Ahead of Ohio's primary election on Tuesday, the president of the Ohio NAACP is urging residents to not skip the polls.
With Ohio's gerrymandered Senate and House districts or in unopposed races, whoever wins the Tuesday election will likely be the winner come November.
Beyond the contests for the party nomination for Ohio General Assembly, voters will decide on a wide range of other issues on March 19, from levies to local races.
MORE: A voter guide to Ohio's March 19 primary election
Tom Roberts, president of theOhio Conference of Branches of the NAACP, which works to promote voting, spoke with WYSO’s Kathryn Mobley about what residents should know as they head out to cast their ballots.
The interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Roberts: Every election counts. Every election is important.
That township trustee makes more decisions on your daily lives and the president. We have to continue to educate people to let them know all politics is local.
So we do as much as we can at the NAACP to educate the public on the importance of looking at the down ballot races. And that's one of our strategies, is to look at down ballot races and see in every one of our communities how we can engage voters in those elections.
Mobley: Well, how do you motivate people? I mean, you can tell them focus on the down ticket, but how do you motivate people, especially African Americans? Because I feel like African Americans right now, do you have some apathy of we're always going to be under someone's foot?
Roberts: You know, for me, that's what I was saying the other day, is that we have to understand the American system. And, and one book that I'm reading helps me understand that greatly that we are in a caste system.
And as long as America existed from the very beginning, there has been a caste system. And Blacks have always been at the bottom of that caste system. But that doesn't mean our vote doesn't count.
This is why NAACP has been on the forefront for voter registration because that equalizes everything. And we can elect people who speak on our behalf on public policy in Columbus and in Washington, but also at the local level.
So for me, I understand the apathy, but I don't agree with it. Because part of the strategy of the powers-that-be is to make people so discouraged that they won't vote, because that allows them to maintain their supremacy.
"In some areas, and our area being one of those, the primary is the race."
Mobley: There was a time when voting was important to everyone. People talked about it with their friends and neighbors talked about it around the dinner tables, in their churches on their jobs. But now it seems our lives are so busy. Are we forgetting the significance of voting?
Roberts: Families are struggling with with finances, housing, all those other issues and voting has taken a backseat and it's unfortunate.
They don't see the connection between voting and the quality of life in their communities.
The city council, the commission, who makes those local decisions. Township trustees, when judicial decisions are made, local judges, who we go before for traffic events, the Common Pleas Court judge who makes the decisions as it relates to to high crime, felony crimes, and civil cases.
For us, it has to be a continuing education as to why it's important to register and to vote, because it helps with the decisions that are made locally.
Mobley: March 19 is the Ohio primary. Right now we're in early voting, but there's some people were saying they're too busy. They just don't have time to go to the polls and they're going to wait until November. Why is that a problem? You say that that's actually going to be a problem for some races in our state. Why?
Roberts: In some areas, and our area being one of those, the primary is the race.
So whoever wins one of our state representative races will then go on to become the next state representative, because there's no opponent from the opposite party in the November election.
The other reason is that the primaries have issues. Dayton and other communities will have levies on the ballot, and I think several schools will have issues.
For many communities, the March primary will elect an official. In others it will put in place levies.
