Primary Day in Omaha

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Significant day in Almaha, Nebraska city primary election polls opening
in less than an hour, and we're joined for a
few minutes here by Douglas County Election commissioner for Ryan Cruise. Brian,
good morning, Great to have you back.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hey, good morning Gary. How are you guys?

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Well, you and I were texting the other day, you
think well, you mentioned you mentioned to me that the
turnout for early voting so far been what thirty some thousand?

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Yeah, we're actually, you know, we're a little higher than
that now, Okay, Is.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
That is that good? That sounds like a pretty good
number to me for a primary?

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yeah. Absolutely. So you know, we're up to about forty
three thousand ballots return to now, and we sent out
fifty five thousand, so there's about fourteen thousand and thirteen
fourteen thousand ballots still out there. So you got tell
eight o'clock tonight to get those in. Got to use
a drop box, you cannot take them to a polling place, right.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
Do you track? Do you track the early voting by district?

Speaker 2 (01:08):
No, we don't, it's just overall for this city.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
Okay. I'm just curious what the what the enthusiasm level
is in the in the various districts. But Brian, I
thank you and I are on kind of on the
same page regarding the mayor's race. This this could be
a this could be a toss up type thing with
these top four.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. You know, we'll start releasing results at
eight o'clock, so eight pm will be those that voted early.
Then eight forty five are people who voted from eight
am to two pm, and then nine ten forty five
will be the two pm to eight pm voters. Now,

(01:48):
one thing that's very important to remember is if this
should happen to be a close race, ballots turned into
day at our drop boxes. Those are not actually counted
until Friday because it's all part of the verification process.
We have to verify all those signatures, and if we
get five six thousand of those, you know that's going

(02:11):
to take us a day or two. So we'll verify
signatures tomorrow, open them on Thursday, and then count on Friday.
So it may be until Friday before we know. Let's
hope not, but you never know.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
I wouldn't be a bit surprised, man. This is what
do you think about, well, not what do you think about,
but what do people need to know about I should say,
regarding nineteen polling places that are different. Now, that seems
like a relatively high number to me.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yeah, it was, well, it was twelve poling places, nineteen
thousand votes. Okay, yeah, you know, it's about seven percent
of our polling places. Actually, that's fairly normal. You know,
like Saint Timothy's in Church on ninety if they're undergoing

(03:04):
a parking lot projects, so we had to move them
to a community center just north of there. Burkeye is
going to be hosting the state track meet in May,
so we had to move them to a middle school.
So it's things of that nature that are just out
of our control quite frankly. But be sure if you're

(03:25):
going to the polling place today, you know where you're going.
Don't automatically assume you're going to the same building you
went to in November. You could either call us or
go to our website and find that information.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
So you have to have your ID, right, gotta have pictures.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
Absolutely, we are an ID state. Now, you've got to
have your idea simplest and easiest ways Nebraska state ID
or Nebraska driver's license. You know, we did this last
year in the presidential, so it should should be smooth saling.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
Are you sticking? Are you sticking by your thirty percent production?
Thirty percent total district?

Speaker 2 (04:01):
I am? I am. We had twenty eight zero point
five percent turnout four years ago in the primary, So
I'm sticking with thirty percent. That'll be about eighty eight
thousand voters. And you know, with fifty percent voting early
and fifty percent going to the polling place, I think
we can get there.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
That's it's pretty deplorable. If we're talking about thirty percent
of the registered voters showing up to vote for our mayor.
That's that's actually kind of an indictment, don't you think.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
Well, yeah, as you guys were talking about earlier, and
I say this all the time, you know you've got
to get out and vote. These are the most important elections,
I would say, because these affect your parks, your pools,
your public safety, your road snow removal, all of that.
And the folks you're voting for today, you could see
them at the grocery store, you can see them shopping

(04:55):
possibly where you worshiped, all kinds of place. They're accessible,
So get out and voltd I mean, these are things
that affect your everyday life.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
Day in and day out, and it's so fast. Brian,
thanks great to have you on. I know you've got
a busy day ahead and we'll keep an eye on it.
Of course, this evening starting at eight