[00:00] Jeff Taylor: The last time they voted for a Republican presidential candidate was 2000. Famously, if Al Gore had won New Hampshire, those four electoral votes would have been enough to put him over the top. Florida wouldn't have mattered. No one would have ever heard the term hanging chad or gotten a, at the time, very expert analysis in ballot design.

[00:20] Liz Canada: We should have given a trigger warning to the listeners because I don't know that everybody was ready for that a week before this election to hear about that. But don't worry, everyone, we're going to make it through. Nevertheless, we will persist.

[00:32] Jeff Taylor: For sure.

[00:32] Liz Canada: Welcome to New Hampshire Has Issues, the podcast that dares to ask, when will this election be over? That's probably not what I should say. But that is what I'm going to say, because I feel like so many of my episodes recently have been about elections and voting. And there is a day that it will end. My understanding is it's Tuesday, November 3rd.

[01:05] Jeff Taylor: It is. Well, you know, one can only hope.

[01:09] Liz Canada: Cross our fingers and say that is, in fact, Election Day. All right. My guest today is Jeff Taylor, who has maybe many titles out in the world, political strategist, mega genius, our own, Steve Kornacki, in my opinion, our very own, guy who knows all things elections and election night. So Jeff, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here.

[01:31] Jeff Taylor: It's great to be here, Liz. I'm really excited.

[01:33] Liz Canada: All right. So I'm guessing, because I know you pretty well, that you always are prepared for things. You probably have a tagline for me.

[01:38] Jeff Taylor: Yes. Welcome to New Hampshire Has Issues, the podcast that dares to ask, are New Hampshire voters actually weird?

[01:44] Liz Canada: Well, what's the answer, Jeff? Are we?

[01:50] Jeff Taylor: Kind of. The answer is actually kind of.

[01:50] Liz Canada: I'm going to write that down. Kind of. Our topic today is this ballot that we're dealing with in just a few days, Tuesday, November 3rd. It's the election. Most of New Hampshire, as far as I know from having other guests on the show, most folks vote on Election Day. So while all of our friends in nearby states might have already cast their ballots, I know I personally will be there on Tuesday, November 3rd. And so I thought you'd be great to tell us what the heck is this ballot and how do New Hampshire voters think, act, behave?

[02:30] Jeff Taylor: Yeah. In every state, you vote on different things, actually. It is not the same offices, same issues that are on everyone's ballot, state to state. Here in New Hampshire, we have our federal races and our state races, a handful of county races, and then this year two ballot questions. In some states, they might also have local races on the ballot. They might not have any state races on the ballot. They might have a lot of county positions that are very powerful or, like New Hampshire, a handful that don't actually do all that much. They might have pages and pages of propositions and articles and questions that come with packets and descriptions and preferences, or they might have two questions that might be on your front, might be on your back of the ballot that most people are not going to expect because we don't normally have them. So here in New Hampshire, we have our US Senate, our governor, our US House, our executive council, state senate, and state house, sometimes two state house districts, if you're lucky. All of our county positions, county attorney, county treasurer, register of deeds, register of probate, which comes back later. And then our two ballot questions, do we want to keep voting for our register of probate? And do we want to do something with our public schools? And on that second question, I know you've talked a lot about it. I personally have my own thoughts, but I'm sure there is a New Hampshire Has Issues podcast that folks can go listen to if they have more questions.

[04:05] Liz Canada: There are two episodes, if folks are interested, a short one and a long one. Short one is from last week. Long one is from two-ish months ago. Jeff, I printed my ballot, even though this is an audio podcast, I printed my Exeter ballot, and all the things you just said are also on mine. I do have two different state representative rows on my ballot. And for, I think most of us, we're going to have two sides because many of us have a longer ballot. So actually, it says on the bottom, vote both sides as a reminder to flip that ballot over.

[04:37] Jeff Taylor: And if you really want to live up to my introduction here, if you really want to nerd out on ballot design, not every state has a ballot that looks the same. Most folks have probably lived in multiple states, may have voted in multiple states. And you'll notice that the ballot you receive in New Hampshire might not look exactly like the ballots that exist in every state around the country. We in New Hampshire have our columns, a democratic column, a Republican column, a other party column. Some states will just have the question, whatever the ballot level is, with the candidates and have the party label beneath the candidates. That's all mixed and matched as you go up and down your ballot. But in New Hampshire, we have every candidate on one column is going to be a part of the same party, whether that's a Democratic, a Republican, or our third party folks.

[05:35] Liz Canada: One of the things that I find very interesting about New Hampshire is our state house. Sometimes you have more than one state representative. And so the other part in the ballot, like mine says for state representative, Rockingham district 11 vote for up to four. Four will be elected. So it's also you have to have a sense of how many you're voting for.

[05:56] Jeff Taylor: Yes, in our state representative districts, most folks live in a multi-member district. That means they are represented by more than one member and get to vote for more than one member. There are two states in the country that have multi-member state legislative lower chamber districts, us and Arizona. In Arizona, they have everyone is in one district that has one state senator and two representatives. It is a uniform. It is the same district for both bodies. You vote for two state house candidates and two state house candidates are elected by district. It is even and uniform. And no matter where you exist in Arizona, you vote that way is my understanding. In New Hampshire, it could only be that simple. Depending on where you are, you may vote for one candidate in one ballot line. And that's your one representative like every other level of the ballot. You may have 10 state representatives on one ballot line and have to vote or get to vote for up to 10 candidates or like yourself in Exeter. Myself in Manchester have five representatives across two districts. You in Exeter have one district that has four members and then another district that has one member. In my city ward in Manchester, I have one district that has two members and then another district that has three members. So if only it were simple.

[07:21] Liz Canada: Speaking of things that are super simple, maybe this gets into the crux of the episode, which is like when people are filling out their ballots, sometimes things get split. Things change. I hear about and I've seen headlines over years that New Hampshire has a lot of what are called ticket splitters. So my question, Jeff, is what does it mean to split that ticket? What are we talking about being split?

[07:48] Jeff Taylor: So the ticket is your ballot. When people talk about top of the ticket candidates, bottom of the ticket candidates, your ticket splitting, that is referring to the actual ballot itself, where races are located on the ballot, the top of the ticket. Those are your statewide candidates, your folks running for U.S. Senator, governor, president in years that we vote for that. Those are your top of the ticket candidates because they're literally at the top of your ballot. And a ticket splitter is someone who votes for candidates across parties. We talked a little bit about ballot design in different states. Some states literally have an option on your ballot to vote straight ticket where you fill out one bubble and it'll vote for an entire partisan slate across offices. So you don't actually have to vote for candidates at every office. It automatically tracks your vote for all of those candidates.

[08:41] Liz Canada: Really? Really? All of the above or all of the...

[08:44] Jeff Taylor: It is essentially all of the above. I am a straight ticket voter and I am voting for this. The ticket of Democratic candidates.

[08:51] Liz Canada: Wow.

[08:52] Jeff Taylor: The ticket of Republican candidates. That does not exist in New Hampshire. Don't look for it. If you want to vote for candidates of all one party, you have to fill out every single bubble down the line. But a lot of voters in New Hampshire vote for candidates across parties. They might vote for a Democratic candidate for here, a Republican candidate for there, an independent candidate that's running in a local race or writing in their friend for county attorney. You never know.

[09:19] Liz Canada: Or their enemy, if you want to put something on ballot. So is this unique? Is this just something that happens in New Hampshire or is this something that happens all over the place?

[09:29] Jeff Taylor: It used to be a lot more common. As you think about that classic red and blue map that you see on election nights and you have a state like New York that's solidly blue and a state like North Dakota that's solidly red. Most of the time nowadays you can go into that state and have a pretty good guess as to what the statewide elected official makeup is. That there are probably almost entirely Democratic elected officials at the statewide level in a blue state and almost entirely Republican elected officials in a red state that hasn't always been the case. And even recently as you know 2008 when Barack Obama won his first presidential election he was entering office with a U.S. Senate that had Democratic senators from North Dakota and Arkansas, Louisiana. A lot of places that we don't see competitive U.S. Senate races, competitive statewide presidential or gubernatorial races, you know, have Democratic senators and that is much less common now. In New Hampshire we have going back a decade an entirely Democratic federal delegation and an entirely Republican state government. And that level of ticket splitting is very unique especially now. Even now we have you see at the state level states you know might be mostly Republican, mostly Democrat, but have a governor of a different party looking at our neighbor in Vermont with a longtime Republican governor. Our neighbor in Massachusetts you know fairly frequently will vote for a Republican governor. You see Governor Andy Beshear in Kentucky who's a Democrat, Governor Laura Kelly in Kansas who's a Democrat. You know these are all states that have a super majority of one party at their state legislative level and then a governor of the opposite party. That governor is usually someone who is sort of a competent administrator, you know someone who is inoffensive in how they present to the public and what they say.

[11:50] Liz Canada: Not super polarizing.

[11:52] Jeff Taylor: Not super polarizing. Yeah. Provides a little bit of a check. But you know if the legislature if the voters really wanted to get something past that governor of an opposite party they don't really have a lot of power to stop the will of the people. What is very unusual is what we have in New Hampshire which is that entirely Democratic and longtime Democratic federal delegation and entirely Republican and fairly longtime Republican state government.

[12:22] Liz Canada: The further away in terms of my friends the further away that they are from New Hampshire the more they sort of lump us in with the rest of New England. Like oh you're all the same. You all do exactly the same thing. And I assume it's because as you said on election night when the map pops up at least for as long as my adulthood New Hampshire has essentially looked blue.

[12:44] Jeff Taylor: The last time they voted for a Republican presidential candidate was 2000. And then the last time Republicans won federal races at the U.S. Senate level was now Governor Kelly Ayotte in 2010 winning her one and only term to the U.S. Senate and they last won a congressional seat in 2014 when Frank Guinta won his final term against Carol Shea-Porter. OK.

[13:08] Liz Canada: New Hampshire, we're unique maybe slightly weird in how we cast our ballots. I wonder do voters when they get their ballot or they're like OK. I trust Democrats more at this level but I trust Republicans more at this level. Or is it like based on the candidate is based on who the incumbent is who's already elected. Is it based on what year we're in.

[13:34] Jeff Taylor: Yes. The answer is yes.

[13:36] Liz Canada: Yes. To all the above or just the first all the above.

[13:39] Jeff Taylor: All the above.

[13:40] Liz Canada: Why do voters do this?

[13:43] Jeff Taylor: Why do voters do this? You know that is the million dollar question. Right. And the answer is you know we don't really know. We can make educated guesses. You can talk to your friends who are voters. But it is you know a complicated and personal decision that everyone makes. We see in some states a voting electorate. You know the term that describes all of the folks that come out and vote in any election to be very inelastic which means they if they're going to vote they're going to vote for Democrats or if they're going to vote they're going to vote for Republicans. And who wins is really only a matter of who shows up in votes. New Hampshire has a more elastic electorate than other states across the country. We are a state that doesn't have high levels of partisanship. Our voters tend to be you know registered around a third Republicans around a third Democrats and around a third of voters aren't registered to either party. You see in a lot of other states the number of voters that are registered to either a Republican Party or either the Democratic Party to be a much higher percentage of the overall registered voter pool. And so in that regard a lot of folks are thinking about which you know party do I want to support in a given year. Part of that comes back to our first-in-the-nation primary where we have presidential candidates you know coming in every four years. Sometimes you know when there's an incumbent president that party doesn't have a very serious you know presidential primary. People like to be involved. People like to be part of the process and have their voice heard. So they want to be that undeclared voter to be able to choose whether to take a Republican ballot or a Democratic ballot. And that gets voters used to voting for a Republican candidate and a Democratic candidate because sometimes they show up they take the Republican primary ballot whether that's our state and federal primary whether that's our presidential primary and our voting for Republican candidates or Democratic candidates. And that might not be their norm but that practice of filling out a bubble for a candidate of a party seems less foreign when you get to the general election because you have voted for these candidates. You've pulled a Democratic ballot or Republican ballot before. And that New Hampshire independence one of the reasons that gets people feeling like they're an undeclared voter and not a Republican voter or not a Democratic voter is a story that a lot of folks tell even if they primarily vote for candidates of one party or another. But it is a story that folks tell themselves about how they approach the decision of voting. They want to feel like they're voting for the person and not the party. The issue or the value and not the letter or label next to a name. And that's real. And I completely get why voters want to feel that connection to the person that is stepping up to serve them in public office. And that leads voters to decide that, you know, I want to vote for this person because they make me feel good about myself. They make me feel good about my community or my states or my country. I see them as a competent leader, regardless of what their partisan, you know, label or issue positions may say. I might have a voter that actually vehemently disagrees with the platform of a party, but sees a candidate as standing in opposition to fellow members of their party and want to platform, you know, that voice within the ecosystem, within our, you know, national political discourse. So there are a lot of reasons why someone might decide to vote for a candidate of a different party than they would sort of traditionally feel like they support. I think the other piece that is uniquely New Hampshire is our citizen legislature. We talked a little bit about, you know, the New Hampshire house, how complicated it is, how many members of the house, each constituent, each voter gets to vote for, and a lot of times, you know, these people. They're your neighbors. They're your friends. They're your former teachers or guidance counselors, a firefighter. You know, they're not the standard politician that is running for legislatures and other public offices in other parts of the country. They are, for the most part, kind of random people that decided to do a crazy thing and say, yes, I'm willing to serve.

[18:15] Liz Canada: I'm willing to do this, I guess.

[18:17] Jeff Taylor: I'm willing to do this, exactly. And because of that, a lot of folks have a different relationship with the people running for office than just partisan candidate for the legislature. They might be someone who runs a local nonprofit or always coordinates a large community event. They might be someone that is the person that's constantly sharing information about what's happening at the school board in a truly nonpartisan and apolitical way, but is just providing that service of like, hey, I'm the person that's paying attention and I know that's hard with our busy schedules, and so I'm going to help provide this information to my friends and neighbors. And the folks that have those apolitical relationships really stand out as, you know, some might call them over-performers or people who are, you know, doing a lot better than what the partisan makeup of their district might indicate that they could. But for the most part, it's people recognize their name on the ballot and ignore the party label and vote for the person.

[19:23] Liz Canada: As you were talking, Jeff, I was like, I wish everyone was thinking about the ballot this closely and about each candidate this closely. And I don't know that everyone does. I think that's fair.

[19:33] Jeff Taylor: And I think one thing, not to prove myself wrong, but I always like to, you know, look at all of the, you know, the potential ingredients that go into any, you know, outcome that we have. If my first answer was the entire truth, then you would only see individual candidates in individual places over-perform or perform differently than you'd expect. But we do see this phenomenon at the state level versus the federal level. So there has to be something there. And none of my previous explanations, while I think they're true for a lot of people and a lot of individual circumstances are not the whole story. There are a lot of folks, I think in New Hampshire, especially in the last decade, who in their minds, they've broken the relationship between the national party, the national politics, and the state party and state politics. So I do think there is a difference that a lot of folks can feel like they're separating amongst the candidates for federal office and the candidates for state office.

[20:41] Liz Canada: And then there are folks who don't vote for certain parts of the ballot. I assume like you said earlier that there are states where you can just fill in one oval or cast the ballot in whatever way and everything's filled in. But that's not true here in New Hampshire. Can't do it that way.

[20:57] Jeff Taylor: Gotta vote for them all.

[20:59] Liz Canada: Gotta vote for them all. Or you don't. You can choose to not. So what happens if somebody doesn't fill in an oval? I have four state rep spots that I can vote for. What if I only vote for three?

[21:11] Jeff Taylor: Yeah, that happens all the time. And you'll actually find overvotes as well, where folks will vote for more than the number of candidates that they're allowed to vote for. Please do not do that. If you have an overvote, then your vote will not count at that ballot level. If you do undervote, your vote will count, but not as many times as it could. So we see at every level of the ballot, some folks not voting for any of the candidates, this will happen for president in a presidential election. Some folks will come, take the ballot and not vote for president. Not a lot of them, but you know, about, we saw about 1% of ballots in 2024 had a no vote for president. That gets lower as you get down the ballot. We had about 2.5% of folks not vote for governor in 2024. About 3% of folks not vote for their U.S. House representative. And then it makes a little bit of a jump once we get to our lower state level offices, about 6.5% not vote for the executive council, just under 6% not vote for state Senate. And then at the state House level, which is admittedly more complicated for voters because of all that we've talked about a whopping 19% of the total possible votes that people who cast ballots could have made for state legislature, state House races were left unfilled.

[22:42] Liz Canada: 19%.

[22:44] Jeff Taylor: 18.8%.

[22:45] Liz Canada: Is that what you just said? Okay. You don't have to correct yourself that much, Jeff. That's what you're saying like that. I, I did not know it was that high actually. That is shocking.

[22:52] Jeff Taylor: 19%.

[22:54] Liz Canada: So that sounds a little bit like the, I can vote for four people, but I don't. That sounds like that might be one of the issues there of like, well, I clearly shouldn't vote for more. I should just do one. Maybe that could be one of the things.

[23:05] Jeff Taylor: Yeah. So I think that's, it's a variety of reasons. It is the natural roll off as folks, you know, have bubble fatigue. You know, I'm voting this, I'm voting for this. I die.

[23:16] Liz Canada: So many bubbles.

[23:17] Jeff Taylor: I don't really care. You know, you have, you come to vote. You had, you know, 10 minutes. You've done nine of them. You know, you still got to return your ballot and walk to the car. So you're like, I've done the important part, or you don't know anyone else. You've gotten ads and mail and TV and whatever about U.S. Senate, U.S. House, governor, what have you. Uh, but he hasn't seen anything about state legislative races or, you know, God forbid the executive council. Uh, and so you don't vote, uh, for those races, uh, maybe it's like the show used to voting for one candidate per ballot line, per office that you, you know, only vote for one. Uh, in a lot of races, you know, we have 400, uh, members of the New Hampshire house, neither party has filled all 400, uh, seats, uh, to have nominees probably ever. So some people may be very partisanly inclined and just don't have an option, uh, for a partisan candidate of their affiliation at the state house ballot level, depending on where they live. So that will also represent, you know, a portion of these under votes, um, that we see, but a lot of reasons. Mainly it is really complicated to vote for your house member.

[24:27] Liz Canada: I think that answer of getting used to one person, cause it's true. You only vote for one all the way down until you get to state house.

[24:35] Jeff Taylor: And almost everywhere you've lived.

[24:38] Liz Canada: Yeah.

[24:38] Jeff Taylor: You've only voted for one person for every level of the ballot. Also, it is a very unique experience getting to vote for multiple people at one ballot level.

[24:50] Liz Canada: So listener, we are going to make sure that we vote for the exact amount of people per level of the ballot and not more, and also not fewer than what it says over there. What about these questions at the end? Do people tend to skip those? Do they just miss the back of the ballot? If they're there, do we have any understanding of how people act on those types of questions?

[25:16] Jeff Taylor: We don't have a ton. New Hampshire voters generally don't see questions all that frequently. Voters generally do see questions at their town meeting. Uh, if they live in a town that votes on their warrant articles on a ballot, which again is not everybody, you know, I live in the city of Manchester. We just vote for candidates. Uh, and then those candidates, uh, once they're serving as elected officials, make those decisions for us. Uh, but in a lot of towns, you'd vote on things like, should we take out a bond for a new fire truck? Should we get a new street sweeper?

[25:54] Liz Canada: Too soon, Jeff. Too soon.

[25:56] Jeff Taylor: Should we get a new street sweeper? Um, should we get a new track for our high school or pave a section of the rail trail? All things that voters who regularly go to their town meeting elections, uh, through the local elections are used to voting on. But even in those situations, we see a drop off between the number of votes that are cast for, you know, your local elected officials, your select board members or school board members, and then the issues at hand. Some of the big ones, you know, town budget, school district budget, get a lot of votes. Uh, but the further down, the more complicated, the more, uh, you know, nuance to the issue, the more voters are less likely to decide yes or no on that. And then our two ballot questions this year on our state ballot, you know, one of them is it's a constitutional amendment. Uh, we have a register of probate and the question is asking, do we want to still have a register of probate? Uh, I'm not an expert on the issue. Don't claim to be, don't play one on TV.

[26:57] Liz Canada: Jeff, I was about to say, what is a register of probate? We don't have to get into it, but that's the first question. Register of probate.

[27:01] Jeff Taylor: That's the first question. Uh, my general understanding is that the office of the register of probate, the duties that have been assigned to that person in the past have all been moved to a full-time government employees.

[27:17] Liz Canada: I will say that on the ballot, can I jump in for a second, Jeff? Cause I see, like I said, I printed my ballot. The very end of Question 1 shows that this passed the New Hampshire house, 325 yes to 15 no, and passed the Senate 23 yes to one no. So it was pretty resounding in the legislature in both chambers is what I'm seeing here on the ballot. So for Question 1, that could be helpful for someone to see that. Maybe.

[27:50] Jeff Taylor: Maybe. And Question 2 is a very complicated, potentially misleading question. Again, I'm sure there are other episodes of New Hampshire Has Issues that folks can listen to if they want a real deep dive into Question 2.

[28:03] Liz Canada: There's literally an episode called Question 2. So just go back to that one. If you'd like to learn more information for sure.

[28:09] Jeff Taylor: But it is really important that you do vote on Question 2. It will be the last thing on your ballot, probably on the back, but it will have a real impact in, um, the ability for your school district to serve its students, teachers, and community in the way that it currently is if passed. So think about it, try to find more information, listen to an episode of New Hampshire Has Issues if you have questions, but it is really important that you go all the way down your ballot, vote on Question 2. One strategy that I've heard a lot of people use is vote for the last thing first. You know, you're going to vote for governor. You know, you're going to vote for U.S. Senator. You've probably already made up your minds about who, uh, who you're voting for for those offices. But if you start at the bottom and works your way up, you will ensure that you take the time to fill out those bubbles to vote for those really critically important local offices, and then you'll get to the easy stuff at the end. It's a little dessert.

[29:12] Liz Canada: I love that. All right. Start vote for the last thing first and work your way up the ballot.

[29:17] Jeff Taylor: Get your ballot, flip it over Question 2, and then you've already started the process and you're ready to go.

[29:22] Liz Canada: That's right. Jeff.

[29:25] Jeff Taylor: Liz.

[29:25] Liz Canada: Election night's going to be here in a week. You literally know things. You can see things around the state. I don't know how you do it, but what are you going to be looking for? Cause some of us commoners are going to be watching like the television and they're not going to get results as fast as maybe a Jeff Taylor type. So what are you paying attention to based on the trends in New Hampshire in the past? What, what like races are you keyed in on to see what's going to happen in New Hampshire?

[29:58] Jeff Taylor: That is a great question. One thing that we have seen over the last decade in places across the country is that traditionally Republican-leaning suburban communities have voted consistently more Democratic. In New Hampshire, that would be places like Bedford and Merrimack and Amherst and Hollis, you know, places that, you know, border or some of our larger cities like Manchester and Nashua, you know, Bow near Concord, all of these communities that are, you know, part of that I-93 or Route 3 Everett Turnpike corridor. They have moved in the way other suburban communities have at the federal level. If you look back to, you know, 2014, 2012, even 2016 electoral results, they will look significantly more Republican in some of those towns than in 2018 or 2020 or 2024. That shift has either not happened or been slower to happen at the state level. So one thing that I will be looking at and most of these larger towns, like we've been talking about, have many members of the New Hampshire house. Bedford has seven, Merrimack has eight, Goffstown has four. These are places that if trends hold, we expect Democratic candidates at the federal level to win, especially if they're on pace to win statewide. The question becomes what is happening at our state level? What is the impact of ticket splitting? What is the impact of who is turning out? And because we have these multi-member districts, it becomes very granular very quickly how voters are behaving. You know, are they choosing, you know, the one, the two candidates that they feel like they've had a connection with in the past or is there a larger shift going on? So in the town like Bedford, we have two current incumbents that are Democrats, five current incumbents that are Republicans. In a town like Merrimack, we have three Democratic incumbents and five Republican incumbents. What did those shifts look like as we go through the night in Bedford? Are we still at two and five? Is it less? Is it one and six? Is it moving beyond two Democratic candidates? Is it, you know, three, four or five winning in Bedford and, you know, two, three or four Republicans? And what does Merrimack look like? What does Goffstown look like? That is, you know, one of the things that I will be looking at these larger multi-member districts, you know, other places, you know, town, a city like Rochester, you know, they have single member districts at the ward level, three member, you know, floterial district across across most of the city. How many of those are, you know, really competitive going to the Republicans, going to the Democrats? We often see a lot of very close races in Rochester. Last midterm election in 2022, there was a race that was literally tied. After recounts, it remained tied. So thinking about that level of competitiveness, how is it breaking down? I like to tell this story about in 2024, we received votes for one specific state representative district in Rochester, that same one I referenced that was, you know, literally tied in 2022. And the Republican candidate, a relative newcomer to politics, defeated a, you know, a long time Rochester community member fairly substantially. When we see results like that, it is a very strong indicator about how voters will behave across the state. There are surprises. There always are, you know, unique outcomes. Someone ran a really strong campaign, you know, a really, you know, a strong candidate was recruited to run or signed up to run who has a lot of apolitical relationships. So you can't necessarily take, you know, one individual outcome and extrapolate it across the state. But as you start to look at the multi-member districts, as you start to look at the collection of evidence across the state houses, you can start to piece together what kind of night it's going to become.

[34:26] Liz Canada: The Rochester races, you know, in 2022, it was a tie. And then the outcome in the state house overall was essentially a tie. It was like 201 to 199, I think it was about that.

[34:37] Jeff Taylor: Yeah, it was 201 to 198 to that tie.

[34:41] Liz Canada: You're right. That's right. It was a 198 tie. But if you're, if you're listening to this and you're like, I don't know if I need to vote for a state house, you do, because it could literally be a tie at the end of the night. All right. So you'll be looking at those sort of like those communities where things might flip back and forth or be super, super close to give sort of an idea of what's, of what's to come. Jeff, what else do we need to know?

[35:05] Jeff Taylor: You need to know that election day is November 3rd. Your polls open sometime. It depends. Makes New Hampshire complicated. That's about to give you times. But I know here in Manchester, you know, our polls are open and they close at 7PM. But in some cities like Nashua, they close at 8PM. So it's important for you to check with your local town or city to determine exactly when your, your polls are open, where your polling location is. Make a plan to vote. I generally like to vote before work. We can walk to our polling location from where I live in Manchester. We try to take the dog. Me and my wife go. We walk. One person goes in. The other one stands outside and holds the dog. Then we switch and then we walk home. I imagine that'll be my plan on Tuesday, November 3rd.

[35:50] Liz Canada: My plan is often that I go in the afternoon with the boys because there's no school, so kids are home. I have to feed them before we go. We go and vote. Then I have to feed them after because they are boys who are gigantic. So I got to feed them before and immediately after. Usually we go get hot chocolates and cookies right after. So everyone wins when we're voting and we do that. The other thing to remember is you need to bring an ID. Government-issued ID, like a driver's license with you. And even though we're talking about ballots and the level of the ballots, we know that at the end of the day, listener, who you vote for is private.

[36:28] Jeff Taylor: Whether you vote is public.

[36:30] Liz Canada: That's right. Jeff, thank you. I hope your election night, looking at all of the things and screens and whatever it is that you are looking at goes smoothly and that we can talk again in the future and see if we are more ticket-splitty or less.

[36:47] Jeff Taylor: That is the question. And I'm more than happy to come back and dive into it. All sorts of juicy information comes out of an election day. And for those of us who dig into it, just can't get enough.

[36:58] Liz Canada: Get your candy and snacks for the evening. It's going to be maybe a long night. We'll know more soon. Thank goodness. We'll know more soon.

[Closing clip]

[37:08] Liz Canada: Hi there. Liz Canada. I live in Exeter. Just got back from a CMS middle school soccer game. That's what we're here for, right? To have the great activities for the schools. Yes. They won in case you were wondering. So I want to thank whomever said this earlier. This is a very confusing question. The thing with the ballot is that sometimes when we're confused by something, we want to skip it. And in this case, I think skipping it might actually cause harm if you disagree with it because I believe it's a three fifth majority vote that requires it to be passed, but skipping it shrinks that pool, right? So if there's 100 people voting yes or no, it takes 60 to pass it. And if you were that 101 person, that would have meant it was 61 was required to pass it. So I'm going to urge you, if you are confused, as I am, as maybe you are too, that you will not want to skip this question, which is on the back of our ballot. And that's all I will say. Thank you.