(bright music) - Hello and welcome to "Journal."

I'm Steve Kendall.

Voting begins soon in Ohio for the November 2025 general election, but however you're planning to cast your ballot, absentee, early voting, whatever, on November 4th, here's what you need to know about the process.

We're joined by Julie Baumgardner and Terry Burton from the Wood County Board of Elections.

Thank you both for being here.

Yeah, we're a little more than a month away now from election 2025 in November.

Terry, talk about, obviously you have to be registered, and that date is coming up really soon.

So talk about when you have to be registered to be eligible to vote for the vote in November and what the process is between now and that date to get that accomplished if you aren't already registered.

- Yeah, October 6th is the deadline.

All the boards of elections and all the places that you can register will be open until nine that night.

So people have until nine at night to make sure that they're updated or registered.

And so voters, probably the easiest thing is they can go online and use the state system to update their registration or register if they're new to Ohio.

Certainly if they're new to the county that they live in, that requires an update of their registration as well.

They can go to their board of elections and fill out the paper forms just like they always could.

Many people can also go to libraries and other locations, municipalities to get that voter registration turned in.

- Yeah, and we know that there has been some cleansing or cleaning up of the voter registration in the state.

So I guess if you have any concern that you're still registered, it's really easy to check that as well as you mentioned.

- Yeah, you can go online, the Secretary of State's website, you can look yourself up and make sure that you're registered to vote.

You can also do that many through the county websites as well.

So yes, you can double check, but what I will say is people that are actively involved in the process really don't have much to worry about.

- [Steve] Yeah, they're still in the system if they've been voting consistently, there would've been no reason to remove them from the voter rolls.

Julie, it does simplify things on election day if people have updated all of their information, because you do get people who move.

They were living in Perrysburg, now their address says North Baltimore, that when they walk into a polling place can create an issue.

So you would encourage people to make sure the address you're gonna show up on voting day is where you're going to vote and everything is up to date.

- Yes, we do, but even if you come in on voting day and everything is not up to date, you can still vote.

You'll vote what we call a provisional ballot, but you will still be able to vote.

We make every effort to make sure everybody can vote when they come in.

- [Steve] And there are multiple ways because obviously, you know, there's curbside voting now, but as you said, provisionally, if I walk and my driver's license says I live in Grand Rapids, but I'm now living in Bowling Green, there is a process to make sure that they can indeed still cast a ballot that day.

- That's correct.

- Now, when you talk about provisional ballots, because we get this question sometimes too, that provisional ballot, some people say, "Oh, does that really get counted?"

Or what are the circumstances that it gets counted?

So explain what happens to a provisional ballot.

I fill it out, I cast it, I put it in the tray, the envelope, and it's in the ballot box.

What happens after that?

- So after that, we have to wait 10 days before we can even look at them.

But then we look at them, we verify the information, we make sure that person hasn't voted in a different county in Ohio.

So if you've moved from one county to another, we do check with that previous county to make sure you haven't voted there.

And then so we check all of that.

And then after we have verified that you haven't voted and that you do live where you live, then we can open those and start counting those.

But that doesn't happen until 10 days after the election.

- [Steve] But they do get counted.

- They do get counted.

- [Steve] Some people say, "Oh, they probably don't count those."

If it won't make any difference to election, they don't count my provisional ballot, but they all get counted.

- [Julie] Well, most of them get counted.

There are some that do not becaus they're not registered anywhere in the state of Ohio.

They don't meet some of the requirements.

But the majority of them do get counted.

- [Steve] If it's a valid registration, they'll get counted.

Because that's always the thing.

Well, they don't count those, those are just whatever.

- We count every ballot that we get.

- Now when we talk about, because there's been discussion about mail-in voting, absentee balloting, early voting, that sort of thing, is there anything, Terry, that people need to know when they go in to process maybe one of these early voting things or an absentee ballot, that sort of thing that they should know versus the way it's been, anything has changed there?

- Really nothing's changed.

But we continue to make sure that people basically plan ahead.

They need to pick an option.

There's a lot of options for voters.

Like you said, some of our voters prefer to come in and early vote in-person at the voting location in the county.

That's available the 30 days ahead of the election.

And it's very convenient for some people.

Other people prefer that mail-in ballot where they get a ballot mailed to them after they've requested it.

And they have the opportunity then to sit at their kitchen table and make sure that they vote through it in a way that they, you know, can understand it.

Maybe research a candidate or research an issue.

For other people, election day is what they want to do.

And that certainly continues to be an option that a lot of people choose.

- [Steve] And Julie, the other thing is too, let's say that I early vote in one of the mechanisms available.

If I walk in and try and vote on election day, that doesn't work because it will say you've already voted somehow.

Because some people will say, "Oh, well what keeps me from voting on election day too?"

No, it'll flag you and say you filed an absentee ballot or you voted early or whatever when you flash their driver's license or whatever.

- [Julie] Right, because everybody, we check in.

So if you come in during early vote in-person, we're gonna capture your signature.

And so we're gonna know that you voted.

If you mail in your ballot, you do an absentee and you mail it in, we also check those into the system.

And so our check-in system out on election day is updated with all of that information.

If somebody insists that they didn't vote, then they vote a provisional ballot and then we can double check and make sure.

And if they've already voted, then the provisional doesn't count.

- Because it's an invalid ballot- - Right, because they voted twice.

- And that's why you have that 10 day window in there to provide for that and make sure that, as you said earlier, the important thing is that everybody who votes in a valid way, that their vote gets counted.

And that's the ultimate goal.

When you look at things now, because obviously the state has adjusted some of its ID requirements over time, last time, some of the things that were used two elections ago weren't valid IDs anymore.

So talk a little bit about that about what does work as a valid ID and things that no longer work.

There's still a long list of valid IDs.

It's not like we're down to three things.

It's still a extensive list.

- It is three categories, which kind of help us.

We have state driver's license or IDs.

So voters can use their driver's license, a state-issued ID, or even that piece of paper that they issue to you temporarily if you're waiting on your license.

So that's one category.

The second is then the passport.

The passport or the passport card.

We don't have quite as many people here, although we're more likely than Southern Ohio to have people that opt for the passport card if they're going over the border with frequency.

But in general, a passport is an option.

And then you have the military IDs, and it counts for military IDs, National Guard.

I mean there's a few versions other than they cannot use the electronic version that some people have for the VA.

So it has to be a physical ID and basically it just, you know, needs to be one of those three.

- [Steve] Yeah, now when we come back, we can talk a little bit about the things that used to be available so that people don't walk in and say, "Well, I voted this way two elections ago, why doesn't this ID work now?"

And maybe touch on those because some people are still holding other cards.

Concealed carry permits used to be a valid ID.

That is not the case anymore.

So we can talk about some of the things that aren't usable as valid IDs.

Back in just a moment with Julie Baumgardner and Terry Burton from the Wood County Board of Elections here on "The Journal."

Thank you for staying with us on "The Journal."

Our guests are Julie Baumgardner and Terry Burton from the Wood County Board of Elections.

Strangely enough, we're talking about the November 2025 election, which happens in that first Tuesday of November.

Julie, when we left the last segment, we were talking about the ID requirements and what is valid, what still works, what would be examples of some things that you used to be able to use as a valid ID that won't work if I walk in to vote on November 4th this year?

- So you mentioned the concealed carry permits.

Those are not.

Utility bills.

We used to be able to take those, things with the prior address, so paychecks, that kind of thing.

The other thing I wanna mention is we talked about military IDs.

It's the federal military ID that's acceptable, if you have a county military ID, those are no longer acceptable.

So those are some of the items that we no longer accept.

- Because basically we're looking for something with a photo on it now.

- [Julie] Correct, yes.

It's more important to have the photo than the address.

- Because before, that wasn't necessarily the case, but Ohio's moved, like most states have, to a photo ID identification.

Are there any other things that people should expect that might look different when they walk in?

Any difference in the machines this year, that process?

Because I know, for instance, I live in Lucas County, and there's always a new twist on the machine in terms of, well this year you don't have to vote this way.

You take your ballot and go over here and put it in another machine to cast, anything like that that people in Wood County will encounter different from when they voted say in the spring?

- Not really.

Our poll pads that we use to check in voters are back.

That was something that we weren't able to use in the spring because of some technicalities.

But that has been resolved.

So they should be back to normal check-in process.

They'll notice a few less things in the ballot because in these odd numbered years, their ballots tend to be a little shorter.

But otherwise, it should be the regular check-in process.

- And Julie, the one thing that's important too, because people will come in and I have encountered this, because I do poll working and they'll say, "Well, what's on the ballot?"

Well, as a poll worker, you can't tell them, you can point them over because in every polling place, there is a complete layout of everything that's on the ballot.

All of the things that we've talked about are all spelled out there.

So there is a means for them to find out what's on the ballot before they show up that day, both online and that day for instance.

- [Julie ] Correct, yes, so they go on our county website, they can look up their sample ballot, and their exact ballot will come up so they can see everything that's on it.

We also have a sample ballot in our office, but it has all of the races.

It's not broken out by your particular precinct.

So you can look at it, it's gonna give you more information.

But the big thing to remember, this is an odd year, and so it's the villages, it's the townships, and then there will be some levies on.

And so those are the races that are on the path.

- And one of the things too, you mentioned the precincts because of course, over time, I know it's been a challenge sometimes to have enough people to staff polls and the cost of having polling places on every block, that exaggeration.

But that's become a bit more of a challenge.

So you've been in the process of trying to consolidate precincts and things like that for an efficiency point of view, and probably from a security point of view too, because you've got fewer pieces coming in from the county.

So is that a process?

Will many people see, or will anybody see a change in where they voted in the spring or last November versus this November?

- Most of that's already been done by both Wood County as well as other counties.

We have consolidated down.

I mean the days of your local village having their own precinct has gone.

But in that consolidation, you're absolutely right.

Not only did we benefit from a worker standpoint being more efficient with our poll workers as well as some of our technical assets, but in general, it actually is made for a better voter experience because there's more machines, there's more equipment available to a voter, where at times when we had all the individual locations, some locations didn't have any voters where others were very busy.

And now we're able to use that same equipment for everybody, which kind of helps make it more efficient in the whole process.

- And the process too, I would assume that as, because obviously when you're training poll workers, these are regular citizens.

They're not professional poll workers.

They're in essence volunteers.

They get a small amount of money for working.

The consistency of message is probably easier to administer too, because you don't have 50 places explaining how this works.

You've got 25 now or something.

And that should make it easier for you guys too, because fewer calls on election day got a question because that does happen, it does happen.

When you look at, for instance, when you look at poll worker training, because people walk in, they see people sitting there, what's it like if I wanna say, "You know what, I think I wanna be a poll worker in Wood County.

What's the process?

Who do I talk to, and how easy is that to do?"

- Poll worker training's very easy.

If you're a poll worker and you're signed up, our poll worker coordinators will reach out to you and they will set up a date and time that works best for you for training.

We have several classes over the week that we do it.

And we have nighttime, we have daytime.

So we try to accommodate as much as we can.

It's a two hour course for us.

And you learn the poll pads, you learn the voting machines, you learn how to check people in, you learn what IDs they have.

So you learn the whole process while you're there.

- And I think that's important for people to know that there is, you know, training for this.

People are of course trying to do the best they can because again, these aren't professional full-time poll workers.

And in a way, it's probably good that it's regular citizens because it's people they see, they know, it's not someone who just shows up that day and you don't see them again for the rest of your life and that kind of thing.

So it's people you know, and people who are, you know, just regular citizens like they are.

So it's probably good in that regard.

Are there any things out there that you still need to dissuade people about that they're incorrect in thinking about how this whole process works and how secure it is, that kind of thing, are you still dealing with questions like that or not?

- Well I mean certainly, there's always questions by voters of how the process works.

Sometimes we do still get mail-ins from some outside groups that lead voters to think that they're either not registered or that they need to update their information.

And most of the time, that is incorrect.

But we're able to talk voters through that process, which is why we do continue to encourage voters to use our website, to use the state website to check in, just to make sure everything's good and everything matches where they currently are.

Certainly those that do have concerns about the security of the machines, we give them opportunity to come and watch our logic and accuracy testing.

We give them the opportunity to watch our auditing process after the election.

And so there's many points in the process where it's very transparent and they can ask questions of us, and we will be happy to walk them through how we make sure that, you know, our machines that don't touch the internet are secure and they're secure in our office and our staff does our own programming and goes through the whole process in an effort to make sure that, you know, we have a very vested interest in making sure that the process is correct.

- And is as seamless as it can be and as transparent as it can be, yeah.

When we come back, we'll talk a little bit more about that process that day and some of the things maybe you deal with on election day itself, because that's a point in time where there's a specific window everything needs to work and happen.

So back in just a moment with Julie Baumgardner and Terry Burton from the Wood County Board of Elections here on "The Journal."

We're coming up close to November election 2025.

And with us are Julie Baumgardner and Terry Burton from the Wood County Board of Elections.

Terry, when we talk about, you know, people walk in on election day to vote in-person, they probably need to know that before that it isn't just people showed up at 6:30 that morning to set up the machines to get everything ready.

So talk about the process that happens as we approach election day at those polling locations and how that all works out so that when I walk in, I can show my valid ID, whatever form I'm using, and I can get processed.

So talk us through that process of how those machines are set up in those precincts and the people that are taking care of that.

- Well probably the place to start on that is the Saturday before election when our poll workers come to our office to pick up some of their supplies for election day, they start getting those given to them and they start going through to make sure they have all the supplies that they need.

In addition then on Monday, they're picking up the electronic poll pads and the voting machines are being delivered to their locations.

And once again, this process is all done in a very bipartisan way.

The delivery of of equipment, the passing out of supplies happens to the Republicans and the Democrats doing it together.

And as we go through that process, and on Monday, a lot of the locations set up or pre-set up their locations, at least lay it out with the signs.

No machines get turned on, everything's continued to be locked up and sealed ready for election day.

But yeah, they get it as close as they can.

So when they get there at 5:30 in the morning, in that first hour, they are able to get everything up and running and ready to go.

- And Julie, Terry mentioned the fact too that everything is done in a bipartisan manner from what he just described through the actual closing then of the poll site and the delivery of the ballots to the location.

So talk about that, how that works, that it isn't just somebody who happens to be around is taking care of pieces of this.

You have to have a representative of each party in almost all of these steps.

- Yes, so like Terry said, when we deliver, we have bipartisan team on election day, the poll workers are split.

We try and make sure that they're split evenly between Democrats and Republicans.

Our two managers, we always have two managers, one's a Republican, one's a Dem.

So all of that is that way.

When they bring the supplies back, so when they bring the ballots back and the USB sticks from our voting machines so we can upload those and count those, they have to have a Democrat and a Republican in the car.

It can't be two separate cars.

They can't follow each other.

They actually have to be in the car together.

And so everything on election day is done two by two.

That's what we always call it.

It's like Noah's Ark in our office, but they bring everything back that way.

And then when we process, when we upload those votes, there's a Democrat and a Republican in the room uploading all of those results.

- Watching that process and participating in it because, yeah, I think sometimes people assume that somehow there isn't that in effect.

But that's the reason why you have a representative of each party there.

That's the balance that you strike to make sure that each site is represented correctly and that the processes are being followed.

Any other misconceptions out there that you wanna talk about that people are still calling you or contacting your office saying, "I've heard this or I've heard that," or "They told me I can't vote this way."

Anything like that still floating around?

I know that obviously information's out there, bad information's out there all the time, but anything that jumps out, any specific thing that people are being misled on this time around moreso than last time?

- I don't know moreso than last time, but one of the points that you just made is something that's, you know, unique to Ohio.

This bipartisan process is something that Ohio has done since the beginning, and each state basically has created their own voting laws and their own voting methods.

And so that's not true in every state as far as that process.

And so one of the things that we do get with frequency is people watching on the news and hearing about Arizona or hearing about Nevada or any number of states out there and how they do things and they get very, you know, either worked up or upset about what that process is, and nine times out of 10, it doesn't apply here in Ohio, our processes are very unique, and I'm not saying other states don't do it well because there are other states that manage their process fine, but they try to apply what they've seen on the news to maybe what is happening here, which is very different most of the time.

And so that's one of the things that we kind of encourage people is to learn about Ohio election law, don't necessarily take what you hear on the news from another state and try to apply it.

- Or if you've come from another state and say, "Well what do you mean?

I didn't have to do this in Massachusetts.

Why do I have to do it this way here?"

Or, yeah, that kind of thing.

On election day, obviously you have a central location, the Board of Elections, you have people in the field, you get calls from people in the field because no matter how well you think you've covered every conceivable thing that may or may not happen, there's probably always something like, oh, well there's a question we didn't think about, or we have to explain it again how this works.

So you get those kind of calls on election day, hopefully not too frequently, but I'm sure you handle some, Julie.

- Sure, the morning is probably our biggest, whether getting the machines ready, we have to have, you know, at least one machine, we have to be ready to vote by 6:30 in the morning.

So we always have one machine up, but you know, they are electronic printers, sometimes fail.

And so we have to talk them through how to reset the printer, that kind of thing.

So we get those kind of calls, we get calls throughout the day then if a voter comes in, they can't find them, say on the check-in station, on the poll pad, they can call our office, we can look them up, we can say yes, they can vote, they may have to vote on paper as provisional, so we get those kind of calls all day long.

But most of our calls are just technical calls where we just have to walk the poll worker- - [Steve] Through the process, the reset process, yeah.

And you mentioned a good point too, that when people come in, and I've seen this when I've been there, that someone comes in, and in our case, you know, we flash their ID, we've got a screen and it says okay, eligible vote in precinct whatever.

Or it'll come up and say this voter is actually in Springfield 10, not Waterville 2 for instance.

And then discussion ensues, I've always voted here.

Well, but your ID says you're supposed to, for some reason it's saying you're in Springfield and in terms of Springfield Township, not Springfield the city.

So those kind of things come up.

And then that's probably when you get a call or you try because at the local level you try to help them with their issue, but sometimes it has to be referred to a higher authority, which is you two guys.

So you have to kind of pick up the pieces there, and again, try and talk the voter through or the people at the site to help the voter find out, get them in the right place.

- We have to direct them to the right polling location.

So with the consolidation, that has really helped for sure, keeping several precincts together so you don't have to travel, you know, you go there, more than likely you can vote there, but you do have to vote in the correct polling location in order for your vote to count.

And so if the poll workers direct you to a different polling location, you really do need to go there.

Or if they're not sure where you need to go, that's when they'll call us and we'll tell them where they- - [Steve] And then maybe say hey, you may need to go provisional with this person.

There is the solution isn't there, the correct solution.

We've just got a moment here.

So what would be the last thing you want people to know before we get to November 4th?

Obviously registration, check that.

Anything else they should know before they walk in the poll of start to early vote or absentee vote?

Anything else they need to know?

- [Terry] I mean, not particularly, but just I continue to encourage them to make a plan, make a decision how you want to vote, do your research to make sure you're registered, do your research to make sure you know what's on your ballot.

And that'll make your whole process go a lot easier.

- And as you said earlier too, you can check your website at Wood County, you can check the Secretary of State's site.

There's plenty of ways to find out information before you walk in at 6:30 on Tuesday morning and go, "Oh, I didn't know."

That should not be an issue.

But human nature being what it is, it can be, so good.

Well, appreciate the work you guys do, because it's an incredibly important job and one that has drawn unfairly a lot more attention than it should have, not that it's not a valuable thing and you should get all the attention you deserve, but sometimes you get undeserved attention which is not your fault and out of your control.

So appreciate the fact that you guys still step up and do this every year and make it work for the rest of us.

So thank you so much.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- You can check us out at wbgu.org and you can watch us every Thursday at 8:00 PM on WBGU PBS.

We'll see you again next time, good night and good luck.

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