- [Announcer] This is a production of WEDU PBS.

Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

- Election Day, we're gonna have 246 polling sites spread throughout the county.

The access is there for people.

- You have access and you have the integrity of the process and both of them need to be considered and neither at the expense of the other.

(uplifting music beginning) - Florida's midterm elections are upon us and in today's polarized political environment, there are many questions and concerns about voting.

Hello, I'm Cathy Unruh.

On this program, we'll hear from both ordinary citizens and experts in the political realm.

Do West Central Floridians trust the voting process?

Have they received accurate information about candidates and issues?

Are people motivated to vote in the midterms?

We'll cover a number of topics, but let's start there.

What is the temperature of the electorate as we close in on Election Day?

- Well, in general, in the past, I don't think we've thought too much about midterms, but this one, I can tell, is really important.

- I'm very interested in getting in there and making sure my vote counts.

- Really is gonna determine kind of the direction of where we go as a nation.

- Lukewarm at best, I'd say.

- I'm not excited at all.

I'm heartbroken.

The way the parties are fighting, both sides, the Dems and the Rs, I feel betrayed by both sides.

- Obviously, there's a lot of different ways that you can have an influence in the world, but voting is definitely at the top of the list.

- Midterm's gonna set the tone for the next two years and we certainly don't agree with where the country's going, so it's a very crucial election.

- I just don't feel like voting makes a huge difference as far as when states and cities have kind of already had their red or blue stamp on it.

It's hard to be motivated.

- There's been a big push, I feel like, in a lot of different communities to really want to have their voice heard.

And I feel like that's making a big impact.

- It is important in a democracy that anyone who is able to vote should vote.

That is a privilege that we have that many countries don't have.

- Every single vote matters.

And the reason for this is because we haven't always had that right to vote.

Help out your community.

If you wanna see the change, you gotta be the change.

- If we don't participate in it, it's kind of sabotage almost.

- Everyone should be voting.

Doesn't matter if you're 18, 20, 40, 70, that's it.

And make sure when you vote after that, you come buy a pineapple from the Saturday morning market.

Right here, world's best pineapple.

We'll be here rain or shine, baby.

- Completely free plug on the pineapple, but it is good.

Okay, joining us now is Mary Anderson.

She's author and political science professor at the University of Tampa.

Her work focuses on the influence of political psychology on political behavior.

Norin Dollard is senior policy analyst at the Florida Policy Institute.

She's on the board of directors for the Hillsborough County League of Women Voters, and recently served as the redistricting action group chair for the Hillsborough League.

Norin is a member of the Voter Protection Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Social Action Groups.

Welcome.

Thank you both for being here, we appreciate it.

Let's dig deeper into the attitudes and enthusiasm on the level of voters right now.

What changes do you see at this point compared to past elections?

Who wants to take that?

- Go ahead.

- Go ahead, Mary.

- I think there's been some changes, certainly in Supreme Court decisions that are motivating folks.

There have been laws passed at the state level, not just in Florida, but across the nation that people are really starting to feel the impact of some of those decisions and those laws and so they are using their voices to be heard.

And I think they're, judging from the clip that you just played, they are motivated to go out and cast their ballot.

- Why is this one important?

What's at stake for us, Florida?

- For this midterm election?

Couple things.

One is with redistricting just having concluded, every seat in the Florida House and Senate is up, we have important local races too.

Hillsborough County, the transportation tax is still on, it's still on the ballot.

Although it's in litigation, but people should still vote.

There are a number of judges that are up to be retained in the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals, so it's really across the board.

- Mary, you recently wrote that individuals are empowered and motivated when they believe that their involvement in politics will be consequential.

Where do you think voters stand on that right now that my vote is consequential?

- So midterm election's a little bit different than the general presidential election year, because unlike during a presidential election year when you're talking about the electoral college vote and a winner-take-all system, you can cast a ballot in the state of Florida for a particular candidate, but they don't win the electoral vote, right, for the state of Florida.

That's different in state and local elections.

Every vote is gonna be counted and every vote is going to matter.

So I think citizens understand that and I think they want to make their voice heard.

So we'll have lower turnout than we have in general election, of course, a presidential election year.

But we will have, I believe, increased voter turnout.

- Okay, and quickly on the demographics of voters in Florida, slightly more women than men, 45 to 64 is the largest age group.

65 plus is the second largest eight group age group and nearly 80% white voters.

Do you see anything, a distinction between these different groups of voters trusting the system and believing they can make a difference?

- Florida is very much a purple state.

Our electorate is purple.

While we have had a period of, I think, domination by Republicans in terms of the Florida legislature and the governor's office, now, I think 30 years since Lawton Chiles was in office, the electorate itself is very purple.

So it's essentially a third, a third, a third.

A third registered Democrats, a third registered Republicans, and a third no party affiliation.

And so that makes the game challenging for candidates in how to thread the needle and attract voters.

- And then there's the involvement of young people in the voting process.

So those who were registered were very motivated to vote in 2020.

88% of registered 18 to 24 year olds voted, but the majority of the youngest potential voters are not registered.

What do you think's going on with young people in this process, especially perhaps in the midterms?

- I think that's a challenging question.

I don't know the answer to that.

I see students every day and encourage them to vote.

One of the things that they cite over and over again and the research would suggest that this is true across the board is when they feel like they don't know, they feel like they can't make an informed choice.

And so I think we need to put a bit of emphasis on giving them the tools they need, educating them on how to educate themselves.

I mean, when you look at the ballot, I don't know, I do this for a living and I still had to Google a lot of names and do a lot of searching and they would rather be looking at YouTube videos quite honestly.

But we need them.

That's our job is to help educate them on how to find these things.

- And how important it is to vote and to do that and get them started early maybe.

This is a question that League of Women Voters is very involved in.

What could we be doing in Florida to encourage voter motivation and empowerment just across the board?

- Well, I mean, the education piece is absolutely the, that's our bedrock that as an organization.

I would also say that we try to engage young people as well, and using the proper marketing and outreach methods to get them.

I'm old, I use Facebook.

That's not the way they connect.

You really need to know what are the medias, what are the strategies?

So some of the things that we've done in the Hillsborough League is we've started getting interns from local colleges who are working in the League.

We don't have a membership fee for students.

We try to make it easy for them to find information.

We have a vote411,org which will give you everything on your ballot, it'll give you bios, so you can make those informed choices.

And it's everything is right there.

- So we have concerns about cynicism and disengagement and people who are really trepidatious about the whole experience.

How do we get past that?

Each of you, who wants to go first?

- Well, Mary said it's the relationship.

Between the building relationships and really between opposing factions and getting to know them as humans and understanding their concerns.

- How do you facilitate that?

- You have to be open minded and make the commitment to yourself that I'm just gonna listen.

Please, tell me about why you think that.

It's as easy as that.

And really knowing, having a personal knowledge and relationship with another human opens up a very different dynamic than he said, she said, we're right and you're wrong.

It doesn't have to be a zero sum game.

We can figure out ways to build those bridges.

- So some of my work focuses on how to create a sense of community.

And research has shown that when you can develop a sense of community, you're more likely to have trust, higher levels of trust, and higher levels of efficacy in the idea that you can make a difference.

And, of course, these trust and efficacy impact a whole host of political types of behaviors.

So it's building that sense of community.

And so it doesn't even have to be around politics.

I mean, as Norin was saying, just be involved in your community.

You're going to come in contact with people that you might otherwise not have in your small, little intimate circle and you're gonna get to know them as friends and as neighbors.

And it's a lot harder, then, to say, "I hate you and I don't wanna hear what you have to say," when it's a friend of yours.

And so I think I would encourage people to become more involved in their community and get to know their friends and neighbors and try to have conversations with them.

And then we agree on a whole lot more than what we disagree on.

And I think at the end of the day, we need to keep that in mind.

And most of America is in the middle, center, right of center or left of center, that's where the electorate is.

It is our leaders that are elected that tend to be at the extremes.

But we are all together here in the middle and we agree on a whole lot more than we disagree on.

- Thank you both for joining us.

We appreciate it.

Wish I had more time for your insights.

Appreciate it very much.

We've talked about the importance of voting, but what about the integrity of the system?

It starts with accessibility, everyone having a fair and simple way to vote.

But what is crucial beyond that is the security of the entire process.

We asked three supervisors of elections for their thoughts.

(gentle music beginning) - Going into an election, our job, no matter what it takes behind the scenes, I always use the reference as an Amazon package.

We all go on, we get our whatever we want on Amazon, Amazon magically drops a box on our doorstep and we're like, "Great."

That's how I want voting to be.

- [Cathy] And when voting is that easy, officials have taken the first step in instilling the most crucial element in an election: voter confidence.

- [Woman] Thank you.

- Our entire election system relies on voter confidence.

And that's something I think we all took for granted for a long time.

Now, in recent years, some parties have been successful in shaking that confidence.

I think the single biggest way to ensure a fair election process is transparency and openness and community involvement.

- If we have good elections and voters have positive experiences, if there is transparency in the process that we will instill voter confidence organically.

- [Cathy] So what are the specifics in helping build the confidence in that system?

- In Florida, we vote on paper.

You can't hack paper.

We have to keep those ballots for a minimum of 22 months after an election, we can always recreate that election if we have to.

Before every election, we conduct what's called a public logic and accuracy test where we invite the public and the press to come in and watch this take place.

And we take a random sample of the tabulators that'll be used Election Day and early voting, and all of our high speed scanners for vote by mail and we run what's called a test deck through 'em.

We know what the outcome should be.

The logic is that they can see every space on that ballot where a vote can be cast, whether it's a write-in, a referenda item, or a candidate.

And then the accuracy is did it count correctly?

And it does.

- I do not worry about Florida's, the security of Florida's election system.

- [Cathy] Florida is becoming known nationally as one of the leading states for its election process, but it wasn't always that way.

- I think Florida's election system is among the best.

And one of the main reasons is with the Bush v. Gore election in the year 2000, every little detail of Florida's election system was scrutinized at infinitum.

And following that, the Florida legislature, working with election officials, stepped to the plate and did everything we can to improve our election code, our election processes, and our election systems.

We're a large state, we're a swing state, and it really matters that we get it right.

- 2000 was what it was and then we have matured to having 2020, which has been said to have been the most secure election ever conducted in the state of Florida.

Things have changed technology-wise, other things that we've done to protect the process, laws that had changed where 2022 is going to be the most secure election conducted in Florida.

- I think that a lot of people are looking to Florida.

I've been contacted by other states.

I've done presentations to national organizations.

We've got some great things going.

I mean, it's like this last presidential election, Florida was the first state that was called by the national press.

And the reason for that is because in every county in this state, we're allowed to start processing vote-by-mail ballots approximately 22 days before the election.

In this last election, shortly after seven o'clock, we pushed 85% of our vote totals out.

Then we started working on the precincts.

We were literally done by 10 o'clock at night.

- Security and integrity are paramount, both to the voting process and in relation to the information that we need to cast our ballots.

Joining us now is Dr. Judithanne Scourfield McLauchlan, associate professor of political science and founding director of the Center for Civic Engagement at the University of South Florida.

She has worked at the US Supreme Court, the US Senate Judiciary Committee, the US Department of Justice, and the White House.

She's a veteran of several presidential campaigns and has managed statewide operations across the US.

Aaron Sharockman is executive director of PolitiFact and vice president for sales and strategic partnerships at the Pointer Institute for Media Studies.

He also oversees Pointer's MediaWise initiative, which aims to empower people of all ages to be more critical consumers of content online.

So our supervisors of elections are feeling pretty confident about the voting process in Florida.

Is it well founded, do you think?

- Absolutely.

And I'm really pleased that you were able to bring your viewers behind the scenes.

One of my other roles is I run a statewide civics education initiative, and I bring our civic fellows behind the scenes to tour the supervisor of elections office and to learn about the processes and the back end and the front end.

And it instills a high degree of confidence in individuals who can see how the process actually works.

And so thank you for showing your viewers a little bit about what that process is.

But yes, I think that voters in Florida should feel very confident with the security of our elections here.

- Do you agree?

- I do agree.

I mean, I think the one thing we need to make clear is that elections are run locally at the county level.

And that means in Florida there are different processes between county to county.

That means across the country that there are lots of different processes.

And so it's kind of hard for an average voter or typical voter to understand what's going on because it's not done the same way, exact same way in every place.

But what I do think and I have confidence in is these systems have been built over time with lots of checks and balances so that we're in a good spot to know that the votes that we cast are counted, counted accurately, counted fairly.

And again, if there are mistakes in the process, there are ways to catch 'em and then there's ways to remedy any mistakes that happen.

- So Aaron, we're getting assurances that processes and tallies and machines are secure, but then there's the information that we consume that helps us decide what and who to vote for.

There's also disinformation, there's also misinformation across a wide range of platforms.

How do we properly use information to help us decide how to vote?

- It's actually a really good question.

What I would say is that what I would tell any prospective voter is they have to understand that any piece of information they see, they see it for a reason.

And we are hardwired to be skeptical of things that we don't agree with.

So if we see a television advertisement and we don't agree with it; it's opposite the way we think, we're immediately skeptical, we're critical of it.

We're like, I don't think that's true.

But we're not hardwired the same way when it comes to things we believe or want to believe.

And so we'll see an advertisement or a mailer and it supports our worldview, what we believe in society.

We aren't critical thinkers about that and we should be.

So what I would tell anyone is any piece of information that is coming to you about who to vote for, you need to know off the bat that this is a person who is trying to win a vote.

They're not trying to win an accuracy contest or a facts contest.

They're trying to get you to vote for their person or their issue.

- And if we want to be informed, we want accurate, trustworthy information, and we proactively want to go look for where to find that, what's the answer?

- Well, I would start with PolitiFact, the website that I work for.

- [Cathy] Explain just quickly for anybody who might not know PolitiFact.

- Yeah, so PolitiFact has been around for 15 years.

We started right here in Tampa Bay at the "St. Petersburg Times", now the "Tampa Bay Times".

We have fact checked more than 22,000 different claims and we rate them on a scale from true to false.

- And we can go on your website and we can look up whatever issue we wanna look at.

- Whatever you wanna look at, and you get all of the sources.

There are no off-the-record sources, so you might not agree that it's false, but you could see all the research that we put in to reach our conclusion that could help you hopefully make better decisions about issues and use that how you want in a voting booth.

Just to be clear, we're fact checking the races in Florida, not across the country.

- Right, right, right.

And you've worked on a number of campaigns, have a lot of experience in this.

So how do you combat false and slanted information from impacting elections?

- Well, I think it's important for voters to do their homework, to look at a variety of sources, to look at where they're getting this information, and to be really careful about anything that they're clicking and sharing on social media and to be sure that this information is trustworthy before forwarding it out to their networks.

- So I would advise anyone looking at who they're voting for, don't just say, "Oh, they're the Democrat.

I voted for Democrat, they're my person," or "They're the Republican.

I'm a Republican, they're my person."

I think you should take the time, I would hope you would, to go through issue by issue what's important to you and how do these candidates align on that issue.

- And the rise in no party affiliation voters has a big impact, too.

There's a lot of people who are neither one.

So based on your areas of expertise, what we haven't covered yet, what is important for us to know about midterms?

Anything else that we should know about the midterms?

- Well, for this election, speaking of voter education and voter engagement, I would suggest to voters that they go on their supervisor of elections website and maybe look at the sample ballot.

I think folks probably do know whether they want to return the governor or have a change in the administration, but maybe going down the ballot, they may not have thought about some of the judicial races or we have constitutional amendments.

Many cities have charter amendments and things going on that may not be at the top of their mind, but if they can get their sample ballot ahead of time, then there won't be any surprise in the poll in the election on Election Day.

So I would definitely encourage people to go to PolitiFact, go other nonpartisan organizations like the League of Women Voters always puts together good voter guides where they can see both candidates or arguments pro and con.

As far as this midterm election, one thing that I'm excited about is that it looks like voters are more engaged.

Typically in Florida, we might not even hit 50% of registered voters turning out in a midterm election.

2018 was different and I think we're on track this cycle to see a record-breaking turnout at 2018 levels.

- 50% or better?

- Well, 2018 was 63%, which was great for us in Florida.

Usually we dip at least 20 points below what we see in a presidential year, so 63% was quite high by those standards.

So hopefully, and more than a million and a half voters have already turned out as of today.

- That would be a good indicator for democracy if turnout was more.

How would you rate the state of democracy in our country today?

- Oh gosh.

(laughing) Well, I'm not a Raider, so I won't necessarily give you a-- - Give me a true, false.

- Yeah, I won't do that.

I'll say a couple things.

This is the first election after redistricting.

So for folks who are not necessarily familiar, the state legislature redrew the lines for our state House, our state Senate, and our congressional districts.

That happened not only in Florida, but across the country.

One of the things that worries me about the state of our democracy is in Florida and across the country, there are fewer and fewer competitive seats.

That certainly has happened here in Tampa Bay, where the governor and other plans have kind of pushed more blue Democratic districts and more red Republican districts.

And so for those no non-party voters who are interested in who might be the best fit, they kind of are left without a home in some of these races.

So that really worries me and I do think that is something that we should work on.

Obviously, the state of Florida passed constitutional amendments to try to get at that.

- I have to wrap it up, so I'm gonna use both of your advice for the last word, which is, so do your homework.

- Yeah, absolutely.

- Get involved, be a part of it, yes?

Okay.

Aaron, Judithanne, thank you both for joining us and for sharing your insights.

We appreciate it.

- You got it.

- Thank you.

- No matter what your political affiliation, voting is a privilege and it's a civic duty in America.

Remember, the candidates who are elected and the measures and propositions that are approved and rejected will impact your community for years to come.

We're going to give the final word to our supervisors of elections.

- Every election matters, every contest matters.

Educate yourself on the process, what's on the ballot, and participate in our republic because participation is key.

- Be sure you vote down the ballot too, because those are the races that affect your pocketbook a lot more than the top of the ballot does.

Your school board is a taxing authority.

Your board of county commissioners is a taxing authority.

So be mindful of that and vote down the ballot.

- Once in a while, somebody will say to me that their vote doesn't matter.

And it's not magic, it's just one of many things you can do to be a good citizen.

It's one of many things that you can do to make this world a better place.

I also like to remind them that if you don't make a choice, somebody will make that choice for ya.

- Now it's up to you and me and all registered voters to cast their votes for the November 8th midterms.

For more information, including election resources and voter rights, visit WEDU.org/vote.

Thanks for watching and remember, your vote is your voice so cast that ballot.

(uplifting music beginning)