Ian Donnis: Rhode Island Secretary of State elect Greg Amore, welcome back to The Public’s Radio and congratulations on your election victory last week.
Gregg Amore: Thank you and happy to be here.
Ian Donnis: When you’re inaugurated as Rhode Island’s next Secretary of State in January, what is top of your to do list?
Gregg Amore: During the campaign, I spoke a lot about civic engagement and making sure that the Rhode Island public has confidence in the election system. And that’s, you know, it’s a two fold operation, one to be very clear about how our elections run and how well they ran, particularly this general election. And then the second is to try to build civic engagement through community outreach, education, and making sure that the Secretary of State becomes the educator in chief on all things civics and elections.
Ian Donnis: Back when Jim Langevin was Secretary of State before he was in Congress, he fought to promote more transparency involving the legislature, Nellie Gorbea, the outgoing Secretary of State rewrote the lobbying laws. Do you see any need for additional changes as far as the oversight of lobbyists and lawmakers that you would pursue as Secretary of State?
Gregg Amore: Yeah, I think that there’s an opportunity to make it easier to navigate the website in regard to lobbyists registration, and then, you know, any, anytime someone is out of compliance, making sure that that is well known and accessible to anybody who needs that information. I think both Congressman Langevin and Secretary Gorbea have done a very good job along these years in improving that aspect of the office. And I think we’re going to try to continue that. But as I said, I’d like to make the entire website more navigable for all folks so that there’s a direct connection, you know, you can go and find the answers quickly and easily.
Ian Donnis: What is at the top of your legislative agenda for 2023?
Gregg Amore: There are two pieces of legislation that we’re going to introduce immediately, one would propose a non-voting member of the Board of Elections, either the Secretary or the Secretary’s designee so that we have a communication constantly between those two bodies. And I’m on record as saying that I truly believe in the separation of those two bodies, especially in regard to the functioning, the running of elections, because I think that political should be separate from the process. But to avoid a situation like we saw in the primary where the express voting machines did not function as they were supposed to function based on the logic and accuracy testing, I think there has to be that communication and and a non-voting ex-officio member of the Board of of Elections from the Department of State, I think we’ll bridge that gap a little bit. That’s one. The other is to try to take the statute regarding accuracy and logic testing, and make sure it’s updated for this technology. There are regs that have been drafted and in collaboration between the board and the Department of State, but we’d like to get that in statute so that we know exactly whose responsibility it is to do that testing and what what the process looks like.
Ian Donnis: If the General Assembly signs off on this plan that you’re suggesting, do you envision that you would serve as that non voting member of the board of elections?
Gregg Amore: I think probably the the director of elections or the the Deputy Secretary of State who would be managing that part would probably serve in that capacity.
Ian Donnis: Past Secretaries of State have sometimes faced a bulky road in getting their legislation passed. You as an outgoing State Representative after five terms are seen as having a very good relationship with House Speaker Joe Shekarchi. Does that suggest to you that you will have more success with your legislative priorities?
Gregg Amore: I think familiarity certainly helps me. But I’ll approach this the same way I approached my legislation as a representative. And that is I’ll do my due diligence, I will lobby the room, I will work hard to make sure that everybody knows the reasons behind the legislation. And then I’ll use the relationships that I have to try to enhance that process for sure. And I’m comfortable in that process. And I think that’s a little different than what has existed prior to me is that I have working relationships with the vast vast majority of the members of both the House and Senate.
Ian Donnis: One more on the voting process, since you mentioned how you think better communication between the Board of Elections and the Secretary of State’s office would lead to improvements in the voting process. I wonder if you support the idea of decentralized voting? For people at home, that means like say for someone like you, who is an East Providence resident, you’d be working in Providence at the Statehouse when you’re Secretary of State, in theory, you could vote in Providence, the voting ballot or the gear would recognize you as an East Providence voter and properly aggregate that thing so is that something that you support?
Gregg Amore: Yes, and In fact, I plan to go out to Colorado and look at the system that exists there. And these are voting centers. And I think anything we can do to make voting more accessible is something we should do. And so yes, I support that. I believe in it. I have to see what it what the functioning aspect of how it functions, and I have to make sure I see how we can implement in a way that will be safe and consistent with our process.
Ian Donnis: Does Rhode Island’s current voting equipment have the capability to offer decentralized voting?
Gregg Amore: It’s a good question. I don’t know the answer to that. I know that our machines do have the capability of running different types of elections. For example, rank choice. I’m not sure if our– if the machines that we have now can be set up for a centralized system.
Ian Donnis: We’re talking here with Secretary of State elect Greg Amore, and where are you on the idea of whether Rhode Island should have a primary election earlier in the year in election years, rather than in September, which is kind of late as the states go?
Gregg Amore: Yeah, I’m on record of saying that we should have a June primary. And that’s primarily based on the fact that I think it would enhance voter engagement. You’re going to have more people engaged before Rhode Island summer than you would prior to that now, many of my colleagues in the General Assembly don’t like that idea, because they’re in session. I don’t know if that’s a disadvantage or not. I think being in office and having the trappings of incumbency help you and certainly all over the country, politicians, members of general assemblies and legislatures run that way they run while they’re in office. So I’m not sure if we can pull a June primary off, but I think as far as voter engagement, June is the smartest way to go and would put us in the majority of states that have their primaries, then, at the very least, we need to we need to look at pushing the primary up a little bit. And I know that John Marion’s talked about this quite a bit. And I agree with this. And most people who, who look at Rhode Island elections think that if we’re ever in a situation where we have a disputed election, a litigated election, we have to have a statewide recount, and perhaps even a hand recount, we’re going to push up against the ability to actually get overseas ballots out for a general election. And we put a lot of pressure on our elections officials, even now, to make sure that ballots are printed. They’re accurate. And we we get everything right in that brief amount of time. So at the very least, we should be thinking about moving that primary back a bit, maybe to match up with Massachusetts, maybe a week prior to that.
Ian Donnis: Speaking of disputed elections, election deniers across the country were uniformly defeated in many midterm elections last week and your fellow Democrats celebrated a very strong midterm performance. At the same time, tens of millions of Americans did vote for election deniers. Some of those races like the Arizona governor’s race, were almost equally divided and wonder how you look at that level of support for election deniers. Even with people seeming somewhat tired of Donald Trump.
Gregg Amore: Yeah, it’s an interesting situation, because as a history teacher, I know that, you know, I can compare this to McCarthyism, and, and the black lists and the unfounded accusations of communist– communism infiltrating America’s institutions. And the difference is, at that time, there were basically three or four significant news sources that by and large, people trusted, that there was really no place for you to go for your own news, you are getting the same news. And then the broadcasts of the hearings, especially the army hearings, let people know in real time, there’s something wrong here. There’s something wrong here without over analysis afterwards for 24 hours on cable news network. So still, it took a couple of years. It did. So I mean, we’ve been here before is my larger point. I think we have challenges because of the way our populace gets information. It’s disturbing to me. But I also believe that, you know, what we saw after this election with most of those candidates that were defeated, is they conceded. And that’s significant because a lot of the denialism is based on the fact that folks believed in President Trump, they have followed his lead. He is – he’s a President of the United States (ex-President),the United States former President, and the misinformation was coming from the highest levels. And that’s going to have an impact. And I hope that over time, and I hope that what we’re seeing here, in this situation with the concessions from these candidates, we start to move away from that, but it’s our job as election officials to make sure the information is out there to make sure that we we bring that information to the people and that we set a foundation with our schools, our colleges and universities so that that information on how voting works, especially male voting, how that works, is is clear to folks, because there’s a lot of misconception.
Ian Donnis: You’re a Democrat, so I’m sure you were happy about the success of Democrats in Rhode Island elections last week. But when you put on your civics hat as a former history teacher, I wonder how you look at the wipeout of Republican parties. There are currently no elected Republicans in higher offices in Rhode Island or Massachusetts, does the GOP need an intervention?
Gregg Amore: Well, I think it’s unhealthy to have one party rule. I don’t think that’s good. I think we need robust debate. But we need the robust debate to be about issues and to be about philosophical differences. It’s one thing to debate taxes. And it’s another thing to debate whether or not an election was fraudulent, when there is no evidence. So I think what the Republican Party has to do is move back toward the middle, focus on issues. I don’t think it’s health to have culture war debates for either party. And I think what’s happened to Republicans and I think in many ways, Rhode Island Republicans have been caught up in the National Republican narrative, even though many of the Rhode Island Republicans on the ballot were not in line with the election denialism. They were not– they were certainly opposed to what happened on January 6, but you know, the brand is national, and Rhode Island Republicans get caught up in that. I think it’s healthy to have a a very good two party system that’s best for democracy. I’m glad that the Secretary of State’s office is in the hands of a Democrat right now. But I do think it’s much more healthy to have a robust political discussion where there are two active political parties who are on the ballot, and getting at least some say for the minority opinion.
Ian Donnis: We’re both East Providence residents. And about 10 or 12 years ago, East Providence faced some very serious financial conditions. Things have improved a lot since then, there’s a new high school, the renewal of the Henderson bridge is making some waterfront land available for development. There’s a strong mayor form of local government. Now, what kind of difference do you think these changes will make for the long term in East Providence?
Gregg Amore: Well, I think you know, and I always go back to this, and it’s based on my roots as both an educator and a legislator. Much of East Providence’s fiscal issues revolved around the fact that we had a very poor school funding formula, East Providence was footing most of the bill, despite the fact that we were a community that had significant free and reduced lunch, which is a reflection of poverty. When the school funding formula played out over a seven year span, we saw East Providence gain in every one of those years, and it ease the financial burden that was placed on the city. So there’s that first, which I think is incredibly significant. But we were in a bad situation in East Providence, where our city manager was being replaced a year after being hired, two years after being hired, litigation surrounding that. With a strong mayor, there’s some accountability, and no one can point fingers. The council can’t point at each other to counts can point at the, at the city manager. So I think for East Providence, particularly, we needed a system where there was accountability. And I think that’s, you know, that’s important. We’ve always known that our waterfront is an unknown jewel, and we’re starting to see that development and the work around the waterfront come to fruition now. I mean, I’m high on East Providence’s future, because I think a lot of those things I talked about, but also the untapped potential of the waterfront and affordability. It’s much more affordable to live in East Providence than it is to live in Providence. And it’s, you know, it’s close to all the things that people who live in Providence appreciate as well.
Ian Donnis: Alright, Secretary of State-elect Greg Amore, an East Providence Democrat, thank you for joining us.
Gregg Amore: Thank you.
