Steve Leakey, president, co-founder of the Voter Awareness Council
Steve Leakey, a resident of Alden Bridge Village, is one of 35 founding members of the Voter Awareness Council, a nonprofit organization that helps encourage local citizens to vote and also helps inform the public on issues and candidates. The organization was established to help increase voter turnout and has several initiatives including Voting 101, school programs and non-partisan candidate forums. Leakey, who has been actively involved in the community for many years, helped form the VAC because he firmly believes that every vote counts and that citizens should be well informed about the issues on which they vote.
Question: How did you become involved with the Voter Awareness Council?
Leakey: Myself and a number of my friends and colleagues in The Woodlands and Montgomery
County have been concerned for some time about low voter turnout. This group is fortunately made up of people that when they see an issue or see a problem, (they) want to roll up their sleeves and do something about it. About four and half years ago, we decided to form a 501c3 nonprofit corporation called the Voter Awareness Council. We are nonpartisan. We’re unbiased. We don’t take positions. We don’t make recommendations. We were just concerned about low voter turnout and the impact of low voter turnout and decided to form our organization to try to do something about that. Question: What is the VAC’s purpose or role in the community?
Leakey: Our mission is three fold. One is to encourage and help equip citizens to vote. We encourage people, obviously, to register. We encourage people to vote in every election and we try to help them find the tools to help them make up their own minds to vote and to vote as per their own conscience. That’s number one.
Number two: We’re also interested in improving the overall voter experience. When you vote, the voting experience simply is not pleasant. Probably the classic example is early voting at the South County Community Center located over by the library. First of all, there are a million signs, and there are so many campaign workers that sometimes voters have problems finding a place to park. And then once they find a place to park, they are inundated by poll workers handing out materials, handing out flyers, handing out voter guides, whatever. So sometimes actually getting from your car to vote into the voting place borders on hand-tohand combat. We’re trying to improve the overall voting experience.
Lastly, our goal is to increase voter turnout just in a very general way.
Question: What actions does the VAC take to increase voter turnout?
Leakey: We have a number of initiatives underway. We have a concept we call Voting 101 which we’re trying to spread throughout social media and throughout the community to make sure people register, to make sure that they download their own sample ballot, that they do their own homework on that sample ballot to make up their own mind about how to vote, to fill out the sample ballot and take it with them into the voting place. Nothing magical. But there’s so much information out there we are just encouraging
people to take the time to do their own homework and take the time to fill out that sample ballot.
We’re working with the chambers of commerce all over Montgomery County; we’re working with a number of cities. One of the things that we’ve done—particularly with the cities—are candidate forums. When the League of Women Voters went out of business a few years ago, unbiased candidate forums basically stopped. So one of the things that I’m very proud of...what we’ve done is to re-initiate common candidate forums that are moderated by someone either from the Courier or Villager. Catherine Dominguez and Andy Dubois are frequent moderators at our forums, and their colleague equivalents from the (Community Impact Newspaper). We don’t get involved in the moderation. We just put the package together and help administer the forum along with cities and along with the chambers of commerce. So candidate forums are playing a big role in what we’re doing.
We’re encouraging the local papers to expand on an ongoing basis what they do for election coverage. Election guides that are in the paper and all the information that they can provide to the communities. We’re trying to work with the school districts to help encourage students to vote. We’ve made very significant progress with the Magnolia Independent School District last year. They had a very well run student program to encourage students to do just what I talked about in that Voting 101.
We’re working with the media; we’re on the radio from time to time to spread the word. We visit with any and all civic organizations to talk about what we’re doing. It’s just a lot of communication. Again, we don’t take positions on elections. We don’t take positions on candidates. We’re just encouraging people to do their homework and to vote. Question: Why is it important that everyone vote? Leakey: First, it’s something that our forefathers and all of our military have done for years, giving their lives and work very hard so that we have the right to vote. One of the patterns that we’ve seen very much in our area is that voter turnout in our area is pretty close to the national averages during the presidential election years, particularly when there is a change in president. That’s when the turnout is particularly high.
One of the things that we’ve seen, though, when you look at the numbers, is that Montgomery County in particular the whole importance of the primaries seems to be ignored by people. They only think they need to vote in November. Well, in Montgomery County, which is largely Republican—and we’re not saying that’s good or bad, we’re just saying that’s a fact—for practical purposes the real election is the primary because in November they’re either uncontested or they are running against a Democrat who in terms of just raw vote count probably will lose. Again, I’m not saying that’s good or bad, I’m just saying that’s they way it is. So the primary is the real election.
Congressman Tip O’Neill, who was the Speaker of the House during the Ronald Reagan era, one of his phrases was, “All real politics is local.” And we completely agree with that. Your schools, your highways, your water, your parks, your libraries, your judicial system, your law enforcement,
your fire protection—the vast majority of things that impact out lives on a daily basis—are determined in local elections. And all of those things matter.
Question: What would you say to those who feel their vote won’t count, particularly in larger elections such as the presidential one? Leakey: Lots of elections are close. In our area, particularly when voter turnout is low, there are elections that are won by one vote. There are elections that are won by two votes. There are elections that are won by a smaller margin than those who under vote. Under voting is a phenomenon that most people are not familiar with. Under voting is simply when you vote, you don’t fill out the whole ballot. You just check a few of the races and you say never mind on the rest of them. Well in some elections, the difference between win and loss is much smaller than the under vote count. So we also are trying to encourage people to fill out a complete ballot. There are a lot of elections that, again, are won or lost by just one or two votes.
Question: Do you think early voting negatively impacts elections because voters may not have all the information?
Leakey: No, we think early voting is a very positive thing for a variety of reasons. Number one, you can vote anywhere you like in the county. You can vote on multiple days so just in terms of convenience for making it to the polls we think early voting is a good thing. And typically in Montgomery County, in most elections early voting is at least half of the total count. Frequently, for those who watch the numbers on elections night, early voting actually forecasts the results of (an) election. The rest of the votes on Election Day typically just mirror what happened during early voting.
Question: Is there ever a point where there are too many candidates or too many issues on a ballot that it becomes impossible for voters to know about everything?
Leakey: Well the more issues there are and the more candidates there are, yes, the more homework you have to do. A colleague of ours actually did the whole general election ballot for the Houston area, including Montgomery County, a year or so ago. He said that took him about two hours. Nobody is going to be doing the whole Houston area so if you’re clever about it you can do (your homework) in a comparatively small amount of time.
Yes, it takes some work. Clearly, the bigger the ballot the more work it’s going to take. But we still think it’s well worth the time.
Question: How does the VAC plan to handle the November election?
Leakey: Well every year we’re working through the whole election calendar. So one of the things that we have done but need to do a better job of is at the beginning of each year do our part to make sure that the public is aware of the election calendar. We basically treat all elections the same, whether it’s the primary or the May election that we have or a special election or the November election. We encourage everyone to follow those Voting 101 steps. Make sure you’re registered. Make sure you download your sample ballot for whatever election it is, whether that’s November or May. Make sure that if there is a candidate forum, go attend those forums. Do your homework. Read the papers. Fill out your own sample ballot and vote. So there’s nothing different about any of the elections.