High Turnout Wide Margins recently traveled to the 40th annual Election Center conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, and spoke with election administrations and officials from across the county about how they do the work of elections in their communities.
In this episode, hosts Eric Fey and Brianna Lennon speak with Lisa Marie Manning Bridges, the Registrar of Voters in the Parish of Orleans in Louisiana.
They spoke about the unique nature of Louisiana elections, how the work is divvied up by different parish offices and how the parish works alongside the Louisiana Secretary of State to serve their voters.
High Turnout, Wide Margins Credits:
Managing Editor: Rebecca Smith
Managing Producer: Aaron Hay
Associate Producer: Katie Quinn
Digital Producer: Mark Johnson
Transcription of the episode is as follows:
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: Learning the code, the election’s code, which I was told by three different people in Louisiana Registrars to keep it and carry it like it's my Bible. So, that's what I do — read it like it's your Bible.
[High Turnout Wide Margins Introduction]
Eric Fey: Hey, everybody. Welcome to another exciting episode of High Turnout Wide Margins. I'm Eric Fey, Director of Elections in St. Louis County, Missouri, along with my co-host —
Brianna Lennon: Brianna Lennon, County Clerk in Boone County, Missouri.
Eric Fey: And this episode is coming to you live on tape from the 40th annual Election Center conference, and today, on this episode, our guest is —
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: Lisa Marie Manning bridges.
Eric Fey: And where are you from?
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: New Orleans, Louisiana.
Eric Fey: New Orleans, Louisiana, from Orleans Parish.
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: Orleans Parish Registrar of Voters.
Eric Fey: Very good. The way we like to start each episode with our guest is to ask them about their election origin story. How did you get into this gig and get into the election space? Tell us about yourself.
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: Oh, it's such a long story. I don't know. I first got into, just elections period, younger. My grandfather was a Baptist pastor. They were, my grandfather and my grandmother were very active in civil rights. They participated in bus boycotts, made sure I went with them when I was a little tyke, so that I could go vote with them, and, at that time, they had a little lever, you pull a lever down, and all that, you know?
Then, at some point during college, there was a news conference that this guy was running for mayor of New Orleans. He was about to announce that he was running for mayor, and I was at my nanny's house, and so, I told my nanny, I said, “Well, I'm going to the Fairmont Hotel to go see.” Just out of the blue. And I went to the Fairmont — I signed up to volunteer. I volunteered as the campaign secretary, and three weeks later they called me, the campaign chair called me and said, “Oh, Mark wants you to have a paid position on the campaign,” and I was like, “Well, doing what?” “Well, you can stay [with] what you're doing, but you're going to get paid instead of volunteering.” I was like, “Oh, beautiful.”
Laughter
And my grandmother told me, she said, “You know, stuff like this leads to jobs.” So, needless to say — long story short, Marc Morial gets elected as mayor, and I told my grandmother, I said, “I'm not looking for a job. I'm a college student, you know, I'm not thinking of the future,” and maybe about three weeks or four weeks later, I get a call saying, “Mark wants you to have a job. What do you want to do in City Hall?” I’m like, “I don't know.” So, I called the DJ who was working also and he told me what to look for — I got shuffled around, but then I started working, and I've been in politics ever since.
Worked on several campaigns, federal campaigns. I've worked — besides city government as a job, I've worked state government, I've worked federal government for the House of Representatives under Congressman Richmond and Congressman Carter, and that's it. That's the story, and I'm still there. I've served as the object representative for my district for approximately eight years, and I've also served on the Democratic State Central Committee for my district as the female representative for approximately six years.
Brianna Lennon: Yeah, so what drew you into being a registrar?
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: Well, I was already on the Board of Election supervisors for four years, and the predecessor, she retired, and I get a call and they're like, you know, “She retired. Do you want to apply for the position? I think that's something you should do.” I said, “I’ll think about it, I'll pray on it and see,” and so, a few days later, I got my answer from God, and I submitted my application packet, got all my letters — referral letters that needed to go with it, and I think it was 11 people that submitted, and I got selected in March.
Eric Fey: Okay, so you haven't been at this current role very long?
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: No.
Eric Fey: Oh, wow.
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: But it's been trial by fire.
Laughter
I've gone through a recount and now we have a big election coming up.
Brianna Lennon: So what surprises you the most — from being on the board to being in, now, the registrar position?
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: Oh gosh. Well, I knew it was a lot of hard work on the opposite side because the Board, you know, we just really adjudicating stuff, putting out fires day of — making sure the machines are sealed and all, but then everything that leads up to it is a lot. A lot of work leads up to elections. So, that has been eye opening.
And learning the code, the election’s code, which I was told by three different people in Louisiana Registrars to keep it and carry it like it's my Bible. So, that's what I do — read it like it's your Bible.
Brianna Lennon: So, speaking of that, can you talk a little bit about the structure of elections in Louisiana? Because I know that there's two people that touch elections in each parish, and how does all of that work together
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: It’s of a top down approach, of course, and as it relates to our parish — I handle early voting. So, I make sure all the early voting ballots go out overseas, military, as well as anyone domestic who requests an early voting ballot. Plus the people who are on the program, the 65+ program that automatically get the ballots.
Then we also vote nursing homes. We go out to the nursing homes to vote the people who can't come in, as well as the jails for those who are not felons, but are still incarcerated. We go there, or either we mail it to them. They have to request a mail ballot, but this last election was the first time we mailed it. Normally, people would go there, but there's been some back and forth where this was just, it was easier to just mail it to them, and then they — the deputy actually brings it back to us when he collects all the inmates ballots. He brings it back to us.
The Election’s director, or our Clerk of Criminal Court, which is Mr. Lombard — he handles Election Day. Making sure the machines are out, making sure all the workers are at their polling places. So, we select, the Board selects poll workers, but he trains the poll workers. So, that's pretty much how, how it handles. At the end of the night, the cartridges are turned over to Mr. Lombard who then uploads everything into the system and notifies the state.
Eric Fey: And who is responsible for voter registration in this structure?
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: Me.
Eric Fey: You. Lucky, you.
Laughter
Eric Fey: And is that the structure in each parish? There's a registrar in each parish
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: Correct —
Eric Fey: Okay.
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: — that handles the voter registration, and so, this coming week is voter registration week, National Voter Registration week. So, we have events planned — two per day at different locations, at the libraries. Some places will call us and ask us to come out and set up a table to do voter registration. So, we answer the calls all through the year, as long as it doesn't infringe on election time and it doesn't take staff away. So, we try not to do two to three weeks prior to elections — if it's a real big election, three weeks. But two weeks, mostly, prior to elections and after because we're still wrapping up stuff after the election.
Brianna Lennon: Do you have, I mean, since you do voter registration, do you do any cool, like, events to align with Mardi Gras, or anything like that?
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: We have not, and Mardi Gras would be challenging because we have a lot of outsiders, visitors who come in. But Mardi Gras, if you've —have you ever been?
Brianna Lennon: I have not.
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: Oh my gosh.
Laughter
Brianna Lennon: I’ve only heard stories.
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: Mardi Gras is an approximately six week event, but you have Mardi Gras Day, which, you know, culminates all of it. So, it starts on King's Day, which is what? Six days after Christmas, or whatever that is. Six weeks after Christmas? Whatever. But Kings Day and then that kicks off Mardi Gras, and then you have all the events that's leading up. You have different parades going on on different nights, and generally it's at night — except Mardi Gras day and on the weekends it’s during the day. So, yeah, it would be kind of hard to do it on Mardi Gras. A lot of streets are closed. Sheriffs and police are really on the routes, and we definitely need security when we do things like that.
Laughter
Eric Fey: So, for fear of getting too far down in the weeds, the structure in Louisiana is — I still don't fully understand it, to be honest. So, the Board of Supervisors of Elections, like I know Betsy Stone
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: Mhmm
Eric Fey: Shout out to Betsy if she listens to this. I don't know.
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: Hey, Betsy!
Laughter
Eric Fey: So, who comprises that board?
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: The Board of Election Supervisors for Orleans parish — we have Mr. Lombard, who runs our elections. Then we have one Democratic representative from the Democratic party, one Republican representative from the Republican party, a governor's appointee, myself, as the registrar, and I think that's it, and Betsy is our executive assistant.
Eric Fey: Sure. And so, you all have to kind of coordinate, you know, you're doing voter registration, early voting stuff. Somebody else is responsible for some Election Day things. So, y'all kind of have to be on the same page in order for everything to work?
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: Oh, if Betsy is listening — Another shout out. Betsy is the glue that keeps us together. So, she maps out our entire calendar. She tells us where we have to be, when we have to be, and what we're doing.
So, we'll start meeting to draw commissioners, and that's a strictly anonymous draw. We have bingo balls in little containers. So, if she's looking for, let's say, four people —we’ll go in there and pull out four balls, and then we tell her the numbers that's on the balls, and she'll scratch it off on her list because those are the people. We don't get to see who it is that's being selected, but she can see, you know, because she's scratching it off, and she lets them know, you know, that they've been selected, where they're working and stuff like that.
When it's time to seal the machines or open the machines, zero out the machines, all that — she coordinates all of that. She, along with Miss Janine in her office, they coordinate all of that. They tell us where to go. We go to the warehouse, or they come to my office if it's early voting, and we’re setting up the early voting machines. And we get together, we sign all the zero tapes, like this time, we'll probably have 70 machines that we have to zero, and everyone needs to sign the tapes. So, we'll be in the line signing tapes for seven, your name 70 times.
[High Turnout Wide Margins Midbreak]
Brianna Lennon: So, who sets like polling places? Because I know in some states there's staff that work and then they have to submit what they want their polling places to be and then get approval and things like that. Is that –
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: Our city council,
Brianna Lennon: Oh.
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: The city council and Mr. Lombard, they handle polling locations. Now, I can request a polling location in conjunction with someone, as long as it goes through the city council and they approve it because they have to fund it. Even though we're part of SOS, we're funded, mostly, for the election part through the city or the city council.
Eric Fey: I'm sure, because you all do it, it makes sense and it works. It seems complicated to an outsider.
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: Yeah, Louisiana does everything different from everybody else.
Laughter
Brianna Lennon: So, for voter education. When you are doing voter registration efforts and things like that, do you work with other offices so that they can provide other information about, like, Election Day stuff or do you kind of bring all of that with you? Or is it —
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: We bring it with us. We have an election day calendar, which is for the state. The entire state follows that calendar. We bring it with us, and we just educate people on, you know, “This is what you can do. This is your voter registration.” We're about to go into a closed — we actually are going into a partially closed primary. So, that part is going to be interesting, because now there's no more Independents. They've been moved to NP — “No party,” and then they get to select, when it's time to vote, if they want to vote Democrat or Republican. Now the thing is — it's only for five offices, not for all of the offices. So, it's for our federal offices, our BESE Board [Board of Elementary and Secondary Education] and our Public Service Commission.
Eric Fey: I'm sure that won't confuse anybody.
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: So, that's a new thing that's coming out, that's rolling out now, and PSAs have been going out and news briefs, so that people that know that that's going on.
Eric Fey: Another thing that kind of astonishes me about Louisiana is that it's a very top down structure. The Secretary of State's office, I think, if I'm not, if I'm correct — the state owns the voting equipment, right? Like the voting machine?
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: Correct.
Eric Fey:So, that's pretty foreign to us, being from Missouri, where each county buys their own voting equipment and everything. So, to what extent do you all have to coordinate with the state? Are you in pretty constant communication with them about things?
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: Definitely. We all work great together. They're great partners. Sherri Hadskey is our Commissioner of Elections through the Secretary of State's office. Phenomenal. If you have not met her — great woman. I don't know how she keeps all this information in her head, but she has it all in her head, and she is — between her, Nick and Elise — they all, like, we all — Bryce — we all work together to make sure that everything is where it's supposed to be when it's supposed to be. We have a warehouse in Orleans that houses all our machines, and we keep the early voting machines at my location.
Brianna Lennon: So, one of the kind of constant themes that's come up at this conference has been about state associations and things like that. With the relationship being so kind of tied to the Secretary of State's office, do you have a separate kind of registrar's or county clerk or anything like that association? Or is it really just everybody kind of working together?
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: We have a Louisiana Registrars of Voters Association, and there's also a Clerk's Association. So, yeah, we have both. And the Registrars of Voters Association, like, you know, I'm new — they have been great with reaching out to me, giving me tips, you know, telling me, “We'll come to your office, come to our office.” We're trying to get together now so that they can show me whatever, you know, I need to know that I don't know because you don't know what you don't know, but they've been great — reaching out to me and working with me, and I think there's two new registrars coming on in a couple of weeks. So, yeah. So, you know, it's great, a great Association.
Brianna Lennon: Do you have a term, or is it just you got hired in because —
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: Life. Now, I don't know about the rest of the state.
Brianna Lennon: Really? That's cool and daunting.
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: — and daunting.
Laughter
I will say I came in with a great team of people already there. My confidential assistant, Mark Gonsoulin, who's graduating today [from CERA]. He has been fabulous. My assistant chief deputy, Celeste, is great. Cami Chano, she has been fabulous. She's running the office now, while we are all out here. So, it's — I came in with 12 people, just hired four more. So, hopefully by October, we are fully staffed 100% and we're ready to go.
Eric Fey: I had the opportunity once to sit in on a session put on by the Louisiana Secretary of State's office about contingency planning because, obviously, Louisiana has hurricanes on a fairly regular basis, and all of the contingencies in place to conduct elections before, during and after hurricanes were amazing, and I'm curious — I know you're relatively new in this particular position, but do you all like adapt that plan and update it from time to time?
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: At the beginning of hurricane season, we update everyone's contact information, definitely, and you make sure that the state — our council makes sure that everyone, that we have a spot that we can go to if we need to conduct elections. I do not know where it is for this season. Praise God, hopefully we don't have any but, yeah, that's normally what they do. And so, I came from the court. In the court, we had already gone, we found space at LSU, secured a big area, knew where we put in courtrooms and stuff like that. So, when I came over — I came from that side, and, you know, I knew what we would want to do as a court, but then I came over here.
Eric Fey: So, just all governmental functions in Louisiana have these contingencies for hurricanes?
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: Yes.
Eric Fey: Wow.
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: Especially New Orleans.
Eric Fey: Especially New Orleans, yeah.
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: Yes because, you know, we're below sea level. So, anything, the least amount of rain can cause problems.
Eric Fey: Yeah. So, if your city council, for instance, has to choose these polling locations and everything, if you get a weather event, how much flexibility is there to change these things? If it's such a formal process of determining where people vote?
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: Well, I think they're — from what I remember in the past, that when they have had to change voting locations, they've changed it, and may not have been because of weather, may have been because of something else — but they've changed it and made sure everyone knew. They had people at the old location to make sure that someone, if you showed up, “Okay, no, they moved it. So here, go here,” signage and sending out news releases and all that, so that people will be aware of where to go to vote when they've changed it. But that wasn't for a weather event, and I can't remember exactly what caused that change
Brianna Lennon: For voters to know how to navigate the system, to get registered and to find information — how have you, do you all work together on that kind of, like, public facing side of things? Like on your website, do you have it all kind of floated the same thing? Or is it really well known to voters — because I could see it both ways. That everything would be kind of back end. Voters don't need to know that you're running the early voting, but somebody else is running Election Day versus somebody else picking polling places — they just know when they go to vote, they know where to, like, show up to. Do you try to make that part transparent, or do you try to just make it as like, “Hey, here's where you go to register to vote, and then here's where you're going to get your information from,” and that's it.
Lisa Marie Manning Bridges: We try to be as transparent as possible, as it relates to who's running what. However, when a voter has an issue and they call, they don't want to hear, “Oh, it's not me. It's someone else.” So, we do what we can to help the voter, if we can help them on our end. If not, if there's an issue — and again, with the Secretary of State, we work together within a system called ERIN [Elections and Registration Information Network], and in ERIN, we all have the same, we can see everything. And if it means that we have to go under the voter's profile to tell them what possibly happened or where a change happened, we can see that, and we could do it instead of referring them to the Secretary of State where they're going to get the same information.
Other than that, our website pretty much directs people everywhere that they need to go — it's detailed, it has all the information, but Louisianians know also that they have “Geaux Vote.” They know to go to geauxvote.com and that's going to have everything they need, as well — your sample ballot, where to go vote, if you want to make changes to your voter registration, you want to change your name, you want to change your address, anything like that that you want to do, you could do it in the app. But you can also email us and you can come to our office, you know? So, it's different things that we make available for the voters, and they know that this is what you can do.
Eric Fey: You've been listening to High Turnout Wide Margins, a podcast that explores local elections administration. I'm your host, Eric Fey alongside Brianna Lennon. A big thanks to KBIA and the Election Center for making this podcast possible. Our Managing Editor is Rebecca Smith. Managing Producer is Aaron Hay. Our Associate Producer is Katie Quinn, and our Digital Producer is Mark Johnson. This has been High Turnout Wide Margins. Thanks for listening.
