Speaker 1: Don't want to be an American. It's got so lung.
Speaker 1: Show back on seven hundred, wolbody got an election coming
Speaker 1: up Tuesday. Levees in a dozen places, local offices, and
Speaker 1: there's a big CPS renewal. We've got the mayor's race,
Speaker 1: of course, and some twenty six people. It feels like
Speaker 1: three thousand people trying to place in the top nine.
Speaker 1: So twenty six people looking for nine jobs in a
Speaker 1: Sea Down council on this and more. Is the person
Speaker 1: who controls it all. That would be the director of
Speaker 1: the Hamlet County Board of Elections, Sherry Poland, welcome back.
Speaker 1: How are you.
Speaker 2: I'm doing well, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: You always in a good mood. This is like right now
Speaker 1: I would be just crabby af you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: because you got so much coming at you right now.
Speaker 1: All right, so we'll start with this. The polls up
Speaker 1: on Tuesday, six thirty am to seven thirty I believe correct.
Speaker 2: That's crack six thirty am to seven thirty pm.
Speaker 1: Don't forget the driver's license.
Speaker 2: That's correct, that's correct. A few years ago, Hi Ohio
Speaker 2: changed these acceptable forms of ID for voting, so in
Speaker 2: order to vote in person, you do need to have
Speaker 2: a State of Ohio driver's license or a State of
Speaker 2: Ohio identification card, or a passport or military ID. So
Speaker 2: make sure it's not expired. Make sure it's up to
Speaker 2: date before you come to the polls.
Speaker 1: Okay, I bring one that's expired, I forget it. What happens,
Speaker 1: I can vote.
Speaker 2: No problem. If you do not have an acceptable form
Speaker 2: of ID, you will be issued what we call a
Speaker 2: provisional ballot. It's the same ballot that's issued to every
Speaker 2: other voter you would market, but instead of scanning it
Speaker 2: and having it counted election night, it's placed inside what
Speaker 2: we call a provisional envelope and that has your identifying
Speaker 2: information on it. You fill that out after election day.
Speaker 2: Bipartisan teams verify the information on the envelope, and the
Speaker 2: voter has four days after election day, so that's the
Speaker 2: Saturday after election Day to come to the Board of
Speaker 2: Elections and present an acceptable form of ID. They do,
Speaker 2: then that ballot will be added to the official count,
Speaker 2: which occurs a few weeks after election day. I do
Speaker 2: want to note that if you're in fign yourself in
Speaker 2: that situation right now, so your driver's license or state
Speaker 2: idea is expired. Go to the BMV before you come
Speaker 2: to the polls. That interim documentation that the BMB gives
Speaker 2: you while your identifications being mailed to you, that interim
Speaker 2: idea that's good for driving purposes, it's also acceptable for voting.
Speaker 2: So if you have that, you will not have to
Speaker 2: vote provisionally.
Speaker 1: Okay, got it. Let's talk about the early voting numbers,
Speaker 1: how early voting the absentee ballots, and how did the
Speaker 1: request compared to previous elections and what does that tell
Speaker 1: you about what's going to happen Tuesday?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So absent te voting, which is that umbrella that
Speaker 2: contains both voting by mail and early in person voting.
Speaker 2: We're pretty much right on track as to the twenty
Speaker 2: twenty one election. So four years ago, once again Cincinnati
Speaker 2: was voting council members and this election, that turnout is
Speaker 2: tracking right on pace with that twenty twenty one election.
Speaker 1: Okay, compare that to like a presidential cycle, the last
Speaker 1: presidential election, so one percent. Okay, what are we talking?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So in twenty twenty one, county wide, we saw
Speaker 2: a twenty six percent turnout. City Cincinnati is slightly lower,
Speaker 2: a twenty five percent. Compare that to a presidential where
Speaker 2: we see a seventy two percent turnout. So unfortunately, we
Speaker 2: don't see the turnout in odd numbered years elections than
Speaker 2: we do in the even years. But you know, we
Speaker 2: it's kind of hard for us in the business to
Speaker 2: understand why that happens because we are voting for our
Speaker 2: local elected officials. These are the folks that really have
Speaker 2: an impact on our day to day lives. So I
Speaker 2: encourage everyone if you haven't voted yet, voted yet early
Speaker 2: voting in person is still ongoing through Sunday, and you
Speaker 2: know your polls will be open in your community on
Speaker 2: election day, get out and vote.
Speaker 1: I would say it's simply but it's marketing, I think right,
Speaker 1: because in a presidential cycle, it's in your face all
Speaker 1: the time. You're getting tons of robo calls, social media
Speaker 1: feed is packed with political messages and bickering. You turn
Speaker 1: on a streaming show or TV and you're inundated with
Speaker 1: political messages, president presidential races front and center, And I
Speaker 1: think it just the marketing drives more people to polls.
Speaker 1: That's my theory.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. Something else we see is that you know,
Speaker 2: sometimes controversial issues will bring voters out to the polls.
Speaker 2: So two years ago, twenty twenty three odd year, you know,
Speaker 2: election again, looking electing local officials, we saw a higher turnout.
Speaker 2: I think we saw a forty eight percent turnout in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three. But that your abortion, marijuana, we're both
Speaker 2: on the ballot. So the issues can also drive out turnout.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and I think me and that's probably a
Speaker 1: good point too, is the more globally issued. That's a
Speaker 1: state issue. But everyone's like, okay, I can identify with that.
Speaker 1: You start talking about millage and levees and school boards
Speaker 1: and dogcatchers, people's eyes glaze over, rightly or wrongly. I
Speaker 1: think that's how we're programs. Like I got my ballot
Speaker 1: where we just moved to and looked at, and there
Speaker 1: were like three or four things on there, and most
Speaker 1: of them were fairly inane. There's a levee issue, which
Speaker 1: I voted on, but the other ones were like, I
Speaker 1: don't know who these people are. Did some research found
Speaker 1: out some of them? Other ones I just and the
Speaker 1: ones I looked at when I have no idea who
Speaker 1: they are, I can't find any information on them. I
Speaker 1: just left blank, which you can do. You can do.
Speaker 2: You can absolutely skip the contest. That is your right
Speaker 2: to do that. But I think you bring up another
Speaker 2: very good point, and that is to become an informed voter.
Speaker 2: And it's easy to do if you vote by mail
Speaker 2: because that ballot is mail to your house. You can
Speaker 2: fit take your time to the research. However, for this election,
Speaker 2: voting by mail has ended. That ended on Tuesday. Anyone
Speaker 2: who wished to vote by mail had to submit an
Speaker 2: application to the board by this past Tuesday, Chamber twenty,
Speaker 2: so voting by mail has ended. But what you can
Speaker 2: do if you are going to vote in person and
Speaker 2: is go on to our website Vote Hamilton County, Ohio
Speaker 2: dot gov. Vote Hamilton County, Ohio dot gov. Go onto
Speaker 2: our website and you can look up your sample ballot
Speaker 2: on our website so it looks almost identical to the
Speaker 2: ballot you'll received when you walk into the polling place.
Speaker 2: So review ahead of time, do your research like you did,
Speaker 2: and become an informed voter so there's no surprises when
Speaker 2: you walk into the polling place. You can go in
Speaker 2: knowing how you want to cast your ballot.
Speaker 1: Scott's Onland with Sherry Poland. She's the director Hamilin County
Speaker 1: Board of Elections got the election coming up Tuesday. If
Speaker 1: you're in person, at six point thirty relative to that, Sherry,
Speaker 1: you know, you mentioned the twenty right around twenty six
Speaker 1: percent turnout right around that maybe twenty five one out
Speaker 1: every four voters in the city. And sometimes issues will
Speaker 1: bring out more people on off year elections, as this
Speaker 1: one is because you don't have the hype of the
Speaker 1: presidential I understand that, and I think people are just
Speaker 1: fatigued too going I'm going to take a knee here
Speaker 1: this year. I don't need to show. But I thought,
Speaker 1: you know, with the crime issue in Cincinnati, and I
Speaker 1: know you can't get in and that's not your area concern,
Speaker 1: you're just managing the election. But I thought, for sure,
Speaker 1: with the interesting crime downtown and the number of people
Speaker 1: running for counsel, that would I get I guess, maybe
Speaker 1: drive more people out.
Speaker 2: That surprised me, you know, and it's still a possibility
Speaker 2: on election day. You know, the majority of voters in
Speaker 2: Hamilton County still choose to vote on election day, so
Speaker 2: you know, we might see that higher turnout come. Then.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't have a crystal ball that tells
Speaker 2: me that, but we'll find out on Tuesday.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exact, we'll find out together on Tuesday. Regarding that too,
Speaker 1: how many more people this year And I'm sure you're
Speaker 1: looking at the trend and it's just align almost straight upward.
Speaker 1: I would guess the number of people taking advantage of
Speaker 1: the very generous way we can vote early in the
Speaker 1: Buckeye State, where like me, I just would rather have
Speaker 1: it mail to my house. I'd get a cup of coffee,
Speaker 1: sit there on a Sunday afternoon morning, I guess before
Speaker 1: football and figure out who I'm and what I'm voting for,
Speaker 1: do a little research. Whereas typically you don't have that
Speaker 1: kind of time. You feel pressured if you're standing there
Speaker 1: in queue, and then you know, getting into the booth
Speaker 1: itself to actually punch the draw the little circles. I guess,
Speaker 1: not punched the card, but draw the circle. This is
Speaker 1: easier to know how many more people are taking advantage?
Speaker 1: Are we seeing the trend continue upward?
Speaker 2: What we're seeing continue to trend upward is the early
Speaker 2: in person voting. It's just become, you know, extremely extremely
Speaker 2: popular in Hamilton County. It started when we moved the
Speaker 2: Board of Elections away from downtown to our current facility
Speaker 2: in Norwood. You know, it's more centrally located in the
Speaker 2: county that we serve. We have you know, a large
Speaker 2: amount of free public parking, and that's that is what's
Speaker 2: trending upward, is that early in person vote voting every
Speaker 2: election we outpass the last similar election. When it comes
Speaker 2: to that, voting by mail is you know, sort of
Speaker 2: holding study or maybe dropping slightly. You know, during twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: we had many many people vote by mail, obviously due
Speaker 2: to the pandemic, and we thought that perhaps that trend
Speaker 2: would continue because now we have so many people that
Speaker 2: were never exposed to voting by mail before, they might
Speaker 2: have found it to be very convenient. But that didn't happen.
Speaker 2: After twenty twenty, we went back to the majority of
Speaker 2: Hamilt's County voters casting their ballot the traditional way at
Speaker 2: the polling place.
Speaker 1: On election I hate that's happening.
Speaker 2: I don't know, you know, I think one way. You know,
Speaker 2: we live in the Midwest. We like our traditions. You know,
Speaker 2: I know a lot of people that say to me,
Speaker 2: you know, no, I go into my polling place on
Speaker 2: election day. That's a sacred day to me. That's what
Speaker 2: I do and I'm not going to deviate, you know,
Speaker 2: from that, which you know, I think is interesting. Then
Speaker 2: we have a lot of people with the early voting.
Speaker 2: You know, we have voting for almost a month at
Speaker 2: our Early Vote Center, and it is and people find
Speaker 2: it to be, you know, extremely convenient. I will note obviously,
Speaker 2: on election day you must go to your assigned polling place,
Speaker 2: which is based on where you live, whereas at the
Speaker 2: Early Vote Center, you know, anyone who no matter where
Speaker 2: you live in Hamilton Counties, your registered voter, you can
Speaker 2: come and vote the Early Vote Center. So many times
Speaker 2: we see families coming together so where they might be
Speaker 2: you know, assigned to different polling places because they don't
Speaker 2: all live, you know, in the same home. We see
Speaker 2: a lot of people sort of making a family event
Speaker 2: and coming together the early votes thatenter, then going going
Speaker 2: out to eat or something like that afterwards, or sort
Speaker 2: of the stories that we that we hear, and again
Speaker 2: it's it's extremely convenient. And the hours that we have
Speaker 2: I will note we're open today and tomorrow from seven
Speaker 2: thirty am to seven thirty pm Saturday eight am to
Speaker 2: four pm. Early voting ends on Sunday and it's the
Speaker 2: shortest hours we have by state law. We're open from
Speaker 2: one pm to five pm on Sunday, so still plenty
Speaker 2: of time to come on and vote early in person at.
Speaker 1: The board Cherry Poland with all the event of early voting,
Speaker 1: and you know, they're still traditional south there. I don't
Speaker 1: know how young people do that, because you know young people,
Speaker 1: they'll probably mail it in. I mean, if you could
Speaker 1: text your vote in, they probably all over that. I
Speaker 1: would guess maybe I'd be that way too, I suppose.
Speaker 1: But how is this changing how you tabulate the elections?
Speaker 1: And normally you're sitting around waiting for the results to
Speaker 1: come in. Sometimes it's the middle of the night when
Speaker 1: they come. You know, if you're voting early, either in person,
Speaker 1: by mail or however, you have those votes and of
Speaker 1: course you have them in hand and you're ready to
Speaker 1: release those results the minute the polls closed. So you
Speaker 1: got a lot of stuff done up front, so to speak.
Speaker 1: How's that changed your job? And also when the results
Speaker 1: come out, Yeah, that's.
Speaker 2: A great question. You know, in the state of Ohio,
Speaker 2: we are permitted election officials are permitted to process those
Speaker 2: vote by mail ballots as soon as they come in.
Speaker 2: You have a handful of states that won't allow the
Speaker 2: election officials to begin those acts of preparation until election warning.
Speaker 2: But in Ohio, we can verify all the information that's
Speaker 2: contained on the envelope ahead of time as soon as
Speaker 2: we receive it. Once we determine that that vote by
Speaker 2: mail ballot is accepted for counting, we remove the ballot.
Speaker 2: It scanned, it's not tabulated, it's scanned, and the cast
Speaker 2: vote record is what we call it is stored. And
Speaker 2: then the ballot is stored in a secure facility here
Speaker 2: at the Ware of Elections. Then on election night, as
Speaker 2: soon as the polls closed at seven point thirty one PM,
Speaker 2: we then hit the tabulate button, so the no ballots
Speaker 2: are counted until the polls closed, but we are permitted
Speaker 2: to do those acts of preparation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, scam, get him ready to go, so that makes
Speaker 1: the results come in here. And that's a big question here,
Speaker 1: Sherry Poland. Is it's not about you know, free and
Speaker 1: open elections and exercising your constitutional right to cast your
Speaker 1: vote one person, one voice, and one vote, as the
Speaker 1: case may be. This is not about that. This is
Speaker 1: about Brian Combs, our assistant news director wants to know
Speaker 1: what time he can go home on Tuesday Tuesday night.
Speaker 2: Again, I don't have a crystal ball that would that
Speaker 2: would tell me that. We hope, always hope at one
Speaker 2: hundred to be one hundred percent report before eleven pm,
Speaker 2: you know. And again just to talk a little bit
Speaker 2: more about the election night count and how that works.
Speaker 2: We mentioned the early votes best early in person and
Speaker 2: by mail are the very first ballots that are tabulated
Speaker 2: and released on election night, and then it's a little
Speaker 2: bit of a waiting game for those ballots to come
Speaker 2: in from the polling places all across Hamilton County. And
Speaker 2: that's because our voting equipment is not connected to the internet.
Speaker 2: In fact, it doesn't they don't even have the capability
Speaker 2: of being connected to the internet. So the physical delivery
Speaker 2: of the ballots and the equipment from the bipartisan poll
Speaker 2: workers to the bipartisan teams at the Board of Elections,
Speaker 2: so it takes a little time for them to come in.
Speaker 2: So we'll usually we have a few early pickup locations
Speaker 2: will actually send teams out from the Board so we
Speaker 2: can have some results trickling in early, you know, usually
Speaker 2: between eight thirty and nine, but the majority of those
Speaker 2: ballots arrives at the board around nine, so that's typically
Speaker 2: when we start to see you know, most of the
Speaker 2: results come in between nine thirty and ten thirty, and
Speaker 2: again we always hope to be at one hundred percent,
Speaker 2: you know, before before eleven o'clock. We know it's a
Speaker 2: long day. We know everyone is anxiously awaiting and constantly
Speaker 2: hitting that refresh button. But you know, a latch and
Speaker 2: officials will never trade you know, security and accuracy for speed.
Speaker 1: Gotcha.
Speaker 2: I'll just have to be a little bit patient to
Speaker 2: make sure the results coming in are accuracy.
Speaker 1: I know you have last minute preparations. You got to
Speaker 1: go check the tires, make sure the dipstick has oil
Speaker 1: in it. You got to go make sure the voting machines,
Speaker 1: everything's ready to go. You're a busy lady. I always
Speaker 1: appreciate it talking to you and enjoy our conversations and
Speaker 1: appreciate what you do for democracy. It's an important thing,
Speaker 1: even especially in off years when you have lower turnout
Speaker 1: and probably fewer workers to deal with, et cetera. So
Speaker 1: all the best, Jerry Poland thanks again for coming on
Speaker 1: the show. How about a nice quiet Tuesday, does that
Speaker 1: sound good.
Speaker 2: That sounds wonderful to me.
Speaker 1: It's fuzz you've seen some stuff, yeah we have.
Speaker 2: But we have a great team here at the Board
Speaker 2: of Election. I cannot praise the staff here and now
Speaker 2: if it's truly a place where Democrats and Republicans come
Speaker 2: together to do the people's work.
Speaker 1: So got to have a shout out to them all
Speaker 1: the best, Cherry, be well, good luck, Thank you much,
Speaker 1: Sherry poland that as you're a director Hamiley County Board
Speaker 1: of Elections and love it. She's great. She's just a
Speaker 1: great personnel, a great person and really cares about her
Speaker 1: job and the integrity of the election above all else.
Speaker 1: So six thirty am Tuesday, if you're an in person voter,
Speaker 1: go get it done. If you already did it, like me,
Speaker 1: you just sit back and wait for results to come in.
Speaker 1: And I have no idea what to tell Brian Combs.
Speaker 1: This is all about Colms is like, Hey, you're talking
Speaker 1: to Sherry Paul. Ask her when she thinks I can
Speaker 1: go home. It's all about him, you know this, this
Speaker 1: democracy of two hundred and fifty years still a long time.
Speaker 1: And we tabulate the elections and sometimes they're contentious, Sometimes
Speaker 1: we fight two thousand comes to mind, and basically they're
Speaker 1: in the odds. We had a lot of contentious elections.
Speaker 1: Along came early voting, kind of eased the process, made
Speaker 1: a little bit easier. You know, it wasn't like three
Speaker 1: or four o'clock in the morning. There weren't all these
Speaker 1: few challenges and stuff like that, especially on off here.
Speaker 1: We're not going to get that all Brian Colmbs wants
Speaker 1: to know. Despite all of that history, despite it being
Speaker 1: the cornerstone of our constitution, of our wal life here
Speaker 1: in America, one person, one vote, all Brian Colmbs cares
Speaker 1: about is what time he can go home and have
Speaker 1: a beer. Scott's Loan Show, seven hundred World