Disability Rights and Voting Access: What Election Officials Need to Know

Voting is a fundamental right — but for many Americans with disabilities, accessing the ballot can still present real challenges. This week, Brooke sits down with former Cobb County, Georgia Elections Director Tate Fall to explore how accessibility shapes election administration. From ADA compliance at polling places to ensuring voters with physical and intellectual disabilities can confidently cast their ballots, Tate shares practical insights from her experience working at the local, state, and national levels, including how election officials can better prepare ahed of Election Day.

Stick around until the end where Tate shares an exciting update about a new series highlighting the voices of election administrators across the country.

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Welcome back to Keepers of our Republic, a new weekly podcast from Keep Our Republic that takes listeners inside the institutions at the heart of American democracy. Every week, Keepers of Our Republic features thoughtful conversations with election administrators and retired federal judges. We explore how elections are really run, discuss why an independent judiciary is essential to a strong republic, and separate fact from fiction in a fast-changing world. Learn more about Keep Our Republic, a nonpartisan nonprofit, at our website, https://keepourrepublic.org 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Our Republic is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization. Since the spring of 2020, we've been doing our part to help keep our republic. We do it through hyper-localized civic education. We talk with Americans through town halls, legal seminars, media briefings, and other events. We know a lot of Americans have a lot of questions about how our elections work, what safeguards are in place, and who actually is working behind the scenes on election night as the votes are being tabulated. And that's why we're really glad you're joining us today. Hopefully we can answer some of those questions.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Welcome back, everyone, to Keepers of Our Republic, a weekly nonpartisan podcast, but we're speaking directly to the often unsung heroes who really make our democracy work, our election administrators and federal judges. My name is Brooke Bergen. I am the special projects manager at Keep Our Republic. And this week I am so excited to be joined by Tate Fall, the former elections director for Cobb County, Georgia. I'm excited to talk to Tate for a couple of reasons. One, she's got a fascinating look into a state that we are increasingly seeing in the headlines as we approach this election year. There's been a lot of change, a lot of confusion down in Georgia, and I'm excited to dive into that with her today. But if you stick around to the end, Tate is also going to be making a special announcement about some changes that we're going to be seeing here on Keepers of Our Republic for the next couple of months. And I'm very excited to get into that with her, but I won't spoil it yet. So welcome to the podcast, Tate, and thanks so much for joining us. Thanks, Brooke. Thanks for having me. Great. And I forgot to mention at the top here, but if you don't already, like and subscribe, follow us. We are available streaming wherever you get your podcasts. And of course, our video podcasts are also posted here on YouTube. So make sure you join us for these weekly conversations. Tate, elections. How did you get involved? And sort of what's your what's your background that got you into this, you know, often overlooked but very important line of work?

SPEAKER_02 2:13

Sure. Great question. I am one of the weird elections people where I actually chose this career. A lot of times when you talk to election administrators, they were in other county offices, or they just kind of came up through the county or the city and it just kind of fell into their lap, or maybe they drew a short straw and then they realized they loved it. I actually studied election administration when I was a grad student at Auburn. So I went to undergrad at Auburn as well. And my undergrad is in rehabilitation and disability studies. And I wanted to do ADA work. So I wanted to work with local governments and help making their buildings compliant with all ADA standards. And I wanted to stay at Auburn for grad school, really to get two more football seasons, which of course were extremely disappointing. But that's being an Auburn fan. So I met with the MPA director at the time, which is Dr. Kathleen Hale, who many people know because she's been with the Election Center. And so she's a familiar face to a lot of election administrators. But she was the MPA director when I started and she sat me down and I told her what I wanted to do. I told her I wanted to do ADA work. Is that something I could do in the MPA program? She was like, that's great. Absolutely. She told me the only open slot they had for a research person in order for my grad school to be free was in elections. And I was like, okay, whatever. Like, I'll just do that and then I'm gonna go do my thing. She said I could do all my research and elections and ADA. I was like, perfect. So my fall semester in grad school was the fall of 2016. So kind of when really everything started to change in local and modern election administration. So I just kind of got bit by the bug and have been in it ever since then. Um I started off staying in Alabama and doing disability advocacy for the protection and advocacy group in Alabama, which was actually out of the law school at the University of Alabama. So lived in enemy territory for a couple of years, but we survived before we moved up to Northern Virginia. And I worked for the Election Assistance Commission for a few years. And then I was the deputy director in Arlington, Virginia, before moving down to Georgia, where I was the director of elections in Cobb County for the past two years. And then my husband and I welcomed our first child last year in October. So I decided to make a pivot and have a little bit more balance in my work and life. And so now I'm working with an organization called Inclusion Solutions, which is a company that kind of goes back to my roots because everything we do is based in accessibility. And so we sell voting booths and bags and all different types of election supplies, but everything is ADA compliant. So that's kind of how the organization started after Hava was passed. So, how can we help election administrators make their polling places ADA compliant? And so I'm really excited to be back in that work. And it's so much fun to get to travel around the country and see all my friends and help them fix the problems that they have and try to come up with different solutions. So it's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

That's so that's so fascinating. And there's a lot to unpack there. And particularly, I do want to dive into some of those ADA compliance and accessibility issues in elections because that's something we haven't really had an opportunity to talk about here before. But as you obviously know, huge issue in elections and something that we do need to start thinking about more openly when it comes to making our elections accessible. Um, so we'll we'll lay, I'm gonna jump all the way back to the beginning to grad school. I won't hold it completely against you because I was raised a Pac-12 girly, although I guess we're big 12 now. Uh, but the first SEC, first and only SEC game I ever went to, I went to a game in Auburn. And I saw I saw, I don't, I don't really know how the terms work, but I think I'm supposed to say like War Eagle? Go War Eagle. Okay, War Eagle. That's it. War Eagle. Okay. I saw the Eagle fly and I was like, I don't know what's happening, but this vibe is ma. I mean, there's nothing like an SEC. It's such a vibe. There's nothing like an SEC game in the South, like when it's pure football season with like 90 degrees out and 100% humidity. Like it was the full, it was the full experience. Uh, so I cannot blame you for wanting to stick around another year uh or two for football seasons. So what um you went into did you go into undergrad thinking ahead to maybe wanting to go into disability and some sort of civic civic work, or was this something you discovered along the way in undergrad?

SPEAKER_02 6:39

So I actually wanted to do speech pathology in undergrad. And so that's why I was in the rehab disability major. Um that was like OTPT speech, was most of the people in there. Um, and then we had a class um about about disability law, and it was taught by um an adjunct professor who I ended up interning for in grad or in undergrad. Um, and he um is a lawyer and he taught us about all the different disability laws and spoke a lot about ADA. And I just remember hearing, sitting in that classroom and hearing about this and thinking, how are there still buildings being built that aren't accessible? Like, still to this day, there are places where, like, if I'm with a friend who's a wheelchair user, they can't like go have a drink with me at this bar because yes, it's really snazzy speakeasy, but you have to go down a set of stairs and they don't have an elevator. And like, what do you want them to use? A service elevator? Come on now, be serious. So I was just like, this is an injustice and I need to fix it. And so I just got really consumed with it and really into it. And like I said, I ended up interning for him and learned a ton and then kind of carried that through into grad school and then throughout my career.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

Yeah, and I mean, it's obviously the speakeasy example, so potent and something that people are really dealing with every day. I have members of my family that have mobility issues, and it's so eye-opening when you see, you know, you shouldn't have to see someone experience it to know it's an issue, but of course, it really impacts you when someone you know or care about is just not able to enter these spaces. And that's a tragedy in and of itself. But then when you pivot and talk about, well, it's not just a bar they can't go into, but now it's affecting how people are able to exercise their fundamental constitutional right to vote, it just makes the stakes so much higher.

SPEAKER_02 8:30

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's interesting when I would, when I was in my first job and I would do a lot of educating to election officials about what the requirements were and why it matters. Because a lot of times I would hear, especially working in Alabama, I, you know, go and I'd help city clerks where they had one precinct or two precincts, and they would say, Well, we don't have anyone here like that. And I had a professor, an undergrad, and she started off as my first class in the rehab major. And she started off by telling us disability is the one people group you can join at any time, right? You're born, you're born a certain race and ethnicity, a socioeconomic class, but disability you can join in an instant. And sometimes it's temporary, right? You break your ankle, you have to be on crutches, you need a, you know, you have knee surgery, you need a snazzy little knee scooter. And sometimes it's more permanent, right? It's more serious. You lose your vision, you lose your ability to walk, you lose your ability to hear. That those are all things that can happen instantly. And so we need to be mindful of that. And so kind of leveling the playing field with saying that helps people understand that just because it's not an issue for me right now, like what you said, it could be. And it's something that we all need to be mindful of because it involves every single person in our community and it touches everyone.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

So, what are some of the common issues that you see with accessibility in elections in your experience? How is this affecting people when they want to do the registration process? And then how is it affecting them when they try to actually go cast their ballot?

SPEAKER_02 9:53

Sure. I think that there's a couple of different groups. So when I was with the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program or the PA in Alabama, um, you know, I worked with both individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities as well as individuals with any type of physical disability. So working with individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities first, it's making sure are you in a guardianship? Did that guardianship inadvertently take away your right to vote? I know in Alabama at least that that's an option, right? And that all guardianships would remove your right to vote. I remember talking to a mom once, she called me and she was sobbing because her daughter had registered to vote and she got a rejection letter stating from the county registrar saying that she was under a guardianship that wouldn't that took away her right to vote. And her mom was like, I only did this for financial and health reasons. If I had known that this would happen, I would have never done this. And so we're able to get it resolved, but it was a huge, you know, thing that she had to do and had to go to the judge. And so working with individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities is really about educating them their rights. You know, if they're questioned, if they bring a support person with them and they're questioned about that. Um, I mean, I had voters that were questioned like, are you even able to vote? Do you even understand? Can you even read? I mean, really, like that's what questions they were being asked, you know?

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Are they being asked that when they when they would go to register, people would make assumptions about it?

SPEAKER_02 11:18

They would go to vote. Like their poll workers would be like, you know, a lot of times it's like it's sometimes it's this narrative of looking for fraud, right? And sometimes it's, you know, our average age of poll workers thinking that they're that they're looking out for that person and that they're doing it out of the goodness of like, well, I hope their parent isn't taking advantage of them. And of course, no one would want that. No one would want to see that happen. Um, but first of all, you can't ask that. That's very illegal. And second of all, it's very demeaning, you know, to assume that. You know, we have so many individuals who have been so, I mean, brilliant in our society that were nonverbal or were low, low functioning in terms of their vocabulary. And that didn't mean that they weren't able to process and understand these things. So working with those groups of individuals is really about their rights, helping them feel prepared by making a plan. Um, so a lot of the voters I worked with, like that were on the autism spectrum, making sure they knew what it would feel like, making sure they knew what it looked like, um, how to how to mark their ballot, what type of pin they're gonna have, those types of things just to help prepare them. So that way they were less overwhelmed or less overstimulated. And then, of course, my voters with physical disabilities, a lot of the issues we saw and we still see today, um, you know, in states where it's handmarked paper ballots, they're still required to have one ADA machine at every polling place. That way an individual can use it. So if they can't mark the ballot individually with a pen, or if they have, if they're blind or low vision and they need to listen to the audio ballot, or if they just want to vote on that ballot, I would always vote on that ballot to make sure the machine was set up, but they wouldn't set up the machine because they would say, Oh, we don't have anyone that votes here that needs that. You know, and so that's that's intimidating and scary. And a lot of times they didn't know how to set it up or they weren't, you know, they weren't trained or whatever that is. And so working with the local officials to help make sure that they're getting that training and that their poll workers know they're required to set that up, and then working with the voters to educate them on what the machine is, how to vote on that machine. And if it's not set up, here's what you have to do, and here's how you can communicate to those poll workers. So, and then of course, just physical access, right? Is it ADA compliant? Is are there trip hazards that are covered? Are there stairs? Are there elevators? And all, I mean, all of those conversations. So when we look at an ADA site survey, making sure that it is passes and that it's compliant. And that's hard to do for election officials because they're doing a million other things. And a huge in the South, a huge portion of our polling places are churches, and churches don't have to be ADA compliant. So it's really hard to have those conversations when you have a ramp that's very much not compliant, but it's at a church that you have to use because it's the only building in a rural area. What do you do? Right. So it's it, it's it's it's it's it can be really tough.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

What um before we move into some of your other experience, I do want to ask for any election officials or administrators who might be listening right now who maybe haven't had to think about this before or who are new to the job, or for whatever reason, uh disability and accessibility for the voting place hasn't been top of mind until this moment. As they're getting ready for November, what is the one thing they can start doing now or should be doing now that you would advise them to try to make their polling place more accessible this November?

SPEAKER_02 14:47

Sure. I think that making sure you have up-to-date surveys on all your polling places is critical. Um, because when the only way that there's any type of repercussions of a polling place not being compliant, other than obviously having a very upset voter, potentially disenfranchised voter, is the Department of Justice. And so if they come to your jurisdiction and you have updated surveys where you can show them that you have checked it and maybe just something went wonky that day, or you know, the school was closing the doors and they weren't supposed to be, or whatever the case may be, that can help you with that issue that you might have there.

unknown 15:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:26

Making sure you have updated surveys. So if you don't know if you have surveys, or maybe you don't know what that survey is, the survey is available on the Department of Justice's website. It can be a little confusing if you've never done one before because there's ratios and math, and I'm not a woman in STEM, so I understand it can be hard. Um, but there's lots of videos that you can watch on YouTube about how to do a survey. And a lot of times you can reach out to maybe there's someone in your county, um, maybe within your building permits department that has that information that knows how to check those things. That might be a good resource to you. You can also reach out to your state's protection and advocacy group, and they should have a voting rights advocate that can help you understand how to do those surveys and potentially even come to where you are and help you do that. There's also um organizations and companies that you can contract with if you have the type of funds to come out and do a big survey project. There's also organizations that do that as well.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

That's great. So you um, so you were working in Alabama, and if I recall, the next place you went was actually in an election administration in general, not just on the disability side, um, very close to where I am now in Arlington, Virginia. Is that right?

SPEAKER_02 16:42

Yeah, I was with the election assistance commission, which was in DC, but I was there during COVID times. So it was all virtual.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

So what was, were you still dealing with accessibility issues when you were working up there, or was this just that was general?

SPEAKER_02 16:56

I was on the comms team there. It was 2020. We were hearing all the things from all the voters, trying to help our election administrators. So um it was very broad across all 50 states and our territories, just helping election administrators.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

Wow, just jump in like right in the deep end into the worst possible time in the most challenging possible time in elections. What do you have um any big memories or or takeaways from that experience from that uh very specific, very difficult time in elections administration?

SPEAKER_02 17:31

Yeah, I think I'm so grateful for my time, specifically then there, because I was protected. I wasn't an election administrator in an office in 2020. So I wasn't someone whose name was getting thrown out and was being, you know, followed at that time. So I was really grateful for that. Um, and it also gave me such a 30,000-foot view of our country's election system and how every state is so different. Um, and how one of the main issues that we saw then that we still see today, someone will see something if they're watching national news instead of local news. They'll see something that's happening, you know, in Arizona, and maybe they live in Texas, and so they think the same thing is happening in Texas, right? Um, and so that was we would get a lot of calls about like I saw this on the news, and like, okay, where do you live? Okay, that's not your county, like you're like that's not call your local administrator if you have questions, you know. So that was a really interesting, and I got to learn about so many of the different, very specific issues, different states and jurisdictions were dealing with. Um, and it was it was really tough, but the the EAC was doing a really good job kind of pivoting to be more of a clearinghouse to provide lots of information and resources and guides to election administrators on anything and everything, audits. I mean, like you name it, now they have a guide on it because it there was really nothing out there for these election administrators that have been doing it the same way for 30 years. And then all of a sudden, you know, Bush Vigore happened and then they reset. And then 20 years later, this happened, and they're like, oh my God, what are all these things now? And so the EAC did a great job, and it was really fun to be on the team to help put together a lot of those resources to help our local administrators that that just were drowning.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

Yeah. It's you know, elections are so they're national, right? Like a lot of people's experience when they go into the voting booth is fairly universal, but and it it makes us forget how hyper-localized, it is truly one of the last hyper-localized things we do in this country, is how our elections are administered. So you've done, you've worked Alabama, you you've worked sort of on these national issues when you were in in the DC area. And then of course you went and uh went to Cobb County in Georgia, which uh has its own particular picadillos over the last couple of years. Um, so what are some of the before we jump into your experience in Cobb, what are some of the biggest changes or shocks you saw between all of those different jurisdictions that you worked in?

SPEAKER_02 20:10

Yeah, I think um it's interesting. After I was at the EAC, I was with Arlington County, which was a really, really cool county to work for. And the director there, the registrar there, Gretchen, is amazing. Um, I learned so much when I was there. Um, and so to go from kind of a federal level down to the local level in such a great county, and then to a very, very different county. I think I really I got to experience a lot of those things that I saw at the EAC kind of above and saw those people. Now I was one of those people experiencing those events. Um, I think it's just, I mean, Alabama and Georgia and Virginia are all very different states, even in the ways they're similar, they have really big differences. Um, Alabama is one of the weirdest states when it comes to election administration at the local level because the duties are split across four different county offices. Um and then they have handmarked paper ballots. Um, in Virginia, we also had handmarked paper ballots, but even though Virginia was a Dillon rule state, the counties and the cities had ultimate control over the election. So they got to purchase and procure their own voting equipment. So you could live in Alexandria one year, which is was very common. They voted on a certain voting machine, even though it's handmarked, they had their own poll pads. Then if you moved to Arlington, we had different voting machines and different poll pads. So very interesting way to learn there. We also had electoral boards in Virginia, a three-member electoral board that were partisan. Um, and the majority was the party of the sitting governor. So um if it's a Democrat governor as it is now, it's two Democrats, one Republican, whereas under Governor Yuncan, they were all two Republicans, one Democrat. Then I moved to Georgia, where we still have election boards. They're very, very different. Um, they're also partisan, um, but they're typically five-member boards in Cobb County. They have a unique structure to their board where one person's appointed by the Cobb County Republican Party, one's appointed by the Cobb County Democratic Party, two are appointed by the Cobb delegation, which are the state senators and representatives that make up Cobb County, and then one's appointed by the Cobb County chairwoman, who's also elected. So um lots of political dynamics there. And in both Virginia and Georgia, we were nonpartisan. Um, and so that that was really interesting. And in Georgia, we also currently vote on ballot marking devices. We don't do handmark paper ballots. So uh lots of differences in the administration and the way things happen and kind of the meat and potatoes, but a lot of differences in the voter experience and then um a lot of differences in the political influence of elections. Um, you know, in Virginia, it wasn't because we had hand marked paper ballots already, we didn't have a lot of the intense, we didn't have the intensity of the observers that Georgia has. Um, but we still have them in Virginia. They they were just looking for other things. So um it's it's they're all so different, but you can find similar issues and similar good things kind of tied throughout everyone. So um it was it was fascinating to learn, and the laws are different. To go from a Dillon Rule state to a home rule state was a big change. Um, so I'm very lucky in COB. I had a very excellent board board attorney, and he did a very good job and helped us a ton. So it was that was huge.

SPEAKER_01 23:45

So tell us um before well, I I don't want to bore anyone too too much who doesn't work in elections, but I do think this is an important thing to learn about. Talk to us about the difference between home rule and Dillon Rule states, um, for those people who are just not at all familiar with those terms.

SPEAKER_02 24:01

Sure. So a Dillon Rule state, like Virginia, is a state where the local counties or cities, as Virginia has both counties or cities, you're not, you can't be a city in a county. You're either a county or you're a city. Um, those local jurisdictions only have the authority that's been expressly given to them by state legislature. So they don't have the authority, they don't have the ultimate authority only if it says, you know, Arlington, Virginia can let schools be this, or they can let election, they can buy their own equipment or whatever. So it's very interesting. It's it's all expressly passed in state legislature. Whereas a home rule state like Georgia, the county has the ultimate authority. So they call that the home rule authority. Um that's been tested a little bit when I was in Cobb with some redistricting issues. So it was really interesting, although it wasn't the elections office that was pushing the redistrict issue, but we were the ones that were technically implementing it. Um, we were involved in lots of court cases. We had to go to the Supreme Court of Georgia to kind of, and it really pushed the limit of what does home rule mean? Like what does the county actually have authority to do over the state legislature? Um, so I learned a lot about that in my first like six months at Cobb. Um, but it just essentially that they have authority. Um, but at the same time, the county, the state legislature still delegates authority to the counties. So it it I'm sure it was simpler, you know, way back in the day when the states were being established. Now it's become a little more nuanced than that.

SPEAKER_01 25:35

Yeah. So talking about talking about complicated Georgia elections have become uh increasingly a topic of conversation in the spotlight, particularly over the couple of years that you were there as well. You know, administering elections is difficult enough in a perfectly normal, smooth sailing year. What was it like to still have to put on an election when you've got a lot of, I don't want to say noise because that has a bad connotation, but when there's so much happening in the background with the politics of what is happening in the state, um with people making assumptions about your state, with these high-profile elections that you've had, with recounts, with accusations of election misconduct. Like, how much more difficult was your job to administer an election when you had all of that happening in the background?

SPEAKER_02 26:30

It was extremely difficult. I mean, it was it was a lot. And I think what's so tough is like I said, we're nonpartisan. Election officials are nonpartisan. Um and you would be labeled certain things because you know, if you wanted to add Sunday voting for your early voting proposal, then you were labeled this party. If you wanted to take it away, you were labeled this party. Or, you know, if your county board was more this way, then people assumed you were also that party. And at the end of the day, there's not a single election administrator in Georgia that I know that or Virginia, that I worked with in Virginia, that did their work under a partisan lens. They did their work under, they know what's best for their county and for their voters and how elections can work well in their county because you can't do the same thing in every county. What works in Cobb is not going to necessarily work in Cowita. That's how it should be. That's why we have the system that we have. Um, and so I think, you know, the constant being pulled into these partisan discussions and being pulled one way or the other, it was exhausting. And I know it's tough for our election officials, you know, having to work on potential legislation. And they don't, you know, when we go and we testify for or against a bill, it's not because we're a Democrat or we're a Republican, it's because it's either good for elections or it's bad for elections. You know, it's really simple. It's not, it's, it's not under that lens. And I think that that is really, really tough. Um, I think in Cobb specifically, I know one of the things I said that I would talk to my staff about that I think why it was so difficult, because we would always open our doors, all election administrators come to our logic and accuracy testing, come to our risk limiting audit, volunteer to be a poll worker, like see that that when the sausage is made, it's good sausage, right? And the doubters who did do those things, always 100% of them converted. And they were like, you're right, you guys are doing a great job. I never had one person that was a doubter or who had questions that did those things that came back and said, This is still shady, not a single one. But it's tough when a lot of your people who are showing up at meetings and who are asking these intense questions when they don't show up for those events, because you're there providing the answers and they're not there receiving the information. And that's it's really disheartening for election officials because you feel like you have the same conversation over and over again. And I know in Cobb, what we talked about a lot was that Cobb, you know, shifted from traditionally red to blue in 2020. And although historically, if you look at records, it was, you know, a seat here and then another seat here. It wasn't all of a sudden. A lot of the reasons why we we had, I think, people with such intense emotions is because it was coming from a place of fear. Because a lot of the people I talked about, they said, you know, I've lived in cob 30 years, I've lived in cob my whole life. There's no way that all of a sudden cob is blue. There's something is wrong. Something is wrong. The election, something is not right because that's not the cob I know. That's what I heard over and over again. Yeah. But they weren't looking at it, it was a school board seat here and a county board seat here and a chair, you know, and so those little elections that people aren't really often paying attention to, but they wake up in a general election one year and all of a sudden they're blue, where their whole lives they've been read on a map.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

And we assign malicious intent or or some sort of fraud or misrepresentation. When if you were actually looking and watching the data slowly march over time, there are there are uh other much more reasonable explanations for what has occurred.

SPEAKER_02 30:19

Right, right. And I think, like I said, that that's that's fear. It's fear that a place they've known their whole lives or a place they've known for so long has changed and they didn't realize it. That's that's fear. And fear is a really hard emotion to reason with. And that's why they were just some, some of my people that nothing I could tell them would would change their mind. And that's okay. And they would still show up and I would still say hi, and that would be that, you know. So it's it, it just it's very, it can be very draining, you know. Not every county is like that. Um, but um, it can be a lot. And even though, even though you love it and you keep showing up, it it makes it hard.

unknown 31:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:00

And it's, you know, obviously these are not issues that are specific only to Cobb, although Cobb is a really good example of them. Um, I grew up in a in a county not dissimilar to Cobb on the other side of our continent in Orange County, California, traditionally the only red holdout coastal county in the state of California. And over the past couple of years has slowly, incrementally turned blue. And that has elicited a lot of really strong reactions in certain areas of the community because, again, feels like you just woke up one day and everything you thought you knew about the place you've lived your entire life has changed, but you haven't changed. And so it makes you suspicious and scared about what is happening with your neighbors and in your community. It's such a human emotion, and we're seeing that throughout the country. You're very plugged in to your colleagues around the country. Um, what are some other big issues that you see election administrators kind of universally facing right now as we march towards this November election? And then, of course, the general in the next couple of years.

SPEAKER_02 32:11

Yeah, I think um there's some overarching things like um potential federal legislation. Um, you know, I think most election administrators are not against some type of voter ID. Um, what's difficult is any type of major change, either in the middle of a year where they've already voted once this way, and now you're wanting them to vote this way in the same year a different way, you know, or you didn't need this ID at your primary, but now you need it for your general. Or we're gonna vote on a machine for the primary, but then handmarked for the general, any type of implementation like that is a lot to do. And it is never ideal for election administrators. So, you know, with the SAVE Act in particular, there's lots of opinions about it, and I'll keep mine to myself. But any type of legislation that's going to change and all fundamentally alter, especially in some states where they don't have anything like that, that is a huge lift with infrastructure, with personnel, with education. Uh, when they probably don't even have a communications person in their department to begin with.

SPEAKER_01 33:21

They're a department of one, so they're also comms, they're also education, they're also.

SPEAKER_02 33:26

Sometimes they're part-time. If some of these little counties, they're a part-time person.

SPEAKER_01 33:29

Or it's just one of their many duties that they have is administering elections in the county. They're also covering your marriage certificate. And they're also, you know, which could come in with the Save Act, right? Like it's it it affects so many, so many things. It does. Yeah. Um, so one thing I'm really excited about, and I promised people we would bring up towards the end of this episode that we're arriving at, is uh while this is your first time joining us on Keepers of Our Republic on the podcast, it will not be your last. So tell us a little bit about um this side project that you're going to be working on here at Keep Our Republic for the next couple of episodes and why we will be seeing your face a little bit more often here.

SPEAKER_02 34:12

Thanks. I'm so excited to be able to join the team in in this capacity and um do some episodes with my fellow election administrators. So I'm excited to talk to some of my friends and get to share their stories and um really compare and contrast large jurisdictions, small jurisdictions, rural, urban, how things are done differently. And I think we really want to be able to speak as election administrators and communicate to our voters that way they have a better understanding. You know, when they hear this in the news, what does that really mean? Why, why does it take so long for results to come back on election night? What is a risk limiting audit? You know, you had long lines. Is that gonna happen again? How did you fix that? So some of these things that can be concerns for voters or voters hear in the news a lot that are kind of hot topics, that we can kind of demystify and say, hey, you know, my name's Tate. I'm your local election official. This is how we do it in a big jurisdiction, or this is how we do it in a rural jurisdiction. And so I think it's gonna be really fun to get to have so many talented election officials on and just hear their stories and hear their expertise. And um I'm really looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_01 35:21

I couldn't agree more. I'm I'm personally so excited to listen to these conversations. There's so much confusion and you know, so much fear, like we've talked about, about elections, particularly some big changes we may be seeing in elections in the next couple of months here. So to have someone with your experience to sort of walk us through and demystify, as you said, um these processes, right? Because when we know what's happening, when it's explained and when we can trust the people who are running our polling locations, that takes so much of the fear out of the process. And ultimately that's what we want our listeners and our voters and our friends and neighbors to take away when they walk into the voting booth this November and of course beyond. Um, so for those of you who are longtime listeners of our podcast, I will not be going anywhere. You'll still have him to be put up with me every other week while I cover more of our legal and judicial topics. Um, my colleague Ari Middleman, who is the executive director of Keep Our Republic, certainly has his hands full in an election year, um, working to educate and empower election administrators around the country with nonpartisan tools. Um, so he is going to be taking a little step back, and we are so excited to be welcoming Tate to more than fill that spot and have these conversations over the next um many weeks. All right, so before I let you jump off, for any election administrators or election officials who may be listening already, I want to give Tate an opportunity to give a little elevator pitch for why you should be excited and not afraid to join us on a podcast over the next couple of weeks.

SPEAKER_02 37:01

Thanks. I want to hear from my election administrators across the country. Um, what are you interested in your voters hearing about? What stories that you have that you want to come on and share that you think would be educational? What interesting perspectives do you have from your jurisdiction or from your voter population that you work with? Um, we want to hear from you guys. We want to hear what you think your voters need to hear. That way we can make sure that we're all on the same team heading into a really big election year and that everyone knows the facts and how we do it. And even though every state is different, that they can trust their local election officials. So reach out to us and let us know if you'd be interested or if you have an idea of a really good topic or a fellow election administrator who we should have on.

SPEAKER_01 37:46

Fantastic. And if you are listening and you think this might be a good fit for you, I'm gonna include our emails in the link uh description at the bottom of this episode wherever you are listening, watching, or streaming this, um, so you can reach out to us. Tate, thanks so much for joining us. I'm so excited for these conversations and I'm excited for you to really champion these voices in our communities who are doing such incredible work uh to keep our public. So thank you for helping to do that.

SPEAKER_02 38:15

Thanks, Brooke. I look forward to it.

SPEAKER_00 38:18

If you like this episode, please share it on social media and tell your friends. It's the best way for folks to find out about us. I hope you'll agree that our guest is indeed a keeper of the republic. If you want to learn more about how you can help keep our republic, stop on over to our website, keep ourrepublic.org.