In an office lined with pictures, souvenirs and memorabilia from a 31-year political career, Secretary of State Tom Schedler held up his iPhone and described it as the pride of his last four years in office.
He explained his initiative Geauxvote.com as a website and mobile app which registers people to vote and gives them mock ballots to educate them on matters such as constitutional amendments, which he said can be wordy and confusing.
Ahead of the Oct. 24 election for Secretary of State, the incumbent will claim experience and an open-mind toward technology as advantages when campaigning against his Democratic challenger, LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center professor Chris Tyson.
“I have an opponent who has never been in politics and wants the job, and I’m respectful of that,” Schedler said. “I think that’s what’s beautiful about America is that anyone can run, but I just think this is a job that requires a little bit more balance and experience.”
Schedler, a Republican, is 65. Having served in the Navy in the ’70s he climbed the political ladder, starting in Slidell, Louisiana, in the mid ’80s. He said he amassed a wealth of experience and accomplishments in various government offices for which he served, including 12 years in the state senate and nearly five years as Secretary of State.
Tyson, a political newcomer, is part of a wave of government outsiders finding success in polls nationwide, tapping into voters’ frustration with both parties.
Schedler said he is also frustrated with today’s politics, but thinks the solution is to engage with more voters in Louisiana.
He said he hopes technology will engage a youth electorate in Louisiana that is registered to vote at only around 50 percent, compared to 85 percent of all eligible voters.
“I don’t think I’m an old folky,” Schedler said. “I’ve got a bunch of technology I brought in here, and I believe in it, but I’m very methodical, I don’t just jump off the bridge with something.”
One framed document which hangs on his office wall, titled “Honor Vets … Vote,” reads, “Tom Schedler is voting in honor of John T. Schedler,” his father. Both men served in the Navy, and Tom Schedler started the Honor Vets … Vote program in 2012 after visiting troops in the Middle East.
“We’ve got men and women over there fighting for other countries to give them the right to vote, and they put their finger in ink and have the threat of that finger being removed one day when they leave the voting precinct,” Schedler said. “Yet, in this country we scramble around trying to get people to go exercise their right to vote.”
Schedler said he has a number of program ideas he would like to implement if he is re-elected. He would replace expensive voting machines in Louisiana with iPads, which he said are relatively inexpensive and easy to replace.
“Everybody wants the instant gratification, everything quick, this is it,” he said. “[Young people] are used to this technology, and we feel like for the future that’s the way to go with it.”
Secretary of State Tom Schedler holds up his personal iPhone as he explains Geauxvote.com on Friday, Sept. 25, 2015, in his office.
