November 4, 2025 • 11 mins
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose says "Very!" He gives tips on how you can get the right information so you can get out and vote!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Election day, and a lot of people are like, I'm
not interested in this one, and I'll set out and
maybe way to midterms. Everybody likes midterms elections. Everybody likes
presidential elections. I've been saying for the last couple of days,
these are the elections that are important when you're doing
you know, the board of trustee county, you know, commissioners,
(00:21):
township trustees, board of school boards, city councils, clerks of courts, judges,
the people that actually have direct impact on your community.
And you're like, You're still like, you know, Mike, I
don't know these people. I don't know how much they
affect me day to day. Okay, I understand that I
used to think that way. How about this, how about
(00:41):
voting on things that affect your paycheck? Oh no, okay,
talk to me about that. These would be the levies
and the bonds, which typically are affect your property tax.
And there's a lot of push there to rain that
in because property tax has only gone one direction and
it's not a good one. I myself, as an Italian,
(01:03):
I want to get to know judges, so I'm voting
for the right ones.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
You know, I can't see myself from one. Yeah, come
back to my chambers.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Let's talk about Oh, we need to have a sit down.
I didn't vote the bonds and the levees, and I
hear a levee and I usually have a red flag.
I generally, generally speaking, this is just me. Don't vote
for levees. I have in the past, depending on the details.
(01:33):
But levees are used to fund ongoing operational, day to
day expenses. So a school levee, you know, your teacher salaries,
your utilities, maintenance supplies. Think of levees as like going
to the grocery store once a week. Short term levees
usually last three to five years. You go to the
grocery store, you get groceries for the week and the weekend.
(01:55):
Right where bonds are used to fund capital projects bigger,
they're more of an investment. Bonds are that's like equivalent
to going out and getting a mortgage. Think about it
that way. Bonds are, you know, twenty thirty years their loans.
The money is borrowed and repaid over time and again
probably coming out of property taxes, but it's still money
(02:19):
that's coming out of your paycheck. If it's tied to
a property tax. And then you got to ask are
these needs or are these wants? When you're voting for
levies or bonds, needs or wants. You know, when it
comes to schools and I see levees and we just
can't pay our teachers, Well, have you been responsible with
(02:43):
your have you operated within a budget? You see a
lot of these people don't. They're not business people. They
don't know how to operate within a budget, and they
spend and then they go to the taxpayers and they say, well,
we need some more money. It's like the taxpayers, we're
tapped out, bro, we are tapped out. Manage your budget
better and then you don't have to come every couple
(03:04):
of years looking for money. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
I have with the tapped out bro part. I'm taped out.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
If you're like you as a taxpayer, I'm tapped out, bro,
Stop asking me for money please, I'm trying to pay
my bills.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Here wee gns the argument, I'm out. No, No, you're
not trying to be real. I know. And then again
with schools, and we're going to get to Frank LeRose
here in a second. With schools, you have to also
ask what is your ROI in that community. Are your
schools performing? Are those kids ready to take the next step?
Are the elementary schools ready? Kids ready for middle and
(03:42):
middle ready for high school? And high school kids ready
for college? Are they graduating at a good rate? We
already have a headache. I'm with you, though, you know
what I mean. Like in the case of Columbus schools,
I mean, the graduation rate is improved slightly, but it's
still pretty dismal. You're not getting get ROI there, and
they're fifty million in the hole. They got to start cutting.
It tells me that somebody somewhere is irresponsible with spending.
(04:03):
It's not a revenue problem. Is its expense problem? Entirely possible.
And that's that's the hell. I'm gonna sit there and
die on. So again, you have the opportunity today to
go and vote yourself a tax increase depending on the
levy and the bond. Do your research, do your research
on these all right, let's go over to the Legacy
Retirement Group dot com phone line check in with Ohio
(04:24):
Secretary of State Frank LeRose on election day. Frank, it's
a busy day. Thanks for making time for us. How
are you, my friend?
Speaker 3 (04:31):
I'm doing well. I couldn't help but listen in on
your conversation, bro, and I agree with the I agree
with the tapped out part. Listen, this is why we
need the doge mentality at the local government level. I
think that the State Auditor's Office has something to do
with that, but we can talk about that on another day.
Today's election day, and we're excited. Listen. Polls have been
(04:53):
open for what an hour and a half now at
this point, and you know, we're making sure that everybody
has a smooth and convenient experience, also a secure and
honest election here in Ohio. You're not going to find
any lines. And these are the elections that truly make
a difference. We've had this interesting phenomenon over the last yeah,
(05:14):
seven years that I've been in this office. We have
massive turnout on the even number years like twenty twenty,
twenty twenty two, twenty twenty four all broke records. And
so this nonsense from the left about me trying to
suppress the vote. If that's my objective, I am really
bad at it to suppress anything. We've had massive turnout
in Ohio. But then you look at the odd number
(05:36):
of years like twenty twenty five and you end up
with a really small turnout. It's a matter of making
sure people know how much of a difference local government
makes in your life and how easy it is to vote.
So there's no reason not to.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Well, Frank, we are lucky to have you in the
role that you are in as Ohio Secretary State and
the person that runs the elections in the state of
Ohio in your predecessor credit due to now Senator John
Housted as well well. The elections in the state are
they should be an example nationwide on how to do
it because other states have chronic issues with fraud, irregularities,
(06:09):
a confusion on election day.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
So what are you.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Doing differently in the state of Ohio to make to
make sure that we have good, clean, easy simple elections?
Speaker 3 (06:20):
You know, it's it's a number of things. One thing
that gets overlooked is just good distinct planning, thinking about
what can go wrong, mitigating so that it doesn't. I've
used the example as an Army Green beret when we
do mission planning. It's not this Hollywood montage of just
grab guns, jumping trucks, go shoot bad guys. It's way
(06:40):
more boring than that. It's ours at the dryer race board,
thinking of everything that can go south and then putting
in a plan to be in a plan see so
that it doesn't. And that's the kind of approach that
we've taken to planning for election day. We've got from
six thirty am until seven thirty pm to make sure
that every voice, legal, registered voice can be heard in
our elections, and we're going to make sure that nothing
(07:02):
can take that show off the road. And that comes
down to the planning that we do with our emergency
management agencies across the state, our county sheriffs, and of
course our public safety professionals at all levels. It also
comes down to enforcing the law and making sure that
when people break the law, they face consequences for it.
I think you probably saw just recently, I referred just
(07:23):
over a thousand cases of suspected voter fraud to the
federal government, to the US Department of Justice. And that's
a small number out of eight nearly eight million registered voters,
millions of people participating in every election. But when somebody
breaks the law, they should face consequences for it. It
things like list maintenance, and again this doesn't necessarily sound
(07:43):
like the sexiest thing all the time. But we take
dead people off the voter rolls every month. We make
sure that non citizens cannot be registered to vote. We
make sure that when somebody moves their address gets updated.
That's a lot of work, but we do it. And
in Ohio everything that we do is completely bipartisan. If
you walk into your voting location today, and I hope
you do, you're going to see Democrats and Republicans working
(08:05):
together in a patriotic way to deliver what Ohilands expect,
and that is an election where it's both easy to
vote and hard to cheat. You don't have to pick
one or the other. We make it easy and we
also make it honest.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
By the way, Frank, we don't mention it every time
that we have you on thank you for your service.
I don't say it enough. I appreciate your service to
this country in the US military. It means a lot.
Frank LeRose, Secretary of State Ohio. So let's talk about
procedurally today. Polls we're open until seven thirty. I get
to the polls well, first of all, if I want
to think, if I don't know where my polling place is,
(08:36):
where can I check that.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Yeah, your trusted source for everything you need to know
to be informed today is our website vote ohio dot gov,
regardless of what county you live, and you can get
all the information there at vote ohio dot gov. That
includes your polling location. Make sure you're going to the
right spot. That includes the list of acceptable IDs. For
most of us, it's just our state idea or driver's license.
But if you have a military idea in your pocket,
(08:59):
like I do, you could use that or a passport,
so all the idea requirements. The other thing is, and
this comes up especially this year, because when I run
into people that say, yeah, I don't know if I'm
going to vote in this local election because I don't
know enough. I don't want to guess. I feel like
I'm not informed enough. Well that's no good excuse either.
Right there on our website, you can look at print
(09:20):
off what it's called the sample ballot. You click on there,
you're going to see everything that's on your ballot. You
can cheat on the test, you can do your research
ahead of time. Laurena and I did this last night.
We put the kids to bed, I printed off our
sample ballot. We sat there at the kitchen table, and
we talked about our choices, how we're going to vote
for local candidates, levies, all that kind of stuff. And
(09:41):
so when Laurena and I each go to vote today,
we've made our choices, We've done our research ahead of time,
and we were well informed about the process. Vote Ohio
dot gov is the place for all that info.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Vote Ohio dot gov, got it. And you do need
to show a photo idea, as you mentioned, and if
you roll up to your polling place, they can can't.
You can't campaign. What is it with one hundred yards
or one hundred feet within a polling place?
Speaker 3 (10:06):
It is one hundred feet from the polling location. We
call that the neutral zone. And it's a unique kind
of a spot because, if you think about it, it's
the only place where really the First Amendments not fully
in effect. You cannot campaign within that polling location because
it is a specially designated spot just for voting. Outside
(10:26):
of that, you can pass out flyers, you can hold signs,
you can support your favorite candidate. Inside the polling location,
you're just there to vote, no campaigning.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
And if somebody sees something fishy going on at their
polling location today, some sort of irregularity or their experience
wasn't as as simple and clean as that they had
hoped or that they had been used to. Where can
they let you know about that?
Speaker 3 (10:45):
So the first thing they should do is they should
report it to their voting location manager, that is the
person in charge of that location, and they probably are
best equipped to deal with it right then and there, okay,
And that gives you the chance to make sure that
things are solved right at the local level. If you
need to report it to us, there is a tip
(11:07):
line on our website. You can call eight seven seven
SOS Ohio. That's the Ohio Secretary of State hotline eight
seven seven SOS Ohio if you need to report something
to us. But again, in ninety nine percent of the cases,
if something's happening that's at a whack, talk to that
voting location manager. They'll be able to solve the problem
right there. If they don't solve the problem, then give
(11:27):
us give us a ring.
Election day, and a lot of people are like, I'm
not interested in this one, and I'll set out and
maybe way to midterms. Everybody likes midterms elections. Everybody likes
presidential elections. I've been saying for the last couple of days,
these are the elections that are important when you're doing
you know, the board of trustee county, you know, commissioners,
(00:21):
township trustees, board of school boards, city councils, clerks of courts, judges,
the people that actually have direct impact on your community.
And you're like, You're still like, you know, Mike, I
don't know these people. I don't know how much they
affect me day to day. Okay, I understand that I
used to think that way. How about this, how about
(00:41):
voting on things that affect your paycheck? Oh no, okay,
talk to me about that. These would be the levies
and the bonds, which typically are affect your property tax.
And there's a lot of push there to rain that
in because property tax has only gone one direction and
it's not a good one. I myself, as an Italian,
(01:03):
I want to get to know judges, so I'm voting
for the right ones.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
You know, I can't see myself from one. Yeah, come
back to my chambers.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Let's talk about Oh, we need to have a sit down.
I didn't vote the bonds and the levees, and I
hear a levee and I usually have a red flag.
I generally, generally speaking, this is just me. Don't vote
for levees. I have in the past, depending on the details.
(01:33):
But levees are used to fund ongoing operational, day to
day expenses. So a school levee, you know, your teacher salaries,
your utilities, maintenance supplies. Think of levees as like going
to the grocery store once a week. Short term levees
usually last three to five years. You go to the
grocery store, you get groceries for the week and the weekend.
(01:55):
Right where bonds are used to fund capital projects bigger,
they're more of an investment. Bonds are that's like equivalent
to going out and getting a mortgage. Think about it
that way. Bonds are, you know, twenty thirty years their loans.
The money is borrowed and repaid over time and again
probably coming out of property taxes, but it's still money
(02:19):
that's coming out of your paycheck. If it's tied to
a property tax. And then you got to ask are
these needs or are these wants? When you're voting for
levies or bonds, needs or wants. You know, when it
comes to schools and I see levees and we just
can't pay our teachers, Well, have you been responsible with
(02:43):
your have you operated within a budget? You see a
lot of these people don't. They're not business people. They
don't know how to operate within a budget, and they
spend and then they go to the taxpayers and they say, well,
we need some more money. It's like the taxpayers, we're
tapped out, bro, we are tapped out. Manage your budget
better and then you don't have to come every couple
(03:04):
of years looking for money. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
I have with the tapped out bro part. I'm taped out.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
If you're like you as a taxpayer, I'm tapped out, bro,
Stop asking me for money please, I'm trying to pay
my bills.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Here wee gns the argument, I'm out. No, No, you're
not trying to be real. I know. And then again
with schools, and we're going to get to Frank LeRose
here in a second. With schools, you have to also
ask what is your ROI in that community. Are your
schools performing? Are those kids ready to take the next step?
Are the elementary schools ready? Kids ready for middle and
(03:42):
middle ready for high school? And high school kids ready
for college? Are they graduating at a good rate? We
already have a headache. I'm with you, though, you know
what I mean. Like in the case of Columbus schools,
I mean, the graduation rate is improved slightly, but it's
still pretty dismal. You're not getting get ROI there, and
they're fifty million in the hole. They got to start cutting.
It tells me that somebody somewhere is irresponsible with spending.
(04:03):
It's not a revenue problem. Is its expense problem? Entirely possible.
And that's that's the hell. I'm gonna sit there and
die on. So again, you have the opportunity today to
go and vote yourself a tax increase depending on the
levy and the bond. Do your research, do your research
on these all right, let's go over to the Legacy
Retirement Group dot com phone line check in with Ohio
(04:24):
Secretary of State Frank LeRose on election day. Frank, it's
a busy day. Thanks for making time for us. How
are you, my friend?
Speaker 3 (04:31):
I'm doing well. I couldn't help but listen in on
your conversation, bro, and I agree with the I agree
with the tapped out part. Listen, this is why we
need the doge mentality at the local government level. I
think that the State Auditor's Office has something to do
with that, but we can talk about that on another day.
Today's election day, and we're excited. Listen. Polls have been
(04:53):
open for what an hour and a half now at
this point, and you know, we're making sure that everybody
has a smooth and convenient experience, also a secure and
honest election here in Ohio. You're not going to find
any lines. And these are the elections that truly make
a difference. We've had this interesting phenomenon over the last yeah,
(05:14):
seven years that I've been in this office. We have
massive turnout on the even number years like twenty twenty,
twenty twenty two, twenty twenty four all broke records. And
so this nonsense from the left about me trying to
suppress the vote. If that's my objective, I am really
bad at it to suppress anything. We've had massive turnout
in Ohio. But then you look at the odd number
(05:36):
of years like twenty twenty five and you end up
with a really small turnout. It's a matter of making
sure people know how much of a difference local government
makes in your life and how easy it is to vote.
So there's no reason not to.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Well, Frank, we are lucky to have you in the
role that you are in as Ohio Secretary State and
the person that runs the elections in the state of
Ohio in your predecessor credit due to now Senator John
Housted as well well. The elections in the state are
they should be an example nationwide on how to do
it because other states have chronic issues with fraud, irregularities,
(06:09):
a confusion on election day.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
So what are you.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Doing differently in the state of Ohio to make to
make sure that we have good, clean, easy simple elections?
Speaker 3 (06:20):
You know, it's it's a number of things. One thing
that gets overlooked is just good distinct planning, thinking about
what can go wrong, mitigating so that it doesn't. I've
used the example as an Army Green beret when we
do mission planning. It's not this Hollywood montage of just
grab guns, jumping trucks, go shoot bad guys. It's way
(06:40):
more boring than that. It's ours at the dryer race board,
thinking of everything that can go south and then putting
in a plan to be in a plan see so
that it doesn't. And that's the kind of approach that
we've taken to planning for election day. We've got from
six thirty am until seven thirty pm to make sure
that every voice, legal, registered voice can be heard in
our elections, and we're going to make sure that nothing
(07:02):
can take that show off the road. And that comes
down to the planning that we do with our emergency
management agencies across the state, our county sheriffs, and of
course our public safety professionals at all levels. It also
comes down to enforcing the law and making sure that
when people break the law, they face consequences for it.
I think you probably saw just recently, I referred just
(07:23):
over a thousand cases of suspected voter fraud to the
federal government, to the US Department of Justice. And that's
a small number out of eight nearly eight million registered voters,
millions of people participating in every election. But when somebody
breaks the law, they should face consequences for it. It
things like list maintenance, and again this doesn't necessarily sound
(07:43):
like the sexiest thing all the time. But we take
dead people off the voter rolls every month. We make
sure that non citizens cannot be registered to vote. We
make sure that when somebody moves their address gets updated.
That's a lot of work, but we do it. And
in Ohio everything that we do is completely bipartisan. If
you walk into your voting location today, and I hope
you do, you're going to see Democrats and Republicans working
(08:05):
together in a patriotic way to deliver what Ohilands expect,
and that is an election where it's both easy to
vote and hard to cheat. You don't have to pick
one or the other. We make it easy and we
also make it honest.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
By the way, Frank, we don't mention it every time
that we have you on thank you for your service.
I don't say it enough. I appreciate your service to
this country in the US military. It means a lot.
Frank LeRose, Secretary of State Ohio. So let's talk about
procedurally today. Polls we're open until seven thirty. I get
to the polls well, first of all, if I want
to think, if I don't know where my polling place is,
(08:36):
where can I check that.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Yeah, your trusted source for everything you need to know
to be informed today is our website vote ohio dot gov,
regardless of what county you live, and you can get
all the information there at vote ohio dot gov. That
includes your polling location. Make sure you're going to the
right spot. That includes the list of acceptable IDs. For
most of us, it's just our state idea or driver's license.
But if you have a military idea in your pocket,
(08:59):
like I do, you could use that or a passport,
so all the idea requirements. The other thing is, and
this comes up especially this year, because when I run
into people that say, yeah, I don't know if I'm
going to vote in this local election because I don't
know enough. I don't want to guess. I feel like
I'm not informed enough. Well that's no good excuse either.
Right there on our website, you can look at print
(09:20):
off what it's called the sample ballot. You click on there,
you're going to see everything that's on your ballot. You
can cheat on the test, you can do your research
ahead of time. Laurena and I did this last night.
We put the kids to bed, I printed off our
sample ballot. We sat there at the kitchen table, and
we talked about our choices, how we're going to vote
for local candidates, levies, all that kind of stuff. And
(09:41):
so when Laurena and I each go to vote today,
we've made our choices, We've done our research ahead of time,
and we were well informed about the process. Vote Ohio
dot gov is the place for all that info.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Vote Ohio dot gov, got it. And you do need
to show a photo idea, as you mentioned, and if
you roll up to your polling place, they can can't.
You can't campaign. What is it with one hundred yards
or one hundred feet within a polling place?
Speaker 3 (10:06):
It is one hundred feet from the polling location. We
call that the neutral zone. And it's a unique kind
of a spot because, if you think about it, it's
the only place where really the First Amendments not fully
in effect. You cannot campaign within that polling location because
it is a specially designated spot just for voting. Outside
(10:26):
of that, you can pass out flyers, you can hold signs,
you can support your favorite candidate. Inside the polling location,
you're just there to vote, no campaigning.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
And if somebody sees something fishy going on at their
polling location today, some sort of irregularity or their experience
wasn't as as simple and clean as that they had
hoped or that they had been used to. Where can
they let you know about that?
Speaker 3 (10:45):
So the first thing they should do is they should
report it to their voting location manager, that is the
person in charge of that location, and they probably are
best equipped to deal with it right then and there, okay,
And that gives you the chance to make sure that
things are solved right at the local level. If you
need to report it to us, there is a tip
(11:07):
line on our website. You can call eight seven seven
SOS Ohio. That's the Ohio Secretary of State hotline eight
seven seven SOS Ohio if you need to report something
to us. But again, in ninety nine percent of the cases,
if something's happening that's at a whack, talk to that
voting location manager. They'll be able to solve the problem
right there. If they don't solve the problem, then give
(11:27):
us give us a ring.
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