Speaker 1: Bill Cunningham, the Great America and welcome with glorious Thursday
Speaker 1: afternoon the tri State. The weather should break, we're told
Speaker 1: by Channel nine sometime the next day or two Saturdays
Speaker 1: should be nicer. I was in Anderson Township last night.
Speaker 1: It rained like crazy for two hours, as hard as
Speaker 1: it can rain, and where I lived got absolutely no rain,
Speaker 1: but a little bit unusual. Reds Baseball first pitch tonight
Speaker 1: is five ten, getting it over quickly. I assume, like
Speaker 1: last night's game, Thomas Rhett, it's the big concert. I'm
Speaker 1: sir Franklin Rose. Franklerose is a big fan of Thomas Rhett.
Speaker 1: In fact, Secretary of State, frank Larrose, have you ever
Speaker 1: heard of Thomas Rhett?
Speaker 2: Heard of him? My taste is a little bit older
Speaker 2: when it comes to that.
Speaker 1: Well, he's going to rock and roll with you, to
Speaker 1: pull It's a great country artist. Tonight after the game
Speaker 1: and the Reds play the Oakland A's hopefully better than
Speaker 1: the last two nights. First of all, talk about where
Speaker 1: we are in voting. I saw online that your office
Speaker 1: had found literally thousands and thousands of illegals that were
Speaker 1: registered to vote, which, of course never happens. Everyone is
Speaker 1: registered to vote is completely legitimate. I dare you to
Speaker 1: question anyone's illegalities when it come to voting. But what
Speaker 1: did you find out, Secretary of State Frank LeRose, give
Speaker 1: me a full report.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we do take it seriously that only US
Speaker 2: citizens should be allowed to participate in American elections. And
Speaker 2: it's what the Ohio Constitution requires, it's what state and
Speaker 2: federal law says, and so, yeah, we go through those checks.
Speaker 2: It's a multi layer process and it's harder than it
Speaker 2: should be because the federal government doesn't help us much
Speaker 2: with the databases that they have. They limit our access
Speaker 2: to those, but we use all the tools at our disposal.
Speaker 2: We go through the voter rules and we identified not thousands,
Speaker 2: but several hundred non citizens who were registered to vote,
Speaker 2: and we have worked to remove them from the voter
Speaker 2: rules and also refer them forst because when you register
Speaker 2: to vote and you're not a US citizen, you violate
Speaker 2: the law. And we want people to know that if
Speaker 2: you mess around, you'll find out. Don't think that you
Speaker 2: can get away with registering to vote in Ohio as
Speaker 2: a non citizen. We will catch you and you will
Speaker 2: face justice for it.
Speaker 1: In fact, to the state of Texas, the number is
Speaker 1: well north of one hundred thousand, might be as much
Speaker 1: as a million illegals registered to vote, and now the
Speaker 1: ACLU issuing the Attorney General in Texas for taking them
Speaker 1: off their roles. In the state of Ohio, how does
Speaker 1: a non citizen actually register to vote? How's that possible?
Speaker 2: Well, it can happen a variety of different ways, sometimes
Speaker 2: really by no fault of their own. And I'll explain
Speaker 2: that when you go into a driver's license office to
Speaker 2: get your driver's license, to state BMV deputy register our office,
Speaker 2: they'll sometimes hand you a voter registration form. We have
Speaker 2: found in some cases that non citizens, particularly with limited
Speaker 2: English proficiency, and of course they're here on legal status
Speaker 2: into get a driver's license, maybe they've got to work
Speaker 2: visa or a student visa or whatever else, they'll fill
Speaker 2: that voter registration form out. Because when a government employee
Speaker 2: hands you a form, if you're grew up in a
Speaker 2: foreign country, you fill that thing out and they'll check
Speaker 2: the box that says, no, I am not a US
Speaker 2: citizen at about it. So really they've done nothing wrong.
Speaker 2: They filled the form out, honestly, But because of a
Speaker 2: data entry error by the team at the Board of Elections.
Speaker 2: Maybe they didn't look at it close enough and see
Speaker 2: that box that said no, I am not a citizen.
Speaker 2: That's where you end up with a small percentage again,
Speaker 2: couple hundred out of eight million registered voters. Or in
Speaker 2: some cases it could be intentional, someone is actually trying
Speaker 2: to register to vote as a non citizen. Either way,
Speaker 2: it's a violation of the law. We give them a
Speaker 2: chance to fix it themselves. We send them a letter
Speaker 2: in the mail that says, according to our records, you
Speaker 2: are a non citizen and registered to vote. If that's true,
Speaker 2: we're going to give you thirty days to withdraw your registration.
Speaker 2: If they don't take advantage of that, then yes, we
Speaker 2: remove them ourselves and we refer them for prosecution. You
Speaker 2: mentioned the ACLU and all of the allied liberal organizations.
Speaker 2: They always rush to the courthouse this time of year
Speaker 2: to try to change the way elections are run, and
Speaker 2: it's happening to me as well. It wouldn't surprise me
Speaker 2: if they come and sue us as it relates to
Speaker 2: removing non citizens from the voter roles. But currently we're
Speaker 2: facing lawsuits from groups that don't want me to enforce
Speaker 2: a whole variety of Ohio's election integrity laws, including, by
Speaker 2: the way, our ban on foreign nationals funding elections. I've
Speaker 2: of course upheld that law, and there's a group that's
Speaker 2: suing me. We're actually expecting a decision in that case
Speaker 2: anytime now.
Speaker 1: As far as what's happening in other states, you're very
Speaker 1: active with the other forty nine secretaries of state. When
Speaker 1: I talk to individuals in Nevada or Texas, they tell
Speaker 1: me that when you get your driver's license, don't have
Speaker 1: to be a citizen to get a driver's license, that
Speaker 1: you're automatically registered to vote in Nevada. When I have
Speaker 1: on Tony Bender's good friend Wayne Allen Root, he tells
Speaker 1: me there's literally tens of thousands of Nevada AND's who
Speaker 1: are registered to vote because they have a driver's license.
Speaker 1: If you check a form whether you're a citizen or not,
Speaker 1: but no one pays attention there whether you're a citizen
Speaker 1: or not, you get the ballot in the mail. So,
Speaker 1: assuming you're in Ohio and a non citizen gets a
Speaker 1: ballot in the mail, I think you're sending out real
Speaker 1: soon an application to get an absentee ballot for no
Speaker 1: reason at all. You can outdo that. Why is it
Speaker 1: not a crime if someone checks the box one way
Speaker 1: or another or makes a mistake and they actually vote.
Speaker 1: It seems to me there ought to be some cross
Speaker 1: reference with all kinds of databases from all the Secretaries
Speaker 1: of States in the federal government. It could happen very quickly.
Speaker 1: So when you say the Feds aren't helping you, can
Speaker 1: you be more specific as to why Joe Biden, Kamala
Speaker 1: Harris doesn't help you. What is it they could do
Speaker 1: that they don't do well.
Speaker 2: You hit a couple things here. First of all, Ohio's
Speaker 2: example to the rest of the country. There's a reason
Speaker 2: why I'm going to testify in Congress next week. They've
Speaker 2: asked me to come and testify. There's a reason why
Speaker 2: I was elected by my peers to be the chairman
Speaker 2: of the Republican Secretary's of State Committee. Nationally. I spoke
Speaker 2: at the Republican Lawyers Association just a couple of weeks
Speaker 2: ago about election integrity. The rest of the country views
Speaker 2: Ohio as an example of how to do this right.
Speaker 2: You talked about driver's licenses in other states where they
Speaker 2: have automatic voter registration. That's problematic. We don't have automatic
Speaker 2: voter registration in Ohio. And what we do have is
Speaker 2: a great relationship with our Bureau of Motor Vehicles. The
Speaker 2: team over there works very well with us. In fact,
Speaker 2: they're one of the best tools we have to find
Speaker 2: out who's a citizen and who's not. Because when you
Speaker 2: get a driver's license in Ohio, and to be clear,
Speaker 2: you must have legal status to get you are If
Speaker 2: you are an illegal alien, you cannot get a driver's
Speaker 2: license at Ohio. But when you go to get a
Speaker 2: driver's license, you have to prove your status. You're either
Speaker 2: most of us don't remember when we got our first
Speaker 2: driver's license back at sixteen years old, but you have
Speaker 2: to bring your birth certificate when you do that right
Speaker 2: to prove identity, or if you are here on a
Speaker 2: student visa or on a work visa, you have to
Speaker 2: prove your legal status. So the Ohio Bureau Votor Vehicle
Speaker 2: knows without a doubt who's a citizen and who's not,
Speaker 2: and they're one of the best tools we have. The
Speaker 2: federal government has access to other databases, and as I
Speaker 2: was mentioning, they're not forthcoming with those they charge us fees,
Speaker 2: they make it very difficult for us to access those databases.
Speaker 2: In fact, right now, I am considering legal action against
Speaker 2: the Biden administration because there are three databases that the
Speaker 2: Department of Homeland Security is supposed to give us access to.
Speaker 2: I have been asking for access to those databases and
Speaker 2: they have thus far not granted that because we need
Speaker 2: all the tools that we can have to detect and
Speaker 2: remove non citizens from the voter rules to make sure
Speaker 2: that Ohio remains the gold standard for election integrity.
Speaker 1: And almost makes you think the Biden administration wants illegals
Speaker 1: to vote. Now, other states have different state laws, So
Speaker 1: if the state law is different in Arizona, California, and Nevada,
Speaker 1: if the state law there is different, you would then
Speaker 1: have thousands of legal voting unless you have an aggressive
Speaker 1: secretary of state. Is that fair to say?
Speaker 2: It's potentially that case. And this is why it's so
Speaker 2: important that people attention to Secretary of State raises and
Speaker 2: why it's so good that Ohio has chosen a conservative
Speaker 2: who's actually going to enforce the law. And that's what
Speaker 2: my team does each and every day. Election integrity matters
Speaker 2: and you know, this is something that I think Republicans
Speaker 2: and Democrats want us to do to uphold the law.
Speaker 2: If you dive into the cesspool of social media from
Speaker 2: time to time, you will see all kinds of leftists
Speaker 2: insulting me for taking dead people off the voter rules,
Speaker 2: for taking non citizens off the voter roles. They say
Speaker 2: that I'm suppressing the vote and other things. Couldn't be
Speaker 2: the furthest from the truth. What we're actually doing. We're
Speaker 2: increasing voter participation because people want to participate in an
Speaker 2: election that they know is honest, and if they think
Speaker 2: the election's not honest, they're more likely to skip it. Huh.
Speaker 1: Secondly, what about Robert F. Kennedy Junior. Is he on
Speaker 1: the ballot in Ohio and the fact that he said
Speaker 1: he's not gonna accept he's not gonna win anyway, but
Speaker 1: he wants to be off the ballot. Is RFK Junior
Speaker 1: on the ballot in the state of.
Speaker 2: Ohio, he will not be. He did qualify for the ballot,
Speaker 2: he got the right number of signatures, but I actually
Speaker 2: got a letter from him last week saying I wish
Speaker 2: to have my name removed from the ballot. He got
Speaker 2: that to us in time to do so. And so
Speaker 2: when we start printing out ballots, and by the way,
Speaker 2: we start sending out absentee ballots to our overseas and
Speaker 2: military personnel in just a.
Speaker 1: Couple of weeks.
Speaker 2: So people are going to start voting here very soon,
Speaker 2: and his name will not be on the ballot in Ohado.
Speaker 1: Does this endorsement if Trump mean anything? Then legally in
Speaker 1: the state of Ohio, I would assume nothing except for
Speaker 1: political purposes. If someone might be persuaded who was a
Speaker 1: Kennedy voter to vote for Trump, but legally there will
Speaker 1: be no Kennedy on the ballot. Now, Tony Bender has
Speaker 1: a question. What if Tony Bender's unhappy with Trump and
Speaker 1: he's unhappy with Biden and wants to write in someone's name.
Speaker 1: He's thinking about writing my name in uh Is that legal?
Speaker 1: If you have a right in can you put someone
Speaker 1: in there? And will that be counted?
Speaker 2: It's a common misconception, and we get this every year
Speaker 2: where people write in all kinds of names. By the way,
Speaker 2: if you ever do decide to run for president, let
Speaker 2: me know I'll be the first one there to endorse you. Though.
Speaker 2: But you know, if you're not a certified right in candidate,
Speaker 2: that vote does not count. So what that means is
Speaker 2: you actually have to be a certified right in candidate.
Speaker 2: These are people that generally missed the deadline to get
Speaker 2: their name on or whatever else. Nobody's ever had a
Speaker 2: chance of winning as a right in for president. But
Speaker 2: at the local level, for a city council race or
Speaker 2: school board race, sometimes right ends are successful. But you
Speaker 2: have to be a certified right in candidate. You can't
Speaker 2: just a voter. Can't just write in any old random
Speaker 2: name and expect that to receive a vote.
Speaker 1: Now there goes my electoral hopes. But how do you
Speaker 1: become a certified ride in? What do you got to do?
Speaker 1: Become certified? If I want to become a certified right in,
Speaker 1: what do you have to do?
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a process where you have to submit some
Speaker 2: information to usually the county Board of Elections if you're
Speaker 2: running as a right in at the local level, or
Speaker 2: to us if you're seeking to run as a right
Speaker 2: in at the state wide level.
Speaker 1: So, in other words, it's quite a Joe Deeters. A
Speaker 1: few years ago, we had a right in election for
Speaker 1: county prosecutor. Believe it or not, this is like ten
Speaker 1: fifteen years ago because the prosecutor in charge left off
Speaker 1: as quickly and so there was a write in. Joe
Speaker 1: Deeters Hamilton County won the prosecutor's office on a right
Speaker 1: in What are the odds of that happening? He won? Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you heard about what that says?
Speaker 2: Something about theaters, that says something about his name, I
Speaker 2: d in campaigning. Now, if you have like a four
Speaker 2: syllable last name, I would encourage you not to try
Speaker 2: something like that.
Speaker 1: Though, now so illegals, you're on it. RFK Jr. Was
Speaker 1: going to be on the ballot. He took his name off.
Speaker 1: He's going to be on the ballot in several states
Speaker 1: because the secretaries of states in those states did not
Speaker 1: have the authority to take him off the ballot once
Speaker 1: he's qualified. But you're saying, Ohio, he's going to be
Speaker 1: on five or six state ballots when Kennedy does want
Speaker 1: to be on the state ballot, but they had a
Speaker 1: state law that says you can't take him off. So
Speaker 1: he's going to be on the ballot, but Ohio is
Speaker 1: not one of those states. Now, lastly, you told me
Speaker 1: off the air. You've been back like two or three
Speaker 1: days from army training. Explain what you've been doing the
Speaker 1: past two or three weeks. You were in the South
Speaker 1: and it was somewhat warm. Explain that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I was actually down at what's now called
Speaker 2: Fort Liberty, North Carolina, used to be Fort Bragg. I
Speaker 2: think you know. I'm a reservist in the Army. I'm
Speaker 2: an East seven, which is a sergeant first class, and
Speaker 2: there's a required school called the Senior Leaders Course that
Speaker 2: I had to graduate from. So I was at the
Speaker 2: Special Warfare Center, which is where Green Berets go for
Speaker 2: this kind of thing. And I'm happy to say, at
Speaker 2: forty five years old, I can still keep up with
Speaker 2: the young Green Berets, and so I guess I'm doing
Speaker 2: something right there.
Speaker 1: So if you're called up, what does that mean? I
Speaker 1: mean that means the country's invaded or what do we do?
Speaker 1: I mean, this could be an ugly situation. Look what's
Speaker 1: happening in parts of the world and which invasions are
Speaker 1: taking place. If you're called up for duty, you'd be
Speaker 1: forty five years old doing what.
Speaker 2: Well. Again, as a Green Beret and as a member
Speaker 2: of a special Forces unit, I do get quite a
Speaker 2: bit of flexibility with that, I generally work with my
Speaker 2: unit commander on a yearly basis to lay out my
Speaker 2: training schedule because they understand that I also have a
Speaker 2: responsibility to the citizens of Ohio. So there have been
Speaker 2: a number of members of Congress, even members of the
Speaker 2: US Senate over the years, statewide office holders who are
Speaker 2: also reservists. Thankfully, the Defense Department understands that you have
Speaker 2: to balance your military obligation with your civilian obligations and
Speaker 2: in this case, my official responsibilities to the people of Ohio.
Speaker 2: So they give me some flexibility, but I get in
Speaker 2: the number of weeks I need every year, usually by
Speaker 2: helping support my unit with training and other things that
Speaker 2: they're doing. Listen, if something happened to my nation needed me,
Speaker 2: I would probably serve. And I've served in combat before
Speaker 2: on a number of occasions and wouldn't shy away from
Speaker 2: the opportunity to do so again.
Speaker 1: Lastly, what's the status of reapportionment? There's a ballot issue
Speaker 1: that was going to be on the ballot in Ohio.
Speaker 1: I think some of the language language was different, as
Speaker 1: we sider at the end of August. What's the status
Speaker 1: of reapportionment? The districts being on the ballot this November.
Speaker 1: Is that going to happen or not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So there is what is now called Issue one,
Speaker 2: which is a I would consider it a left wing
Speaker 2: effort to try to rewrite the way that district lines
Speaker 2: get drawn. Me, as a member of the chairman of
Speaker 2: the ballot board, write the language that appears on the ballot.
Speaker 2: We wrote a truthful and honest assessment of what that
Speaker 2: constitutional amendment would actually do. Now, think about this. It's
Speaker 2: thirteen thousand words long. This amendment, this very complex Rube
Speaker 2: Goldberg device that they're trying to build here for redistricting
Speaker 2: is thirteen thousand words long. That's an amendment to the
Speaker 2: Ohio Constitution. The entire US Constitution is seven thousand, five
Speaker 2: hundred words long. And so yes, we had to we
Speaker 2: use ten bullet points to kind of explain what this does.
Speaker 2: I'm being sued by a group of leftists now that
Speaker 2: are upset about how truthful our language was. That's going
Speaker 2: to be in front of the Ohio Supreme Court, and
Speaker 2: it's going to be up to them to decide if
Speaker 2: our language stands. But that will be a choice that
Speaker 2: Ohioans get to make. This November, if they want to
Speaker 2: put a bunch of unaccountable individuals in charge of essentially
Speaker 2: requiring them to jerrymander the state to accomplish a predetermined
Speaker 2: political outcome, which I think is a pretty cynical way
Speaker 2: of viewing this.
Speaker 1: So someone in the ballot box would have to stand
Speaker 1: there and read thirteen thousand words to and then try
Speaker 1: to understand what they're saying before they vote. Are you
Speaker 1: kidding me? How does that work?
Speaker 2: Well? Well, and that's why we write the summary language
Speaker 2: that actually appears on the ballot. So no, what we
Speaker 2: wrote was ten bullet points. That's what will appear on
Speaker 2: the ballot that was voted on and approved by the
Speaker 2: Ohio Ballot Board. It's now being there's a lawsuit to
Speaker 2: test whether that is is going to stand or not,
Speaker 2: and that's in front of the US Supreme Court. If
Speaker 2: you want to read all thirteen thousand words, it will
Speaker 2: be posted at your voting location. Great, I encourage you
Speaker 2: to step out of line because it's going to take
Speaker 2: you half an hour to read all of that. You
Speaker 2: have the right to do that. We're also required to
Speaker 2: publish it on our website, publish it in the newspapers,
Speaker 2: with just as a boon for the newspapers. But the
Speaker 2: law requires us to publish that long ballot the constitutional
Speaker 2: amendment language three times in newspapers of general circulation, that
Speaker 2: kind of thing, so Ohian's had the chance to educate
Speaker 2: themselves on it. It's a very complex amendment and and I,
Speaker 2: for one, I'm opposing it.
Speaker 1: Well, I oppose it also it is kind of stupid.
Speaker 1: A lot of bunch of academics and others take the
Speaker 1: place of voters who decide who the officeholders are to
Speaker 1: make these decisions. Once again, Frank Lerosa, thank you for
Speaker 1: your service, and we'll see what happens down the road.
Speaker 1: But once again, thank you for coming on the Bill
Speaker 1: Cunningham Show this Thursday afternoon.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Frank, see you back in the
Speaker 2: Queen City soon.
Speaker 1: Take care, God bless America. Les continue with more, and
Speaker 1: there's my endorsement as a writing candidate for the presidency.
Speaker 1: Frank Leroe stands with the great American. Let's continue with more.
Speaker 1: Bill Cunningham News Radio seven hundred WLW