‘Election Protection’ lawyer takes calls from Ohio and Arkansas voters

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

So America’s Exit Poll. America is a diverse country but I mean, what we’re hearing this morning is incredible, incredible passion at the polls!

[BEEP]

DEAN GOLDMAN:

This is Dean Goldman from Clifton, New Jersey. I set up late, at 8 o’clock expecting a line. I had my reading material with me. There was not one person standing in front of me. I was in and out within two minutes. The people who were there were excited, but there were way too many people who had not showed up.

[TONES]

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

Oh, Dean’s bummed there in Clifton, New Jersey, but tell us your story about voting and who you chose. Call us at 877-8MY-TAKE or email us at mytake@thetakeaway.org.

Adaora Udoji, my co-host, is live at our southern perch down at WCLK in Atlanta.

ADAORA UDOJI:

And there are certainly not any problems of people whizzing through lines around here [LAUGHS]

[LAUGHTER]

– at least not yet.

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

Right.

ADAORA UDOJI:

We were at a couple of precincts this morning and there were steady lines, but people were certainly in line long enough to read a few articles in the newspaper.

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

Well, the question for the electoral infrastructure in America on this day, where turnout may exceed every election since 1908, is, will it work, will it hold. And Jennifer Scullion is a lawyer working for Election Protection, the nation’s largest nonpartisan voter protection coalition. She’s taking calls from Ohio and Arkansas about problems voters are reporting there. Jennifer, thanks for joining us.

JENNIFER SCULLION:

Sure, happy to be here.

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

What are, what are you hearing and how many calls are you getting?

JENNIFER SCULLION:

Well, we’ve gotten, since the line was open, which was before Election Day, the 1-866-OURVOTE line, we’ve gotten more than 2,000 calls. Today, we’ve gotten over 700, just from Ohio alone. And what we’re hearing here are various issues, people’s names not on the rolls, machines not working, polls not being open on time There’s confusion about voter ID laws, confusion about provisional balloting, etc.

ADAORA UDOJI:

Is 700, is that a lot? I mean, it sounds like a lot, but given the kinds of problems that we saw in Ohio in 2004 and in Florida in 2000, just trying to understand the context.

JENNIFER SCULLION:

Yeah, it – it is a lot for the amount of time today. For example, in 2006 we got a total of 1500, I think, calls the whole day. So, so far we have 700 just in the morning. So I think it’s an indication that things are pretty busy out in Ohio today.

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

Any pattern to the malfunctions or the things people are reporting?

JENNIFER SCULLION:

You know, no actual pattern and – but what we see is – unfortunately what we expect, which is just that there are lots of problems all across the state. Ohio’s had a history of really serious election administration problems.

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

So let’s talk about Arkansas. It’s a different kind of state, certainly a different population, and one that is not used to being necessarily in play, as it is suddenly in this election.

JENNIFER SCULLION:

And in Arkansas, we’re actually not hearing very much from Arkansas yet, and cross our fingers, maybe things are going smoothly there. But we haven’t been hearing very much today.

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

Now ?

ADAORA UDOJI:

And so Jen, what can you do? You get these phone calls from Ohio. Are you keeping a log of them? Is there some particular action that you think could be necessary at a certain point, and what’s that threshold?

JENNIFER SCULLION:

Sure. So what we’re doing throughout this hotline is keeping a database of the reports, and to the extent that we can follow up with a Board of Elections or with local election officials, we’re doing that. So we have, in addition to out hotline volunteers, people on the ground.

In Ohio, we have command centers, we have lawyers and non-lawyers in Ohio in a couple of different cities, and they’re able to go to the Board of Elections or go to the polling place and try and resolve the issue.

If, if a poll worker is not correctly informed, for example, giving out misinformation, we try to make sure that they get the correct information and get that corrected.

If ballots are being filled out incorrectly, we go to the Board of Elections and find out how they’re going to process those ballots. Are they going to count them? What are they doing about it?

Machines going down is a really easy issue. We call the Board of Elections and say you’ve got machines down at this precinct, get somebody out there and they’re usually very thankful to hear that from us.

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

Jennifer, is – is most of your work, are the most important part of your work on Election Day, or are you also assembling a record for possible legal challenges, should the election be close and there be ? recounts?

JENNIFER SCULLION:

Sure. Well, you know, the right to vote is, is won and lost on Election Day, so we try to protect it as much as possible on Election Day.

But for example in Ohio there are a number of legal challenges and we’ve been involved in those, trying to get more systemic redress to fix it before it happens the next time. There needs to be some basic planning, some basic training, some basic uniformity that happens, and it hasn’t happened unfortunately in Ohio for many, many years.

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

How worried are you about this? I mean, you’ve been involved in this in a while. I hear the excitement in your voice. This is a very important election, but how worried are you that something really dreadful is going to happen?

JENNIFER SCULLION:

Well, we [LAUGHS] ? it’s sort of a strange position to be in. You absolutely hope for the best but we are very concerned that there could be some major breakdowns, especially as, as the lines build up during the day.

We’re already starting to hear from voters that there are lines building up, nothing excessive at this point is our understanding, but they tend to get worse as the day goes on. We’ve certainly seen that in Ohio. In 2004, you may recall, there were lines of four and seven and twelve hours long.

ADAORA UDOJI:

Oh yeah, oh yeah.

JENNIFER SCULLION:

So ? so, so, unfortunately that – we are expecting that. There were some reports before the election, where counties were trying to plan how many machines do we need, how many paper ballots, and even there officials and experts were saying, we’re expecting really long lines, just give ?em what we have. So with that, we on – we’re going to be on the lookout to make sure it’s just long lines and nothing worse.

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

Limited discretion in those counties also, to keep the polls open to compensate, so the time is really important. Jennifer Scullion is a lawyer for Proskauer Rose, a pro-bono attorney involved in election monitoring all around the country.

[FROM ?THE MUSIC MAN? HAROLD & TOWNSPEOPLE SINGING]

The movement or the institution is Election Protection, the nation’s largest nonpartisan voter protection coalition.

[CLIP FROM ?THE MUSIC MAN?]:

HAROLD:

Remember the Maine, Plymouth Rock and the Golden Rule!

[TOWNSPEOPLE SINGING]

HAROLD:

[SINGS] Oh-oh, we got trouble, we’re in terrible, terrible trouble. That game with the fifteen numbered balls is the devil’s tool.

TOWNSPEOPLE:

The Devil’s tool!

HAROLD:

Oh yes, we got trouble, trouble, trouble ?

[TOWNSPEOPLE SINGING]

With a ?T?! Gotta rhyme it with ?P? and that stands for Pool!!!

[CHORUS] [MUSIC OUT]