Guardian of the Vote -- An Interview with Supervisor of Elections Vicki Davis

Smooth. Precise. Integrity. All are easy words used to describe the very difficult process of making sure the sanctity of the vote is maintained in Martin County, Florida. The Great American Senior Show kicks off a series of reports of how elections are protected against any perception of voter fraud while maintaining ease of voting for residents in one of Florida's most desirable counties.

Martin County Supervisor of Elections, Vicki Davis, whose office has a combined talent pool of more than 130 years of election integrity speaks candidly with the grey-haired host of the Great American Senior Show, telling Sam Yates how voters may register to vote, change their party affiliation and why vote by mail is so very popular.

Join us as we take a look at Elections 101 and beyond in a unique series of episodes that puts to rest many pieces of misinformation about Florida's election process. 

Transcript

Sam Yates: 0:11

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Great American Senior Show. I'm your gray haired host, Sam Yates. And I am so tickled today because I'm back in Martin County, Florida, and a friend of mine just happens to be for a long time, right? To be also the Supervisor of Elections. Vicki Davis, Vicki, welcome to the program.

Vicki Davis, Supervisor of Elections: 0:33

My pleasure. Thanks so much for the invitation, Sam, it's so important to get election information out to our voters. Because as we we all know, elections have been a little, there's been some confusion with elections in the election process and changes in the law.

Sam Yates: 0:52

And of course, that's what we want to do, certainly, with a focus on seniors. But one of the things that we learned in doing this program is that seniors have family, family have support, seniors have caregiver. So what starts as the the point in focus, by the time it all focuses out to a broader pattern, we cover a lot of people. So I'm glad to have you here. But I always enjoy setting the stage with my guests. Tell me a bit about yourself a background, what you have been doing with this job, how I don't want to say for how long, but tell us about yourself? Sure,

Vicki Davis, Supervisor of Elections: 1:27

I'll be happy to. I'm a generational Floridian I go back at least six generations. In fact, I'm working on my genealogy now, when I get a few few minutes here and there. But I have been in this job for this is my 18th year in the position prior to that I was eight years served eight years on the Morton County School Board as an elected member. So it was a natural transition for me to move from an elected official in one capacity into the elections office because I had to deal with the office as a candidate. And it just seemed to be a natural fit. And even my family knew for a number of years that when my predecessor decided to retire, I was going to file my paperwork and run for the position. And I never looked back. And it's really been a great joy. Of course, this job has its challenges, just like any other other job does, and especially elected positions have. But to me, it is the very foundation of our country's democracy and the democratic process that we all value so much. And that's why I'm so thankful to be a part of today's show, because the majority of our voters are senior citizens, the great generation and baby boomers and, you know, they're the ones that get out and vote.

Sam Yates: 3:00

And we're so proud of that. And we're really wanting to continue to educate everyone as much as possible. I think in from my perspective, looking from the outside in if that's quite possible. People take your office for granted. They think that elections happen and the machines show up. And the votes are just, you know, it's a process. And it's a really your long and ongoing process.

Vicki Davis, Supervisor of Elections: 3:25

That's that's so true. And the average voter has no idea how much work is involved in them being able to vote in person or vote by mail, just being able to cast that one vote that they're really wanting to participate in and to make sure their voice is heard. And as you said, we we go from, from the ending of an election cycle to the beginning of a new one for ourselves. So we never, we never stop.

Sam Yates: 3:57

And of course, there have been changes and we're gonna get into those and some of the deadlines and everything. But I was fortunate enough to have you speak to an organization with with a really, super, super person at your side this morning, Carrie Anderson.

Vicki Davis, Supervisor of Elections: 4:13

Well, I have two right hand right hand people one is my chief deputy, Debbie dent, and Debbie has been in elections for 33 years. So she she knows the ins and the outs. Carrie Anderson, who you're referencing, is another one of my right right hand people in Curie is Deputy of elections outreach, which also includes working with poll workers. And that's a huge job because we have to have poll workers, of course for every election, but not just on election day. We need poll workers for early voting as well. In the state of Florida we have three different methods by which a voter can cast their vote, and that's either by mail Early in person, or in person at the polls on Election Day. So all of those in person events have to be staffed. And Curie does such an absolutely excellent job with staffing, the precincts, the early voting sites, and being out in the community and educating our voters.

Sam Yates: 5:20

And before we started the program, we were chatting a wee bit. And you're also fortunate to have a depth of years of experience within the organization. What was that? Totally good?

Vicki Davis, Supervisor of Elections: 5:32

Yeah, we're about 130 years of election experience with my staff, myself and my staff here in the office, which is, which is great for a small office. I'm one of nine employees within the office. So I'm very proud of of the team that we have right now and have been able to put together

Sam Yates: 5:53

after hearing your earlier presentation, I'm going to ask now, because I know we're not going to get everything in on one episode. Can you come back for another episode?

Vicki Davis, Supervisor of Elections: 6:03

I would love to. I would love to anytime that I have the opportunity to share information. I'm right there because our voters need the most current and up to date information as possible. Because there have been so many changes in the law in the recent years.

Sam Yates: 6:23

Well, that's a great place to start. We do have elections coming up primary and general. There are some date specifics. What are they?

Vicki Davis, Supervisor of Elections: 6:32

August 23 Is the upcoming primary election and November 8 for the general election, it's really important for voters to remember, if you want to change your party for a primary election in the state of Florida, books closed 29 days prior to every election. And for a primary and it being a closed primary. We do have voters that come in change their party so that they can vote a certain way for certain candidates in that primary election. And then they'll come back and change back to their their original party. But being a closed primary, Florida still has a little caveat in the law. In the state of Florida in Martin County, for example, if we only have two voters, two candidates of the same party, for instance, running for Martin County, Board of County Commissioners if we have two Republican candidates, and I'll use Republican as an example, because they're the majority party within our county. But if we have two candidates running of the same party, and no other candidates file, no one from another party, no one files as a right in that race is going to then appear on every ballot style, whether you're a democratic registered voter, no party registered voter or a voter with with a minor party, it becomes a universal primary contest, and that that race will most likely be decided in the primary. And that's why primaries are so important.

Sam Yates: 8:13

And I'm glad you explained that that way. Because I know a lot of people have followed those who file and some seem like candidates and others don't seem like candidates. So when we have a situation like that, that's important to know. So I'm glad that you explained it that way. But let's back up a step who can vote in Florida

Vicki Davis, Supervisor of Elections: 8:35

in Florida, you just have to be a registered voter in Florida, which means you have to have a legal residency here and this would be your only homesteaded legal residence. You can't be registered to vote in Florida and another state. And we have had some voters, you know who thinks that they can still be registered, for instance, in Connecticut in here and just participate in the municipal elections in another state. That's not advisable. It's it might be too tempting to cast two votes in one election.

Sam Yates: 9:09

And certainly we have seen what the current and not saying it's right or wrong. But with the current spotlight that is on everything election related. I wouldn't imagine someone who wants to be in that spot.

Vicki Davis, Supervisor of Elections: 9:23

No, no. In in the state of Florida has joined an intrastate cross check organization. We're one of 30 states now. And the numbers continue to grow statewide, where information is shared from these 30 states that are a part of this organization. And it checks to make sure that voters are only registered to vote in one state and not to and that they're not voting in two states, only the one where they're legally residing

Sam Yates: 9:59

to vote. serious offense.

Vicki Davis, Supervisor of Elections: 10:01

It is it's a felony, it's a low level felony. But still it's a felony. And you don't want that on your record for sure.

Sam Yates: 10:09

Things have changed. And it seems like things have changed a lot here in Florida. With Senate Bill 90 overview of what some of those changes are.

Vicki Davis, Supervisor of Elections: 10:21

Senate Bill 90 passed in the 2021. Legislative session. As soon as the governor signed it, a lawsuit was filed and in a judge's ruling has taken place. But to back up and really look at those areas that affect our voters, they really center around voting by mail. In the state of Florida in 2020, we had an extraordinary number of voters who participated in the election by mail, the legislature took the position that they were going to tighten up the safety around the process of voting by mail. So when a voter requests in in the state of Florida, for years now, you you have had to request to vote by mail, it's always been that way I should say, in the past, you may have had to have a reason to vote by mail, not any longer, but you have to request a mail ballot to be mailed to you. In the past, you could have requested for two election cycles, equating to up to four years. Now under Senate Bill 90, you can only request for one election cycle up to two years, when you do make that request you have to provide to the supervisor of elections either the last four digits of your social security number, or your driver's license number, we have to verify that in our in our database, we may only have last four digits of social or driver's license number. It's so convenient for voters they know the last four digits of their social I'm finding, they even know their spouse's last four digits of social when they request for them, they don't have to ask, which is amazing. To me, that was one of the major changes, we do have about 1000 voters in our database that we don't have either number four. So we have obviously reached out to everyone that was in that position, and tried to bring them up in current. And as I've shared with groups, I was one of those voters, my husband was one of those voters, we didn't have either our last our driver's license number or last four digits of social, it wasn't required at the time we registered.

Sam Yates: 12:38

And I think that's important to underscore that there's nothing wrong with those people unnecessarily because it just means that they've been in the books for a long time.

Vicki Davis, Supervisor of Elections: 12:47

Exactly, exactly. Me and my husband, we haven't made a physical move. So no reason to update our information. So it has been updated. Needless to say the other changes with Senate Bill 90 is a lot of our voters, when they vote a vote by mail ballot, like to drop it off in person here at the office or at an early voting site. That way they know it's not going through the US postal system. They know we have it, it's in house, and their vote is going to be counted. Now according to Senate Bill 90, the elections office, I have to have someone at each box to monitor the process, which in a way has been helpful. Because if a voter comes up, we are asking that employee to verify and make sure that that ballot envelope is signed. According to Florida law, we have to reach out to a voter if their ballot envelope isn't signed, or there is a mismatch with their signature to remedy that situation.

Sam Yates: 13:56

And with those ballot drop boxes, what you're you're mentioning now, those have to be county employees. So it can't be a volunteer.

Vicki Davis, Supervisor of Elections: 14:05

No, it cannot be a volunteer they have to be on on payroll. So usually what we do because it's it's such a limited amount of time, I need my full time employees on the phones and in working with our voters that walk through the doors, because they're familiar with our databases. We hire a pope workers, you know, they're already in our system too. So we hire them pay them to be there at the dropbox because if I don't have someone at each Dropbox, then I am subject to personally a $25,000 civil fine, definitely

Sam Yates: 14:39

something to bear in mind. And of course, I can really be a testimonial to how you just go above and beyond to make sure that everyone has that opportunity, the right to vote. So I want to commend you on that. Something you meant Should earlier about SB 90. And that is that already there was a lawsuit filed and a 288 page ruling from a federal judge in Tallahassee, and I actually have his name here. So I'm Mark Walker, Mark Walker in Tallahassee, his ruling was pretty scathing, and I don't think we need to go into all of it. But does that put things in jeopardy as far as moving forward with the election?

Vicki Davis, Supervisor of Elections: 15:32

No, it really doesn't jeopardize the election process as a result of Judge Walker's ruling. And I think, you know, he focused on three different areas of Senate Bill 91, is third party voter registration, because there was a pretty stringent statement that anyone that was, for instance, League of Women Voters, their job is to register voters and to update information. And they have been doing that for many years. Under Senate Bill 90, they had to make a statement to anyone who registered to vote, that they were receiving their application. But they had to advise that individual that their application might not be turned in on time. And that seemed to be kind of a place to wall up with that potential voter some because I listened to the entire trial that took place I could dial in and listen, it was a two and a half week trial. And it was really interesting to listen to the different testimonials, the different individuals that testified. And they had instances of individuals who said, Okay, I think I'm just going to wait in and I'll just go to my supervisor of elections office, instead of registering with with you, since my application for may not make it to the office in time, Judge Walker ruled, basically placed an injunction on that language also placed an injunction on the dropbox issue, and placed an injunction in the third area online warming, and line warming is within the no solicitation zone, not being able to hand out a bottle of water to people standing in line or a cookie or piece of pizza, what whatever. We don't have that issue in Martin County, because we don't have long lines really affects the much larger counties. So right now there is a stay in those three areas. However, the governor, the Attorney General for the state of Florida has now filed an appeal with the 11th circuit appeal Circuit Court of Appeals out of Atlanta. So we, as supervisors of elections around the state, we're just waiting to hear if that stay is going to override judge Walker's stay. So it gets a little bit complicated. But it you know, we just, we go with with the flow, we are not as supervisors of elections, we're not policy setters. We are required by Florida statute to administer the law that is in place. So it's quite a job to keep up with everything.

Sam Yates: 18:34

And I'm watching my my clock a little closely, because I like to keep these around 15 to 20 minutes long, so people can listen while they're doing many, many things. So I am glad that I asked earlier in the program. One more time, you'll come back for another episode.

Vicki Davis, Supervisor of Elections: 18:49

I absolutely will. Because we have a lot to talk about.

Sam Yates: 18:52

We want to talk about closed primaries, we want to talk about the the actual registration process security here in the Martin County Supervisor of Elections Office, where the secure building, and I want to go into why all of that is happening. So we've got plenty to talk about Vicki, I appreciate you being with the

Vicki Davis, Supervisor of Elections: 19:10

program. My pleasure. Thank you for the invitation.

Sam Yates: 19:14

So as we look forward to our next episode, I would like to remind everyone if you have questions about the voting process, the voter registration process, whether you are here in Martin County, whether you are throughout any county in the state of Florida or throughout the nation, please contact your supervisor of elections. That is what they're all there for to answer your questions. And I cannot think of a single incident where if someone has not gotten an answer to a question, yeah.

Vicki Davis, Supervisor of Elections: 19:45

Yeah. In in, you know, in in our statewide association, we really like to advocate for the fact that we are the voters advocate and we are the election official. If if you are not sure about the information that you're hearing through social media or on TV or radio, please pick up your phone and call your local Supervisor of Elections or if you're in another state, your registrar or your clerk, whatever their title might be

Sam Yates: 20:16

very good. And if you are the voter advocate that I have to say that I am your gray haired host for the Great American Senior Show, and that's our program