Marcell Strbich for Sec of State

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I gotta get Israel to calm down. Now, the latest
news we're on the verge of real piece in the
Middle East, and your latest opinions. I trust what President
Trump is doing. Fifty five krs the talk station DATO five.
Here at fifty five kr city talk station, Brian Thomas
wishing everyone a very happy Wednesday, and in studio, welcome
Marcel Sturbadge. He is running for Secretary of State here

(00:22):
in the state of Ohio. Marcel, it's always great to
see you. Welcome back. It's been a while.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
It's been good. Yeah, it's been since September. We had
some issues then and we still have.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Some we do and you're running to fix those issues.
I understand. Sturbud st r b I c H four
Ohio f O R. Sturbadgefour Ohio dot coms website where
you can check out what he's all about. And oh
my god, and thank you for your service to our country.
What an amazing service record you have. I mean the
number of decorations and award you receive, you served in combat,

(00:53):
just it's just an amazing thing.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Thank you, An. The privilege is all mine. My parents
came to this country from you. Europe, and it was
a pleasure to serve our country. And I want to
serve as well Ohioans, all Ohioans, and defend these election
systems well.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
And that's a critical role of the Secretary of State
is chief Elections offer officer here in the state of Ohio.
Are you drawn to run to this position because you
see problems that you're capable of fixing or that you
have solutions to fix? I mean, what's your motivation on this?

Speaker 2 (01:23):
That's exactly right. You know, you would think coming out
of the military for twenty years, it's time to just reset.
Was forever wars we fought, that fought our nation's battles.
But the fact of the matter is when you look
at our system, we've lost trust in it. And for
in fact, just prior to our November election, sixty six
percent of Americans we're questioning whether it would trust in

(01:44):
the honesty of the result of that election. And I
think that's the kind of a crisis that we have
to look at and ask ourselves fundamentally, how are we drifting?
And when I put my analysis on this issue, and
I studied our election system deeply in the last two years,
did a number of call to actions. I went out,
I tried to pass and work with the legislature as
a citizen advocate, which is very unusual as a volunteer,

(02:07):
and put forward enhanced verifiability for voters. I looked at
the citizenship issue with verification to lack thereof, and I
even looked at the cybersecurity, which is a specialty in
a background that I had working at the Pentagon. I said,
this is not a system that I could understand. Whether
you're a Republican or a Democrat. You're asking yourself, you know,
with these global hacks with Microsoft that and their software servers.

(02:30):
This is recent and you know we're using these services,
and so we can't just continue to drift down here
and expect just to keep purchasing and acquiring spending more
money on cybersecurity. I think we have to revamp and
relook at all the variables of it, and I have
some very concrete solutions. So I'm very much an issue
based candidate and I have an understanding of the system

(02:51):
like nobody else in this race.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
Right now. Well, that's all wonderful. By way of background.
One of the areas that I always hear about and
it sounds so you know, conspiracy theory electronic voting, and
everyone's raising the specter what's going on behind the scenes
and the software? How do I know them? My my
vote has been accurately collected. You read articles from other
jurisdictions and other townships and other states, and you find

(03:14):
out that, wow, isn't that strange. One minute there's you know,
a thousand votes, and then five minutes later, there's actually
fifteen hundred votes. How did that happen? Where did this
late night dump come from? As my vote been accurately
recorded by the software? Who made the software? Who is
looking into that? These are all questions that I hear
all the time, and yet I don't know anything about

(03:35):
what's going on behind the scenes. I have no personal
understanding of how the software has developed, who's controlling it,
and if anything could be modified or changed.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
And what I can say to that is, you know,
for the last twenty years, when we have computerized this
entire infrastructure of elections, what we'd failed to do is
upfront create independent security assessment review for those various systems,
so there's not really a third party involved. The vendor
really drives the entire process. The Secretary of State validates it.
But that's kind of a self auditing function. And so

(04:05):
when we look at it, how much is this costing us?
And what's happened in Ohio in particular, in just the
last six years, we went from having an eighteen million
dollar budget in the Secretary of State's office to a
sixty five million dollar bush and that budget has been
growing because we're having to add these cybersecurity costs which
now are no longer being funded by the federal government,

(04:25):
so now our county commissioners are baring that cost. And
so this whole system is being relooked at. And when
you look at this administration, Brian President Trump has called
for decertifying some of these systems because rightfully so the
technologies from the early two thousands. In the early two thousands,
there was not even iPhones, So you don't even have
the ability to meet the degree of what we would

(04:47):
call zero day threats that are present. And I'll be honest,
all of these systems are designed to components, the software developers,
the suppliers from overseas. So why can't we get a
supply chain in the U the United States? If this
is truly critical infrastructure, if we're truly going to protect
that and give people assuredness and confidence, which they deserve.

(05:08):
That's why I'm advocating to go back from a marketing
device to pre printed, hand markable paper ballots. They are unhackable,
they're the most transparent, that cost about a tenth and
Ohio is already doing it in some counties. I think
we need to be a leading state and go back
to that.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
And I have no argument with that. Conceptually, what is
the what are the counterpoints to that? Why wouldn't we
do that if we can, in fact restore the confidence
in the vote and the integrity of the vote by
going that route.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
I think the fallacy that we have is that we've
already spent tens of millions of dollars, so we use
the sunk cost argument. You know, if we have them,
why shouldn't we use them. Well, if you can't secure
them past a two thousand and five security control level,
then you really can't have that degree of confidence and right,
you know, so what have we done? We have added
poll book e poll books, We've got other things. You know.
In Ohio this last selection, we had to suspend the

(05:59):
use of electronic poll books, which are checking devices that
are on polepads, and the reason we had to do
that in part is because the routers have been compromised
and had a cyber vulnerability exposure event. So the very
infrastructure by which we use in the connectivity of these systems,
which we're told they're not connected to the Internet, but
the pullbooks are connected in many ways. So that's just

(06:21):
one facet of what I could offer as a Secretary
of State is I've worked with information systems technology. I've
worked at the private sector to secure the Pentagon's top
of the line, modern modern system equipment. And the truth
is a lot of our challenges aren't just in the
realm of cybersecurity. We're failing to properly share information between
the Secretary of State's office and the Board of Elections,

(06:42):
as simple information as identity and citizenship. And that's another
area of weakness that we.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
Have that's not shared.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
No, it's not because the way we have it set
up right now, because in part the federal government, we
accept all voter registration applications and then we check after
the fact. So nowhere is that whether you're talking banking,
whether you're talking you would never get a loan or
transact if you weren't qualified or eligible exactly. And so
with respect to the election systems, we have eight point

(07:09):
two million registered voters, and those eight point two million
registered voters cannot be qualified for eligibility just by the
Board of Elections. So we use the Secretary of State
and our Bureau of Motor Vehicles to do this. But
why couldn't the Secretary of State ensure that the Board
of Elections has access to that official data? And that's
where the battle is and that's where I'll take Ohio

(07:29):
to ensure proper information sharing.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
Now, that doesn't sound like a challenging ask or so,
it sounds like something that should already be in place.
So what hurdles need to be overcome to get something
so seemingly important and to ensure that illegals are not
voting in our elections? What are not allowed to do?

Speaker 3 (07:50):
Well?

Speaker 2 (07:50):
It all starts with process and being the fact that
I've served in the military and organizational leadership level, you
look at every process and you break it down. And
that's what I've done in an exhaustive analysis of our
election laws or policies or procedures. And I think we
could cut down on the risk and start looking at
this Brian from a risk management threat assessment standpoint. That's
the difference between I think what a political secretary of

(08:11):
state doesn't do because they see that position as a
stepping stone because as you know, how many how many
times does a secretary of state try to run for
Senate or governor. My focus is just to do this job.
I don't need to rotate and I don't need to
stay in this position. What I need to do is
I need to address and fix the issues.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
Marcel Sturbage my guest in studio today again. You can
find them online at does Sturbage strbich four fo r
sturbagefoohio dot com. Check out his policies and admire his
unbelievably impressive military background. They would take it a little
slightly early break, we'll bring back Marcell. We'll talk about
more what he wants to accomplish when he becomes secretary

(08:49):
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Speaker 2 (09:48):
This is fifty five KRC an iHeartRadio station.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
Here is your channel nine first one on one forecasts.
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on fifty five KR. See the talk station.

Speaker 1 (10:55):
Eighteen fifty fifth KR. See the talk station Marshall Starbage
and study right for Secretary of State here in the
state of behind has got good idea as an election
integrities background certainly lends itself to that role, most notably,
as he's demonstrated in his brief comments earlier, his tech abilities.
He's very savvy when it comes to technology and maybe

(11:16):
iron out things. In terms of our concerns over the election,
are the ballots that we cast? What other motivations and reasons?
What are the policies are you running on for your
campaign as Secretary of State?

Speaker 2 (11:26):
Marcel Yeah, Well, first and foremost, you know, I'm raising
a family here in Ohio to six and eight, and
I want them to have a system that can trust
and believe in. And I don't want any type of controversies.
You know, elections have become overly complicated, costly controversial. That
doesn't have to be that way. Some of the things
that I would propose up front are really common sense based.
First of all, voter idea is supported by eighty four

(11:48):
percent of Americans, and when it comes to Ohio's elections,
voter idea only applies if you vote in person. So
what that means is that for the one million Ohioans
who are who have been casting their ballots by mail,
in they are not required by law to cast a
or to submit a copy of a photo I d
we should quickly close that loophole that we did when

(12:08):
we passed our original voter ID bill, and we argue
against it because of convenience. Well, there are so many
opportunities for people to get a copy of a photo
ID to include when they obtain their identity credentials.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
Well, you're gonna, I hate to say this out loud,
it come September. You're gonna need a photo ID to
prove your age when surfing porn sites here in Ohio.
That's a great point.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
Yes, they passed that legislation, Bride, and so this is
a no brainer and we need we need to go
right to that. I think the other area, as I
talked about, preprinted, hand marketable paper ballots should be the
norm and the primary method by which we cast ballots.
It will save our counties tons and tons of money
when it comes to eligibility verification checking people. Let's give

(12:55):
our Board of Elections both the means and the mandate
to check for citizenship, identity, and residency. Give them the
same access that the Secretary of State has. So those
are three really upfront common sense approaches. I would further
advocate for a couple areas to reduce the likelihood of
third party groups. I don't know if you recall this, Brian,
when I was on your show last year and in

(13:15):
Hamilton County, we had these third party voter engagement organizations.
And while our administration touts the fact that we've stopped
dark money from interfering in our elections, that doesn't mean
that we've stopped nonprofits or for profits from falsely registering people.
And here in Hamilton they falsely registered canvassers did hundreds
of people last year. Well, they didn't close that issue

(13:36):
or that loophole. It still exists. So we have to
closely look at what role, if any voter engagement organizations
that are paying canvassers should play. Really, there's no reason
we have online registration at this point. We have a
number of agencies to register us. Why are we adding risk?
And then we need to look at instead of having
twenty eight in person voting days, which is a logistical burden,

(13:58):
it's a cost burden. I would like to see us
and I would commit to working toward what the administration
and White House has said, which is let's get toward
a same day in person voting.

Speaker 1 (14:08):
With that said, for.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
People who do work and it's untenable for them to
get to the polling location like they're confined disabled, let's
say they're poll workers that day. We'll go to an
exception based mail in ballot system, so having a valid excuse,
still allowing twenty eight days of early valid excuse mail
in voting. I think if we paired those two close

(14:30):
the voter id loophole and we address the ability of
a Board of Elections to actually verifying valid a people
up front, we would be hitting on all cords and
we would really reduce the risk that bad actors would
take advantage of this thirty day period. And I think
all of those are within the realm of four years
of a Secretary of State who has the will to
do this, and I am the person.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
Today and a governor who shares your vision.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
Exactly, the governor who's pursuing actually enhancing civic education wanting
to introduce for example, because this governor to be Ramaswami
wanting to introduce a citizens Service exam for twelfth graders, well,
I would pair his proposal up by introducing a curriculum
post election where students can actually participate in a hand

(15:16):
counting exercise using the vote casts prior in that election,
so that they can have some familiarity with what that is.
I think the reason we're having so few people participating
in part in these processes is they don't have familiarity
or buy in. And I think if we start to
get people involved in more public involvement at the polling
location besides the computerized the heavy dependence on computerized casting,

(15:40):
I think we would start to open the minds of
a lot of young people, paired with his policies, and
we could do some really good things and galvanizing this
young generation to care again about voting and about democracy
and about what it means to be a citizen. So
I think that Governor Ramaswami and a Secretary of State
Marcel Sturbage would work hand in glove to be able
to enact these changes. And that's where I think we

(16:01):
get back to this state of excellence mindset.

Speaker 1 (16:04):
Well. I know, granting authority to do business in Ohio
is one of the jobs of Secretary of State. In Ramaswami,
I mean, he talks a great game in terms of
getting making Ohio the number one destination for new businesses.
I love his energy policy, making Ohio the leading producer
of energy. Small nuke reactors, for example, provide an abundance electricity.
We could be a real powerhouse. What can the Secretary
of State's office do if you were there to help

(16:27):
Ramaswami and the rest of Ohio fulfill that goal.

Speaker 2 (16:30):
Well, we would certainly work together. In the Secretary of
State's Business Services Division is where the rubber meets the
road for business licensing and LLC and corporation. So making
sure that that process is streamlined, that it's transparent. Let's
say you're a first time business owner. That could be
arduous to figure out how to go through the filing.
So to ensure that there's information system technology we could

(16:51):
adopt that can allow you to see where your application
is in the process, that'd be nice.

Speaker 1 (16:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
And so if you're a recurring a business filer or
you know an attorney that's working for another you tend
to understand how to navigate it. But what if you're
a mom and pop right you know now, I will
say there are some guides on those Secretary of State's
website that help people with this. But with that said,
you know, following that process and being able to see
where your application is is an area of improvement that

(17:18):
I would advocate, and working with a Governor Ramaswami, I
would be the facilitating point for a lot of those.
I think we had one hundred thousand business filings so
far this year and we're on tap to double that,
so it's a critical part. It's not something that I
speak as much about because the election systems need a
lot of care and tender, but when it comes to

(17:39):
business services administration, we'll look for improvements there as well.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
Wonderful Marcell sturbagefoohio dot coms where you find them, encourage
you to donate. You're off to a good start in
terms of campaign finance, and congratulations on that. And my
next guest someone I know, you know, Jack Windsor. You've
been on Jack Windsor's Windsor Report quite a few times.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
I have, and he and I helped break open this
a lot of these stories on where we are in
terms of citizenship verification. Last year was a big, big
question as to whether we're on top of that issue.
And he's endorsed this campaign as well. Oh good, Yeah,
a lot of people, like a lot of grassroots and
other folks that really just want to see change and

(18:18):
some new vitality in our executive offices are taking a
strong look and that's why we did raise over two
hundred thousand dollars in six weeks and that's a great
start point. I'm blessed, humbled by the support and I'm
going to work every single day to win this election.
It's in May of twenty twenty.

Speaker 1 (18:34):
Six, so got a little time, a little bit of time.

Speaker 2 (18:37):
But that doesn't you know, when you're not in the system,
you have to do double the work. And again, I'm
motivating and driven to make Ohio better and I don't
need the position, but I want the position because I
want the ability to make positive change. That's why I'm
in this race.

Speaker 1 (18:51):
Thank you for appreciate your enthusiasm. RCEL. You and I
will talk again between now an election. Of course, you're
always welcome here in the morning show. Good luck my
friend again starch Ohio dot com. You can learn more
about his campaign about the man himself coming up a
good friend and Marcelf Jack Winsor, editor in chief the
Isle Press Network. Of course, a couple of those property
tax veto overturns did not go through. We talked earlier

(19:13):
in the program with uh Donovan and Neil from Americans
for Prosperity about the one they did overturn, what of
the other two and what do we have in store
for our future with property taxes? Jack Winsor on that
coming up next eight twenty seven, Right now fifty five KRC,
the talk station of Koway. Fifty five KARC, the Talks