The Integrity of Idaho Elections
Episode 6 Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane—Main Street Idaho Podcast Season 3
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Idaho Secretary of State, Phil McGrane, joins our host, Brennan Summers, for episode 6 of the Main Street Idaho Podcast. Following the 2020 election, Secretary McGrane explains how election security is continually bolstered to maintain the integrity of Idaho elections. In addition to preparing for the upcoming 2024 presidential election, Summers and McGrane highlight the importance of primary elections and how to engage more Idaho citizens with more information and voter turnout.
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Brennan Summers, Podcast Host (00:00):
Welcome to the Idaho Main Street Podcast where we talk about the issues that matter to you. Welcome to the Idaho Main Street Podcast. We are thrilled today to have a much anticipated guest that we've begged for years and years to come and join us. A barbecue award-winning Grill master, a self-described election junkie and Idaho's Secretary of State, none other than secretary Phil McGrane. Phil, thanks so much for joining us.
Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane (00:32):
Thanks. I'm glad to finally be here.
Brennan Summers, Podcast Host (00:34):
Yeah, it's good to have you. So I don't think most Americans on average would be able to name who the Secretary of State is, and I think that probably holds true of I Idaho. Is that fair to say that the Secretary of State is one of those constitutional offices that most people might not know what they do?
Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane (00:51):
I think that's especially been true historically is that it's an office that if everything's running smoothly, no one knows it's happening. Things just work the way they're supposed to work. Obviously, following the 2020 election, this role has gained a lot more attention than it's ever had before. So many people may recognize a name like Brad Raff Asperger from Georgia because there are positions that have gained greater notoriety, but by and large, this is a role that most people don't think about each day,
Brennan Summers, Podcast Host (01:19):
And that notoriety comes largely because of the effects that the office has on elections. Right,
Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane (01:25):
Right. The Secretary of State generally is the chief election official for most states. That's the case here in Idaho. So usually when people think of me, they think of me as the election nerd, just like you said in the introduction. I'm the bald guy with glasses who's usually on the news talking about elections
Brennan Summers, Podcast Host (01:41):
And you love it.
Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane (01:42):
I do. I absolutely do. I fell into it right out of college and I've been working elections for 20 years in the administration. Obviously I've run for office as well, and so I spend a lot more time than the average Idahoan thinking about elections, which is why I'm here in this role.
Brennan Summers, Podcast Host (01:58):
We're going to nerd out today, so if any of our listeners buckle up because this is going to get good, but before we get into all the election talk, Phil, what are the roles in your job that don't have anything to do with elections?
Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane (02:11):
Most people, if they're familiar with the office, it's probably because they're a small business owner. Every business in the state of Idaho is registered with our office. That's actually one of the most frequent ways that people interact with us is registering businesses. It could be someone who's say, starting a lawn business and registering their LLC or it could be a corporation like Simplot, it doesn't matter. Everybody works through our office, and so we're processing hundreds of applications a day in terms of businesses and the renewals and everything else that goes along with that. The other part though is I always, when I ask school kids and they come into the office, what the Secretary of State does, most people miss the most obvious piece, and that's I am the secretary of the state. I'm the official record keeper for so many things for the state.
(02:56):
So I always joke on my very day when I was sworn in, I was in the governor's office, the governor made a mistake initially on signing his oath and somebody had to make sure we got it right, and I fell into that role. The ones that the oaths are stored with every executive order that happens is with our office proclamations. Most people don't realize through the legislative process, every bill comes ultimately to me and I'm the kind of referee at the end to make sure the process was conducted properly. And so there's just all sorts of state important records and ministerial functions that the Secretary of State does.
Brennan Summers, Podcast Host (03:32):
Yeah, secretary, you don't get governor little his coffee, you just make sure that the oaths are signed. Right,
Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane (03:37):
Exactly. I definitely don't interact with, but it's one of those things for an executive order to be official, it both takes his signature and my signature in order for us to actually come together and say, all right, this is official action of the state of Idaho.
Brennan Summers, Podcast Host (03:51):
So somebody's ears perked up the moment you said all businesses are registered through your office. To those who have concerns about the government being involved in anything, help us understand why it actually is in their best interest as a business to register with you and your office.
Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane (04:04):
Our office, really the main function of it is to build trust in government and we serve as an intermediary in so many things. It's true in elections. We sit kind of in the center trying to balance it out, and it's true in business as well. So the reason that every business registers with us, it allows other businesses to have confidence that who they're doing business with is legitimate and so there's no scam. So if somebody starts a small business, one of the things they'll find is they won't be able to open a bank account until the bank verifies their information with our office. And it's not because we require that. That's not the government saying, it's just the banks want to know before they lend money, Hey, this person's legitimate and if there's ever a problem, we know how to track 'em down. And so we maintain basically a public listing of all the businesses, their registered agents and how you can get ahold of that business if you ever needed to.
Brennan Summers, Podcast Host (04:53):
See, I'm learning something already. I had no idea. So this is all very helpful, Phil, when you decided to run for Secretary of State, you were currently holding office in Ada County, but you decided you're going to run for statewide office and you had some pretty notable endorsements roll in. So governor little endorsed you, former Governor Otter, Congressman Simpson Senator, but if I may speak for you, I think that you might be most proud of the over 120 county officials that came out and endorsed you. Why were those local endorsements so important to you and what does that tell you about your mandate in serving?
Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane (05:29):
It's been really good for me. So I came from county government, so it's not real surprising that I had so much support. I was very active in the Idaho Association of Counties for years leading up to it, served on the legislative committee for a long time and did a lot of work with county government and at heart. I really carry that still to this day. We provide a ton of support in this office to all of the county clerks around the state helping them and run their elections offices. The county clerks are really the boots on the ground who are going to be counting the votes this November. They're the going to be ones training the poll workers running the polling locations. Our office is really sitting high above providing support for all of those offices, and when we look at decisions as a state, it's been really important in terms of how we interact with them. There's plenty of instances where there can be tension between local government and the state government. I've worked really hard to maintain those relationships I've had over the years and to having been a county official to sometimes say like, well, hold on. This is going to have huge ripple effects down at the local level. Let's talk with our partners to make sure we're making decisions that when they finally hit a small community in the state that they actually make sense and it's not just coming here from Boise.
Brennan Summers, Podcast Host (06:42):
So you talk about the importance of local leadership, particularly when it comes to accounting ballots and running elections. I think there's a lot of misconception because sometimes we think of presidential elections and we think one big election, it's actually 50 but might not even actually be 50 because when we look at Idaho it's more so let's start from the beginning. Help us out here. If I want to run for office, let's start at the moment of filing, where do I start and then walk us through where it ends with certification post-election, how do we do our elections in Idaho? From the moment a candidate says, I think I'm interested,
Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane (07:15):
Well, I will say I'm happy to get into the weeds. This is one of those processes most people don't think about and they really shouldn't have to. When someone goes to the polls to vote, they should be thinking about who their choices are marking their ballots and have confidence that not only their vote is going to count, that the process is fair and smooth and clean, and we really have dedicated professionals working on that, whether that's local election officials, whether that's the county clerks, people here in our office, we all work collaboratively together, and I always like to frame election administration as we are the largest event planning operation in the state of Idaho. Going back to my days working in ADA County, you think about it, we're hosting a big event on November 5th. We're just inviting a million of our closest friends and most of them are going to show up and we have to have everything in place to be able to do that.
(08:06):
And so that starts, like you said at the beginning, when candidates file candidates file both at our office, whether that's the members of Congress, state legislators, others at the local county offices for county commissioner, some of the school districts and other roles that are going to be on the ballot, and then we work together to build out that process. Right now we're really in the early phases for the November election. Ballots are being printed right now. We just finished designing all the ballots across the state over the last couple of weeks. It's where we finalized the candidates who are going to appear on the ballots and got things ready. They're preparing for absentees and right now we're recruiting poll workers across the state. It's going to take about 5,000 Idahoans to serve as poll workers to pull this election off. It's not a small workforce because again, we're hosting a giant event with a million of our friends. So all the logistics are what are happening and when people like you and I talk about elections, we'll talk about the elected officials, the campaign tactics, some of the principles like democracy and our republic for mostly election administrators. It's really a giant logistics operation, trying to have the people, the materials, everything in place to make sure the process goes smoothly and that every Idahoan gets the right ballot and that each of those ballots are counted and we can account for them.
Brennan Summers, Podcast Host (09:24):
I love this balance you talk about because it absolutely is a logistical nightmare at times to think how you're going to do this, and I'm sure that so many that are close to it like yourself can get caught up in the idea of making sure that the supply chain of the project gets done correctly and everything is safe, secure. But I also know on that flip side that you have such a soft spot in your heart for what the beauty and the simplicity of an election is and the idea that it is us coming together and choosing our leaders, and it is one of the simplest but most beautiful thing that the founders have come up with. Talk a little bit about how you being so close to that, you're still able to keep the vision of what a special event an election is in our democracy, in our republic.
Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane (10:05):
No, I think it's really part the United States was really built on this simple principle of self-governance, right? Rather than have King George tell us how to live and what we're going to do is that we decide for ourselves and decide as a community who our leaders are going to be, what the policies are we're going to advance. We're going to see that on the ballot here in November. This is where people get to have a voice. It's been really powerful for me in this role. People who visit me in the Capitol, I love to share my pocket copy of the Constitution. It's something I go speak about from time to time. Right before I was sworn in, my dad came in and gave me, it's a leather bound copy of the Constitution, but what makes my personal copy unique is it was handwritten by my father in calligraphy, and I can tell you the constitution's powerful on its own, but when you get to see it in a sentimental way like that, it really has deep meaning and that really is what we're all coming together for.
(11:01):
So while there are a lot of logistics, and I might be worried about getting the supplies to a polling location, at the end of the day, this really is where communities have a voice and one of the cool things about presidential elections is this is where most people show up. We're really preparing for record turnout this November. The president drives a lot of attention on the ballot. We're going to see the most idahoans show up that we've ever seen vote in our state. That says a lot. I would love to see that for every single election where we get involved and there's so many decisions that impact our lives that are determined at the ballot box, and that's part of what drives us. Even what gets hard here in the office, it's really knowing that the founding ideas of our country and the belief that we all have a say in the process is what motivates us.
Brennan Summers, Podcast Host (11:49):
I mean, that's a beautiful imagery of both your father and how this all plays out. I love the optimism when you talk about turnout coming in November. I hope you're right.
Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane (11:59):
I'm always Pollyanna at heart. I'm confident we're going to have great turnout. There's so much attention on this election, especially nationally, but also locally we have some issues that should bring people out
Brennan Summers, Podcast Host (12:09):
And I'm happy that you're Pollyanna happy that you're optimistic, but I'm going to play the opposite of this, right? I'm always very discouraged by our turnout numbers, both in our state and in the nation, knowing that this beautiful, right, we talk about of self-governance is often not used. Right, and maybe there's probably a lot of reasons I'd like to get into, but first give us the facts. What does turnout look like in Idaho in a primary versus a general on a typical
Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane (12:32):
Cycle? Yeah, primary versus general. There is a big difference, and in a state like ours, and this is not unique to Idaho, most states around the country lean one direction or another and primary elections matter a ton because that determines who advances to the general election ballot. Here in Idaho, we usually see between 20 and 30% turnout for a primary election where headed into November will probably be somewhere between 75 and 80%. In terms of our order, that's huge. I mean, that really is a significant difference. President is going to motivate most people to show up. It's hard because on any given day, it's tough for each of us to point to how the president is specifically impacting our lives versus when you look at your local highway district, it's really easy to see how they're impacting your lives, whether it's road construction, potholes, detours, whatever. It doesn't matter what part of the state you're in, you see that. And so trying to get people engaged down the entire ballot, not just beginning at the top, but getting through the whole process. That's really been one of my missions here in this role is to get people more engaged, to get voters more information about what they're voting on. And I'm hopeful that we can get more turnout, but that is always one of the big challenges is especially these local elections, how do we get people engaged in the process?
Brennan Summers, Podcast Host (13:49):
And to be clear, when we look at a 20 to 30% turnout, that's of eligible voters, so we're looking at of people who can vote, 80% of them aren't in a primary on average. If you look at this ballot, if you had to predict what percent of the ballot do you think was decided already in the primary?
Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane (14:08):
Ooh, it really depends on what communities you're in, but through most of the state, especially when you look at legislative races or county races that are partisan, overwhelmingly the majority were predetermined and we actually see that throughout the state on a number of the ballots. In some of our smaller communities, many of 'em don't have competitive races. There's only one candidate, so it's not even like there's a choice between that and another candidate. The race really was determined in the primary election and it makes building the ballot a little bit easier on our side administratively, but it doesn't really serve the principle of allowing people to have choices and have a voice.
Brennan Summers, Podcast Host (14:42):
Yeah. Secretary, how does Idaho's turnout both primary in general compare? You say it's similar to other states and it's big drop off, but how does it percentage-wise to maybe surrounding states?
Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane (14:54):
On average, we perform better than the national average in terms of turnout. I expect that to be the case this election. It's always interesting. Some of the people who have the most difficult time getting to voting actually turn out best. So some of our mountainous counties like Idaho County for example, actually has some of the highest turnout that we see in any given election. I think that's a point of pride for a lot of these communities. One of the things you talked about in terms of it's not just 50 states voting. There are different processes across the country. So if we look to the west, we see Oregon, Oregon and Washington mail out absentee ballots to every single registered voter. Idahoans generally choose to vote on election day, about 70% of voters will show up to the polls on election day. We do things differently, and we even see that within the state. Some of our communities are more dispersed and others are more condensed. And so one of the cool things we have here in our state is each of the processes can be a little bit different based on the makeup of the community where they're at.
Brennan Summers, Podcast Host (15:52):
Interesting. So obviously, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but clearly as an election junkie, the important of engagement and you would very vocally encourage everyone who can vote to vote. Why do you think they're not? What's keeping so many people from getting to the polls?
Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane (16:10):
There's been plenty of polling and things done at times. Most of the time it's just people are busy, they're just busy living their lives. I think most of the time when people engage with government, they really want to be focused on their lives. It's that pursuit of happiness that we all aspire for in it. I always liked when I was out on the campaign trail, to use the analogy, when you're driving down the road, you really want to be focused on your destination, not the government that put it there. If there's a pothole, government's not doing enough and if there's a speed bump, government's doing too much. Really our role in government, and this truly is my philosophical view, is to support people in living their lives in a way that doesn't disrupt them. It's really challenging. People are busy, whether it's work, whether it's taking care of kids school, we see all sorts of things, and so part of it in our role is trying to, how can we make this process easier?
(17:07):
I think through some of the work we've done with the vote idaho.gov website is a good example of just getting information, trying to remove some of the barriers so that people can know how to register, where they're going to vote on election day if they need to request an absentee ballot. How to do that. We're really trying to remove some of the barriers and this, one of the things I really advocated for in the legislature is a voter guide that's really driven on the idea of voters want information. It's hard to make a choice when you don't know who the people are that you're choosing between, and so the more we can get information out there, the better. Everyone's going to head to the polls and know who they're voting for president in November. The rest of the ballot, it becomes a lot more of a challenge.
Brennan Summers, Podcast Host (17:49):
And as you pointed out, some of those other items and individuals on the ballot have at times more influence on an individual's life and they don't know what that proposition means or they don't know what that candidate stands for. So the voter guide seems like a no-brainer, giving information to the voter so they can study out why was their opposition to that.
Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane (18:09):
It really is. Voters want, the most common request that we get in our office as well as the county elections offices is where's my voter guide? People from other states, especially surrounding states, are accustomed to getting voter information mailed to them. I mean, interestingly enough, our office right now is producing a voter pamphlet. It will send out information about voting, about the constitutional amendment, about the proposition, all the things that are on the ballot except for the candidates. We won't have any candidate information in there and we need more of it. One of the stories I love to share and highlight is the 2020 election. Everyone's familiar with it because of the presidential election, but I was the 80 county clerk at the time, and we had a very close race for the 80 County Highway District. It was two votes apart, so the race was determined by two votes out of 40,000 votes cast, that's less than five thousandths of a percent difference.
(19:02):
So the expectations in our work are extremely high, and I'm happy to say when we did recounts and we went through the process all the way to the very end, the results stood, the process worked the way it was supposed to work, but as we did those recounts, we learned a lot about it. Any candidate you ask can find two people that didn't show up and vote. It doesn't matter how high the turnout is, it's easy to find somebody, a friend, a neighbor, a coworker who didn't vote. What was really shocking in that recount though was out of the 40,000 ballots cast, 10,000 voters skipped that race. So this wasn't trying to get people to show up and vote. These are the people with a ballot and a pen in a voting booth who just didn't know who the choices were. And this is for an entity that impacts everybody's lives all the time.
(19:51):
Anybody who's ever been to Boise has run into a CHD at some point in time, and so it's really surprising to see that, and that's one of the things is how do we get people to go from president to Congress to vote on our legislators? As a former county clerk, most people don't know who their county clerk is or what the county clerk that they even vote on the county clerk. How do we get all the way down or to things like our school district elections, and so we're really working hard trying to push that forward in the legislature. The Senate has voted to produce a voter guide twice. The house still hasn't been willing to take it up yet. We're going to continue to bang the drum because at the end of the day, we know Idahoans are wanting more information when they vote.
Brennan Summers, Podcast Host (20:33):
Yeah, like I said, it seems like a no-brainer and more communications better than less. I love that story. I think that articulates well the importance of voting and the importance of knowing what you're voting for. I do have a question when it comes to, it seems at times that there's this dichotomy between elections for persuasion and then elections of just get out the vote. And I wonder, as you deal with so many campaigns from a distance and can objectively look, do you think that whether on a national or on a state or local level that it's about trying to persuade people to vote for you? Or are you just trying to get people to show up to vote? Is there value to one or the other?
Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane (21:12):
From my perspective, especially for candidates, just getting people to show up was one of the biggest things. Especially many communities, you kind of know where the people are, who they support, whether if we're in Blackfoot or we're in the north end of Boise, we kind of have a sense of what the voters are like. It's really just getting people to show up. That's always the biggest challenge. I've seen people over the years who were really focused on very wonky policy issues. I think there was a great commercial, I don't know if it was the 2018 cycle. It was from another state where it was a wonky county commissioner race that did a TV ad talking about cutting the levy rate from 0.006 to 0.004 something. Most Idaho voters aren't interested in all that, right? They want to find the right people. I think one of the beauties of our republic is that we don't instinctively go to direct democracy all the time.
(22:03):
We're not all voting on every bill in front of the legislature. We don't want to take the time to figure out all that. That's why we find good people in our communities to represent us, and that's the kind of beauty of the process, whether it's our legislators here in the Capitol or our congress members in dc, it's finding good people to stand up and represent our communities and our values. And a state like Idaho, that's really important on the national scene is to make sure we have a voice in the process and heading to the polls is part of our opportunity to weigh into that entire system.
Brennan Summers, Podcast Host (22:34):
You're absolutely right, but there's instilled in this in elections this collective action problem, which if everybody thinks that somebody else is going to step up and vote for the right people, then the beauty and the simplicity of elections falls apart when the wrong people are the ones who are running and the wrong people are the ones who are the only ones voting. So talk to me about number one, your concern level regarding turnout overall, because you seem very optimistic. Is your office focused on getting it together and then your concern level surrounding if people are confident or trust our elections in general?
Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane (23:08):
Oh, absolutely. I mean, we're really working on turnout. I just earlier today was cutting some TV ads that we're getting ready to promote the election to make sure people know where to get their information that idaho.gov is their resource to, whether it's to register to vote, to find their polling location or request an absentee ballot. So we're doing everything we can to get information out to voters. Hopefully that will help in making it easier for voters to head to the polls and vote. And the other part is we are focused a lot more on the integrity of our elections, the security, making sure people have confidence that it's not just about showing up, but part of that process is having trust in the system. When you stick a ballot in a ballot box, you're putting a lot of faith in the system to know that yes, that ballot's going to count.
(23:53):
I think one of the things we lose sight of sometimes is that's not true across the world. There are plenty of places where people don't have confidence when they stick their ballot in the ballot box, and that's really one of the things we have focused on is trying to add transparency. That's everything from having cameras in some of our elections offices to be able to watch, but really just most of it boils down to having some common sense practices that all people can know really make it easier to trust the system. One is we require photo ID to vote, so people are going to be asked to show their driver's license when they vote. Overwhelmingly voters use a driver's license. We have a paper record of everybody's vote, so when you cast your ballot, that official piece of paper is your vote. So when we do an audit, which we do random hand count audits after each of elections or we do a recount, we actually go back to the paper record and review those.
(24:47):
A great example of that is the recount we did in district 32 right after the primary election. It again was two votes apart, and we went through and went through both the hand counted ballots in Butte County as well as all the machine counted ballots in Bingham County to make sure that the results stood. And it was great to see the candidates get to see that process and feel validated like, oh, yep, this is the outcome. One candidate likes it better than the other. That's always going to be the case, but it's really important for people to have confidence in it, and we're doing everything we can to highlight some of the really simple great practices. One more that pops into my mind is last year we had a bill in the legislature to ban internet connectivity to all of our voting equipment. We already weren't connected to the internet, but now it is by law, the equipment cannot be connected to the internet and the state of Idaho. I think that's one more way to reassure voters that their vote will count this November.
Brennan Summers, Podcast Host (25:41):
Yeah, a great reminder on how it's so different here in the US compared to other countries with voting confidence, but particularly Idaho, you list out the reasons of why we can be confident going and voting in Idaho that our vote will count. Secretary, you're on record in the past of saying that you don't love the narrative and it frustrates you that there's widespread voter fraud that undermines our election results, but you're almost equally as frustrated that there is no voter discrepancies and there's no irregular voting that occurs in the country. Is that still true? Do you still stand by
Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane (26:14):
That? Yes, that's definitely true. Having spent my career working in elections, having been in the room reviewing ballots, working through some of the tough issues, there are dedicated election officials, not just here in Idaho, but across the country, and we hear these narratives. It's like every other thing in politics where you hear some of the loudest voices suggesting either there's widespread thought or I think it is important to highlight. There's lots of organizations saying, oh, that doesn't exist. Look the other way. I can say that our does pursue voter fraud cases. I have been involved in the prosecution of people for either voting twice or registering when they shouldn't be. We're regularly maintaining our voter rolls and monitoring to make sure that they are current and accurate. We put the safeguards in place to protect people's votes, and one of the interesting examples is going back to that same 2020 A CHD race where we had the two votes apart in that race, our office had rejected three absentee ballots.
(27:15):
Now I can tell you when it's a two vote race and we reject three absentee ballots, people pay a lot of attention. Two of them were easy because the person didn't actually sign 'em. One person drew an inappropriate picture, but one of the other ones I always like to talk about is the voter, the signature on the absentee ballot envelope, and we verify every signature on every absentee cast in the state of Idaho. It doesn't matter what county you're in, it was a beautiful flowing signature, full first name, full middle name, full last name. Honestly, looking at it, you almost wanted to accept it because it looked good. Now, the driver's license signature was a hot squiggly mess. Now, many people may wonder like, okay, what was that? Well, the voter was an 18-year-old male, which of those signatures sounds more likely in terms of their signature?
(28:06):
It didn't take us much research to figure out that mom had voted her son's ballot, and it doesn't matter that you're related, you still only get one vote. And so it was one of our voter fraud cases that we pursued during the 2020 election, and while there are not large volumes of them, there are some every election that we're pursuing to make sure we protect the system and hold those people accountable who are trying to interfere with it. We've got a lot more safeguards in place than people realize, and I think that's one of the beauties of it, is that you have people who are dedicated taking care of it so that when you head to the polls, you don't have to think about that. You know that it's going to be fair and that your vote's going to count just the same as anybody else in your community.
Brennan Summers, Podcast Host (28:46):
The takeaway is Idaho's elections are safe, secure, but you're always working to ensure that they become safer, more secure, and
Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane (28:54):
We're always building and growing on it. Yep,
Brennan Summers, Podcast Host (28:57):
Love it. Do you see practices in other states that concern you?
Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane (29:02):
I think some of it is one. I know professionals. I've been working in this industry long enough. I know a lot of my peers across the country, and they're very dedicated professionals. A lot of it boils down to policy decisions more than anything. States do things differently. As I mentioned already, Oregon and Washington do it very different than we do here in Idaho. There's pros and cons to each. I think we have a really good balance system in the state where you can request an absentee ballot, but you have to actually go request it. We have early voting available. Polling places are throughout the state, so you can use 'em. A really good example for me to highlight is the 2020 election. That was during part of the pandemic. The Idaho legislature actually got together for a special session to address some of our election needs, and I think that was great because the legislature weighed in on what we're going to do, and one of 'em was just the pre-processing of absentee ballots.
(29:52):
That's something that would help the entire country that isn't done and actually isn't done still in Idaho at this point. We just did it that one election, but allows the offices to be more methodical to take the time to do it without the pressure of after election day, once the polls close, every news outlet in the world is looking for results. Everyone's clicking refresh on their computers and there is an immense pressure to get things done. Idaho was the second state in the nation to have all their results in during 2020, and I can contrast that with Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania took up a very similar bill that Idaho did during the 2020 election except for Idaho passed it and Pennsylvania, and we all watched and followed as we were wondering what was going on in Pennsylvania afterwards. I know the current Secretary of State, there are dedicated people, but some of those decisions didn't help build confidence in the process, and I'm hopeful that we can all learn from that and that we can have better systems in place to get people results when they want 'em because it's very clear the country wants to know who the president's going to be right around election day, not weeks to follow.
Brennan Summers, Podcast Host (30:55):
Absolutely. And sometimes this perception becomes reality that even though everything could and should be on the up and up, if it looks like it's not, then suddenly there's just no trust.
Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane (31:05):
I think that's a big part of it is everything could actually be going well, but if it takes days and then weeks later it raises the question, there's no reason people need to know what's going on on the inside. Just saying, wait a second. There are some practices we can all have in place and do things. We can have our differences among states, but we can still try to meet the American public where they're hoping to be on election. And I don't think that's something unique here in Idaho. I think that's cross country.
Brennan Summers, Podcast Host (31:30):
Yeah. So I'm going to ask you to do something a little unconventional if you'll take off the Secretary of state hat and even take off your partisan hat. And as just put on the election junkie hat, we've referenced a few times. We have a big election coming up and anybody who's following polls or maps knows that it looks like the presidential election could be quite close, and as of right now, it appears quite close, unprecedented, and not only former president coming back, running again, but also a vice president coming to the ticket with the president last second coming off so many new things as an election junkie, what are some things you see looking at this that more of us should be paying attention to in the landscape? Give us just some insider baseball here. When it comes to the presidential race,
Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane (32:13):
I will say I'm definitely an elections junkie. Probably a lot of the stuff I focus on are the nerdy things that no one else does. It's really interesting to see how it plays out. The presidential race has been a rollercoaster over ride so far. I mean, going back to the first debate where I think all of us just were slack jawed and didn't know what to think, I still don't know what happened there. I'm actually surprised as a, we've moved on from the assassination attempt pretty quickly, and that is a really, really big deal for those of us who are in government and close to it. That was a terrifyingly close moment, not just for President Trump, but for all of us. I think that was really significant here. As you already mentioned, the switching candidates, that all happened over the summer. We still have a ways to go between now and election day.
(33:02):
It is interesting. Those of us here in Idaho, when we turn on the television, we don't see presidential ads. In some ways. You wouldn't know there's a presidential election until you turn on some national news and know what's happening. One of my colleagues here was in elections training in Detroit recently, and he said, every single commercial in Michigan is a presidential ad by one of the two candidates or some super PAC or somebody else. That's one of the interesting things is a lot of attention is on the battleground states. I think as we get closer to November, that's going to continue to be true. This is going to be a close selection and then it has trickle down. What does that look like here in Idaho? People are very passionate in our state. People have strong feelings, and I think one of the biggest challenges for us as we head towards November is just how does this reconcile itself?
(33:50):
Because there are people who have very strong feelings in both directions, and hopefully we can come together as a country afterwards and really continue to build on the system. Our system is better today because of the 2020 election. We've really bolstered what we're doing. We've added more transparency elements. I'll highlight one great thing, the ADA County Clerk's office, so it was my successor, Trent Triple. He has a new tool called Ballot Verifier. This is as nerdy as election nerdy gets. He is now posting every image of every single ballot. So if someone wants to conduct their own hand count and ADA County, they can go and flip through every single image and count all the votes. They can see how the machine counted the votes, and he's gained national attention for it because it's something across the country people are watching. They're like, there's transparency, and then there's Trent level of transparency. And it really is eyeopening to see behind the curtains. And that's part of our efforts to really say like, look, we're doing it well. You want to check our work? We want to invite anybody who has questions in, I've given lots of tours of our election shop. There's a lot of good things in place and I feel confident going in for all of us here. I know you asked me to take off my Secretary of State role, but it's hard for me to get out of the system when I think about all this stuff.
Brennan Summers, Podcast Host (35:07):
No, I love it. And I have zero desire to go in and hand count any ballots in ADA County, but I love that it's an option and that people do. Secretary, not only do you appreciate your time today, we appreciate what you and your office are doing. I go back to this idea that you don't want us to have to worry about anything when we go vote except who we're voting for, and just have trust that everything will be counted and correct, and we know it takes thousands of people to make that work. So not just you and the great county clerks, but all those volunteers that show up and make sure I get my sticker. We appreciate it. So Secretary Phil McGrane, thank you so much for your time today. We hope to have you back after the election to talk more and recap on a few things. And again, we appreciate your time.
Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane (35:48):
Yeah, it was great to be with you today.
Brennan Summers, Podcast Host (35:50):
Thank you, sir. Till next time.
