Latest / Chuck Douglas / A Sellers Franklin County BOE on Early Voting and need for REPUBLICAN poll workers

Transcript

A Sellers Franklin County BOE on Early Voting and need for REPUBLICAN poll workers · Chuck Douglas

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about right now, the first day
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: of early voting, the first day of early voting. I
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: have traditionally not been in favor of it. This year,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: I told you I'm going to do it myself. You
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: don't know what's going to happen, whether you know it's
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: COVID sixty two or the first hurricane to hit Ohio
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: or asteroids fall for I'm not going to let anybody
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: keep me from the polls. And if I need to
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: vote early, then I'm going to be voting early. Dog
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: got it, and a lot of people, I guess did today.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Aaron Sellers is is what the Board of Elections. They're
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: a spokesperson up there. He keeps his eye on everything.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: He is on the phone with me right now, taking
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: a break from a wonderful event, just for little me
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: and Aaron. I appreciate that. Thank you.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: How are you? Thanks for having me?
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: I what did you see today? Did you see lots
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: and lots of people more than expected, fewer than expected?
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Were they happy? Smiling to be part of the process?
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: How just what was the feel at the Board of
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Elections today?
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Well, the feel was the first day of early voting.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of excited people that were up there.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: I think the final numbers were somewhere north of forty
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: two hundred folks came into the board today to cast
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: their ballot, and you know, it's a lot of people
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: up there. They seem to be excited, and we were
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: able to move them in very quickly. And you know,
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: so far day one is in the books for this.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: First week of early voting. You I mean, you cannot
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: ask for a better weather scenario. So if you do
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: get lines out the door, people are going to be
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: standing in very moderate, nice temperatures and lots of sunshine.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: So that's at least some good news when it comes
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: to elections. I'm ready for rain no matter what day
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: it is.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, today was. Today was a wonderful day. And it
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: looks like we're gonna have a few days that are
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: going to be just as nice as today. But we've
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: been pretty lucky through the years weather wise, obviously, Ohio,
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: you never know what's gonna what's what it's going to be.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: But we have some expanded footprint at the board that
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: has enabled us to have an inside a queuing area
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: that we can queue folks to get them inside, and
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: probably we could probably fit about five hundred folks in there,
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: so it's we've got a pretty good thing up there.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: We've done this for a while and most of the
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: people that we that come up there are are happy.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Are you the forty two hundred or so that you
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: saw today in comparison to previous year is good, bad,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: or about the same?
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: I would say that it was good. Twenty twenty obviously
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: was obviously COVID and just kind of threw a monkey
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: rich a monkey wrench, and the whole thing is the
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: way how people vote. I think that we will get
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: back to more of a twenty sixteen election, meaning I
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: think that will be sixty percent election day, forty percent
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: early voting, which that incorporates the mail and ballot component.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Today we mailed out over one hundred and seventeen thousand
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: ballots that had been requested by Franklin County voters. So
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: that's a big number, forty two hundred. I don't know,
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: it's probably close to a record. I don't know exactly,
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: but it's pretty darn close.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: I say every single year that you know, the one
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: disappointing thing about the process is what I see twenty
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: two twenty six percent voter turnout. It just it sickens me.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: You have this opportunity to change the world as you
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: know it by simply making some decisions, getting educated, pushing
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: some buttons, and people not getting off their tails and
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: doing that frustrates me to no end. This year, I
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: hope it's different. I hope the numbers are higher.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, general elections are, especially for presidential elections,
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: are the highest turnout by far. In twenty twenty, we
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: had a seventy two percent turnout in Franklin County. I
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: think in twenty sixteen it was seventy percent. So people
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: do come out for general elections. One of the things
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: that is a bit frustrating to me is in the
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: primary cycle. And obviously there's en many variables in a
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: primary cycle, the number of candidates, you know when the
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: primary takes place, but a lot of people just don't
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: know the process. You know that in the primary it's
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: a you know, you're picking the party that you want
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: to represent that you want to cast a ballot for,
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: whether a Republican or a Democrat, who's going to you know,
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: ultimately get to the general election. A lot of people don't,
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: They don't vote in primaries. The most recent numbers in
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: Franklin County, we have over nine hundred thousand registered voters
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: I think about twelve twelve percent or Democrat, nine point
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: nine percent a Republican, and seven hundred thousand are unaffiliated.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Now what does that mean? That just simply means that
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: a large seventy seven percent of the electorate really don't
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: participate in primaries.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Wow. Wow, that's when you think about it. I've never
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: heard those numbers though. That is staggering. Seventy seven percent
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: non participation because they're not affiliated. Wow.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: Now that doesn't mean that they yeah, that they don't
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: vote in general elections, or they could vote an issues
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: only ballot. But in the system that we have, the
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: primary is picking the candidate that's going to carry the
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: party's water in the general election.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but you want to you know, when you sit
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: down at the table and you get the menu, you
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: want to pick what you're going to have for dinner.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: But dog gun it, don't miss your chance to pick
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: the restaurant too. That's uh, I would concur Yeah, that's hey, Aaron,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: before I say goodbye, because I know you are somewhere
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: that I would actually like to be right now. But
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: I'll let you get back to for election day. How
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: are we doing on observers, poll workers, all that kind
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: of stuff. Do you need people to sign up to
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: volunteer to work as pole workers?
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: How does that set Yeah, that's a great question, and
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: that's a good thing to end it on. We are
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: in the ment. We are in the process of recruiting
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: upwards of fifty two hundred pole workers in Franklin County
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: to work our three hundred and two poles. It's a
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: big county. We have a great staff that it's it's
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: they're working to meet those numbers and we certainly will
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: do that. One of the things of note that we
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: need Republicans because this is a bipartisan way and we
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: run elections and we need we need more Republicans to
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: be poll workers in specific areas of the county Grove City,
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: o Beets, Grove, Port Canal, Winchester, so basically the whole
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: southern you know, from seventy south is an area that
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: we could use. Any listeners that are out there that
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: are registered Republicans that live in those areas, we need
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: more of you to to be poll workers to help
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: us administer the election. On November fifth, we're going to
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: get to where we need to.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: You can just google Franklin County Board of Elections and
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: go to the website and there's probably a sign up link.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: There is vote dot Franklin County, Ohio dot gov is
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: our website. If we can get more people, specifically Republicans
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: in those areas, that would that would make this call
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: well worth it.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: I will do everything I can to promote that. And
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: if you need to get the word out, do whaty're recruiting,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: anything like that. You always have a microphone here. I
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: appreciate you, Arin, and you've got.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: My contact and so if you need anything, please reach
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: out to me.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: All right, we'll do so. You have a great evening.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: And uh and look over at the chair next to
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: you and say, boy, I wis Chuck was here with me?
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: I you know I should have asked him. I don't
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: know if you have to work the whole shift or not.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: I know many people have complained about being a pole worker.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: That's a lot of hours. I don't know if you
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: can work like half the shift and split it with somebody,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: maybe you can go with his partners and what one
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: person works the you know, second half, one person works
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: the first because if you've got a family, kids, you
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: got to pick him uprom school or drop them off
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: at school or whatever. They pay it for it. I mean,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: it's not like a thousand dollars or anything that they
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: give you. You know, better than being on jury duty.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: And as he said, you know they need Republicans specifically
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: for the southern half of Franklin County. So if it's
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: something you're interested in, please do sign up. I think
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: this election is going to be very, very busy, both
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: in the early voting and and on November fifth,