October 7, 2024 • 29 mins
In this episode, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose discusses various aspects of election integrity, including the importance of public confidence in elections, crisis management during natural disasters, and the challenges of non-citizen voting. LaRose emphasizes the need for consistent voter roll maintenance and the security measures in place for drop boxes. He also touches on the partisan nature of election administration and shares his future aspirations in public service. The Tudor Dixon Podcast is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network. For more visit TudorDixonPodcast.com
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Tutor Dixon Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I met a gentleman last week who I just thought, Wow,
this guy is going places. Is like one of these
people that you meet at a political event, and you
see the way he connects with people, the way he
talks to people, the way people interact when he's talking
to him, and I just thought, this is someone I
want all of you to meet. He is the Ohio
Secretary of State. Frank Lorose. Thank you so much for
(00:25):
being here.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Frank, Well, thank you, Tutor, and I really enjoyed seeing
how what much of a warm welcome you got from.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
That crowd in Michigan.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
We were there to talk about election integrity, but you
could tell that it was a group of people that
believe in you and your leadership as well.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
We have a lot of excited people on the ground,
and I think everybody is kind of curious, like they
want to a peek behind the curtain in Michigan, what's
actually happening. You got to be here, You got to
see that there's definitely a lot of people who are excited,
but you also heard that there are a lot of
people who are nervous about the elections. It's been interesting
because the news just I think just last night we
(01:00):
saw some of our reporters out there, like, oh Republicans
are already saying that there's fishy stuff happening with the election.
But no, we have a situation with a Secretary of
State who has done some really strange things like forcing.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
RFK to stay on the ballot. You came here and
addressed some of that.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Yeah, you know, in Ohio, we've removed him from the ballot.
It was very clear that our election law allows that
he requested to be removed within the timeframe, and so
we did that. But you know, I think that people
are excited about President Trump. I think they're excited about
an Ohio and named JD. Vance that' you know, Michiganers
(01:37):
can get excited about in Ohio and on certain occasions
when it's somebody like Vance. And of course you guys
having a really important US Senate race and really important
local races as well. So people need to know that
their elections are honest and they deserve to have that
confidence that when their vote is cast, that it's going
to be accurately counted.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Well, it is tough.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
I mean, I will tell you there are times when
you cannot allow someone for Ohio into your state, So
there is a little bit of a challenge here in Michigan.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
I'll tell you a story really quick because you'll get
a kick out of this.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
So what my husband's cousin is from Ohio, went to
Ohio State like a big Ohio fan, right, and there
anti Michigan. And we went to the Christmas party one
year and his daughter is the same age as my oldest.
And halfway through the party he looked at her and
he said, why aren't you playing with your cousins And
she said, Dad, they're from Michigan. And he was like,
(02:28):
that was when I realized maybe we'd taken it too far,
you know.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
In front of the crowd there in Kalamazoo, I mentioned
that some people don't know what the secretary of State
does of their state, right and so if you were
to ask the person on the street, what does the
Ohio Secretary of State do, they may answer that I'm
in charge of negotiating peace with Michigan.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
Even though even though we've.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Lost a series of battles here recently, the people of
Ohio are not ready to negotiate peace with Michigan. So
that wasn't the purpose of my mission in last week.
But you know, other than one Saturday every fall, I
think there are a lot of things that we can
agree on, like election integrity, like how important it is
that we put President Trump and Jade Vance in the
White House so that we can turn this country around
(03:13):
well and not be, as you heard me say, the
first generation in American history to leave this country weaker
than we found it.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
And that's really what's at stake.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Here, right And you know, even when I was running,
that's what I kept hearing people say. They were like,
you know, America is the best experiment on the face
of this earth. Let's not be the first people to
show that it doesn't work. And I think that's what
we are fighting against. We're fighting against a group of
people that are saying, I'm not proud to be an
American and this country is not what I thought it
was because they've been manipulated by a media who is
(03:41):
saying you should not be proud to be American. And
that is the beginnings of the breakdown of society. When
you take away that that feeling of this is my country.
I want to defend my country, then well, what do
you have. I want to get back to elections really quick.
I wanted to ask your take on North Carolina right now,
because obviously we have seen the devastation there, and our
(04:04):
prayers are out to the families there, and in Georgia
and in Florida and every place we've seen some of
this devastation, but North Carolina certainly is the worst. They're
telling us they won't have power for another month. We're
looking at an election in a month, a month and
a few days. What happens in a situation.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Like this well as crucial as it is to cast
your ballot, and I think we all know what a
difference that makes, of course, when people are in this circumstance.
First and foremost, it's human life and making sure that
people are okay, and then starting to get infrastructure running again.
So naturally, elections administration is probably not top of mind
for people that are in crisis in that moment, but
(04:45):
I can tell you for our elections officials, I'm sure
they are thinking about this. And part of the resiliency
of our election system is how local it is. It
is a process that's run truly at the local level
in most stays. I know that's the way it is
in Ohio and certainly in Michigan. It's very localized as well,
and I know that's that way in these affected states
(05:06):
North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. And so those
local election officials will be working on alternative plans. For example,
if a polling location was destroyed, they'll be working on
moving to a different one. And the good news too,
is that there are choices available with the elections and
how you vote, and so they may be offering more
(05:28):
opportunities for people to request that abstea ballot so that
they can mail that maybe they have to have that
ballot mailed to a different address.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
Now.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Unfortunately, we've worked through crises during election season before. In
Ohio last year, we had a series of tornadoes that
came through right before our primary election. And what I
was really really inspired by is the dedication of the
people involved. We saw poll workers, election officials, people that
were signed up to help run election day that had
(05:58):
their home or their farm destroyed by the tornado and
they still showed up to work their shift as a
poll worker.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
That's the kind of dedication that they have.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
I mean, listen, we're thirty four days before election day
at this point, and I'm confident that the election officials
in each of those localities will work through this and
that people will find their opportunity to vote, whether it's
early voting, absentee voting, or in person on election day.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Okay, So tell us about non citizens voting, because I
think that is also a major concern, especially I know
our state we have a debate over whether non citizens
have gotten driver's licenses. We know that they have in
other states. How do you prevent this from happening.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Well, first of all, it's important to start with this
silliness that the left says this is not a problem,
you should not be concerned about this, or it doesn't happen.
I'll be the first to tell you it happens at
a smaller scale than some people recognize, but it does happen.
And in fact, this year alone, I have removed over
six hundred non citizens that found way to get onto
(07:01):
the voter roles. Of course, we work to make sure
that they don't get registered to vote in the first place,
but on some circumstances, when they do, we catch them
within a couple of weeks and then process them for
removal and refer them for prosecution. I've done that in
six hundred, over six hundred instances this year just in
the state of Ohio. Now, as it relates to driver's
licenses in Ohio, of course, non citizens can get driver's license,
(07:24):
and somebody that's here on a student visa or a
work visa, you don't expect them to walk for the
four years that they're here. They can get a driver's license,
but it's very clearly a non citizen driver's license.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
It even says non citizen.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Right on the driver's license, and of course in the
records that's maintained by the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles,
it's a very black and white thing, and you either
have a citizen driver's license or a non citizen driver's license.
So in that sense, it's actually helpful once non citizens
get a state ID get a driver's license, because it
helps us to more quickly identify them and keep them
off the voter rolls. And of course we've trained our
(07:57):
election day poll workers to look at that driver's license
and see if it says citizen or non citizen as
part of that proof of identity. Now we do a
really good job of this in Ohio because we use
all the different tools at our disposal from our state
BMV to this one single database that the federal government
lets us use called the SAVE Database Systematic Alien Verification
(08:19):
for Eligibility. The problem is, in classic federal government have it,
they make it hard for us to use this. You've
got to get this obscure number called an alien registration number,
and then they actually charge us. Yes, the US Department
of Homeland Security charges my office a dollar fifty every
time we search this database, and then we have to
mail a letter to the person telling them we've searched
(08:42):
the database to check their citizenship status. If we don't
use that, then DHS will take away if we don't
conduct that process, DHS.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
Would take away our ability to use it. But here's
the thing.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
I was in DC to testify in front of Congress
a couple of weeks ago in favor of the SAVE Act. Now,
your Secretary of State was there opposing the SAVE Act,
which is pretty wild to me. But I was there
saying that the federal government should pass this SAVE Act
so that we can put citizenship verification on the front
end and give states access to the three other databases
(09:15):
that the federal government has that they're not letting us
use right now. In fact, I've asked Alejando Majorcis, the
Secretary of Homeland Security, multiple times to give me access
to the other three databases, and they have ghosted us
no response whatsoever. And as a result of it, there are,
you know, some records that we have trouble finding verification
for and it's absolutely mind boggling to me that the
(09:37):
federal government would withhold this data from states like ours.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
We've heard a lot about the Save Act, but I
think we're hearing about it at a very high level.
You know, people know the word, but they're not exactly
sure what it is. And so when you say that
Jocelyn Benson came out to oppose it, I don't think
that we fully understand, well, what was she opposing. But
we hear all the time that we want immigration reform,
we want to make sure that we know where people are.
There is safety in knowing where people are, having them registered.
(10:04):
I say all the time when I'm out on the
campaign trail. You have to understand, we have a border
that is controlled by the cartels. They have a database,
they know where everybody is, and we don't so explain
a little bit about the SAVE Act so people know
exactly what it would do.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Well and Tutor, speaking of the crisis on the border,
I served down there as part of a counter narcotics
task force when I was on active duty in the Army.
It was the Clinton administration that sent me to the border,
by the way, so sending the US military to the
Mexican border is not a controversial idea, and it's something
that I think that the Trump administration will do to
get control of this situation. Yeah, so the SAVE Act
(10:42):
is really common sense legislation that would put the citizenship
check on the front end. Right now, we have to
rely on this sort of look back. If someone becomes registered,
we find them. A few weeks later, we catch them,
and we remove them. It's also bad for the non
citizens involved that may not have good englishfficiency. Some government
official shoves of form in front of them. They may
(11:03):
not know what they're filling out, and they actually might
be committing a felony when they do so, and that
could make them eligible for deportation. And again, we actually
refer these cases to county prosecutors because it's the law,
and we believe in making sure that the laws enforced
so front end citizenship verification before somebody can ever get
registered to vote, and then of course access to these databases.
(11:25):
Here's the argument that I hear against the Save Act,
and this is just the most brain dead thing that
I've ever heard, is that you'll hear the left saying
it's already illegal for nonsense to vote. Well, yes, I
recognize that it is already illegal. This is not about
making it illegal. This is about enforcing it.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
Right.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
I use the example in front of the Congressional Committee
that it's already illegal to hijack an airplane. That doesn't
mean that we just trust that people aren't going to
do it. No, we have the TSA for that purpose
and other federal agencies that make sure that we're safe
when we fly. Just because something's already illegal, again, it's
not worth the paper it's written on unless we have
(12:04):
enforcement mechanisms to make sure that if people do try
to do the wrong thing, they'll be caught.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
the Tutor Dixon podcast.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
So you talked about something that I don't think that
we think about that often, and that is students that
come in here. People who are on a work visa,
those folks needing an ID in that state if they're
going to be there for a prolonged period of time.
And I think so often we look at issues like
this as black and white. If you're not a citizen,
(12:36):
you don't get an ID. But I find it interesting
that you have the ID and it's clearly stated that
this is a non citizen.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
We know that they're here.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
I guess to a certain extent, I feel good about
the fact that I know that this person's here. I
feel good about the fact that if I pull this ID,
I know that they are registered somehow, they're there in
some way allowed to be here.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
I think there is a concern that a.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Lot of the illegals who are coming over will just
be handed IDs as they walk in the door, and
people will feel like, oh, I'm safe because this person
was given an ID as an okay to be here.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Of course, Ohio has a process for this. And again,
if you're here legally, and we want people to come
study at Ohio State University, for example, foreign students come
and work as part of one of our scientific or
manufacturing companies on a work visa, that's of course a
part of the process, and we don't expect you to
not be able to buy a beer, for example, if
(13:33):
you're of age, and so you got to get an
ID for those kind of things. But yeah, Ohio makes
it clear that that is a non citizen ID card,
and again it actually helps us once somebody gets that,
because we know for a binary fact whether you're a
citizen or not once you establish that identity with the
Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles. A lot of people don't
remember this too though, because the first time you got
(13:53):
your driver's license probably was when you were maybe sixteen
or seventeen and your mom and dad drove you down
there to get your first drivense But the first time
you establish identification with the government, usually your state, you've
got to present all kinds of documentation, including your birth certificate.
So way back when you were sixteen, when you got
your first driver's license, you proved your citizenship status by
(14:15):
presenting your birth certificate. And then again, of course, as
you have renewed those driver's licenses over the years, you've
not had to reprove that because citizenship is not something
likely to change. And so again it's a good thing
that Ohio has this thoughtful process and it helps us
prevent non citizens from voting.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
So let me ask you about purging voter roles, because
we have in Michigan, you can send out abs andee
ballot applications to anyone. So I can send out absentee
ballot applications to people. Legally, they're the applications, they're not
the abs andee ballots. But we have a question as
to whether or not the voter roles have been cleaned up.
The RNC sued Jocelyn Bentson lost that lawsuit. She ultimately
(14:56):
was supposed to clean up the voter roles. We recently
have these letters come to us from Governor Gretchen Whitmer
with her official title, and they've clearly used. They're clearly
going from thirty five and youngers, because everybody I know,
whether they're a Democrat or a Republican household, their children
are getting these absentee ballot applications. But also, I mean
(15:18):
one of our state reps his mother received one in
her maiden name, of which she has not used in
forty three years, to her childhood home where she has
not lived for forty five years, you know. And so
We're like, well, how at what point do we say,
are a people able to get these old roles and
just still use them and try to see what they
(15:40):
can garner off of that? And then how important is
it to clean up the voter roles and how often
do you think it needs to be done?
Speaker 4 (15:47):
It needs to be.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Done on a consistent and ongoing basis. In fact, in Ohio,
it's not like an annual thing or a monthly thing.
It's something that we're constantly doing. And there are gateways
along the way where we do certain annual checks in
certain monthly checks. But I've always said that voter list
maintenance is like hygiene. You brush your teeth every day,
and you maintain voter lists every day. And it's done
at the local level at each of our eighty eight
(16:09):
county boards of elections in Ohio. For example, when I
was in the state Senate, I passed a bill that
created a monthly check for deceased voters.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
Shouldn't be controversial.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Every month, we get a list from the Ohio Department
of Health, these are the people that have died this month.
We then disaggregate it by county because the death records
created in the county where you die, so we have
to notify the county where you've previously lived, and then
they remove you from the voter rolls. Again, we do
that on a monthly basis, and leading up to election
day we're going to be doing it on a more
frequent basis to make sure that we catch people that
(16:39):
are deceased right before the election. We also do a
removal of those that have moved out of state. We
use the National Change of Addressed Database to do that,
following a process that's long been in law in Ohio.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
We notify you and that kind of thing. But yes,
if you move out of state.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
I don't know why you would ever want to move
out of Ohio, but if you moved out of state,
we were remove you from the voter rules as well.
We also remove those that have become inactive. This is
kind of a backstop, and this is one of the
ones that the Democrats constantly try to sue me over,
try to stop. We've been to the US Supreme Court
over this in Ohio. But if you become inactive for
(17:18):
six years, you don't vote, you don't sign a petition,
you take no action to show us you're still alive.
Speaker 4 (17:25):
And here.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Then we send you a couple letters in the mail,
multiple letters. We say, do you still want to be
a registered voter? If so, return this form self addressed
all of that. If you don't, we remove you. I've
removed hundreds of thousands of not voters, but bad records
from the voter list. And again the Democrats say he's
purging voters, not actually purging voters.
Speaker 4 (17:47):
I'm removing bad data. Right.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Again, the hyperbolizing that they do about this causes people
to be fearful. We're not removing voters in most cases,
we work hard not to. We're removing bad data, and
it's deceased, duplicate, and departed. I call it the three d's.
If you're one of those three in the voter roles,
then yeah, we want that bad data out. And again,
we've got eight million registered voters. Ohio has high levels
(18:10):
of participation. This doesn't suppress the vote. It actually encourages
more people to participate because they know it's honest.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
We've had record breaking votes in twenty eighteen, twenty twenty,
twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
I think we're going to break another record this year
in twenty twenty four. And Ohioans know they can trust it.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
So you're you might be able to say that you
have some Democrats that aren't loving you right now because
they're suing you.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Also about dropboxes, So tell us a little.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Bit about that, because this is also something that I
think most of our audience members are wondering what happens
with the dropbox. One of the people in our office
has one right across from their apartment watches every day.
It is like, how do you make sure that the
dropbox is actually being handled correctly? I mean, I think
it is scary. You have people that don't have to
look at a person. They can just it's just like
(18:57):
a mailbox. You open it up and you can throw
as many ballots in there as you want. I mean,
you're not supposed to, but it feels like it's not
necessarily safe.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
Well, you're right.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
The Democrats sue me constantly, and unlike in some states,
I don't settle these lawsuits. I fight them because they
don't have good intentions, Like where were you six eight
months ago? You could have worked with our state legislature
if you had such a bright idea. Instead, you wait
until October September and then and then you assume me
this one about drop boxes. It's maybe as one of
(19:26):
those examples of no good deed goes unpunished, our state
legislature a few years ago decided to authorize, in a
very controlled way, drop boxes at each counting Board of Elections.
Not widespread in front of every library and school and
whatever else. Our state legislature said, there can be one
at each county Board of Elections. It's got to be
bolted to the ground under video twenty four to seven
(19:48):
video surveillance, multiple cameras in most cases, got to be
emptied every day by a bipartisan team of Democrats and Republicans.
So our state legislator said, here's a new convenience if
you don't want to mail in your ballot, and to
be clear, the best way to return your empty ballot
is to use the drop box at the end of
your driveway and just mail the thing in and then
track it. You can track your ballot in Ohio and
make sure it's been received. If you choose to take
(20:10):
it to the Board of Elections, you can use a
drop Boxhio. Well, of course that wasn't enough, and so
then what the Democrats did is sued me, and they
won in a well if there was a bigger lawsuit.
They won a narrow ruling that really blew open a
loophole that would allow ballot harvesting in Ohio. And so
I stepped in and said no, the law says, yeah,
you can use a drop box, but we can't allow
(20:32):
ballot harvesting. And so the rule I put in place
is that you can only return your own personal ballot
to the drop box, which means if you're walking up
to the drop box with a box full or with
a trunkload of things, then we know that you're that
you're violating that rule. So you can bring your own
personal ballot, But if you're returning somebody else's, which the
law allows you to do for a disabled Ohio and
(20:53):
if they've designated you to assist them, or if you're
doing it for a family member, you want to take
your your spouse and your and your kids' ballots they're
your adult kids, of course, then you can do that,
but you got to go to the elections officials and
actually present it to them and sign a little attestation
that says I'm not conducting ballot harvesting. This is for
a family member, this is for a disabled Ohio, and
(21:14):
then now they're suing me to try to weaken that
because I think it's clear they want to engage in
ballot harvesting and we're simply not going to allow that
in Ohio.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
And this is one of.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Those why election laws should not be made at the courthouse.
They really should be made at the state House. The
Democrats and their allies from really all over the country,
a lot of deep pocketed special interests are suing me
to try to open the door to ballot harvesting in Ohio.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
We won't have it.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
I think that's the key here, and that's what most
people are saying this. If you're doing this, there's a
reason you're doing this, But just how do you know?
How do you know they're not doing it?
Speaker 4 (21:48):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (21:49):
Well, and again that's why there have to be safeguards
in place. Just trusting people to do the right thing
is not wise administration of elections. And so what we're
doing is, you know, we still have it says in
the law you have the ability to use drop boxes.
I've told the legislature they may want to look at
getting rid of them. I think that in many ways
they're more troubled than they're worth. But my job is
not to write the law, is to execute it. I'm
(22:11):
in an executive office. The law says you have the
ability to use these drop boxes. I just put in
place the rules to make sure that's not being abused.
And that means if people show up at an Ohio
Board of Elections with more than one ballot to put
in the drop box, they may not do so. They
have to put only what their own ballot in the
drop box. If you've got others and you want to,
you know, bring them to the Board of Elections, you
(22:32):
simply got to come to the elections officials and then
sign that little attestation. You know, perfect, but it's the
best we can do to prevent ballot harvesting.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Right if you take away drop boxes, they're going to
say you're suppressing the vote. But I will say that
somehow H and R block seems to get little offices
all over the place when it comes to tax time,
So maybe that's what has to happen. You have to
have it, you have to hand it to a person,
but there's someone there. I mean, I really I think
that elections are that important that we should be focused
on making sure someone is taking that and sees who's
(23:02):
giving it.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
Yeah, it's a false choice that you have to choose
either convenience or security. If you're smart about it, you
can have that balance. We want convenience. All of us
have busy lives. We want to be able to conveniently
cast our ballot. And by the way, we believe in
the power of the people to choose their leaders. And
then so elections should be convenient. We like that, but
they also should be secure. You don't have to choose
one or the other. If you've got smart people administering
(23:25):
your elections, then you can have that balance of making
it both easy to vote and also hard to cheat.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
October seventh is the one year mark of the worst
massacre of the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Twelve hundred
Israelis were murdered and more than two hundred and fifty
taken hostage. The war in Israel rages on today. Israel
and the Jewish people are facing attacks from enemies on
all sides seeking Israel's destruction. The International Fellowship of Christians
(23:52):
and Jews is on the ground providing food, shelter, and
safety to those in need during this crisis. And you
know what they know a life. Lot of this is
coming from Americans. I've heard it from people who are
on the ground. Since the war started. There are reservists
every day Israeli citizens. They've left their families behind to
serve their country, and these soldiers have been injured and
(24:13):
their families need support. Your gift of one hundred and
fifty dollars today helps the Fellowship provide food and other
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(24:34):
make your one hundred and fifty dollars donation right now
at eight eight eight four eight eight IFCJ that's eight
eight eight four eight eight four three two five, or
go online to support IFCJ dot org to give. That's
one word, support IFCJ dot org. So I will let
(24:55):
you go, but I want to have one more thing
for you. Because our Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson, who
we mentioned was against the Save Act, she's refused to
take RFKF the ballot, which I just want to note
it is funny. She refused to put him on the
ballot initially, so he had to sue to get on,
and now she was refusing to let him off the ballot.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
And this is totally partisan, and multiple judges have written
dissenting opinions saying that this is to alter the election.
She initially, I will just say, she initially tried to
do this and the Court of Appeals was like, no,
he can, it's fine, it's enough time, he can come off. Well,
then she had to get another legal opinion, which I
just think that feels fishy too. If you have your
(25:35):
legal opinion, why do you have to keep going? Why
do you have to keep going?
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Who is she fighting?
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Elections are underway the overseas and military ballots have already
gone out and early voting starting soon, so it's almost
too late to make any more changes.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Yeah, now it is too late, but at the time
it was not too late. And so we look at
this and we say, okay, that was very fishy. We
know that she's been incredibly partisan. One of our former
secretary of state says she's the most partisan secretary of
State the State of Michigan has ever had. But she's
also on multiple occasions come out and said that she's coordinated,
and that's the exact word she uses. She's coordinating with
(26:10):
seven or eight other secretaries of state across the country
to ensure this election is being run appropriately. And when
we see what she's doing in Michigan, that makes us
a little nervous. So do you ever get the sense
that there are partisan secretaries of state in on the
Democrat side that are pushing these rules that you just
talked about because they actually do want to balot harvest?
Speaker 4 (26:32):
Yeah, listen.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
We're all part of a national association called the National
Association of Secretaries of State, and sometimes we get together
in exchange idea and sometimes it's a completely bipartisan thing,
like we've had some good conversations over the years about
some things that we can learn from them on and
vice versa.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
We also have partisan groups.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
I'm the chairman of the Republican Secretaries of State Association nationally,
so I was chosen by my fellow Republican secretaries of state,
and when we get together, we tend to talk about
how do we make sure the election is secure, how
do we combat false information and power voters with accurate information.
I don't know what the Democrats get together and talk
about but I fear that it's sort of more of
(27:10):
the same. How do we continue kicking the can down
the road and not doing the list maintenance that we're
supposed to be doing. How do we convince people that
non citizen voting is not a.
Speaker 4 (27:20):
Problem and we just don't need to take any action
on it.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
But again, I don't know what they talk about when
they get together, but I know what we talk about
as the Republican secretaries.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Well, I once again I will just say I just
I think you're fantastic. You know all of this stuff
in and out. I saw the reaction of people to
you when you were here. I know you ran for
Senate and that is a seat that is ongoing with
Bernie Mourno right now.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
But I just have this sense that you're not done.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
And I know people ask you this all the time,
but what are you looking at in the future, Tittor.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
I appreciate the question, and listen. I'm fully behind my
friend Bernie ma Reno. He was a friend and then
became an opponent. You know how primaries work. But I'm
proud to be painting for him now in my off
duty time. Of course, he is the right man to
beat shared Brown help us take back the US Senate.
US obviously have an important Senate race in Michigan as well.
I think too many people in my line of work,
(28:12):
my current line of work anyway, are focused on the
next thing when they ought to be doing the current
things of like do the job you've got and then
opportunities present themselves. I will say this, I love public service.
My wife would be happy if I came home one
day and say, hey, I'm going to go into the
private sector and I'm going to have a pretty reliable
nine to five kind of job.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
But she knows that my heart is in service.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
That when we met, I was a green break getting
ready to go off to combat, and so she knew
what she was signing up for with me.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
And so I'll look for chances to serve.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
If I have the chance to run for the US
Senate again in the future, would certainly look at that,
or maybe even going to work for the Trump administration.
I wouldn't rule that out, because again, I think if
the president calls on you to serve, then you need
to do that.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
And we know what his mission's going to be.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
It's going to be to make America great again, and
that's something we all should be able to get behind.
So if he tapped me and said, hey, we need
you in DC, well then I'd look at putting my
hip waiters on and heading into the swamp a little
bit as well.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
I love it well, honestly, I cannot tell you, and
I know my audience feels the same. We're so blessed
by the service that you've provided so far. So thank
you for what you've done, and thank you so much,
Secretary Frank Leros, thank you so much for coming on today.
Speaker 4 (29:20):
Thanks Tudor, God bless absolutely, and.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
Thank you all for joining the Tutor Dixon Podcast. Make
sure you catch this episode on iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts, and.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Join us next time on the Tutor Dixon Podcast. Have
a blessing.
Welcome to the Tutor Dixon Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I met a gentleman last week who I just thought, Wow,
this guy is going places. Is like one of these
people that you meet at a political event, and you
see the way he connects with people, the way he
talks to people, the way people interact when he's talking
to him, and I just thought, this is someone I
want all of you to meet. He is the Ohio
Secretary of State. Frank Lorose. Thank you so much for
(00:25):
being here.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Frank, Well, thank you, Tutor, and I really enjoyed seeing
how what much of a warm welcome you got from.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
That crowd in Michigan.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
We were there to talk about election integrity, but you
could tell that it was a group of people that
believe in you and your leadership as well.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
We have a lot of excited people on the ground,
and I think everybody is kind of curious, like they
want to a peek behind the curtain in Michigan, what's
actually happening. You got to be here, You got to
see that there's definitely a lot of people who are excited,
but you also heard that there are a lot of
people who are nervous about the elections. It's been interesting
because the news just I think just last night we
(01:00):
saw some of our reporters out there, like, oh Republicans
are already saying that there's fishy stuff happening with the election.
But no, we have a situation with a Secretary of
State who has done some really strange things like forcing.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
RFK to stay on the ballot. You came here and
addressed some of that.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Yeah, you know, in Ohio, we've removed him from the ballot.
It was very clear that our election law allows that
he requested to be removed within the timeframe, and so
we did that. But you know, I think that people
are excited about President Trump. I think they're excited about
an Ohio and named JD. Vance that' you know, Michiganers
(01:37):
can get excited about in Ohio and on certain occasions
when it's somebody like Vance. And of course you guys
having a really important US Senate race and really important
local races as well. So people need to know that
their elections are honest and they deserve to have that
confidence that when their vote is cast, that it's going
to be accurately counted.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Well, it is tough.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
I mean, I will tell you there are times when
you cannot allow someone for Ohio into your state, So
there is a little bit of a challenge here in Michigan.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
I'll tell you a story really quick because you'll get
a kick out of this.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
So what my husband's cousin is from Ohio, went to
Ohio State like a big Ohio fan, right, and there
anti Michigan. And we went to the Christmas party one
year and his daughter is the same age as my oldest.
And halfway through the party he looked at her and
he said, why aren't you playing with your cousins And
she said, Dad, they're from Michigan. And he was like,
(02:28):
that was when I realized maybe we'd taken it too far,
you know.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
In front of the crowd there in Kalamazoo, I mentioned
that some people don't know what the secretary of State
does of their state, right and so if you were
to ask the person on the street, what does the
Ohio Secretary of State do, they may answer that I'm
in charge of negotiating peace with Michigan.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
Even though even though we've.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Lost a series of battles here recently, the people of
Ohio are not ready to negotiate peace with Michigan. So
that wasn't the purpose of my mission in last week.
But you know, other than one Saturday every fall, I
think there are a lot of things that we can
agree on, like election integrity, like how important it is
that we put President Trump and Jade Vance in the
White House so that we can turn this country around
(03:13):
well and not be, as you heard me say, the
first generation in American history to leave this country weaker
than we found it.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
And that's really what's at stake.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Here, right And you know, even when I was running,
that's what I kept hearing people say. They were like,
you know, America is the best experiment on the face
of this earth. Let's not be the first people to
show that it doesn't work. And I think that's what
we are fighting against. We're fighting against a group of
people that are saying, I'm not proud to be an
American and this country is not what I thought it
was because they've been manipulated by a media who is
(03:41):
saying you should not be proud to be American. And
that is the beginnings of the breakdown of society. When
you take away that that feeling of this is my country.
I want to defend my country, then well, what do
you have. I want to get back to elections really quick.
I wanted to ask your take on North Carolina right now,
because obviously we have seen the devastation there, and our
(04:04):
prayers are out to the families there, and in Georgia
and in Florida and every place we've seen some of
this devastation, but North Carolina certainly is the worst. They're
telling us they won't have power for another month. We're
looking at an election in a month, a month and
a few days. What happens in a situation.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Like this well as crucial as it is to cast
your ballot, and I think we all know what a
difference that makes, of course, when people are in this circumstance.
First and foremost, it's human life and making sure that
people are okay, and then starting to get infrastructure running again.
So naturally, elections administration is probably not top of mind
for people that are in crisis in that moment, but
(04:45):
I can tell you for our elections officials, I'm sure
they are thinking about this. And part of the resiliency
of our election system is how local it is. It
is a process that's run truly at the local level
in most stays. I know that's the way it is
in Ohio and certainly in Michigan. It's very localized as well,
and I know that's that way in these affected states
(05:06):
North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. And so those
local election officials will be working on alternative plans. For example,
if a polling location was destroyed, they'll be working on
moving to a different one. And the good news too,
is that there are choices available with the elections and
how you vote, and so they may be offering more
(05:28):
opportunities for people to request that abstea ballot so that
they can mail that maybe they have to have that
ballot mailed to a different address.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
Now.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Unfortunately, we've worked through crises during election season before. In
Ohio last year, we had a series of tornadoes that
came through right before our primary election. And what I
was really really inspired by is the dedication of the
people involved. We saw poll workers, election officials, people that
were signed up to help run election day that had
(05:58):
their home or their farm destroyed by the tornado and
they still showed up to work their shift as a
poll worker.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
That's the kind of dedication that they have.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
I mean, listen, we're thirty four days before election day
at this point, and I'm confident that the election officials
in each of those localities will work through this and
that people will find their opportunity to vote, whether it's
early voting, absentee voting, or in person on election day.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Okay, So tell us about non citizens voting, because I
think that is also a major concern, especially I know
our state we have a debate over whether non citizens
have gotten driver's licenses. We know that they have in
other states. How do you prevent this from happening.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Well, first of all, it's important to start with this
silliness that the left says this is not a problem,
you should not be concerned about this, or it doesn't happen.
I'll be the first to tell you it happens at
a smaller scale than some people recognize, but it does happen.
And in fact, this year alone, I have removed over
six hundred non citizens that found way to get onto
(07:01):
the voter roles. Of course, we work to make sure
that they don't get registered to vote in the first place,
but on some circumstances, when they do, we catch them
within a couple of weeks and then process them for
removal and refer them for prosecution. I've done that in
six hundred, over six hundred instances this year just in
the state of Ohio. Now, as it relates to driver's
licenses in Ohio, of course, non citizens can get driver's license,
(07:24):
and somebody that's here on a student visa or a
work visa, you don't expect them to walk for the
four years that they're here. They can get a driver's license,
but it's very clearly a non citizen driver's license.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
It even says non citizen.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Right on the driver's license, and of course in the
records that's maintained by the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles,
it's a very black and white thing, and you either
have a citizen driver's license or a non citizen driver's license.
So in that sense, it's actually helpful once non citizens
get a state ID get a driver's license, because it
helps us to more quickly identify them and keep them
off the voter rolls. And of course we've trained our
(07:57):
election day poll workers to look at that driver's license
and see if it says citizen or non citizen as
part of that proof of identity. Now we do a
really good job of this in Ohio because we use
all the different tools at our disposal from our state
BMV to this one single database that the federal government
lets us use called the SAVE Database Systematic Alien Verification
(08:19):
for Eligibility. The problem is, in classic federal government have it,
they make it hard for us to use this. You've
got to get this obscure number called an alien registration number,
and then they actually charge us. Yes, the US Department
of Homeland Security charges my office a dollar fifty every
time we search this database, and then we have to
mail a letter to the person telling them we've searched
(08:42):
the database to check their citizenship status. If we don't
use that, then DHS will take away if we don't
conduct that process, DHS.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
Would take away our ability to use it. But here's
the thing.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
I was in DC to testify in front of Congress
a couple of weeks ago in favor of the SAVE Act. Now,
your Secretary of State was there opposing the SAVE Act,
which is pretty wild to me. But I was there
saying that the federal government should pass this SAVE Act
so that we can put citizenship verification on the front
end and give states access to the three other databases
(09:15):
that the federal government has that they're not letting us
use right now. In fact, I've asked Alejando Majorcis, the
Secretary of Homeland Security, multiple times to give me access
to the other three databases, and they have ghosted us
no response whatsoever. And as a result of it, there are,
you know, some records that we have trouble finding verification
for and it's absolutely mind boggling to me that the
(09:37):
federal government would withhold this data from states like ours.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
We've heard a lot about the Save Act, but I
think we're hearing about it at a very high level.
You know, people know the word, but they're not exactly
sure what it is. And so when you say that
Jocelyn Benson came out to oppose it, I don't think
that we fully understand, well, what was she opposing. But
we hear all the time that we want immigration reform,
we want to make sure that we know where people are.
There is safety in knowing where people are, having them registered.
(10:04):
I say all the time when I'm out on the
campaign trail. You have to understand, we have a border
that is controlled by the cartels. They have a database,
they know where everybody is, and we don't so explain
a little bit about the SAVE Act so people know
exactly what it would do.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Well and Tutor, speaking of the crisis on the border,
I served down there as part of a counter narcotics
task force when I was on active duty in the Army.
It was the Clinton administration that sent me to the border,
by the way, so sending the US military to the
Mexican border is not a controversial idea, and it's something
that I think that the Trump administration will do to
get control of this situation. Yeah, so the SAVE Act
(10:42):
is really common sense legislation that would put the citizenship
check on the front end. Right now, we have to
rely on this sort of look back. If someone becomes registered,
we find them. A few weeks later, we catch them,
and we remove them. It's also bad for the non
citizens involved that may not have good englishfficiency. Some government
official shoves of form in front of them. They may
(11:03):
not know what they're filling out, and they actually might
be committing a felony when they do so, and that
could make them eligible for deportation. And again, we actually
refer these cases to county prosecutors because it's the law,
and we believe in making sure that the laws enforced
so front end citizenship verification before somebody can ever get
registered to vote, and then of course access to these databases.
(11:25):
Here's the argument that I hear against the Save Act,
and this is just the most brain dead thing that
I've ever heard, is that you'll hear the left saying
it's already illegal for nonsense to vote. Well, yes, I
recognize that it is already illegal. This is not about
making it illegal. This is about enforcing it.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
Right.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
I use the example in front of the Congressional Committee
that it's already illegal to hijack an airplane. That doesn't
mean that we just trust that people aren't going to
do it. No, we have the TSA for that purpose
and other federal agencies that make sure that we're safe
when we fly. Just because something's already illegal, again, it's
not worth the paper it's written on unless we have
(12:04):
enforcement mechanisms to make sure that if people do try
to do the wrong thing, they'll be caught.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
the Tutor Dixon podcast.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
So you talked about something that I don't think that
we think about that often, and that is students that
come in here. People who are on a work visa,
those folks needing an ID in that state if they're
going to be there for a prolonged period of time.
And I think so often we look at issues like
this as black and white. If you're not a citizen,
(12:36):
you don't get an ID. But I find it interesting
that you have the ID and it's clearly stated that
this is a non citizen.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
We know that they're here.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
I guess to a certain extent, I feel good about
the fact that I know that this person's here. I
feel good about the fact that if I pull this ID,
I know that they are registered somehow, they're there in
some way allowed to be here.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
I think there is a concern that a.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Lot of the illegals who are coming over will just
be handed IDs as they walk in the door, and
people will feel like, oh, I'm safe because this person
was given an ID as an okay to be here.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Of course, Ohio has a process for this. And again,
if you're here legally, and we want people to come
study at Ohio State University, for example, foreign students come
and work as part of one of our scientific or
manufacturing companies on a work visa, that's of course a
part of the process, and we don't expect you to
not be able to buy a beer, for example, if
(13:33):
you're of age, and so you got to get an
ID for those kind of things. But yeah, Ohio makes
it clear that that is a non citizen ID card,
and again it actually helps us once somebody gets that,
because we know for a binary fact whether you're a
citizen or not once you establish that identity with the
Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles. A lot of people don't
remember this too though, because the first time you got
(13:53):
your driver's license probably was when you were maybe sixteen
or seventeen and your mom and dad drove you down
there to get your first drivense But the first time
you establish identification with the government, usually your state, you've
got to present all kinds of documentation, including your birth certificate.
So way back when you were sixteen, when you got
your first driver's license, you proved your citizenship status by
(14:15):
presenting your birth certificate. And then again, of course, as
you have renewed those driver's licenses over the years, you've
not had to reprove that because citizenship is not something
likely to change. And so again it's a good thing
that Ohio has this thoughtful process and it helps us
prevent non citizens from voting.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
So let me ask you about purging voter roles, because
we have in Michigan, you can send out abs andee
ballot applications to anyone. So I can send out absentee
ballot applications to people. Legally, they're the applications, they're not
the abs andee ballots. But we have a question as
to whether or not the voter roles have been cleaned up.
The RNC sued Jocelyn Bentson lost that lawsuit. She ultimately
(14:56):
was supposed to clean up the voter roles. We recently
have these letters come to us from Governor Gretchen Whitmer
with her official title, and they've clearly used. They're clearly
going from thirty five and youngers, because everybody I know,
whether they're a Democrat or a Republican household, their children
are getting these absentee ballot applications. But also, I mean
(15:18):
one of our state reps his mother received one in
her maiden name, of which she has not used in
forty three years, to her childhood home where she has
not lived for forty five years, you know. And so
We're like, well, how at what point do we say,
are a people able to get these old roles and
just still use them and try to see what they
(15:40):
can garner off of that? And then how important is
it to clean up the voter roles and how often
do you think it needs to be done?
Speaker 4 (15:47):
It needs to be.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Done on a consistent and ongoing basis. In fact, in Ohio,
it's not like an annual thing or a monthly thing.
It's something that we're constantly doing. And there are gateways
along the way where we do certain annual checks in
certain monthly checks. But I've always said that voter list
maintenance is like hygiene. You brush your teeth every day,
and you maintain voter lists every day. And it's done
at the local level at each of our eighty eight
(16:09):
county boards of elections in Ohio. For example, when I
was in the state Senate, I passed a bill that
created a monthly check for deceased voters.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
Shouldn't be controversial.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Every month, we get a list from the Ohio Department
of Health, these are the people that have died this month.
We then disaggregate it by county because the death records
created in the county where you die, so we have
to notify the county where you've previously lived, and then
they remove you from the voter rolls. Again, we do
that on a monthly basis, and leading up to election
day we're going to be doing it on a more
frequent basis to make sure that we catch people that
(16:39):
are deceased right before the election. We also do a
removal of those that have moved out of state. We
use the National Change of Addressed Database to do that,
following a process that's long been in law in Ohio.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
We notify you and that kind of thing. But yes,
if you move out of state.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
I don't know why you would ever want to move
out of Ohio, but if you moved out of state,
we were remove you from the voter rules as well.
We also remove those that have become inactive. This is
kind of a backstop, and this is one of the
ones that the Democrats constantly try to sue me over,
try to stop. We've been to the US Supreme Court
over this in Ohio. But if you become inactive for
(17:18):
six years, you don't vote, you don't sign a petition,
you take no action to show us you're still alive.
Speaker 4 (17:25):
And here.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Then we send you a couple letters in the mail,
multiple letters. We say, do you still want to be
a registered voter? If so, return this form self addressed
all of that. If you don't, we remove you. I've
removed hundreds of thousands of not voters, but bad records
from the voter list. And again the Democrats say he's
purging voters, not actually purging voters.
Speaker 4 (17:47):
I'm removing bad data. Right.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Again, the hyperbolizing that they do about this causes people
to be fearful. We're not removing voters in most cases,
we work hard not to. We're removing bad data, and
it's deceased, duplicate, and departed. I call it the three d's.
If you're one of those three in the voter roles,
then yeah, we want that bad data out. And again,
we've got eight million registered voters. Ohio has high levels
(18:10):
of participation. This doesn't suppress the vote. It actually encourages
more people to participate because they know it's honest.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
We've had record breaking votes in twenty eighteen, twenty twenty,
twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
I think we're going to break another record this year
in twenty twenty four. And Ohioans know they can trust it.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
So you're you might be able to say that you
have some Democrats that aren't loving you right now because
they're suing you.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Also about dropboxes, So tell us a little.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Bit about that, because this is also something that I
think most of our audience members are wondering what happens
with the dropbox. One of the people in our office
has one right across from their apartment watches every day.
It is like, how do you make sure that the
dropbox is actually being handled correctly? I mean, I think
it is scary. You have people that don't have to
look at a person. They can just it's just like
(18:57):
a mailbox. You open it up and you can throw
as many ballots in there as you want. I mean,
you're not supposed to, but it feels like it's not
necessarily safe.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
Well, you're right.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
The Democrats sue me constantly, and unlike in some states,
I don't settle these lawsuits. I fight them because they
don't have good intentions, Like where were you six eight
months ago? You could have worked with our state legislature
if you had such a bright idea. Instead, you wait
until October September and then and then you assume me
this one about drop boxes. It's maybe as one of
(19:26):
those examples of no good deed goes unpunished, our state
legislature a few years ago decided to authorize, in a
very controlled way, drop boxes at each counting Board of Elections.
Not widespread in front of every library and school and
whatever else. Our state legislature said, there can be one
at each county Board of Elections. It's got to be
bolted to the ground under video twenty four to seven
(19:48):
video surveillance, multiple cameras in most cases, got to be
emptied every day by a bipartisan team of Democrats and Republicans.
So our state legislator said, here's a new convenience if
you don't want to mail in your ballot, and to
be clear, the best way to return your empty ballot
is to use the drop box at the end of
your driveway and just mail the thing in and then
track it. You can track your ballot in Ohio and
make sure it's been received. If you choose to take
(20:10):
it to the Board of Elections, you can use a
drop Boxhio. Well, of course that wasn't enough, and so
then what the Democrats did is sued me, and they
won in a well if there was a bigger lawsuit.
They won a narrow ruling that really blew open a
loophole that would allow ballot harvesting in Ohio. And so
I stepped in and said no, the law says, yeah,
you can use a drop box, but we can't allow
(20:32):
ballot harvesting. And so the rule I put in place
is that you can only return your own personal ballot
to the drop box, which means if you're walking up
to the drop box with a box full or with
a trunkload of things, then we know that you're that
you're violating that rule. So you can bring your own
personal ballot, But if you're returning somebody else's, which the
law allows you to do for a disabled Ohio and
(20:53):
if they've designated you to assist them, or if you're
doing it for a family member, you want to take
your your spouse and your and your kids' ballots they're
your adult kids, of course, then you can do that,
but you got to go to the elections officials and
actually present it to them and sign a little attestation
that says I'm not conducting ballot harvesting. This is for
a family member, this is for a disabled Ohio, and
(21:14):
then now they're suing me to try to weaken that
because I think it's clear they want to engage in
ballot harvesting and we're simply not going to allow that
in Ohio.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
And this is one of.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Those why election laws should not be made at the courthouse.
They really should be made at the state House. The
Democrats and their allies from really all over the country,
a lot of deep pocketed special interests are suing me
to try to open the door to ballot harvesting in Ohio.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
We won't have it.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
I think that's the key here, and that's what most
people are saying this. If you're doing this, there's a
reason you're doing this, But just how do you know?
How do you know they're not doing it?
Speaker 4 (21:48):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (21:49):
Well, and again that's why there have to be safeguards
in place. Just trusting people to do the right thing
is not wise administration of elections. And so what we're
doing is, you know, we still have it says in
the law you have the ability to use drop boxes.
I've told the legislature they may want to look at
getting rid of them. I think that in many ways
they're more troubled than they're worth. But my job is
not to write the law, is to execute it. I'm
(22:11):
in an executive office. The law says you have the
ability to use these drop boxes. I just put in
place the rules to make sure that's not being abused.
And that means if people show up at an Ohio
Board of Elections with more than one ballot to put
in the drop box, they may not do so. They
have to put only what their own ballot in the
drop box. If you've got others and you want to,
you know, bring them to the Board of Elections, you
(22:32):
simply got to come to the elections officials and then
sign that little attestation. You know, perfect, but it's the
best we can do to prevent ballot harvesting.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Right if you take away drop boxes, they're going to
say you're suppressing the vote. But I will say that
somehow H and R block seems to get little offices
all over the place when it comes to tax time,
So maybe that's what has to happen. You have to
have it, you have to hand it to a person,
but there's someone there. I mean, I really I think
that elections are that important that we should be focused
on making sure someone is taking that and sees who's
(23:02):
giving it.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
Yeah, it's a false choice that you have to choose
either convenience or security. If you're smart about it, you
can have that balance. We want convenience. All of us
have busy lives. We want to be able to conveniently
cast our ballot. And by the way, we believe in
the power of the people to choose their leaders. And
then so elections should be convenient. We like that, but
they also should be secure. You don't have to choose
one or the other. If you've got smart people administering
(23:25):
your elections, then you can have that balance of making
it both easy to vote and also hard to cheat.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
October seventh is the one year mark of the worst
massacre of the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Twelve hundred
Israelis were murdered and more than two hundred and fifty
taken hostage. The war in Israel rages on today. Israel
and the Jewish people are facing attacks from enemies on
all sides seeking Israel's destruction. The International Fellowship of Christians
(23:52):
and Jews is on the ground providing food, shelter, and
safety to those in need during this crisis. And you
know what they know a life. Lot of this is
coming from Americans. I've heard it from people who are
on the ground. Since the war started. There are reservists
every day Israeli citizens. They've left their families behind to
serve their country, and these soldiers have been injured and
(24:13):
their families need support. Your gift of one hundred and
fifty dollars today helps the Fellowship provide food and other
necessities to those families to help them survive. And thanks
to a generous Fellowship supporter, your gift will be matched
to double the impact. Join us and letting those families
know that listeners like you stand with Israel. Called to
(24:34):
make your one hundred and fifty dollars donation right now
at eight eight eight four eight eight IFCJ that's eight
eight eight four eight eight four three two five, or
go online to support IFCJ dot org to give. That's
one word, support IFCJ dot org. So I will let
(24:55):
you go, but I want to have one more thing
for you. Because our Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson, who
we mentioned was against the Save Act, she's refused to
take RFKF the ballot, which I just want to note
it is funny. She refused to put him on the
ballot initially, so he had to sue to get on,
and now she was refusing to let him off the ballot.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
And this is totally partisan, and multiple judges have written
dissenting opinions saying that this is to alter the election.
She initially, I will just say, she initially tried to
do this and the Court of Appeals was like, no,
he can, it's fine, it's enough time, he can come off. Well,
then she had to get another legal opinion, which I
just think that feels fishy too. If you have your
(25:35):
legal opinion, why do you have to keep going? Why
do you have to keep going?
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Who is she fighting?
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Elections are underway the overseas and military ballots have already
gone out and early voting starting soon, so it's almost
too late to make any more changes.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Yeah, now it is too late, but at the time
it was not too late. And so we look at
this and we say, okay, that was very fishy. We
know that she's been incredibly partisan. One of our former
secretary of state says she's the most partisan secretary of
State the State of Michigan has ever had. But she's
also on multiple occasions come out and said that she's coordinated,
and that's the exact word she uses. She's coordinating with
(26:10):
seven or eight other secretaries of state across the country
to ensure this election is being run appropriately. And when
we see what she's doing in Michigan, that makes us
a little nervous. So do you ever get the sense
that there are partisan secretaries of state in on the
Democrat side that are pushing these rules that you just
talked about because they actually do want to balot harvest?
Speaker 4 (26:32):
Yeah, listen.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
We're all part of a national association called the National
Association of Secretaries of State, and sometimes we get together
in exchange idea and sometimes it's a completely bipartisan thing,
like we've had some good conversations over the years about
some things that we can learn from them on and
vice versa.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
We also have partisan groups.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
I'm the chairman of the Republican Secretaries of State Association nationally,
so I was chosen by my fellow Republican secretaries of state,
and when we get together, we tend to talk about
how do we make sure the election is secure, how
do we combat false information and power voters with accurate information.
I don't know what the Democrats get together and talk
about but I fear that it's sort of more of
(27:10):
the same. How do we continue kicking the can down
the road and not doing the list maintenance that we're
supposed to be doing. How do we convince people that
non citizen voting is not a.
Speaker 4 (27:20):
Problem and we just don't need to take any action
on it.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
But again, I don't know what they talk about when
they get together, but I know what we talk about
as the Republican secretaries.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Well, I once again I will just say I just
I think you're fantastic. You know all of this stuff
in and out. I saw the reaction of people to
you when you were here. I know you ran for
Senate and that is a seat that is ongoing with
Bernie Mourno right now.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
But I just have this sense that you're not done.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
And I know people ask you this all the time,
but what are you looking at in the future, Tittor.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
I appreciate the question, and listen. I'm fully behind my
friend Bernie ma Reno. He was a friend and then
became an opponent. You know how primaries work. But I'm
proud to be painting for him now in my off
duty time. Of course, he is the right man to
beat shared Brown help us take back the US Senate.
US obviously have an important Senate race in Michigan as well.
I think too many people in my line of work,
(28:12):
my current line of work anyway, are focused on the
next thing when they ought to be doing the current
things of like do the job you've got and then
opportunities present themselves. I will say this, I love public service.
My wife would be happy if I came home one
day and say, hey, I'm going to go into the
private sector and I'm going to have a pretty reliable
nine to five kind of job.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
But she knows that my heart is in service.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
That when we met, I was a green break getting
ready to go off to combat, and so she knew
what she was signing up for with me.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
And so I'll look for chances to serve.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
If I have the chance to run for the US
Senate again in the future, would certainly look at that,
or maybe even going to work for the Trump administration.
I wouldn't rule that out, because again, I think if
the president calls on you to serve, then you need
to do that.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
And we know what his mission's going to be.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
It's going to be to make America great again, and
that's something we all should be able to get behind.
So if he tapped me and said, hey, we need
you in DC, well then I'd look at putting my
hip waiters on and heading into the swamp a little
bit as well.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
I love it well, honestly, I cannot tell you, and
I know my audience feels the same. We're so blessed
by the service that you've provided so far. So thank
you for what you've done, and thank you so much,
Secretary Frank Leros, thank you so much for coming on today.
Speaker 4 (29:20):
Thanks Tudor, God bless absolutely, and.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
Thank you all for joining the Tutor Dixon Podcast. Make
sure you catch this episode on iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts, and.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Join us next time on the Tutor Dixon Podcast. Have
a blessing.
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