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