A recording of the Community Conversation can be viewed on the Dayton Daily News Facebook page or on daytondailynews.com/ideas-voices.
Editor’s Note: The transcript below has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Voters have complained of “voter fatigue” in a year that’s seen confusing primaries and an unusual special election in August. Why is it still important that people show up to vote in the general election?
CORBA: It’s always important to vote. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people that think that there’s only an election every four years, when actually there is a general election every single year. A lot of folks just think “well, I’ll elect the president and I’m good to go.” But the bottom line is is that these in-between elections are probably even more important in a lot of ways. For example, this year we’re electing our new governor. We are looking at Secretary of State, we’re looking at the auditor — these are folks that play a very large part in our day-to-day lives. We’re also electing state legislators and they are the ones that are making decisions about health care, about how money is spent in our state. We want to make sure that our schools are funded, we want to make sure that the police have the resources that they need to keep our community safe. I would encourage everyone to get educated and get out to the polls. It’s so important, especially now.
Why are the two constitutional amendments on the ballot important?
TURNER: Constitutional amendments are very important because they’re in the Constitution, and once they are in the Constitution, it’s very hard to get them out. If legislation does not turn out as you had hoped, you can invalidate the legislation and try again, but the Constitution is much more challenging to change once you’ve implemented an amendment.
GAINES: Regarding Issue 1, there have been been reform efforts underway in Ohio for a number of years. This amendment is not backed by the same groups of people who’ve been pushing various bail reform efforts. This was a late-comer that kind of snuck in this year. Opponents of this amendment argue that this is not really bail reform, that it’s kind of a distraction meant to short-circuit actual bail reform efforts.
TURNER: Issue 2 is interesting because it seems to be less of a constitutional issue and more of a “home rule” issue, of what a local community can do with regard to allowing individuals in that community to weigh in on local issues. The premise is that Yellow Springs enacted an ordinance which allowed non-citizens to vote in local elections on local issues. Their reasoning being that these are people who have been here a long time and part of the community they pay taxes, they should have a say on how their tax money is spent and what happens in the schools. So they allow the non-citizens to vote in those local elections. They did not develop a right to vote in statewide elections or federal elections.
Proponents of Issue 2 would say “the constitution says citizens cannot be denied a right to vote,” and the argument is that they’re non-citizens, so they don’t have the right to vote.
Those on the other side parse that out and say that citizens have a right to vote, but does not say non-citizens cannot vote in a local matter if that local community, by community choice, wants to give them the right to weigh in on local issues.
CORBA: While they are not citizens, they are here legally. So that’s an that’s an important caveat as well, that the folks that that are this would affect are in fact legally here in the United States.
MCLIN: Not only does it talk about non-residents, it also goes into the youth vote.
CORBA: Yes, because currently if you are 17 years old and you will turn 18 by the general election, you may vote in the primary. You cannot vote on issues for the primary, but if you turn 18 in November, you can vote for for everything that’s on the ballot.
GAINES: For Issue 2, I did a little math to see just how many people we’re talking about. So far it’s only been passed in Yellow Springs. Opponents say, what if places across Ohio adopt this? Doing some math on how many legal immigrants are actually are in Ohio, it looks like it would be about 1.5% of Ohio’s population. Of course, not nearly all those people would actually register to vote.
There are still many people that believe elections can be stolen or that voter fraud is widespread. What can be done to combat misinformation like this and assure voters that the election is secure?
MCLIN: In all counties in Ohio, on each Board of Elections there are two Democrats and two Republicans. Even taking the ballots out of the drop box, there has to be a Democrat and a Republican. When they open mail, there is a Democrat and Republican. In fact, the Boards of Elections are probably the closest thing that you’re going to see to a true bipartisan effort now.
The voting machines have to be approved by the state board of elections. Those companies have to go through a rigorous process to even be approved to have machines in Ohio. And we check and double-check to make sure we have a good system in Ohio. I can only speak for Ohio, but our elections are safe and secure.
Even if there was a flood or some other disaster, the sheriff’s department would is on hand to take care of the Board of Elections. When the ballots are coming in from the polling places on election night, you will see officers in position to receive them.
CORBA: The Board of Elections conducts an audit after every election to double-check that the results are in fact accurate. The state of Ohio also does a backup of a paper ballot as well. So when you’re voting on the machine, you’re getting a piece of paper that you look at to make sure that what you voted for is actually what’s on that that ballot. And that’s another layer of protection to make sure that your vote is exactly how you meant it to be.
These audits are public. The Board of Elections makes an announcement and anyone who would like to come and watch that audit is welcome to do so. And I’ve watched the audits. They’re really interesting!
It’s when you don’t understand how things work that misinformation can creep in. Montgomery County is still looking for poll workers. That’s an outstanding way to see up close how an election is run.
What are the most important issues you’re hearing about for voters going into the election this year?
GAINES: We put a Google form on our website a while back for a story I was writing, asking that very question of our readers. Of the people who responded, we got about 350 responses The two top issues by a longshot were abortion and cost of living.
CORBA: Women’s reproductive health is definitely something that people are calling the League about. Climate change is another big one that we’ve gotten a lot of phone calls regarding. There’ve been a couple people that have talked about China.
It seems that this year, in particular, candidates are less likely to engage with each other in debates or with local media. Why do you think it’s important that candidates engage with local media and civic organizations like the League?
CORBA: Yes, it has been an issue. And actually, we’ve received a number of phone calls and emails from voters asking, “Why didn’t this person respond?” So people are watching. They are taking note, they’re wondering why is it that the candidate I was interested in voting for didn’t respond to these questions? Why is it that the candidate didn’t didn’t agree to appear at a forum?
People are asking those questions and I sincerely hope that the takeaway will be voters saying, “We need to hear from you. We want to know what your opinion is so that we can make an informed decision at the polls.” And that’s really what we’re trying to do is to provide information to voters so that when they go to vote, they feel comfortable about the issues and candidates.
It’s just really important for people to know that whoever they’re voting for is going to be their voice. And unless we know what that voice is going to be, it’s really difficult to make a decision.
GAINES: The basic issue, I think, is a number of candidates who simply don’t want to take questions. They didn’t really have any other avenues to reach the public other than established media. But now, with the rise of social media, they can speak directly to constituents in a way that they could not reliably do before. And so it’s basically circumventing established outlets to try and reach those constituents directly and only focus on the message that you want to get and not have to face questions and the other side.
And contributing to that, I think is when you’ve got a district that is heavily partisan, that candidate knows they only have to speak to their established constituency. They don’t have to bother trying to reach out to the other side or to undecided voters in the middle if they’re pretty sure they’re going to win by a comfortable margin, just based on their their own partisan support. I think what can help combat this is to make districts competitive, so that they have to reach out to everybody, not just a select audience.
Voter turnout on college campuses can be among the lowest in a region. Why should students care about this election and future elections?
TURNER: The apathy among the student body is very discouraging because they should be a more informed group, because they’re studying a lot of these things. And yet, they’re caught up in their own lives. And I think part of it is they don’t see where it’s made a difference. So much of the mantra that has been out there is “voting doesn’t make any difference.” They buy into that it’s not going to make a difference.
MCLIN: Especially this year in Ohio. We’ve had two primaries. I mean, even the the folks working at the Boards of Elections are fatigued. I think that the key is that young people have their own thoughts through social media and, and whatever they want to believe they believe because it can be found on social media and that’s their world. It’s hard to break in to a mindset that’s already been established.
CORBA: I have hope. We had a young woman who is a senior in high school who was served as an intern for us over the summer. She’s 17 years old and she’s amazing. She wants to get her hands dirty. She wants to dig in. She wants to make a difference. And those are the kinds of young people that are really rallying the troops. Over the summer, we had some voter registration events and we had more and more first-time voters who were under the age of 30, who were saying “I need to I need to get involved. I need to vote. What can I do?” So I think as far as the university, I think there’s a disconnect for those students who are at the University of Dayton or at Wright State and they don’t live in their area. When you’re living on campus versus voting for stuff back home, I think that gets a little bit confusing for people. But I have great hope. I really do.