We're back on inside Tennessee.
We swapped out Robin Wilhoit
for Chris Davis, the election
administrator for Knox County.
The image degraded just
a little bit, certainly,
but I'm glad to be here. Thank ,
Chris. Thanks for joining us.
And it was a lower than expected
turn out for you this year,
absolutely. And and as an
election administrator it's,
it's very frustrating when you o
all you can to make voting as ey
and as accessible as possible fr
as many Knoxvilleans as possibl.
I know it's both Don and Eddie talked
about we have an excess of 100,0
voters in the city of Knoxville.
And when you do everything you n
and it's all over TV, radio, ne,
social media and the candidates,
I thought did a pretty good job
of attempting to get the word o.
And ultimately still with less
than 17,000 voters,
that's that's very frustrating.
And now with no mayor on the ba,
it's it's quite possible.
In fact historical trends would probably
tell you you're probably expectg
a lower turnout in the general.
I hope that's not the case,
but it it may trend that way.
Is there anything
you think that can be done to improve voting?
You know, there's some extreme measures.
Australia, it makes it a crime not to vote.
There are countries that make ia
federal holiday on on voting da.
There are, I think there are
even countries out now that allw
electronic voting for e-mail vo,
for lack of a better descriptio.
Is there anything you think we can do as
a community or state or nation? I'm not
really, I'm not really sure in Tennessee.
I I think the thing you know
when you think about it,
I'm just going to go through a few quick
things you can if you're in the hospital,
we'll come and visit you to vot.
We voted in every nursing home,
licensed nursing home and assisd
living facility in Knox County.
We give absentee 15 different
reasons to vote absentee with 83
days to request an absentee bal,
14 days of early voting including two
Saturdays in every election in August
election three Saturdays in Aug,
even number year election with
with generous hours open till
7:00 PM at least three nights ad
then 12 hours on Election Day.
I'm not sure you can do anything
else that's going to get intered
and involved citizens who care t
their government their community
democracy to to come out and come out.
These are the most important races the
person could vote for in a commy
because they affect you every d.
And I will tell you just and we get the calls
every single day somebody's complaining.
They want to know who's my City Council
person who's my county commissioner who
is and and and I said this lastk
on the show and I'll reiterate .
There are a lot of people in this town
who don't know the difference between
India Can Cannon and Glenn Jaco.
And. And that's a shame. And.
And one more thing I'll tell yow
an MTSU poll just a few years a,
if you'll remember when Bill
Haslam won his second term.
So that would've been like 2014, 2015.
They did a survey that it was
one out of four Tennesseans,
couldn't tell you who the governor was.
And that in my mind is sad.
People have to take a little bit
of initiative to get involved
in their community.
And you know, Chris,
when you think about it,
between the election this past Tuesday
and let's jump to next November,
in 15 months, 5 elections.
What do you think about the possibility
of combining to where we only hd
elections all in the same year,
but you had city and county
running together and then you
had state and federal offices
that it all happened in three
elections versus 5 / 15 months.
Well, I certainly think that
would increase turn out.
But I think, you know,
one of the things you have to
look at is given right now,
you set up the ballot, you had mayor,
you had three City Council seat,
you had judge 12345 on the ball,
You put that mayor's race.
And I'm not advocating for, aga.
I'm just saying you put that mayor's race
on the ballot and all of a sudden you're
going to go from being first on the ballot,
the 10th or 15th or 30th.
And we know historically,
a lot of people don't go all
the way down ballot.
They go in there to vote mayor r
sheriff or or governor or presi,
but they don't make it all
the way down the ballot.
So while you'll have more turn ,
in my opinion, I'm not sure you're going
to have a lot more informed vot,
But there's certainly some merit to that.
And I think that that might be something.
And as you will know,
that the legislature
might take you a month to count.
Yeah, at least. Absolutely.
Well, luckily, we're a little
more efficient than Arizona.
I don't think it would
take us that long. Glad
to hear you say that, Commissioner. And
Chris, it's the people my age
really who are not turning out.
No, it is, unfortunately,
when you look at the statistics of over
80% of the voters in this elect,
we're 55 and over,
that's that's sad because everyy
we get calls from younger voter.
We see voters of getting
registered every single day.
But I will tell you anecdotally,
we see a lot of voters that come into
our office and the reason they t
registered to vote is because they need
proof of residency for something else.
They had one girl tell me this was last week.
She came in and she needed
proof of residency for us,
a CDL or something.
She said, I have no intention of voting.
I'm just getting registered,
but it's like we have to register them.
So I know and give you one more statistic,
there are at least 15,000 people
in the city registered right no.
They've been registered at least
a year and a half.
So they could have voted in four elections.
They voted in none,
including a gubernatorial election last year.
And you know Chris,
when we think about it, you kno,
I'm, I'm probably one of the
younger people that's run,
you know in in Knox County in a while,
but even I'm in my mid 40s.
You know, so when you think about it,
what platforms,
social media platforms that the
younger generation may be using
are politicians or people who
are seeking office not using
to connect with those voters.
I mean do you see him using
like Instagram a lot or TikTok,
things like that to really
engage those votes?
As a parent of a 20 year old
and an almost 18 year old,
I can tell you TikTok, Instagra,
Twitter, the the politicians wht
out and the candidates who get t
and use those platforms probably
could be more successful because
things get shared on their craz.
I'll give you one example.
You know what? Last week and I,
I know that Don doesn't want
to hear this word,
but it was Trump and I believe
it was Tucker Carlson.
I believe it was like 2.
I love wearing the word trump these days,
240 and impressions.
And so that's going to,
that's going to generate some pe
to the polls one way or the oth,
I would guarantee you.
So I do think that candidates
need to be cognizant of that.
It's not just knocking on doors anymore.
But I will tell you,
you look at names like Tim Burc,
you look at names back in the
past like Stacy Campfield.
The reason they won election afr
election is because they did get
out and they did knock on doors.
Knocking
on door still works in the
community race. Absolutely.
And Don, you have talked about
wanting more people to vote for
sort of the partisanship that cs
in these races. And I don't say
this because as a state and as a
county that were red and I'm bl.
But I think the more races
that are nonpartisan,
the better quality of candidate we can get,
the less stigma can be attached.
There are some good Republicans
that I can't vote for in a prim.
I won't vote for in a primary
because I don't vote in that primary,
but I might vote for them in the general.
Likewise, there are plenty of Democrats
that I think some Republicans
would vote for but won't and ca.
And so I think a lot of times
that R and a D and I,
I go back to say the Daryl Fansr
race for a judge a few years ag,
finest judge in our courthouse.
But he had a D by his name.
OK And he lost the race only
because in one of the least
partisan position someone can h.
So Eddie's going to probably
disagree only because they theye
got all the gold right now.
I get that,
but I wish that I'm glad
the city is nonpartisan.
We still sort of know and get an idea,
but the city's pretty blue.
So you know,
we're comfortable not true else elsewhere.
Chris, do you think that affects turn out?
I absolutely think it affects tn
out when you have, when you don,
when you have a Darth of candid,
particularly in one primary that's going
through because there's no competition,
what do you, you know,
why would you go to the polls?
If you think this guy's going to
win or this girl's going to win,
that certainly drives turn up.
We hear that
too many times in a county race
where I've walked in and walkedt
in about 30 seconds because I've
only had about four choices to e
and we may need to call 911
because Don may pass out.
When I say I'm not going to acty
disagree with what he just said.
But I think the other thing thae
also need to look at and I know we've
started talking about on the election
Commission is moving away from e
precinct model to a convenience voting.
So no matter on a Election Day e
you are in the city or county,
you can go vote at any place jut
like you can on early voting.
And I think that would help
eliminate a lot of the confusio,
especially as we talked about
instead of making a national hoy
easier for people to go vote bad
on where they're working and whe
they're at with their
lives. And while there will
be a lot of pushback on that,
you can see the counties that he
implemented it like it because ultimately
it's going to take away the pret
based voting and I get to go sey
family and friends and ain't bed
all the other people on Election Day.
But on the flip side,
you can go anywhere you want to.
The county just like early voting and
in the places that have adopted,
I'll give you give you one exam,
is Rutherford County Murfreesbo.
In 2018, all the citizenry was against it.
Well, now here we are in 2023
and they love it. Chris,
we'll have to leave it there.
Thank you for joining us. We'lle
back with Robin next.