April 7, 2025 • 11 mins
Election Commissioner Brian Kruse Discusses Mayor Vote Turnout
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
We are joined here in the studio by my friend
Brian Cruz, who is the election commissioner here in Douglas County.
First of all, thanks so much for being on the
show today.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Right, well, thanks for having me back. It's great to
be here.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
If we talked a lot leading up to the general
election in November, and a lot of people just wanting
to make sure votes were counted, that votes were good.
Everybody was all right with you know, how the process went,
and I think the way that things turned out made
people feel, you know, better about the process itself.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
You had a chance.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
You were telling me that you were going to go
and hear from you know, some other people, including in
Arizona where they didn't have very different rules on how
they operate their elections. Is there anything that you learned
from that trip?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
You know, I actually did it virtually. It was the
gentleman who was a recorder in Maricopa County in Phoenix County.
He got defeated, so he's no longer there. But interestingly enough,
or conveniently enough, the topic of why so many ballots
and why it takes so long never came up, and
(01:09):
the audience was not allowed to participate in that discussion.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Wow, shockingly enough, I couldn't imagine why. And if I
was living in Maricopa County or in the Phoenix area,
I would have just been like, yeah, we're never going
to get answered on this.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
That's just the unfortunate reality.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Be lucky, like feel lucky that we live in a
place like this where you know the transparency is through
the roof. We had ourselves a pretty interesting race as
far as the mayoral race, and then of course each
district had their city council race last Tuesday. And I
want to ask about some specific questions, but I did
have a guy email me, and I just wanted to
(01:46):
address this while I had you here, and he said
he was unsure why his ballot didn't include all of
the names of the mayoral candidates. And I said, that
shouldn't have happened, and if it did happen, you should
have asked people who were at your polling place. But
that's not how was going to work for the people
who lived in Omaha. Right, they were going to see
all of the mayoral candidates and then just whatever district
(02:08):
of their city council race they would have.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
That's exactly right, So everybody who lived in the city
of Omaha got to vote on the mayoral candidates. There
was five of them, and then it was just your district.
So perhaps he was confused by that if he lived
maybe in District two and he thought he was in
three or something to that nature, because we did have
(02:32):
redistrict deat yeah in twenty twenty, so the individual may
have moved to a new city council person that he
didn't recognize.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah, that made more sense to me. I just and
I only heard the one story, so I'm again, I
just wanted to ask just in case, because you know,
sometimes we do nonpartisan, right, and that can be a
little bit confusing, I think for people who are saying, well,
I know a couple of these people to be Democrats
or a couple of these people to be Republicans. But
that's not how we do a primary here.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
That's right. In fact, the entire city elections are that way.
You you do not see a party designation on the ballot.
So even with the top two candidates moving through again
on the mayoral and for city council, when you go
to vote on May thirteenth, or if you'd like to
vote early, you will not see any party designation on
(03:24):
your ballot.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
We're speaking with Brian Cruz. He is the election commissioner.
Let's talk turn out a little bit here. We had
a friendly wager here trying we had figured, you know,
thirty plus percent the streetcar conversation, you had an incumbent running,
which people were very familiar with. I saw quite a
bit of signage around the places that I live, and
I you know, you know, I'm around a lot of
(03:46):
people here in the thicket town.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
But you told me we were.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
It wasn't official at that point, but you were saying
we were kind of right around twenty five percent. Kind
of What did the numbers tell you about how many
people went out to vote in no O Maha.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Yeah, so we were right about twenty five percent. You know,
that's about seventy three seventy four thousand folks. Four years
ago we had eighty five thousand come out and vote.
So I have to be honest, I was a little disappointed.
I really thought with the good candidates, we had the
advertising going on, you know, some of the issues, as
(04:22):
you mentioned, that we'd have a little higher turnout. Now,
it was higher than it's been in the past leading
up to twenty twenty one, we were at about twenty
percent on average, so we're still above that average, but
we weren't that twenty eight percent we were four years ago.
I think one of the factors was out west in
(04:44):
District five and District six. You know those city council
seats are I mean, there's only one person.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Running there, there was no race.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
There was no race. There was still the mayoral race.
But in a primary, when folks know they're automatically going
to go through, it does affect voter turnout. I don't
know if it was a huge factor. Weather, it wasn't
great on election day, and you know, all those little
things add up. I must say, did.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
You notice how many people of that seventy four thousand
were early voters?
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Yeah, that's the interesting, intriguing number. Sixty five percent. While
those folks voted early, out of the seventy five thousand
we only had, we only had about twenty six thousand
show up on election day, so the vast majority did
vote early. We're looking for a big early turnout again
(05:39):
in the general because the law allows if you requested
an early voting ballot for the primary, you will get
one for the general. Because they're so close together five
weeks apart.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
So you don't have to reapply for one.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
That's right now. If you did not request an early
voting bout for the primary, but you would like one
for the general, then you'll have to apply.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
All right.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
So if you're out there and you're listening, how soon
do they need to apply for that to make sure
they get it before election day? Right?
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Ballots are mailed out on Monday, April twenty eight, and
then I believe it's the second Friday prior to the
election and the elections of the thirteenth of May, so
it would be about two weeks before.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
That, okay, So just make sure that you give yourself
a couple of weeks before that actually takes place. Brian
Cruz sitting here with us, he's the election commissioner for
Douglas County. We were talking also about just kind of
the general results here and it ended up being a
Republican and a Democrat in the way that this race
turned out for mayor with John Ewing in mayor Jean
(06:48):
Stouth advancing to the next round. You've been around doing
this a long time. Do you anticipate with that, especially
with it being kind of a person even though they're
not listed as Republican and Democrat on the ballot, that
they are going to kind of speak to different pockets
of Omaha, and they have five or so weeks to campaign.
(07:09):
Do you anticipate there being a bit of an uptick
in the general or do you think that you know
that twenty five percent is probably where we're going to
be sitting by the end of it.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
You know, in twenty twenty one we had thirty two percent.
In twenty seventeen we actually had thirty five percent. So
I think we'll be somewhere in that thirty two to
thirty five percent range. I hope we are, and I
think we will. Again, there's no automatic advancers in this race,
(07:40):
and there's no question we've got two great candidates for mayor.
And there's five city council districts that do have races,
And again, you know, these are some of the most
if not the most important elections in the fact that
they affect your day to day lives literally the road,
public safety, swimming pools, parks, and you can see these
(08:05):
elected representatives, you can go to the city council meetings,
you can get in touch with them, you see them
maybe where you worship, at the grocery store, at the mall,
at events around town. You know, so these are very
important elections. Because these are elections, you might say that
you can feel see in touch every day of your life, and.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
I just want to run this past you.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
I did have one person say, if we wanted to
get a lot more turnout, we should do this kind
of these races alongside the big races that are happening
in November. And I guess my big takeaway from that is, well,
there were a bunch of other things that were on
a ballot in Douglas County that I know I wasn't
anticipating seeing on the ballot if I wouldn't have looked
(08:48):
it up online beforehand. You're like, well, a president, and
you know the you have the election for the Senate,
and you have the election for your representative, and then
there's all this other stuff underneath there, and all these
judges and everything. Do you think that that would be
a bad idea just because that messaging could get lost
in the shuffle with all the other stuff people are
voting for, or would it be a good idea to
(09:09):
give that opportunity for the you know, the sixty five
to seventy percent turnout that you're going to see in
a national election.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
You know, I don't think you can automatically assume that
it's going to be that higher of a turnout because
while the top of the ballot, the president or the
governor will get that, if you look at what we
call down ballot races, ballot races that are further down
the ballot, you see drop off all the time.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
So people aren't filling the entire ballot.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Out exactly, and so there would definitely be some of
that even if you were in a GUBERNATORI year, especially
a presidential year. Obviously, any kind of advertising is going
to be from a financial standpoint challenging for local candidates,
not to mention, you know, the already one hundred thousand
signs we have around ten exactly. Yeah, you know, so
(09:58):
there may be a little bit hired turnout, But I
think the message gene that you get in city elections,
and you got to remember it's only once every four years,
you know.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Yeah, And I think it's a good point that the
only signs you're seeing out now are for city council
and for the mayor race. Here in the City of Omaha,
which I think makes a ton of sense that we
would do it right now because there is no competition,
you can really understand what's happening in your local election.
Is there anything else information wise, Brian, that you want
to make sure that people understand today about last week's
(10:30):
primary or leading up to May thirteenth's general election.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Sure, Just remember, if you requested an early ballot for
the primary, you'll get one for the general. If you haven't,
you can go ahead and do that now. Get your
request in. Ballots are mailed the twenty eighth of April,
and then election day is May thirteenth. Polling places will
be the exact same that they.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Were, so my precing will be the same place.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Absolutely absolutely, and polls are open eight am. And I
just challenge the voters of the City of omoholl let's
see if we can get up to that thirty five
percent at least more is always better, but let's get
to at least thirty five percent.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Yeah, get informed, understand your race the best that you can.
It should be very exciting and we always love that
high participation. Great work is always from Brian Cruse and
the entire group over there. At the Douglas County Elections
Commission Office. Thank you so much for coming in. Brian
really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Okay, thank you. Appreciate how you having me
We are joined here in the studio by my friend
Brian Cruz, who is the election commissioner here in Douglas County.
First of all, thanks so much for being on the
show today.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Right, well, thanks for having me back. It's great to
be here.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
If we talked a lot leading up to the general
election in November, and a lot of people just wanting
to make sure votes were counted, that votes were good.
Everybody was all right with you know, how the process went,
and I think the way that things turned out made
people feel, you know, better about the process itself.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
You had a chance.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
You were telling me that you were going to go
and hear from you know, some other people, including in
Arizona where they didn't have very different rules on how
they operate their elections. Is there anything that you learned
from that trip?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
You know, I actually did it virtually. It was the
gentleman who was a recorder in Maricopa County in Phoenix County.
He got defeated, so he's no longer there. But interestingly enough,
or conveniently enough, the topic of why so many ballots
and why it takes so long never came up, and
(01:09):
the audience was not allowed to participate in that discussion.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Wow, shockingly enough, I couldn't imagine why. And if I
was living in Maricopa County or in the Phoenix area,
I would have just been like, yeah, we're never going
to get answered on this.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
That's just the unfortunate reality.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Be lucky, like feel lucky that we live in a
place like this where you know the transparency is through
the roof. We had ourselves a pretty interesting race as
far as the mayoral race, and then of course each
district had their city council race last Tuesday. And I
want to ask about some specific questions, but I did
have a guy email me, and I just wanted to
(01:46):
address this while I had you here, and he said
he was unsure why his ballot didn't include all of
the names of the mayoral candidates. And I said, that
shouldn't have happened, and if it did happen, you should
have asked people who were at your polling place. But
that's not how was going to work for the people
who lived in Omaha. Right, they were going to see
all of the mayoral candidates and then just whatever district
(02:08):
of their city council race they would have.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
That's exactly right, So everybody who lived in the city
of Omaha got to vote on the mayoral candidates. There
was five of them, and then it was just your district.
So perhaps he was confused by that if he lived
maybe in District two and he thought he was in
three or something to that nature, because we did have
(02:32):
redistrict deat yeah in twenty twenty, so the individual may
have moved to a new city council person that he
didn't recognize.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah, that made more sense to me. I just and
I only heard the one story, so I'm again, I
just wanted to ask just in case, because you know,
sometimes we do nonpartisan, right, and that can be a
little bit confusing, I think for people who are saying, well,
I know a couple of these people to be Democrats
or a couple of these people to be Republicans. But
that's not how we do a primary here.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
That's right. In fact, the entire city elections are that way.
You you do not see a party designation on the ballot.
So even with the top two candidates moving through again
on the mayoral and for city council, when you go
to vote on May thirteenth, or if you'd like to
vote early, you will not see any party designation on
(03:24):
your ballot.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
We're speaking with Brian Cruz. He is the election commissioner.
Let's talk turn out a little bit here. We had
a friendly wager here trying we had figured, you know,
thirty plus percent the streetcar conversation, you had an incumbent running,
which people were very familiar with. I saw quite a
bit of signage around the places that I live, and
I you know, you know, I'm around a lot of
(03:46):
people here in the thicket town.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
But you told me we were.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
It wasn't official at that point, but you were saying
we were kind of right around twenty five percent. Kind
of What did the numbers tell you about how many
people went out to vote in no O Maha.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Yeah, so we were right about twenty five percent. You know,
that's about seventy three seventy four thousand folks. Four years
ago we had eighty five thousand come out and vote.
So I have to be honest, I was a little disappointed.
I really thought with the good candidates, we had the
advertising going on, you know, some of the issues, as
(04:22):
you mentioned, that we'd have a little higher turnout. Now,
it was higher than it's been in the past leading
up to twenty twenty one, we were at about twenty
percent on average, so we're still above that average, but
we weren't that twenty eight percent we were four years ago.
I think one of the factors was out west in
(04:44):
District five and District six. You know those city council
seats are I mean, there's only one person.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Running there, there was no race.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
There was no race. There was still the mayoral race.
But in a primary, when folks know they're automatically going
to go through, it does affect voter turnout. I don't
know if it was a huge factor. Weather, it wasn't
great on election day, and you know, all those little
things add up. I must say, did.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
You notice how many people of that seventy four thousand
were early voters?
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Yeah, that's the interesting, intriguing number. Sixty five percent. While
those folks voted early, out of the seventy five thousand
we only had, we only had about twenty six thousand
show up on election day, so the vast majority did
vote early. We're looking for a big early turnout again
(05:39):
in the general because the law allows if you requested
an early voting ballot for the primary, you will get
one for the general. Because they're so close together five
weeks apart.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
So you don't have to reapply for one.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
That's right now. If you did not request an early
voting bout for the primary, but you would like one
for the general, then you'll have to apply.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
All right.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
So if you're out there and you're listening, how soon
do they need to apply for that to make sure
they get it before election day? Right?
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Ballots are mailed out on Monday, April twenty eight, and
then I believe it's the second Friday prior to the
election and the elections of the thirteenth of May, so
it would be about two weeks before.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
That, okay, So just make sure that you give yourself
a couple of weeks before that actually takes place. Brian
Cruz sitting here with us, he's the election commissioner for
Douglas County. We were talking also about just kind of
the general results here and it ended up being a
Republican and a Democrat in the way that this race
turned out for mayor with John Ewing in mayor Jean
(06:48):
Stouth advancing to the next round. You've been around doing
this a long time. Do you anticipate with that, especially
with it being kind of a person even though they're
not listed as Republican and Democrat on the ballot, that
they are going to kind of speak to different pockets
of Omaha, and they have five or so weeks to campaign.
(07:09):
Do you anticipate there being a bit of an uptick
in the general or do you think that you know
that twenty five percent is probably where we're going to
be sitting by the end of it.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
You know, in twenty twenty one we had thirty two percent.
In twenty seventeen we actually had thirty five percent. So
I think we'll be somewhere in that thirty two to
thirty five percent range. I hope we are, and I
think we will. Again, there's no automatic advancers in this race,
(07:40):
and there's no question we've got two great candidates for mayor.
And there's five city council districts that do have races,
And again, you know, these are some of the most
if not the most important elections in the fact that
they affect your day to day lives literally the road,
public safety, swimming pools, parks, and you can see these
(08:05):
elected representatives, you can go to the city council meetings,
you can get in touch with them, you see them
maybe where you worship, at the grocery store, at the mall,
at events around town. You know, so these are very
important elections. Because these are elections, you might say that
you can feel see in touch every day of your life, and.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
I just want to run this past you.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
I did have one person say, if we wanted to
get a lot more turnout, we should do this kind
of these races alongside the big races that are happening
in November. And I guess my big takeaway from that is, well,
there were a bunch of other things that were on
a ballot in Douglas County that I know I wasn't
anticipating seeing on the ballot if I wouldn't have looked
(08:48):
it up online beforehand. You're like, well, a president, and
you know the you have the election for the Senate,
and you have the election for your representative, and then
there's all this other stuff underneath there, and all these
judges and everything. Do you think that that would be
a bad idea just because that messaging could get lost
in the shuffle with all the other stuff people are
voting for, or would it be a good idea to
(09:09):
give that opportunity for the you know, the sixty five
to seventy percent turnout that you're going to see in
a national election.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
You know, I don't think you can automatically assume that
it's going to be that higher of a turnout because
while the top of the ballot, the president or the
governor will get that, if you look at what we
call down ballot races, ballot races that are further down
the ballot, you see drop off all the time.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
So people aren't filling the entire ballot.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Out exactly, and so there would definitely be some of
that even if you were in a GUBERNATORI year, especially
a presidential year. Obviously, any kind of advertising is going
to be from a financial standpoint challenging for local candidates,
not to mention, you know, the already one hundred thousand
signs we have around ten exactly. Yeah, you know, so
(09:58):
there may be a little bit hired turnout, But I
think the message gene that you get in city elections,
and you got to remember it's only once every four years,
you know.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Yeah, And I think it's a good point that the
only signs you're seeing out now are for city council
and for the mayor race. Here in the City of Omaha,
which I think makes a ton of sense that we
would do it right now because there is no competition,
you can really understand what's happening in your local election.
Is there anything else information wise, Brian, that you want
to make sure that people understand today about last week's
(10:30):
primary or leading up to May thirteenth's general election.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Sure, Just remember, if you requested an early ballot for
the primary, you'll get one for the general. If you haven't,
you can go ahead and do that now. Get your
request in. Ballots are mailed the twenty eighth of April,
and then election day is May thirteenth. Polling places will
be the exact same that they.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Were, so my precing will be the same place.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Absolutely absolutely, and polls are open eight am. And I
just challenge the voters of the City of omoholl let's
see if we can get up to that thirty five
percent at least more is always better, but let's get
to at least thirty five percent.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Yeah, get informed, understand your race the best that you can.
It should be very exciting and we always love that
high participation. Great work is always from Brian Cruse and
the entire group over there. At the Douglas County Elections
Commission Office. Thank you so much for coming in. Brian
really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Okay, thank you. Appreciate how you having me
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