Voting Rights and Dropboxes at forefront of Organization’s Campaign

Iris Meltzer is the president of the League of Women Voters of Ohio. Meltzer joined the organization in 2011, starting at the Kent League. She worked there for four years before being elected to oversee 33 local leagues within Ohio. Meltzer earned her Master’s in Psychology at Western Carolina University, Master’s in Public Health at the Consortium of Eastern Ohio Master of Public Health Program and has 28 years of experience as Administrator for Adolescent Health Services at Akron Children’s Hospital. She focused on activism in Summit County, before moving to more local organizations. Meltzer later followed her mother’s footsteps in joining the Kent chapter of the LWV, where she was promoted to President of the league within a year and a half. The League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan organization which brings awareness to public policy issues ranging from healthcare reform to voting rights.

What kickstarted your role in activism and as part of the League of Women Voters?

Meltzer: My father was a sociology professor and my mother was a political science instructor at a local university where I grew up, and it was listening to the conversations and recognizing that there were some folks who didn’t have what I now know to call privilege, and seeing that as unfair. My activism was focused on Summit County because that’s where I was working at the time. When I retired, I thought, “Okay, now it’s time to look locally.” And I thought, “I think my mom was a member of the league of women voters, so I’ll try and join the league of women voters.” After being a member of the Kent League for about a year and a half, I ended up being the local President, and eventually the state President. As President, to some extent, it’s being one of the two major faces of the league at the state level, the other being Jen Miller, the executive director. It’s really being a public face [for the organization,] but behind the scenes, it’s answering local questions, it’s conducting interviews. It’s as mundane as putting together the agendas for our board meetings and facilitating those meetings. It’s keeping track of all the moving pieces and parts and trying to keep them all moving smoothly. It’s the role of any person who is [the] chair of any kind of organization.

What differences are there between the levels of the League of Women Voters?

Meltzer: The League of Women Voters is a three-level organization. There are 50 state leagues plus Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and Washington D.C. The next league are the local leagues. There’s information and policy basically flowing in all directions. Certainly, one of the differences is that at the local level, I was answering to between 70 and 120 members. At the state level, I’m answering to 3,300 members. The league operates by policies; The national policies have a national scope, state policies have to be consistent with, but not duplicate national policies, and then local policies are consistent with, but do not duplicate state policies. For example, at the national level, there are a number of policies on the environment. At the state level, we have a policy about the great lakes. It would not make sense to have a policy at the national level about the great lakes, because that only affects certain states such as Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. At the local level, we also have environmental policies, but they are much smaller. They have to do with things that we can affect and address locally. Local leagues address local policies with state permission. There is advocacy at each level that corresponds to those level’s policies. They are divided out in that fashion.

So, policies at the local level can have an effect on the state’s policies. Can local policies lead to change on a national level? Has there ever been disagreements between any of the three levels regarding policy change?

Meltzer: It’s not as likely, because at the national level, things have to be broad enough to encompass the entire country. For example, at the 2017 state convention, somebody locally proposed a statewide study on health equity. That study is underway, it’s almost wrapped up. So something proposed by a local LWV member became a statewide study conducted at the local level. The policy will be statewide. What may well happen is other states that do not have a position on health equity may borrow from ours and decide they want to adopt that for their state. It is possible, say at a national convention, come up as a nationwide concurrence. There could be a need for a nationwide policy on health equity because we have a health policy and a mental health policy at the national level, but not a health equity policy.

All of the policies at the state level and the local level have to be consistent with policy at the national level. For example, at the national level, there is a policy about ending the electoral college and having direct vote instead. So, while states wouldn’t necessarily be addressing it anyway, state leagues cannot create a policy that say, “We think the electoral college is great and we’re going to advocate against any changes.” While individual members may not personally agree with a policy, they cannot put on their league hat and say the league is against this.

The League of Women Voters is nonpartisan, meaning you don’t endorse any specific political party. Would you say it’s more important to endorse policy change regardless of who proposes it?

Meltzer: To some extent, yes. But our main thrust is engaging and educate voters. When we do voter registration drives, we don’t say, “Excuse me, what party are you going to be a part of?” and then register them. We register voters when we send out our voter’s guide using a national platform called Vote411. We send the same questions to every candidate for a particular office and print their answers verbatim. If they don’t respond, it says the candidate did not respond. There’s nothing really that says we’re going to support this candidate because we agree with them on issues.

One of the biggest issues facing the nation right now is voting, and one of the issues related to voting is mail-in balloting. Is there really a difference between the terms “mail-in balloting” and “absentee balloting?”

Meltzer: In Ohio, an absentee ballot is any ballot cast before the election. So, whether it’s mailed in or done early at the polls, Ohio refers to that as an absentee vote, I assume since [you’re not present physically] on polling day. It’s really the same thing.

Recently, images have surfaced of USPS mailboxes being removed from communities across the country and been decommissioned. Has the LWV or LWVO taken an official stance on this?

Meltzer: I’m not sure at the national level, because it changes daily. We have not taken a position about the U.S. Postal Service at the state level because the USPS is a federal entity. And we would not take positions (at the state level,) we would follow the national league’s lead. We have filed a lawsuit that is pending saying “You need to put in more than one dropbox per county.” The secretary of state is saying he can’t, as there is nothing in Ohio revised code or the Ohio constitution that even mentions drop boxes. That it is moot. We are suggesting that people who want to vote absentee using the request that [they have] gotten is to use the drop box, even though we know that in some places, getting to the drop box is difficult. But if you are going to use the paper ballot in that sense, drop it in a drop box, or take it to your local post office, and have them postmark it in your presence.

Is widespread voter fraud a potential issue for mail-in balloting this election?

I did some deep diving into voter fraud [during the 2016 election,] and it was a miniscule percent of a percent. It just doesn’t exist. Typically, when it does exist, it is an error on someone’s part. Someone who is not really eligible to vote casts a vote because they did not realize they were ineligible. Now, there have been some more recent cases where folks have purposely tried to vote fraudulently, but they’ve been caught, which is why we know that. But it is almost immeasurable in terms of size.

Does the League of Women Voters take stances on other issues that are not related to voting rights?

Meltzer: Absolutely. It just happens to be that not only is this an election year, but a flat election with lots of people being disenfranchised. The issues with the post office and the push against mail-in voting have been our focus for the last [few] months, but we are also involved in other issues. On education in Ohio, we support public education as opposed to charter schools. Healthcare and housing are some other key issues we spent time on. There is another study coming up on arming school personnel at the state level that we’ll be working on. We know as soon as this election is over, we are going to pivot to redistricting. Based on the current census, which is being very underutilized, Ohio will be drawing new district lines, both for our congressional and legislative bodies. So that will be our next big focus. We are already starting to do some work in that area, but a lot cannot be done because there are no census numbers yet.