Welcome me in his time now for our community connection right here on K one, the one you trust. And today we are talking with the legal Women Voters. The woman fran is with us today. How you doing today, young lady?
Oh, just fine, beautiful weather it is.
It is dandy out there now. You just came off of a nice program last night. Tell us a little bit about that.
Okay, Well, yesterday evening at the public library we had Randy o'darn column. Oh Crable, ye, Crable, that's it. Yes, he is a reporter with a Tulsa World and he talked with us about dark money in politics.
There's a little bit going around.
One hears about that. Yes, and of course the problem is it is dark so you don't.
Really know, but you don't know who's writing the checks.
That's it. That's the thing about it. It's it's ways of setting up funds so that you can't you don't have to acknowledge who the donors are. And I believe there are no limits also on how much they can donate. And then those groups are able to buy advertising and all kinds of things.
Yeah, they do it, absolutely do it.
Big thing that the League of Women Voters have been working on. Of course you're known for. This is voter registration. I understand you went to the high school recently.
Well, we had people at the high schools just recently, and I wish i'd written down the number. Yes, I guess it was yesterday. They had at least twenty young people register because if you're going to be eighteen by November fifth, you can register in advance and you will be able to vote. So they went to the high school. But they've also been at the public library, They've been
at the Farmer's Market downtown. They've been over at Tri County, the West Side Center and Green Country Village giving people the forms to register.
Wow, so you guys have been busy.
Well, that's one of our main efforts.
Yes, indeed, And of course I hear we have an election coming up.
One does hear some things about what's going on in October.
We have a big program this month.
Right, there's another program. Yeah, October first we had Randy Crable and October fifteenth, also at the public library. Our municipal Judge Alan Genkis has research about the electoral college, which is a system that I suppose my civic teacher in high school tried to explain to me, but it
never quite made a lot of sense. We all need a pressure course, absolutely, and so he's researched about it and he's going to tell us about its history and how it works and the effect that it has on presidential elections because there have been several in past cycles where it was not the majority of popular votes that determined the outcome of the election, it was the electoral college. And that's why swing states are so important.
That's where that's why you hear about them so much in the news, especially lately, and they especially in presidential politics.
It's a big deal, it really is.
So the electoral College, you know, this is going to be a good refresher course for anyone and everyone who is getting ready to vote.
So I might think you're going to have a pretty good crowd for.
This, I hope. So we had a really good turnout last night. I dragged in all kinds of extra chairs to the room.
Now, with the LLeague of Women Voters, it's all about the education and registration.
That's it. Education and registration. Lead of Women Voters is nonpartisan, and in fact, the board members have to agree not to take public stands in favor of particular candidates, although of course members can do what they want. We have new yard signs that say vote, it's your future, but they don't say who to vote for.
No, they just want you to go out and use your.
Right be actively involved. Because now you were saying that Frank Zappa was one of the first verse to quote this. But if you didn't vote, you aren't allowed to complain.
There you go, there you go, because you know, you got to have a stake in it.
You really did.
And I remember being a younger person and I couldn't wait. I thought that was a big deal to vote, because it mattered to me. But the odd thing was is that a lot of my classmates, well especially in my senior year at high school and then in early into college, they're like, well, it didn't matter, they're gonna do what they're gonna do.
I said, well, who's they? Well, you know they, I said, what you can be a.
Part of They that's it.
Now you can be heard.
And it took them a couple of years, but they're like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, it is kind of important.
Yes it is. You know.
Of course there's some you hear about some elections that were tipped by just a handful of votes.
Oh, that happens all the time, especially in local elections. And by the way, that's important too, isn't it. We're not just talking about the presidential election, aren't we.
Well, the local elections are very important too, And if you want to know what's on the ballot for your particular district, you can go to Okay voter portal. That's
all one word, Okay voter Portal. Just do an online search for that and it'll take you to a website where you can get a sample ballot for your your individual award and see what's on the ballot that you're going to have to vote on, because there have to be propositions to vote on as well as candidates, and you can study it in advance to decide what you're going to do, so that you don't have to sit there with a magnifying glass and study it while you're there.
That's right. Also, you can check to make sure that your registration is currently valid, because if you haven't voted recently, sometimes you get knocked off of the roster. And if you've changed your name or moved or anything like that, you have until I wrote it down October eleventh. You have until October eleventh to reregister and make sure that you are valid to participate this time around.
See, we've got the education to get your registration. There we go.
And this is one of the things where there are a lot of things. Others then, like you said, there are candidates, there's judge retention questions on there. There's also questions that pertain to do different things depending on just where you are in the state of Oklahoma and sometimes just even in Washington.
Get me, that's right, because for the like city council, we have got you for city council, it depends what ward you're in, and so you needn't need to know that. And there are some rather strange boundaries drawn for state representatives and things like that. You have to know what side of the street you're on.
Frank Phillips Boulevard is one of those divider streets is for state representative because on one side it's one section and the other one is another house district.
And it's a it's a it's amazing that's.
How they draw. Well, they have to draw the line somewhere, that's right.
The dotted line Frank Phillips in my neighborhood, anywhere.
It's important to know which side you're on so that you can can learn about the candidate and decide how you want to cast your voat.
Now, this portal can tell you just about anything. It's got a lot of what they call FAQ's, frequently asked questions.
That's right, so you don't have to sit there and scratch your head. Go on, I wonder where this is.
Just now tell you your polling place too, because those those have changed in the last year or two, and so you need to turn up at the right place.
Might be there and nobody's there, and well where'd they go?
Yeah, but they're open general. I think it's seven am to seven pm. That's a long stint for the poll workers, bless their hearts.
Oh yeah.
And then of course we have where we have the early voting option for we do many elections, if not.
All you can you can on the portal. You can request an absentee ballot. If for some reason, you know you're going to be out of town on November fifth, or if their mobility issues or or some other thing, you can get an absentee ballot, but you do have to request that in advance.
Very nice resource to stay in Oklahoma together.
Yeah, I think it's it's very good. It's something to be proud of. And I'm so proud of our voting machines that have a paper record as well as the digital one, because you remember the hanging chads, are you old enough.
To remember that opened?
And all kinds of other snaffhoos and then recounts. At least we've got paper ballots that they can recount by hand if they really want to do that.
Oh golly. Yeah. You know.
The thing is it's always good to have, you know, two sets, you know, so you can compare and make sure that nothing went awry. Its what do you call it? Verification and validation?
Yeah, just in case there's any kind of a challenge. And I don't anticipate a challenge in Oklahoma, but there are other states that I wish, Yes, yes, I wish that some of the states that have had a problem before had had our kinds of machines. The idea of a touchscreen voting with no physical record at all gives me the creeps.
You're not alone.
They are hackable, you know. A year or two ago there was a hackathon, a conference of people who tried to see what they can do with machines, and they gave some digital voting machines to some high school students who got into them in just a few minutes, and we're able to alter the outcomes. So yeah, I like our system. I'm proud of Oklahoma.
Were that to hang in Chad.
Business took place with Florida, and I was living down in Florida and they went to some of the touch screens and those got a little wonky. They would the screen would just kind of move on you. Oh no, and they'd have to they'd have to take it out of commission and have somebody come in and get it fixed.
Can you imagine you're trying.
To stick your finger on a button and the screen is just kind of bouncing around a little bit.
And so you know, they.
That was that was in a previous century, wasn't it.
It was it was like two or two thousand and four, Yeah, one two thousand four.
Yeah.
One hopes. One hopes that the technology has improved.
They had twenty years to get it better. Yeah.
I don't think they're using those anymore down there, because oh yeah, they've had their share of trouble.
So I'm not going to kick them too hard. But anyway, this is great.
So if we want to know more about the League of Women Voters and some of the different educational events that you're hosting, how can we find out more?
Fran Oh, I should have looked that up, but I'm sure we we have a state website as well as the national website. You can find out about Yeah, you can find out policies and so forth. National and State do studies of different subjects like juvenile justice and other legal matters that people might be voting on. From time to time, they decide on what the members in the state are interested in studying, and then they research and
provide study materials for local education. So it's voter registration and just voter education on all different topics.
Well, that's very good.
I want to thank you for coming in today. And once again we've got the event on the fifteenth.
On the fifteenth October fifteenth, six point thirty at the Bartsow Public Library, the downstairs meeting room they call it Room Cup to our s VP, just up, just turn up.
Well I like that.
It's gonna be kind of fun, kind of informal, but of course, you know, genties, he's a he's.
A he's a pretty smart fellow. They don't just hand out those you know, law degrees to anybody.
And get on top of that, he's a pretty engaging fellow too, So you're gonna get a bit of an education here when we talk about the electoral college.
Once again, Fran, thank you for being with us.
Thank you so much for letting me talk about this.