the end of the week. And then there's the whole six-week Department of Homeland Security shutdown that's clogging up the airports, and that's kind of getting rolled into this for some reason.
But let's unpack what's happening with the SAVE Act for now. We'll leave that as a separate thing, the SAVE Act. And for some background. I want to play some audio from the president's State of the Union address from back in February.
Speaker 3: All voters must show proof of citizenship in order to vote. And no more crooked, male-in-violence except for illness, disability, military, or travel. None.
Juravich: All right, so David, lots of applause, vocal support from Republicans in that audio. But Trump calls mail-in ballots crooked here in this statement. But the president himself just voted absentee in Florida. So why does he say it's bad for others if he voted this way?
Becker: Obviously, I can't get into the mind of the president. I don't know why he's saying what he's saying. I think it's pretty clear he doesn't understand how elections are actually run in the United States and why they are so secure. But he does understand the convenience and security of mail voting from his own perspective.
He was apparently physically down in Palm Beach County this weekend. When early voting was happening in person. He could have chosen to vote in person, but he preferred to vote by mail, as tens of millions of Americans do. And that's because they know we've had mail voting for well over 150 years since before the Civil War.
There are many security protocols in place to make sure mail voting is secure. It's convenient. If people choose to vote in person, I usually vote early in person. That's also a wonderful convenient way of voting. Ohio offers all of those options as do most places in the United States.
I think it's odd that he is pushing for this really sweeping federal bill that would require the most restrictive voter ID we've ever seen, more restrictive than any state in the country. That would require photocopies of IDs when you send in your ballot and ask. And request a mail ballot that required that you physically present yourself at election office to prove citizenship, all of which is not required in any state. Every single state in the union would be in violation of this law as soon as it passed.
What's going to happen is I think this week we're going to have the final debates. They're not close to passage on this. The Democrats are united in opposition. Republicans are not united in support. And so I think we'll finish up the debate this week and then we'll move on.
Juravich: So, as I said, the SAVE Act stands for the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act. So can you walk us through what would actually change? I mean, you already have to be a citizen to vote. So what's different? It's the way you prove you're a citizen or how often you prove your a citizen?
Becker: So yeah, let's be clear. It is federal law. It is very clear that you have to be a citizen to vote. That law is working very well, by the way. The states have looked at this issue themselves. In Ohio, they looked for non-citizens. They ended up ultimately finding only five that they could prosecute over more than a decade period of time.
In states all around the country, they're finding at most a few dozen in out of millions of registered voters. Trump's own Department of Homeland Security reviewed 50 million voter records to see if they could document citizenship. And 99.98% of them were confirmable at DHS. And even that 0.02% weren't non-citizens. They were just possible non-citizens, many of whom are citizens. So we already have requirement of citizenship.
We also have a requirement of ID when you register. That's been federal law since 2002. Every single person who registers to vote has to show ID on their voter registration form, driver's license number, if they don't have it, social security number, and if they don't provide that, they have to bring ID when they vote the first time.
So every single person has that already. What SAVE would do is impose something we haven't seen before ever in the United States. First, it would require every single voter to dig up their proof of citizenship, their birth certificate, their passport. Their naturalization certificate, and physically present it to an election office every time they have a registration transaction.
In other words, any time they register, any time the move, any they change their name. And if the names on those documents don't match, perhaps because of marriage, you're gonna have to find another document that links those two to prove you are who you say you are every time you conduct a registration transaction. When you vote, you're going to need to show not only photo ID, photo ID that has citizenship on it, which most of us do not have.
Juravich: Yeah, what's that? What's that
Becker: Exactly. That's exactly the question I think Democrats and others who oppose this bill are asking. You would have to bring two forms of ID, basically. You'd have to bring both your license and once again, dig up your citizenship documentation. And if the names don't match, you would once again have to bring a third form of identification, perhaps a marriage certificate. I've been married 25 years. I have no idea where my marriage certificate is.
Juravich: So if my passport, if my last name matches my driver's license last name, I could bring my driver license and my passport. But if I, for some reason, don't have a passport or it doesn't match, I would have to bring my birth certificate and then bring my marriage license. Is that what you're saying? Okay. Is that what you're saying? OK.
Becker: Yeah, that's how it appears the language in the current version exists. And finally, I think this is the most unusual part of the Save America Act. It would require every single person who wants to vote by mail to provide a photocopy of their identification and perhaps multiple identifications, as I just indicated, every time they request a mail ballot and when they send it in. So twice for every single vote. And just think now and.
Juravich: So you'd have to go to like a FedEx, does a Fedex Kinko still exist? I think so. Or a Staples or...
Becker: I was just speaking to students at a big university, and I said the word Xerox, and I got blank stares, right? I mean, this is not something that most people would want to do. And quite frankly, I think that's really one of the most interesting parts of this.
If you look at the potential impacts of this bill, and there's no question that voters are going to have a much harder time voting, there's a very strong likelihood that this could actually hurt Republicans more than Democrats. If you looked at, Rural voters voters who have to go long distances to get to their election office or who really need mail voting because they can't get to a polling place conveniently those voters are likely disproportionately Republican Voters who may be married and have different names It's just a demographic fact that married women tend to be more Republican than single women So there's a variety of things that could occur here that could have unintended political consequences which is why I think ultimately a lot of the Republicans in Congress are hoping that this debate ends very soon and moves on because they're not entirely sure what the outcome of this will be.
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about voting changes that Congress is wrestling with, even as President Trump is urging the passage of the SAVE Act, and we're talking with David Becker, executive director and founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research. In recent comments to Senate Republicans in Florida, President Trump spelled out why he says this legislation is needed and needed right now.
Speaker 4: It'll guarantee the midterms. It'll guaranteed the mid terms. If you don't get it, big trouble, my opinion.
Juravich: So he's really leaning into this midterms language, where Republicans need to pass this before the midtermes, basically, to ensure their elections. Is that how you're reading into that?
Becker: I mean, that's what it appears he's saying. I mean let's just think for a moment how unfortunate it is to hear politicians on either side of the aisle talk about passing election rules solely for the purposes of assisting their party rather than helping their voters make their choice or even legitimately improving election integrity.
That's clearly not what's happening here. Again, I can't get inside his mind. I don't know why he's planning some of these things. I can tell you that based on his comments, he doesn't understand a lot of the basic elements of how elections work in our nation and why, for instance, we know non-citizens aren't voting in any significant numbers, why we know the outcomes of our elections are accurate and complete and verified and transparent because of all of the paper ballots and the audits that we have, why we our voter lists are more accurate than they ever have been before thanks to technology and better procedures.
Again, I think if, you know, for anyone listening, if you want to get your election information, if you wanna understand how elections work and why we can trust them, first talk to your local election official, your county election official and get to know them, thank them for their work and probably most importantly, volunteer to be a poll worker because if you volunteer to be a poor worker, you'll see so many of the checks and balances and redundancies that occur to make sure that that election fraud won't happen. That we can be confident in our election results. It's a wonderful way to serve your community and also learn about our election process from the inside.
Juravich: We also have audio here from Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse in comments this week on the Senate floor and saying that the SAVE Act would probably be better described in his opinion as the "Steal the Next Election Act." Let's listen.
Speaker 5: You can imagine why they would want to engage in special weapons and tactics to try to win the 2026 election when you see the political disaster that they're enmeshed in, the mess that the Trump administration has made of the economy, the stench of corruption pervading the administration, a war that is running up gasoline prices and has NO! End in sight and no evident plan, wherever you look, you see a party in complete disarray.
Juravich: Do you think that, I mean, are the Republicans in disarray or do a lot of them support this? It's just that narrow margin that they have in the Senate is why it won't pass. They're just a few who are against it.
Becker: I mean, I think if you, I mean I have talked to some of the Republicans in Congress about that and I will say I don't sense wholehearted support for these bills and I think they understand a lot of the problems of this, but the main people I talk to are the election officials out there. I just got back from Georgia where I spoke to hundreds of election officials at the county level and the state level in Georgia.
I've spoken to election officials in Texas and many other states. To be perfectly honest, probably a majority of these election officials are Republican by a slight margin. And I have yet to talk to an election official who thinks these kinds of sweeping election bills should be enacted in Washington rather than election policy being made in their state capitals.
And that goes for whether it's the Republicans trying to do it now or the Democrats trying to that in 2021 and 2022. The state officials, the state legislatures, they know their voters best. That doesn't mean they always get it right. But they know they're voters best, they're accountable to their voters when they make choices one way or the other.
I think that's one of the reasons you haven't seen states roll back. A lot of male voting opportunities in their states, even though they've been pressured by the president. Ohio actually is somewhat of an outlier there because Ohio did change one of their major election policies, which is now male ballots are going to need to be in by the close of polls on election day rather than four days later, which was a change, of course.
Juravich: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that because the U.S. Supreme Court this week heard a case related to how mail-in ballots are counted. So everyone's talking about mail- in ballots right now. Ohio did get rid of its four-day grace period. So it used to be that the ballot could arrive four days after election day and still be counted. But starting with the May 5th primary, we have the ballot must physically be at the board of elections by election night at 7 30 p.m. So what do you make of these changes? Like, did you think the grace period was a good thing, or...?
Becker: I think that decision is best made by the states. The majority of states don't have an extended period for a seat of ballots, but about a third of the states do, and their states ranging as politically divergent as California and Mississippi. And the reasons can be variable there. I mean, it can be how reliable the mail is in their state, how rural some of their counties are, how many drop boxes states have.
This is one of the things Ohio has also rolled back on. Many of the states that require election day receipt have increased the number of places that someone can drop off their mail ballot on election day and in the days preceding, so they don't have to put it in the mail. Ohio has actually since 2020 gone the other direction.
So mail voters in Ohio might have some difficulty and should be very aware that if they're still holding onto their ballot, their mail valid about 10 days before the election, they should probably either voted and take it to their election office or bring it to a voting site, vote in person, surrender that ballot and to make sure that their voice is heard in the election. I think what we'll see here and we'll wait and see what the Supreme Court says. I think it's very hard to read the tea leaves here.
It's very clear to me that Congress has not clearly said that ballots have to be in by election day. There's nothing about that in the Constitution. So I think it's clear that the Supreme Court should rule. With the state of Mississippi here. But if they don't, now it won't affect Ohio voters because of this new law.
But I'll be watching this primary very closely. This is going to be the first major election since this law was passed. And if there are a lot of late arriving ballots, there could be a big voter education problem. I hope the legislature considers giving additional funding to counties and the state to educate their voters about these changes and also considers expanding the number of drop boxes that are available that voters where voters can drop off their voted mail ballot rather than having to put it in their postal mail.
Juravich: I just, before we let you go, I wanted to ask one more question about voter confidence versus voter confusion, because even if the SAVE Act doesn't pass, I have to imagine all of this talk about needing your birth certificate, that some people are going to show up at the polls with their birth certificates, being confused, thinking they need it, or not knowing what to do. What do you make of all of this talked at the national level and in each state about voter competence and voter confusion? What do you worry about there?
Becker: Well, I think we have seen some attacks on voter confidence. Often, there are individuals out there and movements that actively work to diminish voter confidence and then claim that that reduction in voter confidence is the justification for rather draconian voting restrictions. And that's problematic.
But we're also seeing voter confidence being reduced across the political spectrum. As we hear more and more disinformation as there are concerns about unprecedented federal interference in our elections. It with regard to confusion, that's an ongoing problem. Any change that might be enacted in voting procedures has a cost and that cost is voter confusion, even if it's a good change. And that confusion needs to be taken into account. I work on elections every day, every hour of my professional life, but most people don't think about elections more than once or twice every couple of years.
Speaker 6: And
Becker: And so it's understandable. They shouldn't have to be experts on this. But the one place they can always go is their local election official. The county election officials in Ohio and nationwide are outstanding. They're incredibly dedicated public servants. And they go to their websites, go to the offices, go to state election website to get the real information about what's happening on elections in your area and understand what you really need to do to vote.
The positive thing here is... We've had several elections in the last 14 months since this new administration has taken office. We've have 20-25 elections. We've some primaries in places like Texas. And turnout has been very high. Voters are still very motivated to make their voice heard. And I expect we're going to see very high voter turnout in 2026, celebrating our 250th anniversary as a nation, and perhaps seeing us break the heard from interim turnout, which was set in 2018 with 50% of eligible voters.
Juravich: We've been talking with David Becker, executive director and founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research. Thank you for your time today, David.
Becker: Oh, it's great to be with you, Amy.
Juravich: And listeners, our goal today is to answer some questions for you heading into this May 5th primary. In addition to today's show, I will be moderating a webinar on Monday, March 30th, hosted by the League of Women Voters of Metropolitan Columbus, along with Licking County and Delaware County. The nonpartisan webinar is titled "Local Election Integrity, Are We Secure Enough?" And it's free to attend, but you have to register in advance.
Coming up, we're going to talk with some local election officials and advocates about working for safe and fair primary elections here in Ohio. That's when All Sides continues on 89.7 NPR News.
Juravich: You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. Ohio's primary is May 5th. It's a chance for voters to narrow the field and advance to Democrat and Republican candidates for governor and to widow down a crowded field in the Ohio Supreme Court race. Along with other statewide offices, House and Senate seats as well, there is a lot on the primary election ballot. And there have been some changes since the last election. We'll get to those as well.
Joining us now for what we're calling a Voter 101 show, we have two seasoned election experts. We have Jen Miller, Executive Director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio. Welcome back, Jen.
Jen Miller: Thanks for having me.
Juravich: And we have Erin Ackerman, is Executive Director of the Ohio Association of Election Officials. And thanks for being here, Erin.
Aaron Ockerman: Good morning, Amy. Thanks for having me.
Juravich: So let's start by having each of you explain your role when it comes to elections. Jen, what what do you do whenever you know? You're thinking elections all the time. I'm sure so what what's what what? Do you think what do consider your role? When it comes? To a primary election coming up?
Miller: So the League of Women Voters is fiercely nonpartisan. We never endorse candidates or parties. And that's because voters are our North Star. What we're thinking about every day is what voters need to participate, whether that's understanding all the rules and logistics of voting or whether that being an informed voter. So one of the things we do are candidate forums and voter guides. But again, never putting our thumb on the scale. Our point is to make sure that voters have what they need to make the decisions. That they believe are best for them in the ballot box.
Juravich: And Aaron Ackerman, what does the Ohio Association of Election Officials entail? Like, I'm guessing you're thinking about elections day in and day out.
Ockerman: We, yeah, we more than think we, we do. We are the bipartisan organization that represents Ohio's 88 local county boards of elections. And to Jen's point, if she is fiercely nonpartisan, we are fiercely bipartisan. All of our boards in Ohio have two Democrats, two Republicans that serve on the board, a director and a deputy director, both of opposite political parties as well. And that trickles down to our organization. As a nonprofit organization, we do everything in a bipartisan fashion from our leadership team to our committees all the way through.
Juravich: And in the first segment, we spent a lot of time talking about the SAVE Act. President Trump is pushing hard for it. There's a lot up in the air still, and there probably still will be for the next few days. Jen, you're concerned about the impact of women if this SAVE act passes. And we talked a little bit with David Becker about that, but I wanted you to talk a more about the idea if a woman has changed her last name, what might happen if the SAVE Act passes as it is now?
Miller: We are concerned about women. I'm just going to say we're also concerned about rural Ohioans, older Ohioans people with disabilities. So, but more than 75% of women change their name when they get married. We have three and a half million women in Ohio who are married or have been. And a lot of times you don't have your marriage certificate close by, or you don't have your birth certificate close or your change of name close by.
What can be challenging here is that women would have to prove their, they would have more hoops to go through than their male counterparts just to vote. Imagine having your documents out of state. It can be very hard to get those, it can be time consuming, it could be expensive. And so this is unnecessary legislation that would cost a lot of money. Create a lot more work for elections officials. Take the vote away from many American citizens. You know, lots of folks don't have the initial documents that would be needed to register or re-register to vote, let alone to...
Juravich: Make their voices heard at the ballot box. Erin, what are you hearing from elections officials about this? Because I can imagine the idea of having to inspect people's birth certificates, passports, marriage licenses would add a new layer to election officials' training of poll workers too.
Ockerman: Officially, Amy, we do not have a position on the SAVE Act. We have not voted to support it or oppose it as an organization. But clearly, whenever we look at election legislation, whether it's at the state level or the federal level, there are things that we're worried about that we consider.
Unfunded mandates being at the top of our list and certainly there are costs associated with the SAFE Act that would ultimately trickle down to the state and really the local level our county commissioners would have to bear those costs. And then secondly, anytime you make changes that impact our poll workers, we're going to stand up and probably take notice.
To your point, ultimately, a lot of these changes are gonna depend on our poll worker's being able to understand what the law is, administer the law, implement the law in a fair way, perfectly, every time. And that's a big request of our poll work that are not volunteers, but they don't make a lot money. They're out there for their, because they believe it's the right thing to do. We want to be respectful of them and we want to make sure that we put them in an opportunity to do well.
Juravich: Yeah, I can remember you being on a show in the past whenever we were switching from paper to iPads and having to train the poll workers on that. And so that was a layer, that was some new complexity and we got there, right? We did. We got there. So are you worried about, so I guess my next question is the last question I asked David Becker. Are you worried confusion? Because even if nothing happens with the SAVE Act. We've been talking about this idea of needing more ID, better ID at elections. Are you worried that people are gonna show up and just confuse poll workers or get confused with what is needed?
Ockerman: Potentially, that's always a concern, and voter education is key. I know David said that earlier, and I'm sure Jen would agree that a large part of what we do as election officials these days, beyond just administering the day-to-day functionality of our elections, is spend a lot of time with our voters, educating them. Whether it's about new laws, which I'm we'll talk about with Senate Bill 293, or proposed laws like the SAVE Act, these get out in the public consciousness, whether social media, or the news, or whatever, and it, and, um... It does cause questions that we'll need to be prepared to answer.
Juravich: Jen, talk to me about how to combat misinformation and confusion, because once someone's confused, it's sometimes just easier to skip it, to not vote.
Miller: Yeah, misinformation is the, or confusion is the enemy of turnout. And you are right, so once you don't vote in election, candidate campaigns are less likely to come knock on your door because they're coming to talk to frequent voters. You are less likely to get election mail, like absentee ballot request forms. So, unfortunately, non-participation begets non- participation.
And a lot of times folks only vote every two or four years and we've had so many changes to elections since then. And so it's incredibly important that we all make a voting plan and we check that voting plan every year. So what that means is, which way am I gonna vote? Do I have the right ID? Is my registration up to date? Do I the key dates? All of those things. If I'm going to my neighborhood polling location on election day, have I checked that? Because sometimes that changes. And we also need to check in with our loved ones and make sure they also have a voting plan and that it's been updated if laws have changed.
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking voting 101 ahead of the May 5th primary with Jen Miller from the League of Women Voters and Erin Aukerman, executive director of the Ohio Association of Election Officials. So let's talk, I don't like bill numbers, but let's about the bill that Erin just mentioned, which changed, so I'm gonna call it the No More Four Day Grace Period Bill.
So it's a new law. And this change is for long time voters and it goes into effect for this primary election. It'll be the first one where it'll take place. There's no longer a four day grace period, meaning if you have an absentee ballot and you put it in the mail, it has to be an election official's hands on election day. Am I, do I have that correct, Erin?
Ockerman: Nailed it. All right.
Juravich: So explain, how are you educating procrastinators? What do we need to do here? Jen, okay.
Miller: Yeah. I mean, the thing is about absentee balloting in general, it's an incredibly important way to vote. There's a lot of folks who need that way to vote. However, you should never wait on any aspect. So first and foremost, you can request your absenteeing ballot today. Do that.
If you are updating a loved one's registration, maybe they're a senior citizen or they're mobility impaired or they travel a lot, Make sure that they get their absentee ballot request in immediately, so that when the ballot is, it can be mailed as quickly as possible by that board of elections. Then you wanna do your research and you wanna fill that ballot out right away. If you're gonna mail it, don't wait. Under no circumstance wait. But we personally, I personally would suggest taking it to that drop box or into the board of election when it's open during business hours.
Juravich: Erin tell me more about that because a lot of people get their absentee ballots because maybe maybe they're homebound They can't they can't or they don't have someone to drive them down to the elections office or they can get there easily That's maybe that's the reason they're voting by mail. So you are you're just recommending getting it into the mail early
Ockerman: Correct, so the United States Postal Service actually in their guidance for first class mail says, expect it to take five days one way. So to Jen's point, if you're requesting a ballot, that means that we need to receive that request, process that request and give us five days to get you your ballot. You then need to vote your ballot, you need to get the stamp on it or whatever and get it back in the mail, expect five days back.
So you are, David mentioned 10 days. I mean, 10 days is the bare minimum. Like, yeah, if your, if are within that 10 day, period, you should definitely consider what Jen said and get down to your Board of Elections and drop it off in the Dropbox or walk into the Board of elections.
Juravich: So every county has a place where you can like physically take it. So if you're getting your absentee ballot because you're going to be on vacation on May 5th and you'll just not be here to physically vote in person. And that's why so any day before when the election office is open, you can walk it in.
Ockerman: We have, under Ohio law, we have one drop box in each county. It is typically located at the Board of Elections office. You can hop on your local county Board of elections website to determine the exact location, but that is currently the only option for dropping off your ballot in person.
Miller: And let's be clear, they are incredibly secure. They are monitored 24-7 by video. They're bolted to the ground. They are fire and bomb proof. So the drop boxes are secure. So the league would love to see more drop boxes per county especially as we continue to make absentee balloting harder. But in the meantime, just don't delay when you're voting absentees.
Ockerman: Yeah, our current law, and this is an interesting situation. Our current law does allow you to request an absentee ballot up to seven days before the election, but candidly we would not recommend that. Again, because you're well within that 10-day period before you even request your ballot. To Jen's point, if you haven't already requested your ballot for May 5th, please consider doing that immediately if you're going to plan to vote absentees by mail.
Miller: And also track your ballot, so. Tell me about that, what do you do? So you can go to the Secretary's state site or your local Board of Elections site, put in your information and it'll tell you if they received your request, if they mailed your ballot. Also, if they receive your ballot and so it's really important to track and something you can do is if you are watching the ballot tracking system and you're not seeing your ballot be received by the Board of Elections.
You can go in and vote provisionally just to make sure that your vote's gonna count. Only one of those will count. Whichever ballot arrives first will be the one that counts but that's just a little extra insurance if for some reason your ballot is lost in the mail. And here's the thing, even when we had a longer absentee return deadline, we had grace period, lots of ballots just do not make it in time. We have our our postal service. They're hardworking, but they are also underfunded, just like our boards of elections. And so we need to keep that in mind.
Juravich: We timed this show, it's about 10 days before the deadline to register to vote. So anyone listening right now who is not registered still has time to register. The deadline is Monday, April 6th. Erin, can you tell me more about that? I did watch a video, which is not going to help our radio people, but I watched a video from VoteOhio.gov, the Secretary of State's website, about how to register, so tell me more.
Ockerman: Yeah, a couple of ways you can, several ways. A lot of people now avail themselves to our online voter registration system. That is certainly a good way to do it. You can access that portal either through your local Board of Elections website or through the Secretary of State's website. You do need a driver's license or state identification if you're going to register to vote online.
You can certainly walk into your Board of Election's office and request a voter registration form, fill that out, get it back to us by the deadline and we'll process it and get you on the rolls. Or you can request one by mail. Unfortunately, you cannot register, I'm sorry, you can register to vote online, but if you're going to do it by mail, again, allow us some time to mail you the request, get it filled out and get it back to us and we'll get it processed.
Miller: Real quickly, Amy, lots of people are removed from the roles for inactivity or for other reasons. Lots of people forget to update their registration when they move. And so a best practice, even if you vote every election, is to jump online and check your voter registration. Make sure it's accurate. Okay. So.
Ockerman: And Jen Miller's folks will be out doing voter registration drives, as always, as well. So you might bump into them at the supermarket or the mall.
Juravich: So if the deadline is April 6, that would be even if you move to change something, that would be the same deadline. Because it's like kind of like, if you moved, you're kind of renewing your registration, is that right? Yep, you are updating it. You are updating. So if you go online, I don't know, the Saturday or Sunday before, will it get processed in time? Tell me about this deadline. And if it's online, can you do it on Monday, April 6th?
Ockerman: Yes, you can. Yeah, we'll still get it and we'll still process it and you'll still be able to vote. Now, you won't... Again, there are some verification steps that we obviously take once we receive a voter registration form. But yeah, we will, as long as it's received by the deadline, you will be eligible to vote in that upcoming election.
Juravich: Recently, Republican Secretary of State, Frank LaRose, voluntarily complied with the Trump administration's mandate to turn voter data over to the Department of Justice. Jen, tell me about that. Like, what does that mean? Should voters be worried at all that the federal authorities have voting information that the Secretary of state handed this over? I believe that it's actually a part of the SAVE Act for all the states to hand it over, but anyway, And Frank LaRose did it ahead of time. Yet, there's no reason-
Miller: for the federal government to ask for our personal voter registration data. Many red and blue states have resisted and are resisting this request from the federal government. Yet, Secretary LaRose turned that over without consulting voter advocates, elections officials, lawmakers and others. And it was, it does have unredacted information. So it does include our social security numbers and driver's licenses and things like that.
And so we, there should be a concern there. My bigger concern is what else might the federal government try to do in terms of elections overreach? We wanna make sure that Ohio officials are really standing up to the federal government and reminding the federal government... That elections are the purview of the local and state government. Fortunately, Speaker Huffman has actually affirmed this recently in the media that we are the ones at the state and local level that administer elections. But I think that's the bigger concern is hopefully that it ends with this, but we should be letting our federal lawmakers know that elections our best run by our local elections officials.
Juravich: And, Aaron, has the Ohio Association of Election Officials made any statements or taken a stance on Frank LaRose sending the information to the federal government? We have not. Okay. You're going to leave it at that.
Ockerman: And I will leave it at that.
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. And we are talking about the upcoming primary election. It is voting 101. And if you wanna learn more about elections, I will be moderating a webinar on Monday, March 30th, hosted by the League of Women Voters in Metropolitan Columbus, along with Licking County and Delaware County. The non-partisan webinar is titled "Local Election Integrity, Are We Secure Enough?" It starts at 6.30.
It's free, but you have to register in advance. So you can go to the League of Women Voters of Metropolitan Columbus, Licking County or Delaware County websites to register or at our website, wosu.org slash all sides. We'll have a link there as well. Coming up, we'll continue our conversation with two local elections experts ahead of the May 5th primary. That's when All Sides continues on 89.7 NPR News.
Juravich: You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. Ohio's primary is May 5th. It's a chance for voters to narrow the field and advance Democratic and Republican candidates in a lot of different offices. Governor, for one, we can pair down the crowded field in the Ohio Supreme Court race, along with statewide offices, House seats and Senate seats as well.
Still with us for what we're calling a Voter 101 show, two seasoned election experts, Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio. Thanks for being here, Jen. Thank you. And Aaron Aukerman, Executive Director of the Ohio Association of Election Officials. Thanks for being here, Aaron.
Ockerman: Appreciate the opportunity.
Juravich: And let's talk a little bit about the primary. So whenever we refer to it, Ohio has what is called a partisan primary, or some people call it a semi-open primary. So you either, when you get there, you say whether you want a Democratic ballot or a Republican ballot. Do I have that right, Erin?
Ockerman: That is correct.
Juravich: And then if you're an independent, do you have to decide between the two?
Ockerman: If you are an independent, you have a couple options. You can either decide to vote with one of the parties in their primary system, or you can request what's called an issues-only ballot, which basically means you would get to vote on any issues that are available to you in your precinct, school board, school levies, park levies those kinds of things.
Juravich: And if you have voted in the past in a Republican primary, Democratic primary, can you can you flip-flop? Can you mix it up?
Ockerman: You are allowed to do so. Yes, it used to be a little more tedious process. I always used to say there was a provision of the revised code where you had to basically go and swear your fealty and your left arm and your firstborn child over to the new party that you wanted to affiliate with, but we got rid of that form a while ago, so it really is very simple now. You just simply go in and say, I would like to declare myself for one of the political parties and vote in that.
Juravich: Okay, so you just tell the poll worker and then they'll give you the right ballot that's correct number. That's correct. Okay okay, so then the So Jen, whenever, do you find people get confused, like, cause I just got a little confused. Do you find get confused in the primary if they, or they don't know what's on their ballot? Talk to me about, you can go to any elections website and like look at your ballot ahead of time. So tell me more about that.
Miller: Yeah, so there's two ways to do your research. One is to go to your board of elections website, put in your information, and you can pull up a sample ballot, and that's phenomenal. Also, our voter guide, vote411.org, is a great place to research your candidates. It's highly fair.
It operates like Facebook or LinkedIn, where we give the candidate their own login, and they are the ones who directly enter all their answers, upload their picture. We can't even edit it. And so those are two good ways to do your research. And just keep in mind that, again, anyone can vote in a primary.
Sometimes we think we can't because we don't really align with a party or we aren't registered with a part. Anyone can vote a primary, you walk in, and this year you can ask for Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, or issues only. Issues only is that independent status. It's incredibly important to vote in primaries. A lot of folks don't.
And what happens there is that primaries are usually a much smaller population. They are more likely to be extreme, kind of party extremes, if you will. So whoever wins the primary often is more extreme than kind of those more moderate candidates because only the die-hard blue or the die hard red are showing up. And so it's incredibly important that folks vote in the primary because those issues that come out in the primaries impact how candidates talk about those issues later, as well as how the government may respond to them, those who are in office now.
Juravich: Without a big national election and there hasn't really been, there are some other candidates for governor besides Vivek Ramaswamy and Dr. Amy Acton, but they haven't been running big, huge campaigns. So do you worry about the turnout? Because Jen, there's a lot of smaller offices on these primary ballots, but without a big issue to get people out there, are you worried about low turnout?
Miller: Oh, absolutely. So there have been incredibly close elections, especially in primaries. When you have low turnout, you have just a small fraction of the populace making decisions. So we have seen funding for schools win or lose by five votes. We have seen candidates sometimes win or lose just by a couple votes. And so that's a really important reason to show up. Every election matters. I would argue that primary elections are highly important, much more important than most voters understand. Again, because it influences how the issues are discussed in the general. It influences what candidates advance to the general, but there's often a lot of local issues, again, that impact our daily lives, whether it's roads or parks or disability services, school funding, so incredibly important.
Juravich: What if people have no idea if there is even anything on their ballot? I mean, do you think, are there, Aaron, are there some ballots out there that maybe don't have anything?
Ockerman: Guilty I actually showed up my polling location once and asked for an issues-only ballot only to find out that I didn't have any issues Yes, I can tell you firsthand that that is that is a thing But again, you can go to your local Board of Elections website If you are just curious and you can find out what your sample ballot looks like and if it comes up That you don't have Any issues then obviously your choice at that point is to go ahead and declare for one of the parties or Affiliate with one of The parties and vote in their primary
Juravich: And do you find that it's helpful to explain bills when they're proposals, when they have not been passed yet, in case people haven't heard about them? There are some bills out there that have been proposed in the legislature. Do you find it helpful or do you tend to, do you like to wait until the bill is not just, like not just a committee hearing, whenever you start explaining things to people.
Ockerman: Well, we're not shy about typically sharing our thoughts with the legislature about their proposed election bills. Typically, we try to do that from a very technical standpoint. We don't get involved in, hey, this bill is going to favor one party or another or anything like that. So we try provide technical support and assistance to the legislature as they're considering bills.
And that's an active and ongoing process that we engage in during the legislative committee work. But no, I would not say we are typically out educating our voters about proposed bills. It's I think far better to wait and see how they turn out because as we all know, we might think the bill is going to look one way and an hour before it passes on the floor, it looks completely differently. So I think we need to be cognizant of the fact that the legislative process can be fickle and we need the final product before we start educating voters.
Juravich: And Jen, you're there. You're the opposite. You are there testifying.
Miller: Yeah, so our job is to demystify government. So that includes all the rules for voting in elections and who the candidates are. But it's also what's happening in the legislature that could impact elections. But we do try to kind of separate those two.
When we're doing voter education, we're not going to talk about the Voter Elimination Act, also known as the Save America Act. If we are doing the policy pieces, those are our action alerts, that's our testimony, that is our press outreach. But we try to do both, it is hard, regularly we are getting calls with people thinking that the Voter Elimination Act, aka Save America Act has already passed, right? And so we do have that concern that people can be confused, and that's why we ... Work so hard at both.
Juravich: There are two Ohio House Democrats have introduced a bill that would allow voters who are still holding on to a mail-in ballot on election day to take them to a secure drop box at each local precinct. So this is just a proposal. I have to imagine it would cost some money to get a secure Dropbox at every precinct, and Democrats are very much in the minority here in Ohio. But Erin, what would you think of that, the idea of having a secure Dropbox in every precint?
Ockerman: Conceptually, I think it makes some sense, especially since we have eliminated that four-day window. I do think that as introduced, there's probably some tweaks we'd like to see to that. Again, it goes back to we're always cognizant of the fact that this is going to require a little bit of extra work for our poll workers and a little bit of extra understanding of how to handle these ballots. So we do want to be sensitive to taking those viewpoints into consideration as we're looking at this legislation.
Juravich: Jen, would you want more boxes everywhere, right?
Miller: It doesn't necessarily have to be one of those 600-pound drop boxes, but yes, we are highly supportive of voters being able to take their ballot to a polling location. Something that happens every election is someone will bring their absentee ballot to their neighborhood polling location, and they'll be told that they can't accept that. And then they either have to.
Juravich: They have to drive it to the.
Miller: Yeah, they'd either have to drive it to the office or get in line surrender that ballot and then just vote regular ballot.
Juravich: Yeah, they're there. All right. We only have two minutes left, but Jen, again, I wanted you to, where can people go to learn bipartisan information about all the candidates? What was the website you said again that people need to go to?
Miller: Well we are non-partisan and it's vote411.org and our hardworking volunteers across the state often have print guides as well.
Juravich: And are you finding that the candidates are filling that out? There's been times in the past whenever I go to your vote 411 and not every candidate, like it'll say candidates do not respond or I can't remember the phrasing.
Miller: So first off, if you see that, I would encourage you to call that candidate and register your disappointment. We are seeing this across the board. Even the Chamber of Commerce is now having a hard time getting candidates to answer questions. We see candidates not wanting to do forums or debates. They have a real concern about answering questions to the general public, which is unfortunate. We deserve to hear from them. And so I would courage you to let those candidates know if they're not participating in these kinds of civic forums or. Voter guides that you're disappointed in that.
Juravich: Okay. And especially because people get confused when voting for judges sometimes. So are your judicial candidates filling out your forms? Do you have?
Miller: Usually our judicial candidates do and and judicial candidates are unique because you're not asking them their stance on issues you're asking them what their qualifications are and how they would make decisions because their job isn't to make policy it's to judge laws to see if they are constitutional
Juravich: Well, we're out of time. That's Jen Miller, Executive Director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio. Thank you for your time, Jen. Thank you. And Erin Aukerman, Executive director of the Ohio Association of Election Officials. Thank you, for joining us, Erin.
Ockerman: Thanks for having me on, Amy.
Juravich: And again, I'll be moderating a webinar if you want to learn more about elections on Monday, March 30th. It's hosted by the League of Women Voters of Columbus, Licking County, and Delaware County. And it is at 6.30. It's free, but register in advance. This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News.
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Amy Juravich: Welcome to All Sides with Amy Juravich. We're weeks away from Ohio's May 5th primary, and the noise surrounding voting in America can be deafening. To hear President Trump tell it, our elections are corrupt, and only the federal government should run them. But our Constitution gave that power to the states for a reason.
Nonetheless, the president wants to impose more steps into the voting process, and he's lobbying hard for what he calls the Save America Act. Which stands for Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility. To help us sort through the latest is David Becker, executive director and founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research. The nonpartisan nonprofit center works with election officials of both parties all around the country to ensure elections happen that voters can trust. Welcome back to All Sides, David.
David Becker: Hey, thanks, Amy.
Juravich: So the U.S. Senate is dealing with pressure from President Trump right now to pass what's called the SAVE Act, the Save America Act, ahead of a planned recess at the end of the week. And then there's the whole six-week Department of Homeland Security shutdown that's clogging up the airports, and that's kind of getting rolled into this for some reason.
But let's unpack what's happening with the SAVE Act for now. We'll leave that as a separate thing, the SAVE Act. And for some background. I want to play some audio from the president's State of the Union address from back in February.
Speaker 3: All voters must show proof of citizenship in order to vote. And no more crooked, male-in-violence except for illness, disability, military, or travel. None.
Juravich: All right, so David, lots of applause, vocal support from Republicans in that audio. But Trump calls mail-in ballots crooked here in this statement. But the president himself just voted absentee in Florida. So why does he say it's bad for others if he voted this way?
Becker: Obviously, I can't get into the mind of the president. I don't know why he's saying what he's saying. I think it's pretty clear he doesn't understand how elections are actually run in the United States and why they are so secure. But he does understand the convenience and security of mail voting from his own perspective.
He was apparently physically down in Palm Beach County this weekend. When early voting was happening in person. He could have chosen to vote in person, but he preferred to vote by mail, as tens of millions of Americans do. And that's because they know we've had mail voting for well over 150 years since before the Civil War.
There are many security protocols in place to make sure mail voting is secure. It's convenient. If people choose to vote in person, I usually vote early in person. That's also a wonderful convenient way of voting. Ohio offers all of those options as do most places in the United States.
I think it's odd that he is pushing for this really sweeping federal bill that would require the most restrictive voter ID we've ever seen, more restrictive than any state in the country. That would require photocopies of IDs when you send in your ballot and ask. And request a mail ballot that required that you physically present yourself at election office to prove citizenship, all of which is not required in any state. Every single state in the union would be in violation of this law as soon as it passed.
What's going to happen is I think this week we're going to have the final debates. They're not close to passage on this. The Democrats are united in opposition. Republicans are not united in support. And so I think we'll finish up the debate this week and then we'll move on.
Juravich: So, as I said, the SAVE Act stands for the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act. So can you walk us through what would actually change? I mean, you already have to be a citizen to vote. So what's different? It's the way you prove you're a citizen or how often you prove your a citizen?
Becker: So yeah, let's be clear. It is federal law. It is very clear that you have to be a citizen to vote. That law is working very well, by the way. The states have looked at this issue themselves. In Ohio, they looked for non-citizens. They ended up ultimately finding only five that they could prosecute over more than a decade period of time.
In states all around the country, they're finding at most a few dozen in out of millions of registered voters. Trump's own Department of Homeland Security reviewed 50 million voter records to see if they could document citizenship. And 99.98% of them were confirmable at DHS. And even that 0.02% weren't non-citizens. They were just possible non-citizens, many of whom are citizens. So we already have requirement of citizenship.
We also have a requirement of ID when you register. That's been federal law since 2002. Every single person who registers to vote has to show ID on their voter registration form, driver's license number, if they don't have it, social security number, and if they don't provide that, they have to bring ID when they vote the first time.
So every single person has that already. What SAVE would do is impose something we haven't seen before ever in the United States. First, it would require every single voter to dig up their proof of citizenship, their birth certificate, their passport. Their naturalization certificate, and physically present it to an election office every time they have a registration transaction.
In other words, any time they register, any time the move, any they change their name. And if the names on those documents don't match, perhaps because of marriage, you're gonna have to find another document that links those two to prove you are who you say you are every time you conduct a registration transaction. When you vote, you're going to need to show not only photo ID, photo ID that has citizenship on it, which most of us do not have.
Juravich: Yeah, what's that? What's that
Becker: Exactly. That's exactly the question I think Democrats and others who oppose this bill are asking. You would have to bring two forms of ID, basically. You'd have to bring both your license and once again, dig up your citizenship documentation. And if the names don't match, you would once again have to bring a third form of identification, perhaps a marriage certificate. I've been married 25 years. I have no idea where my marriage certificate is.
Juravich: So if my passport, if my last name matches my driver's license last name, I could bring my driver license and my passport. But if I, for some reason, don't have a passport or it doesn't match, I would have to bring my birth certificate and then bring my marriage license. Is that what you're saying? Okay. Is that what you're saying? OK.
Becker: Yeah, that's how it appears the language in the current version exists. And finally, I think this is the most unusual part of the Save America Act. It would require every single person who wants to vote by mail to provide a photocopy of their identification and perhaps multiple identifications, as I just indicated, every time they request a mail ballot and when they send it in. So twice for every single vote. And just think now and.
Juravich: So you'd have to go to like a FedEx, does a Fedex Kinko still exist? I think so. Or a Staples or...
Becker: I was just speaking to students at a big university, and I said the word Xerox, and I got blank stares, right? I mean, this is not something that most people would want to do. And quite frankly, I think that's really one of the most interesting parts of this.
If you look at the potential impacts of this bill, and there's no question that voters are going to have a much harder time voting, there's a very strong likelihood that this could actually hurt Republicans more than Democrats. If you looked at, Rural voters voters who have to go long distances to get to their election office or who really need mail voting because they can't get to a polling place conveniently those voters are likely disproportionately Republican Voters who may be married and have different names It's just a demographic fact that married women tend to be more Republican than single women So there's a variety of things that could occur here that could have unintended political consequences which is why I think ultimately a lot of the Republicans in Congress are hoping that this debate ends very soon and moves on because they're not entirely sure what the outcome of this will be.
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about voting changes that Congress is wrestling with, even as President Trump is urging the passage of the SAVE Act, and we're talking with David Becker, executive director and founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research. In recent comments to Senate Republicans in Florida, President Trump spelled out why he says this legislation is needed and needed right now.
Speaker 4: It'll guarantee the midterms. It'll guaranteed the mid terms. If you don't get it, big trouble, my opinion.
Juravich: So he's really leaning into this midterms language, where Republicans need to pass this before the midtermes, basically, to ensure their elections. Is that how you're reading into that?
Becker: I mean, that's what it appears he's saying. I mean let's just think for a moment how unfortunate it is to hear politicians on either side of the aisle talk about passing election rules solely for the purposes of assisting their party rather than helping their voters make their choice or even legitimately improving election integrity.
That's clearly not what's happening here. Again, I can't get inside his mind. I don't know why he's planning some of these things. I can tell you that based on his comments, he doesn't understand a lot of the basic elements of how elections work in our nation and why, for instance, we know non-citizens aren't voting in any significant numbers, why we know the outcomes of our elections are accurate and complete and verified and transparent because of all of the paper ballots and the audits that we have, why we our voter lists are more accurate than they ever have been before thanks to technology and better procedures.
Again, I think if, you know, for anyone listening, if you want to get your election information, if you wanna understand how elections work and why we can trust them, first talk to your local election official, your county election official and get to know them, thank them for their work and probably most importantly, volunteer to be a poll worker because if you volunteer to be a poor worker, you'll see so many of the checks and balances and redundancies that occur to make sure that that election fraud won't happen. That we can be confident in our election results. It's a wonderful way to serve your community and also learn about our election process from the inside.
Juravich: We also have audio here from Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse in comments this week on the Senate floor and saying that the SAVE Act would probably be better described in his opinion as the "Steal the Next Election Act." Let's listen.
Speaker 5: You can imagine why they would want to engage in special weapons and tactics to try to win the 2026 election when you see the political disaster that they're enmeshed in, the mess that the Trump administration has made of the economy, the stench of corruption pervading the administration, a war that is running up gasoline prices and has NO! End in sight and no evident plan, wherever you look, you see a party in complete disarray.
Juravich: Do you think that, I mean, are the Republicans in disarray or do a lot of them support this? It's just that narrow margin that they have in the Senate is why it won't pass. They're just a few who are against it.
Becker: I mean, I think if you, I mean I have talked to some of the Republicans in Congress about that and I will say I don't sense wholehearted support for these bills and I think they understand a lot of the problems of this, but the main people I talk to are the election officials out there. I just got back from Georgia where I spoke to hundreds of election officials at the county level and the state level in Georgia.
I've spoken to election officials in Texas and many other states. To be perfectly honest, probably a majority of these election officials are Republican by a slight margin. And I have yet to talk to an election official who thinks these kinds of sweeping election bills should be enacted in Washington rather than election policy being made in their state capitals.
And that goes for whether it's the Republicans trying to do it now or the Democrats trying to that in 2021 and 2022. The state officials, the state legislatures, they know their voters best. That doesn't mean they always get it right. But they know they're voters best, they're accountable to their voters when they make choices one way or the other.
I think that's one of the reasons you haven't seen states roll back. A lot of male voting opportunities in their states, even though they've been pressured by the president. Ohio actually is somewhat of an outlier there because Ohio did change one of their major election policies, which is now male ballots are going to need to be in by the close of polls on election day rather than four days later, which was a change, of course.
Juravich: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that because the U.S. Supreme Court this week heard a case related to how mail-in ballots are counted. So everyone's talking about mail- in ballots right now. Ohio did get rid of its four-day grace period. So it used to be that the ballot could arrive four days after election day and still be counted. But starting with the May 5th primary, we have the ballot must physically be at the board of elections by election night at 7 30 p.m. So what do you make of these changes? Like, did you think the grace period was a good thing, or...?
Becker: I think that decision is best made by the states. The majority of states don't have an extended period for a seat of ballots, but about a third of the states do, and their states ranging as politically divergent as California and Mississippi. And the reasons can be variable there. I mean, it can be how reliable the mail is in their state, how rural some of their counties are, how many drop boxes states have.
This is one of the things Ohio has also rolled back on. Many of the states that require election day receipt have increased the number of places that someone can drop off their mail ballot on election day and in the days preceding, so they don't have to put it in the mail. Ohio has actually since 2020 gone the other direction.
So mail voters in Ohio might have some difficulty and should be very aware that if they're still holding onto their ballot, their mail valid about 10 days before the election, they should probably either voted and take it to their election office or bring it to a voting site, vote in person, surrender that ballot and to make sure that their voice is heard in the election. I think what we'll see here and we'll wait and see what the Supreme Court says. I think it's very hard to read the tea leaves here.
It's very clear to me that Congress has not clearly said that ballots have to be in by election day. There's nothing about that in the Constitution. So I think it's clear that the Supreme Court should rule. With the state of Mississippi here. But if they don't, now it won't affect Ohio voters because of this new law.
But I'll be watching this primary very closely. This is going to be the first major election since this law was passed. And if there are a lot of late arriving ballots, there could be a big voter education problem. I hope the legislature considers giving additional funding to counties and the state to educate their voters about these changes and also considers expanding the number of drop boxes that are available that voters where voters can drop off their voted mail ballot rather than having to put it in their postal mail.
Juravich: I just, before we let you go, I wanted to ask one more question about voter confidence versus voter confusion, because even if the SAVE Act doesn't pass, I have to imagine all of this talk about needing your birth certificate, that some people are going to show up at the polls with their birth certificates, being confused, thinking they need it, or not knowing what to do. What do you make of all of this talked at the national level and in each state about voter competence and voter confusion? What do you worry about there?
Becker: Well, I think we have seen some attacks on voter confidence. Often, there are individuals out there and movements that actively work to diminish voter confidence and then claim that that reduction in voter confidence is the justification for rather draconian voting restrictions. And that's problematic.
But we're also seeing voter confidence being reduced across the political spectrum. As we hear more and more disinformation as there are concerns about unprecedented federal interference in our elections. It with regard to confusion, that's an ongoing problem. Any change that might be enacted in voting procedures has a cost and that cost is voter confusion, even if it's a good change. And that confusion needs to be taken into account. I work on elections every day, every hour of my professional life, but most people don't think about elections more than once or twice every couple of years.
Speaker 6: And
Becker: And so it's understandable. They shouldn't have to be experts on this. But the one place they can always go is their local election official. The county election officials in Ohio and nationwide are outstanding. They're incredibly dedicated public servants. And they go to their websites, go to the offices, go to state election website to get the real information about what's happening on elections in your area and understand what you really need to do to vote.
The positive thing here is... We've had several elections in the last 14 months since this new administration has taken office. We've have 20-25 elections. We've some primaries in places like Texas. And turnout has been very high. Voters are still very motivated to make their voice heard. And I expect we're going to see very high voter turnout in 2026, celebrating our 250th anniversary as a nation, and perhaps seeing us break the heard from interim turnout, which was set in 2018 with 50% of eligible voters.
Juravich: We've been talking with David Becker, executive director and founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research. Thank you for your time today, David.
Becker: Oh, it's great to be with you, Amy.
Juravich: And listeners, our goal today is to answer some questions for you heading into this May 5th primary. In addition to today's show, I will be moderating a webinar on Monday, March 30th, hosted by the League of Women Voters of Metropolitan Columbus, along with Licking County and Delaware County. The nonpartisan webinar is titled "Local Election Integrity, Are We Secure Enough?" And it's free to attend, but you have to register in advance.
Coming up, we're going to talk with some local election officials and advocates about working for safe and fair primary elections here in Ohio. That's when All Sides continues on 89.7 NPR News.
Juravich: You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. Ohio's primary is May 5th. It's a chance for voters to narrow the field and advance to Democrat and Republican candidates for governor and to widow down a crowded field in the Ohio Supreme Court race. Along with other statewide offices, House and Senate seats as well, there is a lot on the primary election ballot. And there have been some changes since the last election. We'll get to those as well.
Joining us now for what we're calling a Voter 101 show, we have two seasoned election experts. We have Jen Miller, Executive Director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio. Welcome back, Jen.
Jen Miller: Thanks for having me.
Juravich: And we have Erin Ackerman, is Executive Director of the Ohio Association of Election Officials. And thanks for being here, Erin.
Aaron Ockerman: Good morning, Amy. Thanks for having me.
Juravich: So let's start by having each of you explain your role when it comes to elections. Jen, what what do you do whenever you know? You're thinking elections all the time. I'm sure so what what's what what? Do you think what do consider your role? When it comes? To a primary election coming up?
Miller: So the League of Women Voters is fiercely nonpartisan. We never endorse candidates or parties. And that's because voters are our North Star. What we're thinking about every day is what voters need to participate, whether that's understanding all the rules and logistics of voting or whether that being an informed voter. So one of the things we do are candidate forums and voter guides. But again, never putting our thumb on the scale. Our point is to make sure that voters have what they need to make the decisions. That they believe are best for them in the ballot box.
Juravich: And Aaron Ackerman, what does the Ohio Association of Election Officials entail? Like, I'm guessing you're thinking about elections day in and day out.
Ockerman: We, yeah, we more than think we, we do. We are the bipartisan organization that represents Ohio's 88 local county boards of elections. And to Jen's point, if she is fiercely nonpartisan, we are fiercely bipartisan. All of our boards in Ohio have two Democrats, two Republicans that serve on the board, a director and a deputy director, both of opposite political parties as well. And that trickles down to our organization. As a nonprofit organization, we do everything in a bipartisan fashion from our leadership team to our committees all the way through.
Juravich: And in the first segment, we spent a lot of time talking about the SAVE Act. President Trump is pushing hard for it. There's a lot up in the air still, and there probably still will be for the next few days. Jen, you're concerned about the impact of women if this SAVE act passes. And we talked a little bit with David Becker about that, but I wanted you to talk a more about the idea if a woman has changed her last name, what might happen if the SAVE Act passes as it is now?
Miller: We are concerned about women. I'm just going to say we're also concerned about rural Ohioans, older Ohioans people with disabilities. So, but more than 75% of women change their name when they get married. We have three and a half million women in Ohio who are married or have been. And a lot of times you don't have your marriage certificate close by, or you don't have your birth certificate close or your change of name close by.
What can be challenging here is that women would have to prove their, they would have more hoops to go through than their male counterparts just to vote. Imagine having your documents out of state. It can be very hard to get those, it can be time consuming, it could be expensive. And so this is unnecessary legislation that would cost a lot of money. Create a lot more work for elections officials. Take the vote away from many American citizens. You know, lots of folks don't have the initial documents that would be needed to register or re-register to vote, let alone to...
Juravich: Make their voices heard at the ballot box. Erin, what are you hearing from elections officials about this? Because I can imagine the idea of having to inspect people's birth certificates, passports, marriage licenses would add a new layer to election officials' training of poll workers too.
Ockerman: Officially, Amy, we do not have a position on the SAVE Act. We have not voted to support it or oppose it as an organization. But clearly, whenever we look at election legislation, whether it's at the state level or the federal level, there are things that we're worried about that we consider.
Unfunded mandates being at the top of our list and certainly there are costs associated with the SAFE Act that would ultimately trickle down to the state and really the local level our county commissioners would have to bear those costs. And then secondly, anytime you make changes that impact our poll workers, we're going to stand up and probably take notice.
To your point, ultimately, a lot of these changes are gonna depend on our poll worker's being able to understand what the law is, administer the law, implement the law in a fair way, perfectly, every time. And that's a big request of our poll work that are not volunteers, but they don't make a lot money. They're out there for their, because they believe it's the right thing to do. We want to be respectful of them and we want to make sure that we put them in an opportunity to do well.
Juravich: Yeah, I can remember you being on a show in the past whenever we were switching from paper to iPads and having to train the poll workers on that. And so that was a layer, that was some new complexity and we got there, right? We did. We got there. So are you worried about, so I guess my next question is the last question I asked David Becker. Are you worried confusion? Because even if nothing happens with the SAVE Act. We've been talking about this idea of needing more ID, better ID at elections. Are you worried that people are gonna show up and just confuse poll workers or get confused with what is needed?
Ockerman: Potentially, that's always a concern, and voter education is key. I know David said that earlier, and I'm sure Jen would agree that a large part of what we do as election officials these days, beyond just administering the day-to-day functionality of our elections, is spend a lot of time with our voters, educating them. Whether it's about new laws, which I'm we'll talk about with Senate Bill 293, or proposed laws like the SAVE Act, these get out in the public consciousness, whether social media, or the news, or whatever, and it, and, um... It does cause questions that we'll need to be prepared to answer.
Juravich: Jen, talk to me about how to combat misinformation and confusion, because once someone's confused, it's sometimes just easier to skip it, to not vote.
Miller: Yeah, misinformation is the, or confusion is the enemy of turnout. And you are right, so once you don't vote in election, candidate campaigns are less likely to come knock on your door because they're coming to talk to frequent voters. You are less likely to get election mail, like absentee ballot request forms. So, unfortunately, non-participation begets non- participation.
And a lot of times folks only vote every two or four years and we've had so many changes to elections since then. And so it's incredibly important that we all make a voting plan and we check that voting plan every year. So what that means is, which way am I gonna vote? Do I have the right ID? Is my registration up to date? Do I the key dates? All of those things. If I'm going to my neighborhood polling location on election day, have I checked that? Because sometimes that changes. And we also need to check in with our loved ones and make sure they also have a voting plan and that it's been updated if laws have changed.
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking voting 101 ahead of the May 5th primary with Jen Miller from the League of Women Voters and Erin Aukerman, executive director of the Ohio Association of Election Officials. So let's talk, I don't like bill numbers, but let's about the bill that Erin just mentioned, which changed, so I'm gonna call it the No More Four Day Grace Period Bill.
So it's a new law. And this change is for long time voters and it goes into effect for this primary election. It'll be the first one where it'll take place. There's no longer a four day grace period, meaning if you have an absentee ballot and you put it in the mail, it has to be an election official's hands on election day. Am I, do I have that correct, Erin?
Ockerman: Nailed it. All right.
Juravich: So explain, how are you educating procrastinators? What do we need to do here? Jen, okay.
Miller: Yeah. I mean, the thing is about absentee balloting in general, it's an incredibly important way to vote. There's a lot of folks who need that way to vote. However, you should never wait on any aspect. So first and foremost, you can request your absenteeing ballot today. Do that.
If you are updating a loved one's registration, maybe they're a senior citizen or they're mobility impaired or they travel a lot, Make sure that they get their absentee ballot request in immediately, so that when the ballot is, it can be mailed as quickly as possible by that board of elections. Then you wanna do your research and you wanna fill that ballot out right away. If you're gonna mail it, don't wait. Under no circumstance wait. But we personally, I personally would suggest taking it to that drop box or into the board of election when it's open during business hours.
Juravich: Erin tell me more about that because a lot of people get their absentee ballots because maybe maybe they're homebound They can't they can't or they don't have someone to drive them down to the elections office or they can get there easily That's maybe that's the reason they're voting by mail. So you are you're just recommending getting it into the mail early
Ockerman: Correct, so the United States Postal Service actually in their guidance for first class mail says, expect it to take five days one way. So to Jen's point, if you're requesting a ballot, that means that we need to receive that request, process that request and give us five days to get you your ballot. You then need to vote your ballot, you need to get the stamp on it or whatever and get it back in the mail, expect five days back.
So you are, David mentioned 10 days. I mean, 10 days is the bare minimum. Like, yeah, if your, if are within that 10 day, period, you should definitely consider what Jen said and get down to your Board of Elections and drop it off in the Dropbox or walk into the Board of elections.
Juravich: So every county has a place where you can like physically take it. So if you're getting your absentee ballot because you're going to be on vacation on May 5th and you'll just not be here to physically vote in person. And that's why so any day before when the election office is open, you can walk it in.
Ockerman: We have, under Ohio law, we have one drop box in each county. It is typically located at the Board of Elections office. You can hop on your local county Board of elections website to determine the exact location, but that is currently the only option for dropping off your ballot in person.
Miller: And let's be clear, they are incredibly secure. They are monitored 24-7 by video. They're bolted to the ground. They are fire and bomb proof. So the drop boxes are secure. So the league would love to see more drop boxes per county especially as we continue to make absentee balloting harder. But in the meantime, just don't delay when you're voting absentees.
Ockerman: Yeah, our current law, and this is an interesting situation. Our current law does allow you to request an absentee ballot up to seven days before the election, but candidly we would not recommend that. Again, because you're well within that 10-day period before you even request your ballot. To Jen's point, if you haven't already requested your ballot for May 5th, please consider doing that immediately if you're going to plan to vote absentees by mail.
Miller: And also track your ballot, so. Tell me about that, what do you do? So you can go to the Secretary's state site or your local Board of Elections site, put in your information and it'll tell you if they received your request, if they mailed your ballot. Also, if they receive your ballot and so it's really important to track and something you can do is if you are watching the ballot tracking system and you're not seeing your ballot be received by the Board of Elections.
You can go in and vote provisionally just to make sure that your vote's gonna count. Only one of those will count. Whichever ballot arrives first will be the one that counts but that's just a little extra insurance if for some reason your ballot is lost in the mail. And here's the thing, even when we had a longer absentee return deadline, we had grace period, lots of ballots just do not make it in time. We have our our postal service. They're hardworking, but they are also underfunded, just like our boards of elections. And so we need to keep that in mind.
Juravich: We timed this show, it's about 10 days before the deadline to register to vote. So anyone listening right now who is not registered still has time to register. The deadline is Monday, April 6th. Erin, can you tell me more about that? I did watch a video, which is not going to help our radio people, but I watched a video from VoteOhio.gov, the Secretary of State's website, about how to register, so tell me more.
Ockerman: Yeah, a couple of ways you can, several ways. A lot of people now avail themselves to our online voter registration system. That is certainly a good way to do it. You can access that portal either through your local Board of Elections website or through the Secretary of State's website. You do need a driver's license or state identification if you're going to register to vote online.
You can certainly walk into your Board of Election's office and request a voter registration form, fill that out, get it back to us by the deadline and we'll process it and get you on the rolls. Or you can request one by mail. Unfortunately, you cannot register, I'm sorry, you can register to vote online, but if you're going to do it by mail, again, allow us some time to mail you the request, get it filled out and get it back to us and we'll get it processed.
Miller: Real quickly, Amy, lots of people are removed from the roles for inactivity or for other reasons. Lots of people forget to update their registration when they move. And so a best practice, even if you vote every election, is to jump online and check your voter registration. Make sure it's accurate. Okay. So.
Ockerman: And Jen Miller's folks will be out doing voter registration drives, as always, as well. So you might bump into them at the supermarket or the mall.
Juravich: So if the deadline is April 6, that would be even if you move to change something, that would be the same deadline. Because it's like kind of like, if you moved, you're kind of renewing your registration, is that right? Yep, you are updating it. You are updating. So if you go online, I don't know, the Saturday or Sunday before, will it get processed in time? Tell me about this deadline. And if it's online, can you do it on Monday, April 6th?
Ockerman: Yes, you can. Yeah, we'll still get it and we'll still process it and you'll still be able to vote. Now, you won't... Again, there are some verification steps that we obviously take once we receive a voter registration form. But yeah, we will, as long as it's received by the deadline, you will be eligible to vote in that upcoming election.
Juravich: Recently, Republican Secretary of State, Frank LaRose, voluntarily complied with the Trump administration's mandate to turn voter data over to the Department of Justice. Jen, tell me about that. Like, what does that mean? Should voters be worried at all that the federal authorities have voting information that the Secretary of state handed this over? I believe that it's actually a part of the SAVE Act for all the states to hand it over, but anyway, And Frank LaRose did it ahead of time. Yet, there's no reason-
Miller: for the federal government to ask for our personal voter registration data. Many red and blue states have resisted and are resisting this request from the federal government. Yet, Secretary LaRose turned that over without consulting voter advocates, elections officials, lawmakers and others. And it was, it does have unredacted information. So it does include our social security numbers and driver's licenses and things like that.
And so we, there should be a concern there. My bigger concern is what else might the federal government try to do in terms of elections overreach? We wanna make sure that Ohio officials are really standing up to the federal government and reminding the federal government... That elections are the purview of the local and state government. Fortunately, Speaker Huffman has actually affirmed this recently in the media that we are the ones at the state and local level that administer elections. But I think that's the bigger concern is hopefully that it ends with this, but we should be letting our federal lawmakers know that elections our best run by our local elections officials.
Juravich: And, Aaron, has the Ohio Association of Election Officials made any statements or taken a stance on Frank LaRose sending the information to the federal government? We have not. Okay. You're going to leave it at that.
Ockerman: And I will leave it at that.
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. And we are talking about the upcoming primary election. It is voting 101. And if you wanna learn more about elections, I will be moderating a webinar on Monday, March 30th, hosted by the League of Women Voters in Metropolitan Columbus, along with Licking County and Delaware County. The non-partisan webinar is titled "Local Election Integrity, Are We Secure Enough?" It starts at 6.30.
It's free, but you have to register in advance. So you can go to the League of Women Voters of Metropolitan Columbus, Licking County or Delaware County websites to register or at our website, wosu.org slash all sides. We'll have a link there as well. Coming up, we'll continue our conversation with two local elections experts ahead of the May 5th primary. That's when All Sides continues on 89.7 NPR News.
Juravich: You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. Ohio's primary is May 5th. It's a chance for voters to narrow the field and advance Democratic and Republican candidates in a lot of different offices. Governor, for one, we can pair down the crowded field in the Ohio Supreme Court race, along with statewide offices, House seats and Senate seats as well.
Still with us for what we're calling a Voter 101 show, two seasoned election experts, Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio. Thanks for being here, Jen. Thank you. And Aaron Aukerman, Executive Director of the Ohio Association of Election Officials. Thanks for being here, Aaron.
Ockerman: Appreciate the opportunity.
Juravich: And let's talk a little bit about the primary. So whenever we refer to it, Ohio has what is called a partisan primary, or some people call it a semi-open primary. So you either, when you get there, you say whether you want a Democratic ballot or a Republican ballot. Do I have that right, Erin?
Ockerman: That is correct.
Juravich: And then if you're an independent, do you have to decide between the two?
Ockerman: If you are an independent, you have a couple options. You can either decide to vote with one of the parties in their primary system, or you can request what's called an issues-only ballot, which basically means you would get to vote on any issues that are available to you in your precinct, school board, school levies, park levies those kinds of things.
Juravich: And if you have voted in the past in a Republican primary, Democratic primary, can you can you flip-flop? Can you mix it up?
Ockerman: You are allowed to do so. Yes, it used to be a little more tedious process. I always used to say there was a provision of the revised code where you had to basically go and swear your fealty and your left arm and your firstborn child over to the new party that you wanted to affiliate with, but we got rid of that form a while ago, so it really is very simple now. You just simply go in and say, I would like to declare myself for one of the political parties and vote in that.
Juravich: Okay, so you just tell the poll worker and then they'll give you the right ballot that's correct number. That's correct. Okay okay, so then the So Jen, whenever, do you find people get confused, like, cause I just got a little confused. Do you find get confused in the primary if they, or they don't know what's on their ballot? Talk to me about, you can go to any elections website and like look at your ballot ahead of time. So tell me more about that.
Miller: Yeah, so there's two ways to do your research. One is to go to your board of elections website, put in your information, and you can pull up a sample ballot, and that's phenomenal. Also, our voter guide, vote411.org, is a great place to research your candidates. It's highly fair.
It operates like Facebook or LinkedIn, where we give the candidate their own login, and they are the ones who directly enter all their answers, upload their picture. We can't even edit it. And so those are two good ways to do your research. And just keep in mind that, again, anyone can vote in a primary.
Sometimes we think we can't because we don't really align with a party or we aren't registered with a part. Anyone can vote a primary, you walk in, and this year you can ask for Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, or issues only. Issues only is that independent status. It's incredibly important to vote in primaries. A lot of folks don't.
And what happens there is that primaries are usually a much smaller population. They are more likely to be extreme, kind of party extremes, if you will. So whoever wins the primary often is more extreme than kind of those more moderate candidates because only the die-hard blue or the die hard red are showing up. And so it's incredibly important that folks vote in the primary because those issues that come out in the primaries impact how candidates talk about those issues later, as well as how the government may respond to them, those who are in office now.
Juravich: Without a big national election and there hasn't really been, there are some other candidates for governor besides Vivek Ramaswamy and Dr. Amy Acton, but they haven't been running big, huge campaigns. So do you worry about the turnout? Because Jen, there's a lot of smaller offices on these primary ballots, but without a big issue to get people out there, are you worried about low turnout?
Miller: Oh, absolutely. So there have been incredibly close elections, especially in primaries. When you have low turnout, you have just a small fraction of the populace making decisions. So we have seen funding for schools win or lose by five votes. We have seen candidates sometimes win or lose just by a couple votes. And so that's a really important reason to show up. Every election matters. I would argue that primary elections are highly important, much more important than most voters understand. Again, because it influences how the issues are discussed in the general. It influences what candidates advance to the general, but there's often a lot of local issues, again, that impact our daily lives, whether it's roads or parks or disability services, school funding, so incredibly important.
Juravich: What if people have no idea if there is even anything on their ballot? I mean, do you think, are there, Aaron, are there some ballots out there that maybe don't have anything?
Ockerman: Guilty I actually showed up my polling location once and asked for an issues-only ballot only to find out that I didn't have any issues Yes, I can tell you firsthand that that is that is a thing But again, you can go to your local Board of Elections website If you are just curious and you can find out what your sample ballot looks like and if it comes up That you don't have Any issues then obviously your choice at that point is to go ahead and declare for one of the parties or Affiliate with one of The parties and vote in their primary
Juravich: And do you find that it's helpful to explain bills when they're proposals, when they have not been passed yet, in case people haven't heard about them? There are some bills out there that have been proposed in the legislature. Do you find it helpful or do you tend to, do you like to wait until the bill is not just, like not just a committee hearing, whenever you start explaining things to people.
Ockerman: Well, we're not shy about typically sharing our thoughts with the legislature about their proposed election bills. Typically, we try to do that from a very technical standpoint. We don't get involved in, hey, this bill is going to favor one party or another or anything like that. So we try provide technical support and assistance to the legislature as they're considering bills.
And that's an active and ongoing process that we engage in during the legislative committee work. But no, I would not say we are typically out educating our voters about proposed bills. It's I think far better to wait and see how they turn out because as we all know, we might think the bill is going to look one way and an hour before it passes on the floor, it looks completely differently. So I think we need to be cognizant of the fact that the legislative process can be fickle and we need the final product before we start educating voters.
Juravich: And Jen, you're there. You're the opposite. You are there testifying.
Miller: Yeah, so our job is to demystify government. So that includes all the rules for voting in elections and who the candidates are. But it's also what's happening in the legislature that could impact elections. But we do try to kind of separate those two.
When we're doing voter education, we're not going to talk about the Voter Elimination Act, also known as the Save America Act. If we are doing the policy pieces, those are our action alerts, that's our testimony, that is our press outreach. But we try to do both, it is hard, regularly we are getting calls with people thinking that the Voter Elimination Act, aka Save America Act has already passed, right? And so we do have that concern that people can be confused, and that's why we ... Work so hard at both.
Juravich: There are two Ohio House Democrats have introduced a bill that would allow voters who are still holding on to a mail-in ballot on election day to take them to a secure drop box at each local precinct. So this is just a proposal. I have to imagine it would cost some money to get a secure Dropbox at every precinct, and Democrats are very much in the minority here in Ohio. But Erin, what would you think of that, the idea of having a secure Dropbox in every precint?
Ockerman: Conceptually, I think it makes some sense, especially since we have eliminated that four-day window. I do think that as introduced, there's probably some tweaks we'd like to see to that. Again, it goes back to we're always cognizant of the fact that this is going to require a little bit of extra work for our poll workers and a little bit of extra understanding of how to handle these ballots. So we do want to be sensitive to taking those viewpoints into consideration as we're looking at this legislation.
Juravich: Jen, would you want more boxes everywhere, right?
Miller: It doesn't necessarily have to be one of those 600-pound drop boxes, but yes, we are highly supportive of voters being able to take their ballot to a polling location. Something that happens every election is someone will bring their absentee ballot to their neighborhood polling location, and they'll be told that they can't accept that. And then they either have to.
Juravich: They have to drive it to the.
Miller: Yeah, they'd either have to drive it to the office or get in line surrender that ballot and then just vote regular ballot.
Juravich: Yeah, they're there. All right. We only have two minutes left, but Jen, again, I wanted you to, where can people go to learn bipartisan information about all the candidates? What was the website you said again that people need to go to?
Miller: Well we are non-partisan and it's vote411.org and our hardworking volunteers across the state often have print guides as well.
Juravich: And are you finding that the candidates are filling that out? There's been times in the past whenever I go to your vote 411 and not every candidate, like it'll say candidates do not respond or I can't remember the phrasing.
Miller: So first off, if you see that, I would encourage you to call that candidate and register your disappointment. We are seeing this across the board. Even the Chamber of Commerce is now having a hard time getting candidates to answer questions. We see candidates not wanting to do forums or debates. They have a real concern about answering questions to the general public, which is unfortunate. We deserve to hear from them. And so I would courage you to let those candidates know if they're not participating in these kinds of civic forums or. Voter guides that you're disappointed in that.
Juravich: Okay. And especially because people get confused when voting for judges sometimes. So are your judicial candidates filling out your forms? Do you have?
Miller: Usually our judicial candidates do and and judicial candidates are unique because you're not asking them their stance on issues you're asking them what their qualifications are and how they would make decisions because their job isn't to make policy it's to judge laws to see if they are constitutional
Juravich: Well, we're out of time. That's Jen Miller, Executive Director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio. Thank you for your time, Jen. Thank you. And Erin Aukerman, Executive director of the Ohio Association of Election Officials. Thank you, for joining us, Erin.
Ockerman: Thanks for having me on, Amy.
Juravich: And again, I'll be moderating a webinar if you want to learn more about elections on Monday, March 30th. It's hosted by the League of Women Voters of Columbus, Licking County, and Delaware County. And it is at 6.30. It's free, but register in advance. This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News.
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Transcript
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Amy Juravich: Welcome to All Sides with Amy Juravich. We're weeks away from Ohio's May 5th primary, and the noise surrounding voting in America can be deafening. To hear President Trump tell it, our elections are corrupt, and only the federal government should run them. But our Constitution gave that power to the states for a reason.
Nonetheless, the president wants to impose more steps into the voting process, and he's lobbying hard for what he calls the Save America Act. Which stands for Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility. To help us sort through the latest is David Becker, executive director and founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research. The nonpartisan nonprofit center works with election officials of both parties all around the country to ensure elections happen that voters can trust. Welcome back to All Sides, David.
David Becker: Hey, thanks, Amy.
Juravich: So the U.S. Senate is dealing with pressure from President Trump right now to pass what's called the SAVE Act, the Save America Act, ahead of a planned recess at the end of the week. And then there's the whole six-week Department of Homeland Security shutdown that's clogging up the airports, and that's kind of getting rolled into this for some reason.
But let's unpack what's happening with the SAVE Act for now. We'll leave that as a separate thing, the SAVE Act. And for some background. I want to play some audio from the president's State of the Union address from back in February.
Speaker 3: All voters must show proof of citizenship in order to vote. And no more crooked, male-in-violence except for illness, disability, military, or travel. None.
Juravich: All right, so David, lots of applause, vocal support from Republicans in that audio. But Trump calls mail-in ballots crooked here in this statement. But the president himself just voted absentee in Florida. So why does he say it's bad for others if he voted this way?
Becker: Obviously, I can't get into the mind of the president. I don't know why he's saying what he's saying. I think it's pretty clear he doesn't understand how elections are actually run in the United States and why they are so secure. But he does understand the convenience and security of mail voting from his own perspective.
He was apparently physically down in Palm Beach County this weekend. When early voting was happening in person. He could have chosen to vote in person, but he preferred to vote by mail, as tens of millions of Americans do. And that's because they know we've had mail voting for well over 150 years since before the Civil War.
There are many security protocols in place to make sure mail voting is secure. It's convenient. If people choose to vote in person, I usually vote early in person. That's also a wonderful convenient way of voting. Ohio offers all of those options as do most places in the United States.
I think it's odd that he is pushing for this really sweeping federal bill that would require the most restrictive voter ID we've ever seen, more restrictive than any state in the country. That would require photocopies of IDs when you send in your ballot and ask. And request a mail ballot that required that you physically present yourself at election office to prove citizenship, all of which is not required in any state. Every single state in the union would be in violation of this law as soon as it passed.
What's going to happen is I think this week we're going to have the final debates. They're not close to passage on this. The Democrats are united in opposition. Republicans are not united in support. And so I think we'll finish up the debate this week and then we'll move on.
Juravich: So, as I said, the SAVE Act stands for the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act. So can you walk us through what would actually change? I mean, you already have to be a citizen to vote. So what's different? It's the way you prove you're a citizen or how often you prove your a citizen?
Becker: So yeah, let's be clear. It is federal law. It is very clear that you have to be a citizen to vote. That law is working very well, by the way. The states have looked at this issue themselves. In Ohio, they looked for non-citizens. They ended up ultimately finding only five that they could prosecute over more than a decade period of time.
In states all around the country, they're finding at most a few dozen in out of millions of registered voters. Trump's own Department of Homeland Security reviewed 50 million voter records to see if they could document citizenship. And 99.98% of them were confirmable at DHS. And even that 0.02% weren't non-citizens. They were just possible non-citizens, many of whom are citizens. So we already have requirement of citizenship.
We also have a requirement of ID when you register. That's been federal law since 2002. Every single person who registers to vote has to show ID on their voter registration form, driver's license number, if they don't have it, social security number, and if they don't provide that, they have to bring ID when they vote the first time.
So every single person has that already. What SAVE would do is impose something we haven't seen before ever in the United States. First, it would require every single voter to dig up their proof of citizenship, their birth certificate, their passport. Their naturalization certificate, and physically present it to an election office every time they have a registration transaction.
In other words, any time they register, any time the move, any they change their name. And if the names on those documents don't match, perhaps because of marriage, you're gonna have to find another document that links those two to prove you are who you say you are every time you conduct a registration transaction. When you vote, you're going to need to show not only photo ID, photo ID that has citizenship on it, which most of us do not have.
Juravich: Yeah, what's that? What's that
Becker: Exactly. That's exactly the question I think Democrats and others who oppose this bill are asking. You would have to bring two forms of ID, basically. You'd have to bring both your license and once again, dig up your citizenship documentation. And if the names don't match, you would once again have to bring a third form of identification, perhaps a marriage certificate. I've been married 25 years. I have no idea where my marriage certificate is.
Juravich: So if my passport, if my last name matches my driver's license last name, I could bring my driver license and my passport. But if I, for some reason, don't have a passport or it doesn't match, I would have to bring my birth certificate and then bring my marriage license. Is that what you're saying? Okay. Is that what you're saying? OK.
Becker: Yeah, that's how it appears the language in the current version exists. And finally, I think this is the most unusual part of the Save America Act. It would require every single person who wants to vote by mail to provide a photocopy of their identification and perhaps multiple identifications, as I just indicated, every time they request a mail ballot and when they send it in. So twice for every single vote. And just think now and.
Juravich: So you'd have to go to like a FedEx, does a Fedex Kinko still exist? I think so. Or a Staples or...
Becker: I was just speaking to students at a big university, and I said the word Xerox, and I got blank stares, right? I mean, this is not something that most people would want to do. And quite frankly, I think that's really one of the most interesting parts of this.
If you look at the potential impacts of this bill, and there's no question that voters are going to have a much harder time voting, there's a very strong likelihood that this could actually hurt Republicans more than Democrats. If you looked at, Rural voters voters who have to go long distances to get to their election office or who really need mail voting because they can't get to a polling place conveniently those voters are likely disproportionately Republican Voters who may be married and have different names It's just a demographic fact that married women tend to be more Republican than single women So there's a variety of things that could occur here that could have unintended political consequences which is why I think ultimately a lot of the Republicans in Congress are hoping that this debate ends very soon and moves on because they're not entirely sure what the outcome of this will be.
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about voting changes that Congress is wrestling with, even as President Trump is urging the passage of the SAVE Act, and we're talking with David Becker, executive director and founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research. In recent comments to Senate Republicans in Florida, President Trump spelled out why he says this legislation is needed and needed right now.
Speaker 4: It'll guarantee the midterms. It'll guaranteed the mid terms. If you don't get it, big trouble, my opinion.
Juravich: So he's really leaning into this midterms language, where Republicans need to pass this before the midtermes, basically, to ensure their elections. Is that how you're reading into that?
Becker: I mean, that's what it appears he's saying. I mean let's just think for a moment how unfortunate it is to hear politicians on either side of the aisle talk about passing election rules solely for the purposes of assisting their party rather than helping their voters make their choice or even legitimately improving election integrity.
That's clearly not what's happening here. Again, I can't get inside his mind. I don't know why he's planning some of these things. I can tell you that based on his comments, he doesn't understand a lot of the basic elements of how elections work in our nation and why, for instance, we know non-citizens aren't voting in any significant numbers, why we know the outcomes of our elections are accurate and complete and verified and transparent because of all of the paper ballots and the audits that we have, why we our voter lists are more accurate than they ever have been before thanks to technology and better procedures.
Again, I think if, you know, for anyone listening, if you want to get your election information, if you wanna understand how elections work and why we can trust them, first talk to your local election official, your county election official and get to know them, thank them for their work and probably most importantly, volunteer to be a poll worker because if you volunteer to be a poor worker, you'll see so many of the checks and balances and redundancies that occur to make sure that that election fraud won't happen. That we can be confident in our election results. It's a wonderful way to serve your community and also learn about our election process from the inside.
Juravich: We also have audio here from Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse in comments this week on the Senate floor and saying that the SAVE Act would probably be better described in his opinion as the "Steal the Next Election Act." Let's listen.
Speaker 5: You can imagine why they would want to engage in special weapons and tactics to try to win the 2026 election when you see the political disaster that they're enmeshed in, the mess that the Trump administration has made of the economy, the stench of corruption pervading the administration, a war that is running up gasoline prices and has NO! End in sight and no evident plan, wherever you look, you see a party in complete disarray.
Juravich: Do you think that, I mean, are the Republicans in disarray or do a lot of them support this? It's just that narrow margin that they have in the Senate is why it won't pass. They're just a few who are against it.
Becker: I mean, I think if you, I mean I have talked to some of the Republicans in Congress about that and I will say I don't sense wholehearted support for these bills and I think they understand a lot of the problems of this, but the main people I talk to are the election officials out there. I just got back from Georgia where I spoke to hundreds of election officials at the county level and the state level in Georgia.
I've spoken to election officials in Texas and many other states. To be perfectly honest, probably a majority of these election officials are Republican by a slight margin. And I have yet to talk to an election official who thinks these kinds of sweeping election bills should be enacted in Washington rather than election policy being made in their state capitals.
And that goes for whether it's the Republicans trying to do it now or the Democrats trying to that in 2021 and 2022. The state officials, the state legislatures, they know their voters best. That doesn't mean they always get it right. But they know they're voters best, they're accountable to their voters when they make choices one way or the other.
I think that's one of the reasons you haven't seen states roll back. A lot of male voting opportunities in their states, even though they've been pressured by the president. Ohio actually is somewhat of an outlier there because Ohio did change one of their major election policies, which is now male ballots are going to need to be in by the close of polls on election day rather than four days later, which was a change, of course.
Juravich: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that because the U.S. Supreme Court this week heard a case related to how mail-in ballots are counted. So everyone's talking about mail- in ballots right now. Ohio did get rid of its four-day grace period. So it used to be that the ballot could arrive four days after election day and still be counted. But starting with the May 5th primary, we have the ballot must physically be at the board of elections by election night at 7 30 p.m. So what do you make of these changes? Like, did you think the grace period was a good thing, or...?
Becker: I think that decision is best made by the states. The majority of states don't have an extended period for a seat of ballots, but about a third of the states do, and their states ranging as politically divergent as California and Mississippi. And the reasons can be variable there. I mean, it can be how reliable the mail is in their state, how rural some of their counties are, how many drop boxes states have.
This is one of the things Ohio has also rolled back on. Many of the states that require election day receipt have increased the number of places that someone can drop off their mail ballot on election day and in the days preceding, so they don't have to put it in the mail. Ohio has actually since 2020 gone the other direction.
So mail voters in Ohio might have some difficulty and should be very aware that if they're still holding onto their ballot, their mail valid about 10 days before the election, they should probably either voted and take it to their election office or bring it to a voting site, vote in person, surrender that ballot and to make sure that their voice is heard in the election. I think what we'll see here and we'll wait and see what the Supreme Court says. I think it's very hard to read the tea leaves here.
It's very clear to me that Congress has not clearly said that ballots have to be in by election day. There's nothing about that in the Constitution. So I think it's clear that the Supreme Court should rule. With the state of Mississippi here. But if they don't, now it won't affect Ohio voters because of this new law.
But I'll be watching this primary very closely. This is going to be the first major election since this law was passed. And if there are a lot of late arriving ballots, there could be a big voter education problem. I hope the legislature considers giving additional funding to counties and the state to educate their voters about these changes and also considers expanding the number of drop boxes that are available that voters where voters can drop off their voted mail ballot rather than having to put it in their postal mail.
Juravich: I just, before we let you go, I wanted to ask one more question about voter confidence versus voter confusion, because even if the SAVE Act doesn't pass, I have to imagine all of this talk about needing your birth certificate, that some people are going to show up at the polls with their birth certificates, being confused, thinking they need it, or not knowing what to do. What do you make of all of this talked at the national level and in each state about voter competence and voter confusion? What do you worry about there?
Becker: Well, I think we have seen some attacks on voter confidence. Often, there are individuals out there and movements that actively work to diminish voter confidence and then claim that that reduction in voter confidence is the justification for rather draconian voting restrictions. And that's problematic.
But we're also seeing voter confidence being reduced across the political spectrum. As we hear more and more disinformation as there are concerns about unprecedented federal interference in our elections. It with regard to confusion, that's an ongoing problem. Any change that might be enacted in voting procedures has a cost and that cost is voter confusion, even if it's a good change. And that confusion needs to be taken into account. I work on elections every day, every hour of my professional life, but most people don't think about elections more than once or twice every couple of years.
Speaker 6: And
Becker: And so it's understandable. They shouldn't have to be experts on this. But the one place they can always go is their local election official. The county election officials in Ohio and nationwide are outstanding. They're incredibly dedicated public servants. And they go to their websites, go to the offices, go to state election website to get the real information about what's happening on elections in your area and understand what you really need to do to vote.
The positive thing here is... We've had several elections in the last 14 months since this new administration has taken office. We've have 20-25 elections. We've some primaries in places like Texas. And turnout has been very high. Voters are still very motivated to make their voice heard. And I expect we're going to see very high voter turnout in 2026, celebrating our 250th anniversary as a nation, and perhaps seeing us break the heard from interim turnout, which was set in 2018 with 50% of eligible voters.
Juravich: We've been talking with David Becker, executive director and founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research. Thank you for your time today, David.
Becker: Oh, it's great to be with you, Amy.
Juravich: And listeners, our goal today is to answer some questions for you heading into this May 5th primary. In addition to today's show, I will be moderating a webinar on Monday, March 30th, hosted by the League of Women Voters of Metropolitan Columbus, along with Licking County and Delaware County. The nonpartisan webinar is titled "Local Election Integrity, Are We Secure Enough?" And it's free to attend, but you have to register in advance.
Coming up, we're going to talk with some local election officials and advocates about working for safe and fair primary elections here in Ohio. That's when All Sides continues on 89.7 NPR News.
Juravich: You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. Ohio's primary is May 5th. It's a chance for voters to narrow the field and advance to Democrat and Republican candidates for governor and to widow down a crowded field in the Ohio Supreme Court race. Along with other statewide offices, House and Senate seats as well, there is a lot on the primary election ballot. And there have been some changes since the last election. We'll get to those as well.
Joining us now for what we're calling a Voter 101 show, we have two seasoned election experts. We have Jen Miller, Executive Director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio. Welcome back, Jen.
Jen Miller: Thanks for having me.
Juravich: And we have Erin Ackerman, is Executive Director of the Ohio Association of Election Officials. And thanks for being here, Erin.
Aaron Ockerman: Good morning, Amy. Thanks for having me.
Juravich: So let's start by having each of you explain your role when it comes to elections. Jen, what what do you do whenever you know? You're thinking elections all the time. I'm sure so what what's what what? Do you think what do consider your role? When it comes? To a primary election coming up?
Miller: So the League of Women Voters is fiercely nonpartisan. We never endorse candidates or parties. And that's because voters are our North Star. What we're thinking about every day is what voters need to participate, whether that's understanding all the rules and logistics of voting or whether that being an informed voter. So one of the things we do are candidate forums and voter guides. But again, never putting our thumb on the scale. Our point is to make sure that voters have what they need to make the decisions. That they believe are best for them in the ballot box.
Juravich: And Aaron Ackerman, what does the Ohio Association of Election Officials entail? Like, I'm guessing you're thinking about elections day in and day out.
Ockerman: We, yeah, we more than think we, we do. We are the bipartisan organization that represents Ohio's 88 local county boards of elections. And to Jen's point, if she is fiercely nonpartisan, we are fiercely bipartisan. All of our boards in Ohio have two Democrats, two Republicans that serve on the board, a director and a deputy director, both of opposite political parties as well. And that trickles down to our organization. As a nonprofit organization, we do everything in a bipartisan fashion from our leadership team to our committees all the way through.
Juravich: And in the first segment, we spent a lot of time talking about the SAVE Act. President Trump is pushing hard for it. There's a lot up in the air still, and there probably still will be for the next few days. Jen, you're concerned about the impact of women if this SAVE act passes. And we talked a little bit with David Becker about that, but I wanted you to talk a more about the idea if a woman has changed her last name, what might happen if the SAVE Act passes as it is now?
Miller: We are concerned about women. I'm just going to say we're also concerned about rural Ohioans, older Ohioans people with disabilities. So, but more than 75% of women change their name when they get married. We have three and a half million women in Ohio who are married or have been. And a lot of times you don't have your marriage certificate close by, or you don't have your birth certificate close or your change of name close by.
What can be challenging here is that women would have to prove their, they would have more hoops to go through than their male counterparts just to vote. Imagine having your documents out of state. It can be very hard to get those, it can be time consuming, it could be expensive. And so this is unnecessary legislation that would cost a lot of money. Create a lot more work for elections officials. Take the vote away from many American citizens. You know, lots of folks don't have the initial documents that would be needed to register or re-register to vote, let alone to...
Juravich: Make their voices heard at the ballot box. Erin, what are you hearing from elections officials about this? Because I can imagine the idea of having to inspect people's birth certificates, passports, marriage licenses would add a new layer to election officials' training of poll workers too.
Ockerman: Officially, Amy, we do not have a position on the SAVE Act. We have not voted to support it or oppose it as an organization. But clearly, whenever we look at election legislation, whether it's at the state level or the federal level, there are things that we're worried about that we consider.
Unfunded mandates being at the top of our list and certainly there are costs associated with the SAFE Act that would ultimately trickle down to the state and really the local level our county commissioners would have to bear those costs. And then secondly, anytime you make changes that impact our poll workers, we're going to stand up and probably take notice.
To your point, ultimately, a lot of these changes are gonna depend on our poll worker's being able to understand what the law is, administer the law, implement the law in a fair way, perfectly, every time. And that's a big request of our poll work that are not volunteers, but they don't make a lot money. They're out there for their, because they believe it's the right thing to do. We want to be respectful of them and we want to make sure that we put them in an opportunity to do well.
Juravich: Yeah, I can remember you being on a show in the past whenever we were switching from paper to iPads and having to train the poll workers on that. And so that was a layer, that was some new complexity and we got there, right? We did. We got there. So are you worried about, so I guess my next question is the last question I asked David Becker. Are you worried confusion? Because even if nothing happens with the SAVE Act. We've been talking about this idea of needing more ID, better ID at elections. Are you worried that people are gonna show up and just confuse poll workers or get confused with what is needed?
Ockerman: Potentially, that's always a concern, and voter education is key. I know David said that earlier, and I'm sure Jen would agree that a large part of what we do as election officials these days, beyond just administering the day-to-day functionality of our elections, is spend a lot of time with our voters, educating them. Whether it's about new laws, which I'm we'll talk about with Senate Bill 293, or proposed laws like the SAVE Act, these get out in the public consciousness, whether social media, or the news, or whatever, and it, and, um... It does cause questions that we'll need to be prepared to answer.
Juravich: Jen, talk to me about how to combat misinformation and confusion, because once someone's confused, it's sometimes just easier to skip it, to not vote.
Miller: Yeah, misinformation is the, or confusion is the enemy of turnout. And you are right, so once you don't vote in election, candidate campaigns are less likely to come knock on your door because they're coming to talk to frequent voters. You are less likely to get election mail, like absentee ballot request forms. So, unfortunately, non-participation begets non- participation.
And a lot of times folks only vote every two or four years and we've had so many changes to elections since then. And so it's incredibly important that we all make a voting plan and we check that voting plan every year. So what that means is, which way am I gonna vote? Do I have the right ID? Is my registration up to date? Do I the key dates? All of those things. If I'm going to my neighborhood polling location on election day, have I checked that? Because sometimes that changes. And we also need to check in with our loved ones and make sure they also have a voting plan and that it's been updated if laws have changed.
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking voting 101 ahead of the May 5th primary with Jen Miller from the League of Women Voters and Erin Aukerman, executive director of the Ohio Association of Election Officials. So let's talk, I don't like bill numbers, but let's about the bill that Erin just mentioned, which changed, so I'm gonna call it the No More Four Day Grace Period Bill.
So it's a new law. And this change is for long time voters and it goes into effect for this primary election. It'll be the first one where it'll take place. There's no longer a four day grace period, meaning if you have an absentee ballot and you put it in the mail, it has to be an election official's hands on election day. Am I, do I have that correct, Erin?
Ockerman: Nailed it. All right.
Juravich: So explain, how are you educating procrastinators? What do we need to do here? Jen, okay.
Miller: Yeah. I mean, the thing is about absentee balloting in general, it's an incredibly important way to vote. There's a lot of folks who need that way to vote. However, you should never wait on any aspect. So first and foremost, you can request your absenteeing ballot today. Do that.
If you are updating a loved one's registration, maybe they're a senior citizen or they're mobility impaired or they travel a lot, Make sure that they get their absentee ballot request in immediately, so that when the ballot is, it can be mailed as quickly as possible by that board of elections. Then you wanna do your research and you wanna fill that ballot out right away. If you're gonna mail it, don't wait. Under no circumstance wait. But we personally, I personally would suggest taking it to that drop box or into the board of election when it's open during business hours.
Juravich: Erin tell me more about that because a lot of people get their absentee ballots because maybe maybe they're homebound They can't they can't or they don't have someone to drive them down to the elections office or they can get there easily That's maybe that's the reason they're voting by mail. So you are you're just recommending getting it into the mail early
Ockerman: Correct, so the United States Postal Service actually in their guidance for first class mail says, expect it to take five days one way. So to Jen's point, if you're requesting a ballot, that means that we need to receive that request, process that request and give us five days to get you your ballot. You then need to vote your ballot, you need to get the stamp on it or whatever and get it back in the mail, expect five days back.
So you are, David mentioned 10 days. I mean, 10 days is the bare minimum. Like, yeah, if your, if are within that 10 day, period, you should definitely consider what Jen said and get down to your Board of Elections and drop it off in the Dropbox or walk into the Board of elections.
Juravich: So every county has a place where you can like physically take it. So if you're getting your absentee ballot because you're going to be on vacation on May 5th and you'll just not be here to physically vote in person. And that's why so any day before when the election office is open, you can walk it in.
Ockerman: We have, under Ohio law, we have one drop box in each county. It is typically located at the Board of Elections office. You can hop on your local county Board of elections website to determine the exact location, but that is currently the only option for dropping off your ballot in person.
Miller: And let's be clear, they are incredibly secure. They are monitored 24-7 by video. They're bolted to the ground. They are fire and bomb proof. So the drop boxes are secure. So the league would love to see more drop boxes per county especially as we continue to make absentee balloting harder. But in the meantime, just don't delay when you're voting absentees.
Ockerman: Yeah, our current law, and this is an interesting situation. Our current law does allow you to request an absentee ballot up to seven days before the election, but candidly we would not recommend that. Again, because you're well within that 10-day period before you even request your ballot. To Jen's point, if you haven't already requested your ballot for May 5th, please consider doing that immediately if you're going to plan to vote absentees by mail.
Miller: And also track your ballot, so. Tell me about that, what do you do? So you can go to the Secretary's state site or your local Board of Elections site, put in your information and it'll tell you if they received your request, if they mailed your ballot. Also, if they receive your ballot and so it's really important to track and something you can do is if you are watching the ballot tracking system and you're not seeing your ballot be received by the Board of Elections.
You can go in and vote provisionally just to make sure that your vote's gonna count. Only one of those will count. Whichever ballot arrives first will be the one that counts but that's just a little extra insurance if for some reason your ballot is lost in the mail. And here's the thing, even when we had a longer absentee return deadline, we had grace period, lots of ballots just do not make it in time. We have our our postal service. They're hardworking, but they are also underfunded, just like our boards of elections. And so we need to keep that in mind.
Juravich: We timed this show, it's about 10 days before the deadline to register to vote. So anyone listening right now who is not registered still has time to register. The deadline is Monday, April 6th. Erin, can you tell me more about that? I did watch a video, which is not going to help our radio people, but I watched a video from VoteOhio.gov, the Secretary of State's website, about how to register, so tell me more.
Ockerman: Yeah, a couple of ways you can, several ways. A lot of people now avail themselves to our online voter registration system. That is certainly a good way to do it. You can access that portal either through your local Board of Elections website or through the Secretary of State's website. You do need a driver's license or state identification if you're going to register to vote online.
You can certainly walk into your Board of Election's office and request a voter registration form, fill that out, get it back to us by the deadline and we'll process it and get you on the rolls. Or you can request one by mail. Unfortunately, you cannot register, I'm sorry, you can register to vote online, but if you're going to do it by mail, again, allow us some time to mail you the request, get it filled out and get it back to us and we'll get it processed.
Miller: Real quickly, Amy, lots of people are removed from the roles for inactivity or for other reasons. Lots of people forget to update their registration when they move. And so a best practice, even if you vote every election, is to jump online and check your voter registration. Make sure it's accurate. Okay. So.
Ockerman: And Jen Miller's folks will be out doing voter registration drives, as always, as well. So you might bump into them at the supermarket or the mall.
Juravich: So if the deadline is April 6, that would be even if you move to change something, that would be the same deadline. Because it's like kind of like, if you moved, you're kind of renewing your registration, is that right? Yep, you are updating it. You are updating. So if you go online, I don't know, the Saturday or Sunday before, will it get processed in time? Tell me about this deadline. And if it's online, can you do it on Monday, April 6th?
Ockerman: Yes, you can. Yeah, we'll still get it and we'll still process it and you'll still be able to vote. Now, you won't... Again, there are some verification steps that we obviously take once we receive a voter registration form. But yeah, we will, as long as it's received by the deadline, you will be eligible to vote in that upcoming election.
Juravich: Recently, Republican Secretary of State, Frank LaRose, voluntarily complied with the Trump administration's mandate to turn voter data over to the Department of Justice. Jen, tell me about that. Like, what does that mean? Should voters be worried at all that the federal authorities have voting information that the Secretary of state handed this over? I believe that it's actually a part of the SAVE Act for all the states to hand it over, but anyway, And Frank LaRose did it ahead of time. Yet, there's no reason-
Miller: for the federal government to ask for our personal voter registration data. Many red and blue states have resisted and are resisting this request from the federal government. Yet, Secretary LaRose turned that over without consulting voter advocates, elections officials, lawmakers and others. And it was, it does have unredacted information. So it does include our social security numbers and driver's licenses and things like that.
And so we, there should be a concern there. My bigger concern is what else might the federal government try to do in terms of elections overreach? We wanna make sure that Ohio officials are really standing up to the federal government and reminding the federal government... That elections are the purview of the local and state government. Fortunately, Speaker Huffman has actually affirmed this recently in the media that we are the ones at the state and local level that administer elections. But I think that's the bigger concern is hopefully that it ends with this, but we should be letting our federal lawmakers know that elections our best run by our local elections officials.
Juravich: And, Aaron, has the Ohio Association of Election Officials made any statements or taken a stance on Frank LaRose sending the information to the federal government? We have not. Okay. You're going to leave it at that.
Ockerman: And I will leave it at that.
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. And we are talking about the upcoming primary election. It is voting 101. And if you wanna learn more about elections, I will be moderating a webinar on Monday, March 30th, hosted by the League of Women Voters in Metropolitan Columbus, along with Licking County and Delaware County. The non-partisan webinar is titled "Local Election Integrity, Are We Secure Enough?" It starts at 6.30.
It's free, but you have to register in advance. So you can go to the League of Women Voters of Metropolitan Columbus, Licking County or Delaware County websites to register or at our website, wosu.org slash all sides. We'll have a link there as well. Coming up, we'll continue our conversation with two local elections experts ahead of the May 5th primary. That's when All Sides continues on 89.7 NPR News.
Juravich: You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. Ohio's primary is May 5th. It's a chance for voters to narrow the field and advance Democratic and Republican candidates in a lot of different offices. Governor, for one, we can pair down the crowded field in the Ohio Supreme Court race, along with statewide offices, House seats and Senate seats as well.
Still with us for what we're calling a Voter 101 show, two seasoned election experts, Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio. Thanks for being here, Jen. Thank you. And Aaron Aukerman, Executive Director of the Ohio Association of Election Officials. Thanks for being here, Aaron.
Ockerman: Appreciate the opportunity.
Juravich: And let's talk a little bit about the primary. So whenever we refer to it, Ohio has what is called a partisan primary, or some people call it a semi-open primary. So you either, when you get there, you say whether you want a Democratic ballot or a Republican ballot. Do I have that right, Erin?
Ockerman: That is correct.
Juravich: And then if you're an independent, do you have to decide between the two?
Ockerman: If you are an independent, you have a couple options. You can either decide to vote with one of the parties in their primary system, or you can request what's called an issues-only ballot, which basically means you would get to vote on any issues that are available to you in your precinct, school board, school levies, park levies those kinds of things.
Juravich: And if you have voted in the past in a Republican primary, Democratic primary, can you can you flip-flop? Can you mix it up?
Ockerman: You are allowed to do so. Yes, it used to be a little more tedious process. I always used to say there was a provision of the revised code where you had to basically go and swear your fealty and your left arm and your firstborn child over to the new party that you wanted to affiliate with, but we got rid of that form a while ago, so it really is very simple now. You just simply go in and say, I would like to declare myself for one of the political parties and vote in that.
Juravich: Okay, so you just tell the poll worker and then they'll give you the right ballot that's correct number. That's correct. Okay okay, so then the So Jen, whenever, do you find people get confused, like, cause I just got a little confused. Do you find get confused in the primary if they, or they don't know what's on their ballot? Talk to me about, you can go to any elections website and like look at your ballot ahead of time. So tell me more about that.
Miller: Yeah, so there's two ways to do your research. One is to go to your board of elections website, put in your information, and you can pull up a sample ballot, and that's phenomenal. Also, our voter guide, vote411.org, is a great place to research your candidates. It's highly fair.
It operates like Facebook or LinkedIn, where we give the candidate their own login, and they are the ones who directly enter all their answers, upload their picture. We can't even edit it. And so those are two good ways to do your research. And just keep in mind that, again, anyone can vote in a primary.
Sometimes we think we can't because we don't really align with a party or we aren't registered with a part. Anyone can vote a primary, you walk in, and this year you can ask for Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, or issues only. Issues only is that independent status. It's incredibly important to vote in primaries. A lot of folks don't.
And what happens there is that primaries are usually a much smaller population. They are more likely to be extreme, kind of party extremes, if you will. So whoever wins the primary often is more extreme than kind of those more moderate candidates because only the die-hard blue or the die hard red are showing up. And so it's incredibly important that folks vote in the primary because those issues that come out in the primaries impact how candidates talk about those issues later, as well as how the government may respond to them, those who are in office now.
Juravich: Without a big national election and there hasn't really been, there are some other candidates for governor besides Vivek Ramaswamy and Dr. Amy Acton, but they haven't been running big, huge campaigns. So do you worry about the turnout? Because Jen, there's a lot of smaller offices on these primary ballots, but without a big issue to get people out there, are you worried about low turnout?
Miller: Oh, absolutely. So there have been incredibly close elections, especially in primaries. When you have low turnout, you have just a small fraction of the populace making decisions. So we have seen funding for schools win or lose by five votes. We have seen candidates sometimes win or lose just by a couple votes. And so that's a really important reason to show up. Every election matters. I would argue that primary elections are highly important, much more important than most voters understand. Again, because it influences how the issues are discussed in the general. It influences what candidates advance to the general, but there's often a lot of local issues, again, that impact our daily lives, whether it's roads or parks or disability services, school funding, so incredibly important.
Juravich: What if people have no idea if there is even anything on their ballot? I mean, do you think, are there, Aaron, are there some ballots out there that maybe don't have anything?
Ockerman: Guilty I actually showed up my polling location once and asked for an issues-only ballot only to find out that I didn't have any issues Yes, I can tell you firsthand that that is that is a thing But again, you can go to your local Board of Elections website If you are just curious and you can find out what your sample ballot looks like and if it comes up That you don't have Any issues then obviously your choice at that point is to go ahead and declare for one of the parties or Affiliate with one of The parties and vote in their primary
Juravich: And do you find that it's helpful to explain bills when they're proposals, when they have not been passed yet, in case people haven't heard about them? There are some bills out there that have been proposed in the legislature. Do you find it helpful or do you tend to, do you like to wait until the bill is not just, like not just a committee hearing, whenever you start explaining things to people.
Ockerman: Well, we're not shy about typically sharing our thoughts with the legislature about their proposed election bills. Typically, we try to do that from a very technical standpoint. We don't get involved in, hey, this bill is going to favor one party or another or anything like that. So we try provide technical support and assistance to the legislature as they're considering bills.
And that's an active and ongoing process that we engage in during the legislative committee work. But no, I would not say we are typically out educating our voters about proposed bills. It's I think far better to wait and see how they turn out because as we all know, we might think the bill is going to look one way and an hour before it passes on the floor, it looks completely differently. So I think we need to be cognizant of the fact that the legislative process can be fickle and we need the final product before we start educating voters.
Juravich: And Jen, you're there. You're the opposite. You are there testifying.
Miller: Yeah, so our job is to demystify government. So that includes all the rules for voting in elections and who the candidates are. But it's also what's happening in the legislature that could impact elections. But we do try to kind of separate those two.
When we're doing voter education, we're not going to talk about the Voter Elimination Act, also known as the Save America Act. If we are doing the policy pieces, those are our action alerts, that's our testimony, that is our press outreach. But we try to do both, it is hard, regularly we are getting calls with people thinking that the Voter Elimination Act, aka Save America Act has already passed, right? And so we do have that concern that people can be confused, and that's why we ... Work so hard at both.
Juravich: There are two Ohio House Democrats have introduced a bill that would allow voters who are still holding on to a mail-in ballot on election day to take them to a secure drop box at each local precinct. So this is just a proposal. I have to imagine it would cost some money to get a secure Dropbox at every precinct, and Democrats are very much in the minority here in Ohio. But Erin, what would you think of that, the idea of having a secure Dropbox in every precint?
Ockerman: Conceptually, I think it makes some sense, especially since we have eliminated that four-day window. I do think that as introduced, there's probably some tweaks we'd like to see to that. Again, it goes back to we're always cognizant of the fact that this is going to require a little bit of extra work for our poll workers and a little bit of extra understanding of how to handle these ballots. So we do want to be sensitive to taking those viewpoints into consideration as we're looking at this legislation.
Juravich: Jen, would you want more boxes everywhere, right?
Miller: It doesn't necessarily have to be one of those 600-pound drop boxes, but yes, we are highly supportive of voters being able to take their ballot to a polling location. Something that happens every election is someone will bring their absentee ballot to their neighborhood polling location, and they'll be told that they can't accept that. And then they either have to.
Juravich: They have to drive it to the.
Miller: Yeah, they'd either have to drive it to the office or get in line surrender that ballot and then just vote regular ballot.
Juravich: Yeah, they're there. All right. We only have two minutes left, but Jen, again, I wanted you to, where can people go to learn bipartisan information about all the candidates? What was the website you said again that people need to go to?
Miller: Well we are non-partisan and it's vote411.org and our hardworking volunteers across the state often have print guides as well.
Juravich: And are you finding that the candidates are filling that out? There's been times in the past whenever I go to your vote 411 and not every candidate, like it'll say candidates do not respond or I can't remember the phrasing.
Miller: So first off, if you see that, I would encourage you to call that candidate and register your disappointment. We are seeing this across the board. Even the Chamber of Commerce is now having a hard time getting candidates to answer questions. We see candidates not wanting to do forums or debates. They have a real concern about answering questions to the general public, which is unfortunate. We deserve to hear from them. And so I would courage you to let those candidates know if they're not participating in these kinds of civic forums or. Voter guides that you're disappointed in that.
Juravich: Okay. And especially because people get confused when voting for judges sometimes. So are your judicial candidates filling out your forms? Do you have?
Miller: Usually our judicial candidates do and and judicial candidates are unique because you're not asking them their stance on issues you're asking them what their qualifications are and how they would make decisions because their job isn't to make policy it's to judge laws to see if they are constitutional
Juravich: Well, we're out of time. That's Jen Miller, Executive Director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio. Thank you for your time, Jen. Thank you. And Erin Aukerman, Executive director of the Ohio Association of Election Officials. Thank you, for joining us, Erin.
Ockerman: Thanks for having me on, Amy.
Juravich: And again, I'll be moderating a webinar if you want to learn more about elections on Monday, March 30th. It's hosted by the League of Women Voters of Columbus, Licking County, and Delaware County. And it is at 6:30. It's free, but register in advance. This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News.