Ohio Secretary of State: Kathleen Clyde wants to stand up for young voters. Are they getting the message?
By Elizabeth Rohr-Thompson
In the lower level bar of Market Garden Brewery in Ohio City, craft beer and basil-adorned margarita pizza were flowing in the low-lit, wood paneled room. Missing from the audience at this trendy venue were many representatives of young voters.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, A. Philip Rudolph Institute and League of Women Voters of Ohio hosted the Oct. 4 event at Market Garden, featuring topics that directly affect young voters: gerrymandering, voter rolls, registering to vote and general voting rights. One topic of discussion was observations and recommendations for young voters.
At previous events, young voters had expressed confusion about election information and uncertainty about where to find accurate facts, according to Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio. “Any attempt to confuse voters is suppressing voters,” she said.
Trying to address the voting rights and needs of young people — and all voters most likely to be affected by election accessibility issues — is a stated goal of Rep. Kathleen Clyde, the Democratic candidate for Ohio secretary of state. Clyde’s current position as member of the Ohio House of Representatives is term-limited. She is currently finishing her fourth term representing Ohio’s 75th district.
According to her campaign website, soon after graduating with a law degree from The Ohio State University, Clyde immersed herself in Ohio election processes. She worked as an election official for the Franklin County Board of Elections and oversaw the set-up and operations of early voting. Elections and voting processes are an important issue for the secretary of state because that person is the chief election official for the state.
“There have been a lot of attacks on student voting rights that have been going on in the last few years,” she said in a phone interview. While her campaign has focused on issues affecting all voters, she focused in the interview on issues that affect students in particular.
Two examples include the elimination of the first week of early voting, which Clyde said hurts students who previously could register and vote early on the same day. The other issue was a provision in the 2016–2017 Ohio budget. It would have required any out-of-state student who registers to vote in Ohio to turn in his or her out of state driver license, get a new license and retitle any vehicles within 30 days. Noncompliance would have resulted in six months of jail time or a $2,500 fine. Gov. John Kasich line-item vetoed the provision from the budget, but Clyde said that her opponent, Ohio Sen. Frank LaRose, supported the provision.
Clyde said she wants to make voting more accessible for everybody and make it easier for everybody to register. She spoke about the benefits of setting up an automatic voter registration through the Department of Motor Vehicles. She supports an “opt-out” registration process that would require citizens to actively opt out of being registered to vote automatically when they visit their local BMV to renew a license or get an identity card. According to Clyde, another way to make registration easier for students would be if automatic registration happened in high school, when students turned 18.
Despite Clyde’s interest in making voting easier for young voters, her message may not be reaching Ohio’s youngest voters. Jarred Meyer is a freshmen first-time voter at John Carroll University, and he hadn’t heard of Clyde before being interviewed.
“I didn’t even think of the Ohio House of Representatives or the secretary of state position,” he admitted.
Meyer said he related to many of the issues that Clyde has brought up in the race, including concern about the implementation of purging voters from registration lists by current Secretary of State Jon Husted. Automatic voter registration also struck a chord.
“I think it would be appreciated by a lot of young voters,” he said when told of Clyde’s idea to have automatic registration of 18-year-olds in Ohio high schools. He noted that while college campuses are a great place for election information, not every young person leaves high school and goes on to college.
One other concern Meyer expressed about politics in general was the need for more individual outreach from candidates. Rather than seeing advertisements or internet videos, Meyer would like to see more direct phone calls to constituents and town-hall meetings that show voters that candidates really care about them and their needs.
This individual outreach may be what’s missing from Clyde’s campaign. When contacted by email and asked about events for young voters, Pete Shipley, the media contact for the Clyde campaign, listed several outreach events at Ohio colleges and universities. However, none of these events were featured or shared on the campaign’s Facebook events page.
According to Shipley, “Political events are generally scheduled in coordination with host groups (i.e. College Dems, labor groups, NAACP, etc.) who disseminate that information to their membership and the general public. Since fundraiser hosts usually don’t belong to a membership group, those FB events are hosted on Kathleen’s page.”
The events featured on the Facebook page are fundraising events, which use the Democrats’ donation website ActBlue.com to collect donations.
An event held in Shaker Heights Oct. 9 was promoted on the campaign Facebook page but was closed to journalists.“Unfortunately, since this event is a fundraiser at a private residence it will be closed to the press,” Shipley said in an email.
Colin Swearingen, an associate professor of political science at JCU, provided some context for campaign fundraising events. “It’s very common,” he said. “Campaigns want to be able to raise as much money as they can.”
In addition to the need for funds to run a campaign, Swearingen said that fundraiser events allow a sense of exclusive access to the candidate. This, however, comes with its own drawbacks. Swearingen cites the controversial soundbites recorded at private events held for then-presidential candidates Mitt Romney in 2012 and Hillary Clinton in 2016. This is one major disadvantage to these fundraiser events, according to Swearingen.
Meyer was concerned about the image of advertising only private fundraiser events that are closed to the non-donor public and press. “In a way, you are deterring people from voting if you’re not being open and honest,” he said.
Meyer pointed out another drawback. Fundraising events aren’t always accessible to young voters, who are often on limited budgets. Meyer stated that he comes from a financially comfortable background but also said his funds are limited. When asked if he would donate his money for a private event for a candidate, he said, “Absolutely not, if I’m being totally honest. Giving some politician my money isn’t something I want to do.”
