Are Ohio elections secure? The League of Women Voters' Jen Miller reveals how to protect your vote and fight misinformation.

How to Secure Your Vote, Understand Ohio’s Election System, and Confront Misinformation

With the midterm elections approaching, political ads and social media can overwhelm voters with both facts and falsehoods. In this episode, Jen Miller from the League of Women Voters Ohio sheds light on the real state of Ohio’s democracy, addressing what’s true, what’s changing, and what voters need to know.

Episode Highlights

• History & Mission of the League: How the League of Women Voters began in Ohio, their nonpartisan principles, and why voter education is their top priority.
• Voter Access & Security: The facts about Ohio’s layered election security, the strict voter ID requirements, and how to make a reliable voting plan despite changing rules.
• Redistricting and Gerrymandering: Why Ohio is considered highly gerrymandered, what’s being done at the state and local level, and why fair district lines matter for all voters.
• Engaging Young Voters: Successful nonpartisan programs like the Airstream campus tours and Voter Girl that help more young people understand and embrace their voting rights.
• Combating Election Misinformation: Tips for quick fact checks, honest discussions with family members, and protecting democracy through consistent civic engagement.
• Poll Worker Insights: The essential roles of poll workers, how training works, and why respectful treatment of election officials matters more than ever.

Whether you're registering to vote for the first time or returning to the polls, Jen Miller’s advice will help you prepare, participate, and protect your voting rights in Ohio.

If you like this episode, please let us know. We appreciate the feed back, and your support of offset costs of producing the podcast!

5 Frequently Asked Questions about Secure Voting in Ohio

1. How secure are Ohio's elections? - Ohio elections use bipartisan teams for every step, strong physical and cyber safeguards, and regular audits comparing paper and digital records to ensure accuracy and security.
2. What voter ID is required to vote in Ohio? - Acceptable IDs include an unexpired Ohio driver’s license or state ID, U.S. passport, U.S. military or veteran ID. State ID cards are free, but certain previously accepted documents (like county veteran cards) no longer qualify.
3. How can young people get involved in voting and civic engagement in Ohio? - Programs like the Airstream Campus initiative, Voter Girl with Girl Scouts, and internships help young voters learn about, register for, and participate in elections. High school students can also serve as paid poll workers through Youth at the Booth.
4. What is "dark money" in Ohio politics, and why does it matter? - Dark money refers to campaign funds from undisclosed sources, making it hard to see who influences issues and candidates. The League advocates for better disclosure and transparency laws.
5. How can Ohio voters protect themselves against election misinformation? - By relying on trusted resources (like vote411.org and League guides), verifying sources (look for .gov websites), and approaching discussions with curiosity, voters can avoid common pitfalls and help protect democracy.

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And of course, everything can be found on our website, Looking Forward Our Way.

Recorded in Studio C at 511 Studios. A production of Circle 270 Media® Podcast Consultants.

Copyright 2026 Carol Ventresca and Brett Johnson

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/

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Listener Disclaimer

The views and opinions expressed by the experts interviewed on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the podcast hosts or any affiliated organizations. The information provided in these interviews is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered as professional advice. Listeners are encouraged to consult with qualified professionals for specific advice or information related to their individual circumstances. The podcast host and producers do not endorse or guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any information provided by the experts interviewed. Listener discretion is advised.

We are looking forward our way. Hi, this is Brett. The

midterm elections are around the corner and whether you're scrolling on your

phone, computer screen or watching tv, they're all packed with political

ads filled with truth and misinformation too.

We are inundated with it today. We welcome back

to Looking Forward Our way. But this time in the studio, Jen Miller,

executive director of the League of Women Voters Ohio, bringing us the

real facts. Jen, thanks for joining us again. Thank you for having me. It's

so good to see you. We were just talking and last time

you were zooming into us and then I think you and I ran into each

other at a meeting like not too long after that. So

we've run across each other on the political trails.

But so it's really good to have you here and it's always

good for our listeners to hear some good information

because another election is always ready to

roll, roll around to us. So to our

listeners, we're going to have resources available to you

with this podcast, posted with this podcast. So let's get to

it. Jen, we had a great response when you were here with us

in 2024. Today we need to gear

up for that next election cycle and be ready to

cast our votes. But before we dive into all the details

of the election, we want to hear more about you, give us your

background and what brought you to the League of Women Voters. Well, thanks

for having me again. It's great fun to be here. I'm a proud

daughter of Ohio, is what I like to say. My parents and grandparents were

all small business owners and farmers throughout

small town Ohio and north central and northwest Ohio.

Close to Cedar Point, I think is easy to say. Probably so, isn't

it? Exactly. I care deeply about

our world and I care deeply about people. And so I've always been interested in

systems and how systems influence our lives.

And clearly elections and government

touch every aspect of our lives. And so as I really

started thinking about what we need or want for

our communities, I recognize that the function of

democracy was critical to that. And if you're worried about the function of

democracy, not about different parties, not about

different candidates, but just how elections work,

how government works, and making sure that it

is upholding our rights as voters and citizens, then there's no

better organization to join than the League of Women Voters of Ohio.

Right? Right. Voters need to need some help to maneuver through

balance issues and candidates because it's different layers and they all have

their own language, especially issues.

The amount of misinformation regarding elections has soared.

And we all know the two letters that have done that for us. The League

of Women Voters not only promotes voting, but provides unbiased, complete

information and resources needed by us, the voter. Tell us

about the League and why its work has become critical to our democracy.

Well, thanks for that. And I mean, let's do a little bit of history

first, which is that we do come from the Ohio Woman Suffrage association,

and I probably talked about this last time, but nurses, teachers,

lawyers, reporters, the Federation of Colored Women's Clubs, the Council

of Jewish Women, the dar, all these different groups came together

as Ohio was ratifying the 19th Amendment. That

turned into the League. All these groups developed the League,

the idea being that we were going to have a new voting populace in Ohio.

And we wanted to make sure that they knew all the logistics, the where, the

how, the first voter guides for

anywhere in the United States for the League of Women Voters were actually formed out

of Cleveland. We wanted to make sure voters were informed. And

why? Because confusion is the number one enemy for turnout.

It's not actually apathy, it is confusion. People very

easily get confused about the process. And, and you are right that

both mis and disinformation are rampant. Mis means

you just don't quite understand something. Dis is the idea

that people are trying to confuse you, trying to sow seeds

of doubt. And so we believe that democracy works best when we can all

participate. And that means that our job, again as

nonpartisan, we never endorse candidates, we never endorse parties, we don't

give money to candidates or parties, and we also don't take money from candidates

or parties. All of that, because voters are our North Star.

And we just want to make sure that every voter has all the information they

need to participate in the election. But also beyond to

be advocates, we think it's incredibly important that

we understand the security around elections so we can

understand how they run and therefore can trust those counts.

We think it's incredibly important that you know not just who's

running for office, but what the job duty of those offices are.

Because once you know the job duty, then it's a little easier to

judge the candidates based on if you think they're qualified or if you trust them.

But just as importantly, once the election is over,

you know who to talk to about the things that are concerning you

and if they are meeting those job requirements. Yeah. Doing their

job. Right, Absolutely. It's interesting. I was,

I, I mentioned before we started taping that I had some workers

at my house and there were three young men and they were asking me about

what I was podcasting. And when I told them that we were taping

this show, I looked at all of them and I said, are you voting? Are

you doing what you're supposed to be doing? Because the

first time I voted, talking about women's suffrage, that my

first vote, women had only had the right to vote for 50 years.

And that has just hit me so hard my whole

life, knowing that it can be taken away just as

easily as it was given to me. And it actually wasn't

easily given to me. But yeah, it's just

fragile. It's very, very fragile. So when

you're talking about the rights of eligible voters, that has taken

a hit over the last few years. The goal of democracy

should be supporting all eligible voters to make

their voice heard by casting their ballot. Where do we

stand in protecting access to voting, whether it's

early or absentee or mail or same day voting?

And how do we ensure that our voter registration itself is

safe? Yeah, there's a lot there. I think a lot's very important. We've got

two things going on. The first is all the policy conversations we

are having. Whether those policies have passed or not is creating

a lot of confusion. And so, for example, the Save America act

has not passed nationally, but we have folks

calling us all the time trying to make sure that they can comply with

that. You are right that Ohio

works really hard after the 2004 election where in some places

we had seven hour lines to really make voting

more accessible. And in recent years there's been a lot of work

to really reduce access.

And that's concerning for us. But let's talk about safety and then we'll talk about

access. Let's talk not just about voter registration, but everything

in the election system in general. So I like to liken

election security. Kind of like car safety. We don't just have

seatbelts, we don't just have. What

else do we have? We have anti lock brakes, we have lights, we have things

that blink at us. You know, we have, you know,

why can I think of the, you know, the airbag. Airbag. That's

what I was looking for. The people listening can't see that. I was like

trying to motion to them for the help. It's also a

game of charades today. But the same is

true for our elections. Our elections are run by

bipartisan teams. There's literally nothing that is

done that doesn't include equal numbers of

Republicans and Democrats. So for example,

the room that holds the machines is locked and you have

to have a Republican and Democrat to unlock it. The codes

for, like, when you're logging on to see the voter

registration system or to tally results,

it actually takes a login from a Republican and a Democrat.

And of course, we see that in our poll workers. We also

test and certify all of our election systems, including

our voter registration databases, but also our voting

machines, just to make sure everything is fair. And there's a

lot of work done by our boards of elections to make sure that there's physical

security and cybersecurity as well. I can certainly say that our

elections are secure and our voter registration

should be safe.

But what I will say also is that everybody needs to check their voter

registration before every election. I don't care if you vote all the

time or not. People get removed from the rolls for a lot of different

reasons. Sometimes it's human error. The most common

reasons to get removed from the rolls is that you haven't voted in six

years. But again, there

are provisions that if your

Bureau of Motor Vehicles data doesn't quite match

the voter roll data, you could get removed and may not know it. There's a

lot, you know, there's also checks on citizenship where they look at the

voter rolls and there should be no citizens on. No non citizens

on their voter rolls, but they'll look at that and they might remove names if

they think that someone's not a citizen. Usually, however, these are people

who have been naturalized, and it's just the state has bad data.

So there's a lot of reasons why you could end up not being on the

voter registration list, or you might just forget that you moved and you didn't

update your registration. Right. So that's incredibly important.

You know, there are things that we've been able to preserve. We still have

28 days of early voting. We still have one

Dropbox per county. The absentee

ballot deadline continues to change. And there's going to be

more confusion about this, too, because the Supreme Court ruled in a way that actually

doesn't help us Ohioans, but

helps other states. But the absentee ballot deadline used to be

10 days after election day. Then it was four. And again, this wasn't

for voters to take that time to return. It was really about giving the Postal

Service more time to get the ballots to the Board of Elections.

Well, now absentee ballots need to be

in the Board of Elections office by the close of polls

each election day or it won't count.

We also have one of the strictest Voter ID laws in the country.

We've had voter ID for a very, very long time. But the voter ID

laws are harsh and they now could

particularly harm senior citizens,

people with disabilities, young people, especially those who don't drive.

But let's talk about what those IDs are. Just so everyone knows that's your

BMV, unexpired BMV, driver's

license or state ID, your US passport,

military ID or US veteran ID. Those are

what can count. And I would just say in

general, what's most important every election is making a

voting plan that starts with making sure before the registration

deadline that you've checked it to make sure it's up to date and everything's accurate.

Then you decide which way you're going to vote. Are you going to vote in

person at the Early Vote Center? Are you going to vote

absentee? Are you going to wait until election day and go to your neighborhood polling

location? Then you need to check all of those details. What ID

do I need? What's the address? What are the hours? Because these

things can change or we can just misremember. So

what are the alternatives to the other IDs that you mentioned? Like

you said, it could affect senior citizens, it could affect anybody that doesn't have

a driver's license. What other options are there for id? Yeah, so

we listed those, but you can get a state id, you can get a passport,

an active duty military. So whether that's US or Ohio National

Guard and a US Veteran id, one of the ones for seniors

that I think is most important is that

we used to count county veteran ID cards.

We don't do that anymore. There are a lot of veterans

in Ohio who don't drive anymore and they use their county

veteran ID for everything they do. That

doesn't count anymore. Similarly with young people, if they're

out of state college students,

they can go get a free state id, which is great.

However, where's that through? Through the bmv. Yeah, okay, okay,

through the bmv. However, if they

get a state id, not a driver's license, it

renders their driver's license in their home state

invalid. So now they could be driving around illegally, which affects insurance.

Yeah, sure, if they're under their parents insurance, that's the thing.

But a state ID is free. I was thinking there was a cost because there's

a cost to a passport, there's a cost to a driver's

license. No, actually that's part of what is

required. So if you don't, basically there's been

a lot of court cases about this. And what they've decided is that if a

state offers some sort of free id, then

requiring ID isn't considered a poll tax.

But let's keep in mind that part of the reason why folks get

impacted here is because you just might not have your backing documents anymore.

Think about people that are maybe housing insecure and

they have to move a lot. Think about senior citizens who

have moved into a facility and they don't drive

anymore. Right. No. No way to get to a location

to get that id. Right. And so there's a lot of different

challenges just, you know, jumping through the hoops to get the Social Security

card, get the birth certificate. Rural Ohioans are twice as likely

not to have those backing documents in general. And then of course,

senior citizens, people with disabilities, those who aren't driving, often don't have them as

well. So Ohio is known as one of the most

gerrymandered states. 2024 Citizen initiated

constitutional amendment Ohio issue one was defeated, which would have

replaced the current redistricting commission and the process of

ensuring every Ohioan was represented. How has the

league supporting change to stop this gerrymandering that's going

on? So let's. Again, I'm just going to start with our history in

that we've been fighting partisan gerrymandering, which is when you rig

the districts to prefer candidates from one

party or the other. And that has all kinds of

problems to it. But we've been fighting that since the 70s.

Our first ballot initiative was in 1981, and it was actually

endorsed by the Ohio Republican Party and opposed by the Democrats because

the Democrats were the ones drawing the lines then.

Today we have been fighting partisan gerrymandering in

Ohio and, and it's the Republicans who have the power to draw

those lines. And for us, it's not about the parties as much

as it is when politicians have. Because we're

nonpartisan. Right. So for us, it's about when politicians have the power

to draw lines to kind of create their

districts, they're going to use that power to kind of cement in

kind of unfair results,

if you will. And I know this might sound confusing, but

it's just, it's their self interest. Right. That if I've heard it labeled as the

spoils of war. Yeah, there you go. There you go. And I heard somebody say

them going, okay, I get it. I get why you're doing this. But the.

And that's why both sides do it. And that's where the league, you

know, the League has fought both Republicans and Democrats historically

in Ohio, but also across the country on this. We're not interested

in politicians drawing those lines. And, and what we really want is for

every vote to have equal weight. And we should. If

we didn't have gerrymandering in Ohio, we would have some districts that are

always or generally always Republican or Democrat and we would have a lot

of them that swing back and forth. We don't have that many districts that

swing back and forth, which is shocking given the fact that I think most

Ohioans split their party ticket or they

swing back and forth and their feelings about candidates, which shows that

the maps are not responsive to the people. You are right

that we worked on citizens, not

politicians in 2024, which was simply

about trying again to get the mapping out of the hands of politicians who are

always going to politician. We are not going to stop

until we finally end gerrymandering in Ohio. Not

exactly sure what our next big play at the state level is, but I will

tell you that we are working on redistricting at the local level level.

So a few years ago we opposed Cleveland City Council

that was actually gerrymandering in favor of

Democratic candidates. We have

worked with the cities, we have worked or are working with the

cities of alliance and Warren and Nelsonville

and so many others across the state just to make sure

that their city council district lines, that those ward lines

are updated. A lot of them, the population

isn't even. It's called malapportionment. That's not

partisan gerrymandering. But it still matters if one district

has 1,000 voters and another

district has 5,000 voters. That's fundamentally

not fair. Right. We should have districts that are about the same in

population. We're working on that really hard right now because we think

that voters can

benefit from of course from more fair word lines

locally that that will help our democracy. But we also think it'll help

when we are trying to talk about what's going on with our state house maps

and our congressional maps. Yeah, we, we just mentioned a

bit ago about young folks voting and I was really surprised at a study

that I just saw that came out that Ohio's

18 year olds are really not voting. Only

23% of them were voting in this

past few elections. And I have to

put a shout out to the state of Michigan where 18 year olds are

voting at 79%. Now this particular study

only looked at 31 states. That was where the data

was available. But out of 31 states they looked at Ohio

was 28th. Wow. In terms of 18 year olds voting,

that is, as I mentioned to those young men at my

house this morning, it affects your pocketbook.

You need to know and who you're voting

for, what the issues are and protect your right to vote.

And if you don't vote, don't complain. That was really

my message to them too. The league has several programs that

they've created to enhance voter turnout overall,

but particularly for young voters. There were a couple of programs that we

talked about, Airstream Campus and Voter Girl. Tell us a

little bit about those and the success you've had. Great, thank you. So Airstream is

where we take. And you may know that Airstream is an Ohio company.

So a decked out, brand new made in Ohio

Airstream camper goes to

40 campuses in August and September,

just right up to the registration deadline in early October. We have music,

we have games, we have snacks, we have stickers, we have buttons, we have all

kinds of voting information and we

engage with students. We love this program. And because

we know that a lot of times students aren't as excited about parties or

candidates in general populations that don't

vote as much. They're more

interested in a nonpartisan message. Actually, they're more interested in people

that are there just because we want them to vote, because that

feels less transactional to them. So we answer a lot of questions.

There's so many questions that need answered. We help them get registered to

vote. We have absentee ballot request forms if that's what they're going

to do. And we like to. A lot of times the young people who come

are the young people who are the serious voters in their lives.

So we send them with all kinds of information and

buck buttons and all that. Voter Girl is for younger

folks, that is with the Girl Scouts. And that was actually started by volunteers out

of the Kent League of Women Voters. So up in

Kent, Ohio, it's now in over 20 states. And this is a really

fun one where they get a badge and they, they learn all about democracy and

they actually end up voting. The littles usually vote on their

favorite ice cream. It's not going to shock anyone that chocolate usually wins.

The older ones vote on things like, you

know what maybe their, their big trip is going to be or things like that.

We also have an internship program and a lot of volunteer opportunities

for young people because for us, we want, we want young people to get

the democracy bug. And actually it's

completely fine with me if you vote and complain as long as you're

Complaining to the elected officials who represent you. Because I think

part of the problem is that we talk about voting as like, okay, now I

just did my civic duty. Nope. That's why sometimes it

doesn't feel important to some folks because it just is this one

time thing. The full civic engagement cycle

requires us not just to vote, but to talk to our elected

officials about what it is. We want to research those

candidates and seek them out when they're on the campaign trail to better understand

them and then to vote again. And so we try to teach that whole

cycle. One of the things about young people when we're trying to do these

organizing, you know, trying to organize young people, we have to keep in mind

that on one hand our model is really great for league

because we have all of these ways that volunteers can get

involved. That's not stuffing envelopes, it's testifying, it's

analyzing legislation. It's, you know, using

mapping software to figure out where low voter turnout is. All of these

things, stuff that I think kids would be really, really into. The hard

part for us is that we tend

to organize people that have consistent schedules and contact

information. Students have their addresses, their

schedules. Everything changes every three, six, nine,

12 months. And so it takes a lot more

work to really make sure that you're engaging young people. But

one of the things I think is most important is that especially with our

internship program and our volunteer opportunities, we're asking young people to

help us develop the programs that we implement

so that it's not us fuddy duddies trying to figure out what young people would

think was cool or made sense. Jen,

given all the changes that the Ohio legislature is making

or has made in

voter registration options, has the

leak been affected by that when you're going out and trying to

get folks registered? No, I think it's

a really good question. And let me just first say that third party voter

registration is critical in a state like Ohio.

Why? Because our registration system is not as common

sense as we think it would be. So for example, you

mentioned Michigan's turnout rates are so much higher among 18 year olds. So

is their registration rate. Their registration rate of 18 year

olds in the state is over 80%. It's only 40%

in Ohio. Why? Because they have a pre registration ability,

which is that, you know, whether you're at school or wherever you are, you can

fill out your form that says on my 18th birthday,

will you put me on the voter rolls. We don't have that in

Ohio. We also don't have automatic voter Registration.

So a lot of voters forget to

update their address, for example, and they think, well, why

don't you just know my address? You knew where I lived when you took my

tax check. Right? Right. You knew where I lived when I got

my new driver's license. Right. Or a parking ticket. Right. There

we go, all of these things. Right. And so because our

policies are a little bit archaic in that way, it takes

volunteer groups like the league and we are the largest

volunteer run voter registration program in the country. And we're proud to be part of

that in Ohio. And we have not seen

many challenges. What I will say is it's just very

critical that your voter registration volunteers are

trained on the best practices. You know, someone

can think they're doing the right thing by just grabbing their clipboard and

going to the farmer's market or whatever. But if you're not trained on the best

practices, you could accidentally

lead someone to believe they're going to get registered, but they filled their form out

wrong. They skipped a box that they needed to check.

So we have to train them on that. And part of that training is also

training them on the rules, what you can and cannot do

when you are registering voters. And so I wouldn't say that

it's hasn't impacted us a lot because we are

so serious about getting it right to begin with. Right.

And two, let me also kind of clarify, I may have confused

my, my own thoughts here. I was specifically thinking

of it used to be that and a,

a relative or friend could take your absentee

ballot to a county election office.

And I think that's not. We can talk about that. Okay.

Okay. So absentee ballot returns. Okay. So first off,

anyone can return an absentee ballot request form.

Okay. So that's really important, especially if you think of someone who is

mobility challenge, maybe they don't want to put it in the mail, those things.

So anyone can do that. The absentee ballot. There are rules

and there it is. Close family members. There's a long list of

close family members, like spouse, you

know, children, you know, niece, nephew. There's,

there's a wide group of folks, they can still take the absentee

ballot for another voter. There's different rules if that,

if that voter is a person with disability versus if they're not. If they are

not a person with disability, you have to just show up during

business hours and you would have to fill out a form saying

your relation to the person whose ballot you're bringing. It's not

terribly efficient for the voter, the family

member or the Board of Elections. If you are

a person with disability, you are not limited to those close family members.

We actually had litigation a couple years ago that the league

in ACLU brought on behalf of voters with disabilities.

And voters can choose if they have a disability, which is

pretty broadly defined.

You can choose whoever you want to bring your ballot back. You still have to

do it during business hours. You will still have to fill out a form.

So that is less efficient and it's not something that's actually

making the system more secure. And I'm going to explain why.

Absentee voting is the only voting method that requires that we prove

our identity twice. First, you have to prove your identity when

you request the ballot. If you can't, if they can't verify who you are, you're

not getting a ballot sent to you in the mail. And then secondly, when

that ballot is returned, if you don't have all of that sensitive

information, right. If your signature looks really

wackadoodle in comparison to all the ones they have on file, it's

not going to count what we. And so this idea of rules around

absentee voting is unfortunate in my

opinion. We should have more, more drop boxes per county. Right.

And some people talk about it in terms of population, you know, that we should

have so many per population, you know, which I think

that's true. But I also think we should consider miles traveled, you

know, so we have very large rural counties

where you might have to drive over an hour one way

to get your ballot to a Dropbox or to the Board of Elections.

I'm in Delaware county and it's 40, 45 minutes

for me to drive to the Board of Elections. I can

do that, but a lot of folks can't. Right. And if you're relying on, let's

say you're a senior or a person with disability or you don't have a car,

a lot of times there's not even one transit system that you would have

to change transit systems across county because

our transit isn't that strong either. All of these changes were

made to supposedly make our voting and elections process

more secure. What was the actual rate of fraud?

Yeah, I mean, that was almost nil, wasn't it?

Yeah. And I think this is where we need precision matters,

this idea that we need to be careful who

returns an absentee ballot. But again, you have to have

all the data, right? You have to have a signature match

those things. It's hard to fake those things. What we

didn't see is people impersonating other voters, right? Right.

In the absentee process, we don't see

significant noncitizen voting. In fact, what you

hear is you hear that maybe a few hundred people here or there have

been flagged as possible non citizens. And then when they look at

it, they realize that actually all of them are. Why is this?

Because they're using databases that grow out of

date fast when you have naturalization ceremonies every

day. We have naturalization ceremonies in

multiple parts of the state every day, every week.

And so we don't see

either of those things. The fraud that we see

is usually a bad actor or

two who thinks that they just want to be able to vote. And they're casting

a vote in Florida and they're casting a vote in Ohio or, or

Arizona and Ohio, and they get caught

and they are prosecuted. So fraud is not significant.

And the reason why it's not significant goes back to that security piece, because

we have layered systems upon systems

upon systems to make sure that everything is

secure. Right. And it's not like

it's all going into one great big giant data center for the

whole country. I mean, this is all, you know, it's our 88

counties working with the state that works at the federal level,

it would be literally impossible for somebody to actually

hack in and make any difference, any significant difference

in voting. And so it just seems like we're fighting

ghosts. Well, yeah. I mean, and I will just say this again.

Our. Our voting machines are never hooked up to the Internet. Never.

So we can't hack our voting machines, number one. Number

two, any tabulation they do,

those are not hooked up to the. They're only hooked up to the Internet, like

maybe when they're doing an update or something like that. They are not hooked up

to the Internet during the tabulation process. And you cannot start

the tabulation process without at least one Republican with

their login and one Democrat with their login. So there's no way

to rig that way. And you know, these are elections

officials, are community servants. They're our neighbors. They live in our area. They're

looking over each other's shoulders and they want everyone to vote and they want

trustworthy counts. But we go beyond that. Every voting

machine has a paper record, right? And

you can check that, you know, if it's the little receipt

that's kind of showing in the little window. Check that before you move on

to your next selection. If you get more of

a Scantron that prints out, check that. If you, if you

end up voting in a way that you don't like, you can actually go ask

a poll worker to spoil that ballot and give you another one. So we

have that. We also have post election audits

where they're comparing the paper record to the

digital record. And that's when you hear that we are

99.999% accurate. That's

what that is. It's saying that almost never is

the paper record and the

digital record different.

If we did see a lot of anomalies through the audit process,

then we would count every vote again just to make sure

that we had it accurate. It would be very, very

hard. And you're also right about the decentralized part here

in that it's not like every county and

every polling location is using the same equipment

or the same software to count the votes or the

same software to audit or to check

folks in with the E poll books. All of

that decentralization, you are correct, is a means

of protection. It would seem to me that when

somebody is that concerned that they think that voting

isn't safe, they need to become a volunteer and work at the

polls. That's right. And see, but it's much easier to complain. Well,

that's true. That is just is. Come

on. Okay, that's the end of my questions off the top of my head.

To have an electorate that knows and understands how their votes matter,

we have to educate each voter, help them find accurate information.

Are there examples of successful civics programs in high schools

or colleges? Can they be utilized to help older voters too?

Well, let me just say this. The league goes into high schools and

teaches nonpartisan civics and registers voters.

And we do give them a QR code since we can't pre

register those who aren't 18 yet. And they can tell us when their birth

date is and we will text them a happy birthday message and tell them how

to register, give them all that information.

Schools need champions. Civics is not required the way

it used to be. And so in the schools where it's running well, it's because

there's a teacher, there's a principal, there's, you know, a pta.

Someone is really excited about that. One program that we are a big

fan of is Kids Voting Ohio that actually

runs mock elections in schools. And I think just like we have mock

trial where maybe if someone's. It helps students understand how courts

work. Mock elections really helps students understand how elections

work. And I think all of this really matters. We've

talked about low turnout, let me just say. And this might come up somewhere else,

but let me just say one More thing that we did. In

fact, I'm sure it will come up. But we did a.

We always do these focus groups with young people. So

we start sometimes with 17 year olds, 17 to 29.

And regardless of their, you know, what party they may

be from or their education level, their income, their race, their

gender, some have been in the military, some have not. Those who

participate in elections is because someone showed them the ropes

and it is because it's really confusing. So when we do these and we'll hear

young people say, well, we knew it was important. I knew it was important. So

I went on election day to vote and. And I didn't realize I had to

be registered 30 days in advance. And I just haven't tried again.

It's very easy to feel confused or you'll hear other people say, well, I'm

tired of all these campaign ads. I don't know who to vote for.

Well, someone will say, oh, but here, you know, check out the

League of Women Voters voter guide or check out this candidate forum, things

like that. So it is incredibly important.

The schools play an important role. But until

we get civics back in schools in a robust way,

it takes all of us checking in on our young people and those

institutions that serve young people. This is my

famous story that I always tell my young cousins. The first year I

could vote, it was a presidential election. I was going to school

at Otterbein. My dad drove to Otterbein, picked me up,

took me home, got me to the polls, took me

back to school so I could go back to classes. And

it hit me that if he took that much of

his day to make sure I voted, it had to be

important. And it wasn't so much that

there were any particular candidates or issues at the time.

It was the notion of, as I said,

women had only been voting for 50 years, so it was important that I

voted. So when we're talking to family and we

cringe sometimes as we gather with family or friends,

when political issues are mentioned, we're leery

about talking about it. We want to be sure of our

facts. But it's very possible to

get down those rabbit holes of misinformation.

How do we do quick fact checks

so that when we are having these discussions with relatives,

we're on the right path? Do you suggest that what we

say when a relative is adamant in something that

is really not a good fact or

a. I don't want to say true or false. It's sometimes it's

from a particular perspective, but what can we do to make

sure those conversations are beneficial and not hurtful.

Yeah, I think this is a really important one. And look,

we're not necessarily gonna be the person who convinces

someone one thing or the other. And I think your mental health

and your wellness is really important. So I think every

individual needs to kind of gauge how much they

engage and what works for them. But I will say I think

it starts first off. I don't think it's quick, but

I think it starts with, we need to start with curiosity.

I think if someone is really upset, let's try to figure out

what. I mean, obviously they care deeply, so what is upsetting

them? What is it that matters to them most?

Not make assumptions about why they might support

a candidate or an issue or be opposed. I think that's incredibly

important. I think listening to them and figuring out how they

tick is important. I think asking if they've, you know, their

source I think is fine. Especially if you're not doing it in a super nasty,

aggressive way. Ask them if they verified it.

I think it's important that all of us keep in mind that we all get

duped. All of us are at risk, and all of us have been duped

by mis and disinformation. And every single one of us has, whether we realize it

or not, we have. And so I think that's important to remember

is maybe we make a commitment to each other that we're trying

to get the best information possible and not have it sound like

one individual is clearly smarter than the other. Because

if you do it that way, it's not going to work out. But then, I

mean, I think maybe there are things to do, like

maybe ask, what are your favorite things? Fact checking sites.

Sometimes we just even do things like, oh, can you show me that website?

Oh, that does look like that. But do you see how it doesn't have.gov at

the end? I think that I

don't think it's fast, but I do think it's

curiosity and it's conversation

and hopefully that helps. Yeah, I think we're missing

an opportunity to have a discussion and also learn, like you said, I think

allow that opportunity to happen. And I guess over time I've learned too.

It's like, you're right, you're not going to go into this conversation changing anybody's mind.

If you go into it that way, then you kind of give

it the pause it deserves and learn why. But if you

teach them, hey, did you know that it should have a dot

gov? Then maybe that's something, right?

And maybe they teach you about something too.

So I think that's incredibly important. And I also just think we need to

remember that actually productive conflict

is necessary for democracy. Oh,

yeah. I mean, the room where the Constitution was

debated and talked about, there was conflict. Right. And if any

of. And what was included not. I mean, it's right from the get go,

and if any of us have been in legal proceedings or been in court proceedings,

you know, the whole idea that both sides really get their day

in court, which means they're gonna argue that out on both sides. Right.

That is incredibly important. So I also think, culturally,

we need to make sure we aren't just surrounding ourselves with people who think like

us, that we're not just consuming media that seems

to uphold our worldview, and that we all honor the

fact that each of us has an

expertise on how our lives could be better

if government behaved differently. And if we do all of

those things and really lean into

a productive conflict rather than making assumptions or calling people

names, then I think we start to get somewhere. And I think

too, I've noticed it more in the last couple of years.

It certainly didn't start in the last couple of years, but

labels and name calling has not just

taken on a whole new life, but people are sure

what they think is meant by that particular

word. Not only could they be

misunderstanding, but also

confusing the different bits and pieces of our

political system.

From when you were saying before, we don't teach civics,

and so we don't teach all of those fundamental bits and

pieces. And now when you hear people,

the difference between saying Democratic or

Democrat, you know, and it's almost to where. Where

it's said in a derogatory manner, you know, that's not

helping people understand what's going on. Yeah,

yeah. I mean, I think we talk about elections like it's a hiring

process. So all the voters are the hiring committee.

And the first thing we need to do is we need to understand the job

of each office, which means you need to understand what branch they're in and all

those things. But if we can understand what job they're there to fulfill,

then again, hopefully, we can be more informed

voters. You know, we're not just thinking about a call to personality or

we're not just voting for a party because that's been our team,

but that we're really thinking about what we need and what our community

needs and who we trust. And then I think as important,

my hope is that those folks will

then, after they've done that work and They've thought really about who do I

trust or who do I want in this position, no matter who

wins, that they're talking to those elected officials about what they want and need.

Right. Well, many individuals support the election process by volunteering as

poll workers, ensuring every eligible is counted. As we talked about a little

bit before, how has recruitment for poll workers changed in the past few years?

Are there new training programs to support them? And how can we ensure

their safety during the election process, too? Yeah. So if you sign up

to be a poll worker, first off, you are the backbone of democracy. You

are a community servant. That's a big deal. And I want to thank you

for doing that. I want to make a couple reminders that if you're a lawyer

or a social worker, you can actually get continuing education credits.

I want to remind folks that high school students that are 17 or 18

can skip school and get paid for a program called Youth at the Booth. So

that's awesome. Every poll worker gets trained every

year. The thing that's hard about it is you're learning a lot of

stuff in a very short amount of time. And so.

But boards of elections work hard on their training. But I also encourage you to

become a league member because we also do a lot of training. And I've

had, many times I've had individuals show up and say to me, you know,

I now understand my poll worker training because we explain

it in a slightly different way in terms of safety.

First and foremost, it is the responsibility of all of us,

while productive conflict, where we disagree with each other and we talk things out, we

try to get to the best solutions or try to at least understand each other.

That's important. But. But nasty rhetoric about elections

officials or poll workers has got to stop.

And that is the first part here, is that we need to all recognize

that these are our neighbors. They are community servants. They are doing

a civic duty that again, Republicans, Democrats,

Independents, Greens, Libertarians are all working together

to run polling locations and run that board of elections

that I think is fundamental to the beginning of it. And then

I think secondly is just again, understanding how elections work. Because then

if you understand how elections work, you're probably not gonna be as nasty

to election workers because you're gonna recognize that

there's so much security baked in that one bad apple really

can't achieve anything. Right? Yeah. You don't

look at that poll worker as somebody who's going to steal your vote.

And the. The sort of chuckle about people

giving poll workers grief is, you know, oh, they're paid well, they're

not paid very much, and they pay taxes on the money that they're paid. So

it really is much more a civic

step than it is a paid position. And it's a long day. Oh,

yeah, it's a very long day. And I'll just say this. Ohio hasn't increased our

poll worker pay for probably a couple decades.

There's a topic that you hear a lot in the news

when people discuss dark money. We don't always really know

what it is, and there was just a recent Supreme Court ruling that

seems to have opened those floodgates again. Can you give us a

little bit of an overview of what dark money is? What's this

issue? And is there something that the league may be working on

to combat this? Okay, so I think that

the easiest way to say what dark money is is actually,

I'm not going to go into the legal definitions. Do you know

who's funding this candidate? Do you know

who's putting money behind this campaign or this issue?

If you can't follow the money, there's

definitely dark money involved. And the idea is that

individuals can put money into other organizations

or PACs, and that is who, you know, donated, but you don't know who gave

them the money. That's a problem. Because,

for example, let's say that we have on our

ballot something about reducing drug

prices. And then we find out if we could follow the money and

realize that the people who are saying that if you vote yes, you'll reduce drug

prices happen to be the pharmaceutical companies, then you're going to question

that. Right. The whole idea is like

a story about, like a book about World War II

that that is written by a German author

might feel very different than if it were written by a British or an American

author. Right. So we understand fundamentally

that who is behind a candidate or behind

those ads or behind that issue is

something that we should know. And that if we knew that,

we could make better decisions. And so for us, number

one is better disclosure laws. It's actually really hard to figure

out who is funding what. It's hard to know,

like, actually who paid. Okay, we've got some

funky PAC name, you know,

Americans Against Cell Phones. I'm just gonna make that up. Right. We don't know who

Americans Against Cell Phones is. Right. That would be different than if

we knew, oh, it's Verizon's competitor.

Right. So when we watch an ad and we don't know who's paying for that

ad or why they would be paying for that if we're looking at

candidates and we don't know what promises they

might have made for a whole bunch of campaign contributions,

then it's hard for us as voters to be informed. And so I think that

that is where we need to start, is disclosure laws.

Keep in mind that local candidates, for example, they don't even have to fill out

a digital form. They can upload a PDF, which means that it's even

hard for the media because if you fill out a digital form,

then you can put that into an Excel sheet or something and start analyzing.

So disclosure is incredibly important,

but it's hard to get lawmakers on either side of the aisle

to want to do that because both are benefiting,

as are most issues are benefiting from dark money. Well, and our

election certainly wouldn't be literally in the hundreds of millions of

dollars to get somebody elected if we didn't have

that mostly dark money. Didn't this all come from,

I want to say, a Supreme Court case in which it was

approved that an entity, a

company, an organization, literally

had a right, as if they were a human being.

Yep. Put money into an election. Yeah. That was Citizens

United that said corporations could basically count as people and that they could give

money because that was their free speech. Here's

the thing that's interesting, is that when they approve

Citizens United to kind of allow all of this unlimited money, they.

They also encouraged all the states to update their disclosure laws.

Ohio did not. So for them, they thought,

well, yeah, money is free speech, and we're not going to limit that. But

again, voters should be able to follow the money. You

know, disclosure, sunlight can really help this

situation, and that's not what we have in Ohio. Right. Is there

anything older voters can do to entice younger voters to get involved? Any

suggestions on how to. They can maybe mentor young people and get them to

vote? Yeah. I mean, again, I think we talked about this a little bit, but

take your kids to vote, take your grandkids to vote, make it a big deal.

You know, make a tradition that they get to pick the restaurant or you go

get ice cream or something. Get them involved with groups like

the Girl Scouts or the league. You know, ask your

school if they will bring someone in to

teach civics or if they will

participate in kids Voting Ohio, which is those mock elections.

But I also think it's really important to connect the dots

again. So a presidential

candidate does these kinds of things. Right. And this is how that

impacts us. Right. We have right now, just so you know,

they're Looking at having to reduce

extracurricular programs and busing.

The folks who are making that decision are sometimes the voters. And that's what a

levy is. Or the school board. Let's go to a school board meeting.

Let's actually go to a city hall meeting, actually show young people

from the very beginning. I think if we show them the full

kind of civic process, that it's not just

voting, that there's these other places where we can participate,

I think they're going to get really excited. I think they're going to understand that

this is this one thing. And yeah, there's a lot of hoops that I got

to jump through and I got to rearrange my schedule or, or whatever to

go vote. Need to make sure I have my id. It's kind of pain in

the butt, but it's also really fun, you know, if they learn

how to testify or to co write

a letter to the editor, if your newspaper allows you to do

that, ways that they show that actually knowing your voice actually really

matters. And I think we alluded to this a little bit

earlier too. Young folks tend to be more interested

in issues and if they understand

what the issue is and how it affects them on a daily basis,

that's really good in terms of issue voting. But

it could then expand into

elections for particular candidates. Well, that's kind of why we

started our now hiring.

We call elections now hiring. We have now hiring cards where we explain jobs.

We did that because it was actually we were taking the

Airstream to colleges and we had college students kept

saying, well, neither of these presidential candidates have done

anything about policing. To which

I said, well, how about prosecutor? How about

sheriff? Right. So it

doesn't matter what age we are, a lot of us don't understand

what these elected officials do. Right, right.

And so I think that becomes a really important part. And in

fact, so if a young person said that, okay, let's, let's

look at, you know, county prosecutor,

right. Let's see who the county prosecutor is now. Let's see

what cases they might be dealing with when it comes to public safety

or community safety. Right now. Let's see what candidates

are running and what they are saying about the issues you care about.

But I think connecting those dots and you can connect

the issue, whether it's the ballot issue, but also just the issues of the things

that impact our lives. So you know, who has

power over how much student loans we have?

Right. Who has power over,

you know, what if we're thinking about climate, for example,

who has different power over environmental policies, who plays

different roles and how do they play them. And then that allows us not just

to judge the candidate, but again, talk to elected. But you know, and the flip

side of that too is we not only know what they do

or are supposed to do, but we also then know what is not in

their bailiwig and who that issue belongs to.

Because needless to say, some of the elected official

offices don't make necessarily make sense

or they've morphed and we don't even know it. Right, right.

That's sure. Yes. So Jen, we

always, as we close out our podcast, we always ask our

guests for their last words of wisdom. Do you have

suggestions or advice for our listeners on the

importance of exercising their right to vote and how to

prepare themselves for the elections that are coming up?

Yeah, so I'm going to go kind of bigger picture and just say this.

Democracy is not self executing. It actually needs

to be protected. And the way that we protect it is by participating.

So for example, close elections

can create lots of consternation. It's much harder to have a close election if

we have really large turnout. Right.

We like to show examples of in the 2025 primary,

there are so many communities that made decisions about

fire safety, school funding,

senior services, 911 levies,

disability services. Right. That were decided

less than five votes. And so about

20% of the voters showed up and only

decided by five votes. So I think really highlighting the,

the ways that our votes matter is important. But I just want to

say that we're all stressed.

I think elections are stressful. We

are all surprised at the conversations

we're having now about elections that I think maybe we never thought we would have.

Right. We're all trying to understand is this

fact true or not? Is this dis or misinformation or

is this actual fact? And the answer

is not to bury our head in the sand. The answer is to lean in.

The answer is not to just

vote, it is to vote, but it's also to check in on our loved ones

and make sure they have a voting plan. It's to be a poll worker if

you have time to do that. It's to show up and talk to

elected officials so that they know what you want and need.

This is how we protect our democracy, is not treating it as

this thing we do a couple times a year, but something that we do

all the time. And that is the way

we use democracy, to protect democracy, not just for our

generation, those of us who are voting now, but for future generations.

Thank you so much. Well, many thanks to our expert guest, Jen Miller,

executive director of the League of Women Voters Ohio, for joining us today.