Up until 2020, the question leading up to most presidential elections is, "Who's going to win?" This year, the most important question seems to be, will people be able to agree on who the winner is?

Most of the doubt around the outcome of the election comes from questions around the prevalence of voter fraud, either via tampered mail-in ballots or voter impersonation at the polls. 

To help clear the fog around this, I invited Genya Coulter (aka ElectionBabe), Precinct Clerk for Polk County, Florida, back to YDHTY to discuss what voters should really be worried about this Election Day, and what fears they can tuck away with their Halloween decorations.

You can listen to the full recording below, on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever your bad self gets your podcasts.

Show Notes

As Precinct Clerk, Coulter's job includes managing a group of volunteers of various levels of experience in multiple locations to ensure a quick, clean, and accurate vote count that keeps Polk County out of the 24 hour news cycle. In a normal election, Coulter's challenge is ensuring voters know where to go to vote and what they're voting for.

This year, she has the additional challenge of keeping polling places from turning into superspreader event as disinformation around the security of voting makes people less confident voting early or by mail. Predictably, the more popular topics around potential problems in this years election, such as voter impersonation or fraudulent ballots, are false.

In her county, for instance, ballots are held in a locked box held inside a locked room monitored by security cameras and only able to be accessed with two people of opposite parties present at the same time. In short, spending millions and millions of dollars on television ads is cheaper than figuring out how to rig an election county by county.

The problems Coulter is preparing for stem more around ensuring people who would have voted by mail or cast absentee ballots in prior elections don't flood polling places out of fear their votes won't be counted unless their physically present to cast them on Election Day. 

To ensure this year's election is a boring (read: good) one,  Coulter recommends the following:

• Vote early or by mail if you can. This will reduce lines at polling places and will minimize the chances you either get sick or get someone else sick.
• If you do vote in person, wear a mask. If you're super anti-mask, think of it as putting on a nice shirt to make your grandmother happy and suck it up for everyone who might be worried about getting sick.
• Make a plan to vote. Know where, when, and how you're going to cast your ballot and who you're voting for before you get there.

One last note: Polling places are in need of volunteers, especially bilingual ones. If you'd like to help, visit PowerThePolls.org for more information.

If you'd like to dive deeper into election security and how elections are run, check out Coulter's first appearance on YDHTY in episode 40,