(upbeat music) (graphic pops) - Hello and welcome to "Journal."

I'm Steve Kendall.

2024 vice presidential debate in the books.

It's a benchmark, a milestone along the way, but there's a lot more going on than that.

We'll talk about that a little bit.

We're joined by Karen Kasler, host of "The State of Ohio," from Columbus, and also Dr. David Jackson and Dr. Nicole Kalaf-Hughes from Bowling Green State University.

Welcome, all of you.

Karen, I know on your show on Sunday, you were talking about the fact that early voting is underway in Ohio, so this election is underway.

The focus there was on Franklin County, Columbus, that sort of thing.

But talk about what that story's about and what turnout appeared to be like down there, as early voting began in Ohio.

- I'm looking away from you right now because I'm trying to pull up the latest early voting numbers, because we actually do have a tracker the Secretary of State is making available to us so that we can actually see, day by day, as we go through this 30-day period, just how much early voting is being practiced in Ohio.

But the first day of early voting in Franklin County, anyway, there was a line, not completely unexpected, and we've seen that in previous presidential election years.

According to the Secretary of State, there have been 1,020,000 ballots, absentee ballots that have been sent out, and 159,000 that have been actually cast either in person, by mail, or dropped off in a secure ballot dropbox, which as of this election, there is only one, and it's at the county Board of Elections.

And if you're dropping off a ballot for someone other than yourself, you have to actually go into the Board of Elections and do that as opposed to just dropping it in the ballot box.

So, it looks like early voting is getting off to a typical start like it would in many presidential election years, and we expect it to continue, I think.

- Yeah, and one of the things besides that as well, and I know that here in Lucas, in Lucas County, I say here in Lucas County, but in Lucas County, there was a power outage at the early voting center, and so they were operating on generators.

Of course the machines have battery backup and that sort of thing, but that was a little glitch in the system.

It didn't seem to change the flow of voting.

It was just one more thing that can kind of happen along the way.

The other thing that you were talking about is, one of the other things, you had Maureen O'Connor on, who is one of the proponents of Issue 1, and we're gonna talk about Issue 1 as well, because Bowling Green State University has a poll out, and that's one of the questions, about Issue 1.

She obviously is one of the proponents, one of the writers of that particular document.

Kinda give us a quick take on how she feels that has been handled by the state government in terms of ballot language, that sort of thing, and the messaging that's going on around it.

- Well, just to clarify, we've had multiple Issues 1 over the last couple of years.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- Let's clarify that this is the one that seeks to ban gerrymandering by replacing the Ohio Redistricting Commission, which is seven elected officials, with a 15-member Citizens Commission of Republicans, Democrats and Independents equally divided, who are selected by retired judges.

They're gonna take the results of the last six statewide elections, and come up with a formula that will have Democrats and Republicans reflecting how the state has voted over the last six statewide elections.

So Maureen O'Connor is indeed one of the folks who put this amendment together.

Her frustration after the seven times that the Ohio Supreme Court on which she used to sit as chief justice ruled previous maps were unconstitutionally gerrymandered, helped lead her to this decision to help write this amendment, which is incredibly complicated.

I asked her about that and she said, "If you read it, you'll see the various ways that things are spelled out carefully."

And she really pushed back on a lot of the things that the vote no side have said.

On the out-of-state money, she says that comes because determining members of Congress is not just an Ohio situation, it's a, there are parties outside of Ohio who are concerned about the makeup of Congress.

And she talked about the way that the individuals are selected for the panel, and that she doesn't really care how the math works out.

Right now it looks like 57% Republican, 43% Democrat.

She says she doesn't care about those numbers.

She just wants it to be fair.

And she had very harsh words for the ballot summary language that voters will see, the three pages that seeks to explain this amendment that was written and approved by Republicans who are largely opposed to it.

- [Steve] All right, and Dr. Hughes, that was always the question too, because when we've seen ballot language come forward on state issues, it passes through a committee that looks at the ballot language, the goal being to make it clearer or straightforward so that people understand it.

But Issue 1 is one of those where there's been a little, there's some concern that maybe what's people are going to read in that summary is not exactly what Issue 1 is really about.

- Yeah, the ideal goal is to make it clear so people when they go into or to their voting machine or you know, they're voting from home, when they actually go to cast their vote, they can read it and understand what's going on, and then they can make a choice based on their own preferences.

That's the ideal goal.

In reality, that is not what happens.

And we saw this with the last Issue 1 about abortion and reproductive rights where you had very confusing ballot language, and you saw that again this time.

The goal is to make it actually more confusing, because what we know both in practice and from the scholarship is that if people are uncertain of the outcome of any initiative, whether it's this or whether it's something else, they'll vote no, because no is the status quo.

So it's often seen as the safer bet if you're really unsure.

And so, if the people in charge of writing that language, which in Ohio is predominantly Republicans, in recent history, if they make that really confusing or they make it seem essentially the opposite of what the initiative actually does, they're more likely to get a no vote.

And in this case, Republicans want to lock in a no vote, because a no vote would keep the current system we have, which resulted in these seven times over unconstitutional districts for state and Congress.

So, keeping that confusion is actually the goal, even though it's not the ideal aspect for voting.

- [David] All right, and then the thing about that language, and this is something I experienced personally and have heard about other people experiencing because good political scientist and citizen that I am, I voted immediately on the first day (laughs) of early voting.

- [Steve] Of early voting, okay.

- And there was a line, but you know, so when you get to Issue 1, on the electronic voting machine, you have to scroll multiple times to get through each page of the language.

And I was trying to get through it more quickly.

And so I said, "Well, I'm just gonna push this little button on the right, that is an arrow moving forward.

But what that does is move you past- - [Steve[ To the next- - David] To the next issue on the ballot.

- [Steve] Mm.

- So, and it reminded, the screen reminded me and said, "Hey, do you mean not to vote on this issue?"

And I was like, "No, no, go back."

So you have these three sets of arrows you have to click to get through the language, then cast your vote, then move on to the next one.

- Yeah, I had seen emails that I had received that someone had mentioned that someone had called them and said, "Hey, I couldn't vote on Issue 1 because there was no place for me to vote one way or the other, so I just didn't vote on it," which hopefully that's not a large-scale situation, because that could be problematic if people decide, "Oh."

Now, usually though at the end now, the machines that I vote on at the end will say, "Are you sure you don't want to cast a vote for whatever issue or candidates race," that sort of thing.

So hopefully that would catch some of that, if somebody does bypass it thinking, "Oh, they won't let me vote on this," and doesn't raise the issue with anybody there at the polling place, so- - [David] Right, during the review portion it says- - [Steve] Yeah, it gives you a chance to say- - [David] "Here's what you've done"- - [Steve] Yeah.

- [David] "On each thing, and no vote cast," or whatever it is- - [Steve] Right, right.

- [David] The situation where if you skip it- - [Steve] "Are you really, really sure you didn't mean not to?"

Yeah, so, well when we come back, because I know the other thing is, we mentioned in the open that there's, Bowling Green State University has a poll out that covers a lot of topics.

One of them is how Ohioans are feeling about Issue 1, at least the snapshot taken in September.

So we'll talk about that when we come back.

Back in just a moment here on "The Journal," with Karen Kasler, David Jackson and Nicole Kalaf-Hughes.

Back in a moment.

You're with us on "The Journal," and our guests are Karen Kasler, David Jackson, Nicole Kalaf-Hughes.

Dr. Jackson, we referenced the fact that Bowling Green State University has polls in the field, one of which, one of the topics is Issue 1.

So talk a little about what's come out of that most recent snapshot.

There's gonna be one more between now and November election, but what is it saying right now, the Bowling Green poll that's been taken?

- Yeah, so the Democracy and Public Policy Research Network at Bowling Green State University, housed in the Department of Political Science, did the poll.

And on Issue 1, it shows a great deal of support for Issue 1.

I think 60% overall with 20% no, and I think maybe 20% undecided.

But as we were discussing earlier, there are also questions about how much information and how much people have heard about the issue.

And there hasn't been, well, the responses indicate that there's not a ton of information getting through, because this is a sample of 1,000 likely voters, so, that being said, this is a very difficult question to do a poll on, because ideally, I guess, you might like to have the exact language that the voter's going to see be on the survey.

But that's too many words, that's too many pages.

- [Steve] That would be the whole survey, would be that one topic now.

- [David] And so you have to find a way to phrase the question that is going to get you an actual representation of how people are going to vote.

So you have to make choices about whether or not to phrase it in a way that you believe is the accurate way to describe it, versus how it's actually- - [Steve] Going to- - [David] Be described on the page.

And so we are, you know, we believe in the number that came out in the survey.

We stand behind that number, but we would be remiss if we didn't caution people to be very cautious about that number due to the wording issue.

- Yeah, the way that the respondents interpreted what you were asking versus what, and then what they're going to see the day they walk into the voting booth and say, "Wait a minute, that doesn't look like what I thought I was in support of, or I wasn't."

- [David] Right.

- Different language, 'cause I think you said it's breaking out like right now, 60% in favor, 20% opposed, 20% going not sure- - [David] Yeah.

- Which is not probably a somewhat typical, there's usually a lot of somewhat undecided voters on any issue usually, at least until you get closer to actual election day.

- [David] People don't like gerrymandering.

(Steve and David laughing) That's one of the conclusions that, you know, we probably didn't need a survey of 1,000 likely voters to do.

Now there's some division of course within political parties on gerrymandering, when in the old days, when the Democrats were able to gerrymander, Ohio Republicans didn't like it.

And Republicans gerrymandered Ohio.

Now Democrats don't like it.

And the League of Women Voters, a big champion of this bill, has made it clear that when Democrats gerrymander, they're against it, when Republicans gerrymander, they're against it because they are a nonpartisan group based on their perception of what's fair.

And I think people have a pretty highly developed sense of what's fair, and people don't like when people in power appear to use that power to permanently entrench their power.

So, being against gerrymandering is a pretty positive place to be politically.

- Yeah, and I know, Karen, when you were talking with Maureen O'Connor, she said exactly that.

She says, "It's not as if only Republicans gerrymander."

She said, "When Democrats tend to be in charge of a state, they have a tendency, just like their opponents, to say 'we're in control.'"

They try to manipulate the system.

in some cases, not in all cases, but in some.

And she made the point that if the Democrats were in charge, she would be for Issue 1, because they were the ones gerrymandering, so yeah, yeah.

- Yeah, and I mean, you go back to when Ohioans approved the Apportionment Board back in the '70s and '80s.

The first two rounds of that, Democrats were in charge, Democrats gerrymandered.

And so then as we move forward in time, Republicans gerrymandered when they had the ability to do so.

So absolutely, and she says the idea of gerrymandering, because I asked her, if the amendment is supposed to draw maps based on say, 57% Republicans, 43% Democrats, isn't that gerrymandering?

And she said, gerrymandering, the definition of that, includes the word unfair, and unfairly giving one party a higher advantage than the other party.

And so that's the difference when it comes to drawing districts that look a certain way versus gerrymandering, where you're drawing districts to benefit a political party.

- [Steve] Hmm, yeah.

- [David] And to be fair about this, I mean, we're in Ohio doing some things.

Every time I'm on the show, I end up talking about this, comparing it to what's been going on up in Michigan.

- [Steve] Michigan.

- [David] And we're doing things after Michigan has done them in terms of the Reproductive Freedom Amendment, in terms of the marijuana legalization.

And now, we're considering putting the Citizens Commission together.

And there are, you know, it has been implemented successfully in Michigan.

The legislature, I think it's fair to say, is in terms of partisanship, a more accurate reflection of where the state is.

However, because of demographic factors correlating with party preference, you can end up in a situation where communities of interest can be divided.

And so, Detroit has traditionally been a highly Democratic voting city.

And it's also overwhelmingly African American.

And so one thing that happens when you create competitive districts on a partisan way, is you can move people around, and match them up with people in other places.

And so, that has been a complaint that has been made against what happened in Michigan, although it doesn't seem to be catching much traction down here.

I mean, there was a group who came and talked about it early on in the campaign, and it might be that Republican concerns about keeping majority minority districts around might fall flat to people, given that that party doesn't have a great track record of popularity within the African American community.

- Well, and then you made a good point, because I think when you, if you look at Detroit media, you would see there were questions about that Detroit's representation, the city itself, which had had several congressmen, several state representatives, now had fewer because of the way the districts had been redrawn, that there was some concern that maybe it wasn't as representative of the city as it had been.

But that's overall, Michigan for the most part has been deemed a success.

- [David] Exactly.

- [Steve] Unless you were somebody who got redistricted into a district that said, "Oh, wait a minute, now I'm not automatically gonna win."

- [David] Right.

- [Steve] You're probably not, but that's the epitome of gerrymandering right there, is that I was guaranteed a win because the way we drew the district, yeah.

- [David] Districts that are more competitive are probably more diverse too, so- - [Steve] Yeah, which is which should be a good thing.

- [David] That's what leads to the competitive thing.

- [Steve] Yeah, should be, yeah, should be good.

When we come back, we can talk a little more about that because obviously that's gonna be at the top of the thing that people are looking at.

And although it's interesting though too, we talked about the fact there hasn't been as much media about that as some of the other things.

So back in just a moment with Dr. Nicole Kalaf-Hughes, Dr. David Jackson and Karen Kasler, the state of Ohio here on "The Journal."

Thanks for staying with us on "The Journal."

Our guests are Karen Kasler, David Jackson, and Nicole Kalaf-Hughes.

Dr. Hughes, we talked about redistricting in Ohio, of course as Issue 1 on the ballot to again, reinvent redistricting Ohio.

We're not the first kids on the block to do it.

We mentioned Michigan, but Michigan was not the first kid on the block either to do this.

This has been going on around the country, that these approaches at redistricting as opposed to the old traditional cigar-filled room, smoke-filled room kinda thing.

So talk about where we are vis-a-vis some of the other states in the country.

- So this has happened in a lot of states where there's been a history of gerrymandering, which again is almost everywhere, because parties in power tend to want to keep themselves in power, so this is not new and Ohio is not quite unique there.

But states that have direct democracy, where the people who live in the states, the citizens, can get stuff on the ballot.

And so California did the Citizens Redistricting Commission approach to drawing their district lines 12 or 14 years ago, if not more.

And so, there's been a long history of states that have direct democracy using that to kind of reign the power of politicians a little bit, who historically do try to keep themselves in power.

It's one of the other reasons, and we've spoken about this on previous shows, that states that have that have started introducing provisions, or trying to, to raise the thresholds for direct democracy.

Ohio tried it with the summer election, the August election that we had.

Previously, that would've raised the threshold for, I think, signature requirements and brought it up to a 60% threshold as well.

And the goal of that was to make it harder to get stuff on the ballot.

That one was targeted specifically at abortion and reproductive rights, in terms of its timeliness and the fact that they pushed it- - [Steve] That would've resonated through all of these- - [Nicole] It would have- - [Steve] Future issues as well.

- [Nicole] For everything, regardless of who is in power, and so that's why it was unpopular.

But again, other states are trying that.

Some states have tried to bring down the threshold.

They saw that 60% was too high here, so they've knocked it back to 58 or to 57, with the goal being to prevent people from putting things on the ballot.

- [Steve] Right.

- [Nicole] And so you've seen these Citizens Redistricting Commissions pop up in states where people realize that their legislature does not represent the average person in the state.

And for Ohio, our legislature is much further to the right than the average Ohioan.

And we don't have a lot of competitive districts.

And when you don't have competitive districts, it makes people less likely and less willing to turn out to vote, because they think their vote doesn't matter.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- [Nicole] And we often forget and, that, because I mean we talk about it a little bit when we're on here, but there's a ton of other stuff on the ballot that people should vote on.

And so, if someone is overwhelmed, as Dr. Jackson is having to page through pages of ballot language, that they just start skipping ahead or maybe they skip ahead just to like, the presidential race- - [Steve] Yeah.

- [Nicole] They miss all of their local things.

They miss the- - [Steve] All of the down ballot things.

- [Nicole] Yep, and they miss things like school district levies.

BG has one, Perrysburg has one.

They miss library levies, they miss parks levies, things that have a real immediate impact on their community, because they're just overwhelmed, and they move on, and so I think, or they don't show up.

And so I think having kind of a knowledge of everything that's on there, but understanding how these propositions get on there and why we have them here and other states don't, matters.

- Yeah, yeah, and then Karen, I know you were mentioning that obviously early voting down there and you covered it on "The State of Ohio."

There's probably a lot on the ballot in Franklin County or in Cuyahoga County.

The focus, you know, we talk about Issue 1, but as Dr. Hughes said, I think in Lucas County there's like 30 issues on the ballot.

Now those are local to some degree.

They're municipalities, they're school districts, but they are down ballot.

And obviously if you have to spend a lotta time figuring out how to get to the yes or no part of Issue 1, that could be an issue in all the jurisdictions, that ballot fatigue becomes a discussion point too.

- Absolutely, I mean, everybody in Ohio is voting on president, U.S. Senate, three Supreme Court races, Issue 1, a member of Congress, a member of the Ohio House, half of Ohio is voting on a member of the Ohio Senate, and then you've got judges and levies and all these local issues that trickle down.

So there is a lot on this ballot, and that's why that three pages of a ballot summary really does make a difference.

And I actually learned from this conversation how going through that screen when you're voting can be problematic.

So it's a challenge, I think, and a lot of people wanted to put as much as they can onto a presidential ballot because you're gonna get the highest number of voters this year.

But it also can backfire if people just get tired after seeing president, Supreme Court, U.S. Senate, and then go, "Eh, I don't know about the rest of them."

- Yeah, yeah, and especially too, because of the information overload.

"Well, I don't know about, who are these Supreme Court justices?

I don't know, you know, A from B, C from D," that sort of thing.

So you just go, "I just won't vote, I'll just skip over."

- [David] Well- - And then, yeah, yeah.

- [Karen] Well, and I think that's it's really important also why this is the second time Ohio Supreme Court justices have run with a partisan label.

That makes a huge difference in this point, because as I understand the ballot, it's president, Ohio, Supreme Court, and then U.S. Senate.

So those party labels are going to be very, very important in that judicial race.

- Yeah, because you could, without that, and not that people should vote strictly along party lines, but, and theoretically Supreme Courts, those aren't supposed to be partisans' decisions made at that level, but we know that human nature being what it is, there's going to be some feeling there, so- - [Nicole] Well, and we know that it affects the outcomes too.

- [Steve] Right.

- [Nicole] When you have judicial campaigns and when you have judicial campaigns with the partisan labels on there, you actually see the decisions the judges make in like, when they're serving on the bench.

- [Steve] In that context, yeah.

- [Nicole] Well, you see their bench decisions changing as you get closer to an election.

- [Steve] Ah, okay, hmm.

- [Nicole] And so when you're having to run for judicial office and you're getting closer to an election, often you see in states that, because not every state uses judicial elections in this way, and not every state uses partisan elections, you actually see the sentences getting harsher, and the decisions changing, even at the Supreme Court level, the decisions changing as you get closer or farther from an election, just based on that.

And so, there's a lot to unpack there, but there's a lot going on and it's why you see the parties putting out like, "recommended vote choice," like, "Here's who the Republicans are endorsing, here's who the Democrats are endorsing," with the idea that you then can take that door hanger, walk into the polls and make your choice with your- - [Steve] Yeah, even the non- - [Nicole] Party notes.

- [David] Even the nonpartisan judicial candidates get endorsed.

- [Steve] Mm-hmm.

- [David] And so that provides people with a shortcut to make the decision.

Plus, I mean, we elect a lot of positions in this country.

- [Steve] Yeah, well, we do.

- [David] That other places don't.

I mean, I enjoy studying to figure out who the right candidate for county coroner is.

I mean- - [Steve] It's kinda down ballot quite a ways, or the county engineer, or the- - [David] Yeah, those are things that you really- - [Steve] They're important.

- [David] You really need to study up on, to figure out- - [Nicole] But they actually matter, 'cause they- - [David] Of course they do.

- [Nicole] Have power, and we don't- - [Steve] Well those are the things- - [Nicole] Think about it.

- [Steve] That affect you day to day literally in your neighborhood.

- [David] And they're often uncontested in counties that aren't particularly competitive too.

- Yeah, now one thing, and I know we're gonna shift gears really dramatically here, one of the things in the poll talked about the polarization of the electorate.

Not that that's big news, but the reality is, it was interesting 'cause as I was looking at how each party described each other, and it was interesting how they both described each other in somewhat incredibly negative terms, but in a lot of ways the same percentages.

You know, Democrats thought Republicans were, this percentage were this, Republicans thought Democrats were that percentage of that as well.

The rhetoric and all of that, but we know, and I know we've only got just a couple of minutes here.

We've seen instances now where people seem to have gone even beyond what we would typically see in a political race.

We know that here locally, someone took a sign from one party, turned it upside down, painted swastikas and SS signatures across it, implying that that candidate was a Nazi, and that sort of thing.

But it's gotten to that point where pretty much people feel comfortable saying anything they want, doing anything they want, and it's their First Amendment right.

We get that, but that then does sort of sully the whole process because it becomes incredibly nasty and dirty, and in most cases not true.

- [David] Well, only one thing I would disagree with there.

I wouldn't say that it's a First Amendment right for somebody- - [Steve] Okay.

- [David] To paint a swastika on somebody's yard, so- - [Steve] Yeah, I'm trying give them- - [David] I don't think you meant to suggest that either.

- [Steve] Yeah, yeah, no.

But that person would feel that's their First Amendment Right.

I'm not saying they- - [David] Sure.

- [Steve] It's true, but they would- - [David] It shows the polarization, the deep hostility, the tribalism.

I mean, and this has been part of American politics, you know, since the founding, you know.

Madison wrote in "Federalist Number 10" about the danger of factions.

And at the end of the day he says, "Even if there's not a great reason for people to divide into groups, they tend to do so."

So he says, "It's sewn in human nature" that, I mean, look at, you know, the Michigan/Ohio State football game- - [Steve] Yeah.

(laughs) - [David] You know, to states that are very similar places, descend into hostility, and that sometimes results in violence, you know?

- [Steve] Yeah, yeah, and that's- - [David] So, and the stakes are of course, much higher when it comes to politics and policymaking than, you know, a football game.

And so, people have dug themselves into these camps and have very negative feelings towards people from the other side, which leads to all sorts of consequences, including making it harder to govern, because governing is about compromise.

And if you spend a campaign telling your partisans that the other party is the devil, and then when you try to pass policy, you have to go make a deal- - [Steve] Deal with the devil.

- [David] With the other side, then you're making a deal with the devil and your own partisans are like- - [Steve] They're mad at you for that.

- [David] What are you doing?

So, well, we're gonna have to leave it there on that happy note.

(David laughs) We'll have to leave it there.

You can check us out at wbgu.org and you can watch us every Thursday at eight o'clock on WBGU-PBS.

We will see you again next time on "The Journal."

Goodnight and good luck.

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