In this episode, Jenny Beth Martin sits down with Marcell Strbich, a U.S. military intelligence veteran and candidate for Ohio Secretary of State, to discuss the urgent need to restore election integrity and secure America’s voting systems. Strbich shares how his military background in threat assessment and national security inspired him to step up and protect Ohio’s elections from fraud, foreign interference, and bureaucratic complacency. He outlines his plan for same-day, in-person voting, valid-excuse absentee ballots, and paper-based, auditable systems that return accountability to local communities. From confronting vulnerabilities in electronic poll books to calling out corruption within both parties, Strbich emphasizes courage, transparency, and constitutional duty. Discover how one veteran is taking his oath to defend the Constitution from the battlefield to the ballot box.
In this episode, Jenny Beth Martin sits down with Marcell Strbich, a U.S. military intelligence veteran and candidate for Ohio Secretary of State, to discuss the urgent need to restore election integrity and secure America’s voting systems. Strbich shares how his military background in threat assessment and national security inspired him to step up and protect Ohio’s elections from fraud, foreign interference, and bureaucratic complacency. He outlines his plan for same-day, in-person voting, valid-excuse absentee ballots, and paper-based, auditable systems that return accountability to local communities. From confronting vulnerabilities in electronic poll books to calling out corruption within both parties, Strbich emphasizes courage, transparency, and constitutional duty.
Discover how one veteran is taking his oath to defend the Constitution from the battlefield to the ballot box.
X/Twitter: @marcellstrbich | @jennybethm
Website: https://strbichforohio.com/
Marcell Strbich (00:00):
I think the biggest issue that we have is that the ability to validate people who are applying to vote is not conducted at the local level. And when you look at our law, it accepts the information that comes on a registration. At face value, we should be qualifying eligibility upfront that includes citizenship and other means
Narrator (00:21):
Keeping our republic is on the line. And it requires Patriots with great passion, dedication, and eternal vigilance to preserve our freedoms. Jenny Beth Martin is the co-founder of Tea Party Patriots. She's an author of filmmaker and one of time magazine's most influential people in the world. But the title she is most proud of is Mom To Her Boy, girl Twins, she has been at the forefront fighting to protect America's core principles for more than a decade. Welcome to the Jenny Beth Show.
Jenny Beth Martin (00:53):
Today we are talking to a candidate for Ohio's Secretary of State. And remember, the Secretary of State office is one of the most important offices when it comes to safeguarding the integrity of our elections and protecting our constitutional republic. Today we're joined by Marcel Stbi. Marcel, thanks so much for joining me today.
Marcell Strbich (01:14):
Thank you. It's great to be with somebody, this category of you.
Jenny Beth Martin (01:18):
So Marcel, why did you decide to run for Secretary of State? Tell us a little bit about yourself and why you decided to run.
Marcell Strbich (01:24):
Sure. I'm a post nine 11 military veteran. I joined and became an intelligence officer and fought the war on terror overseas. And over time of course, we saw threats and risks develop here in our homeland. And I think none more important than what happened in the 2020 election. And I think it woke up a lot of Americans. It certainly woke me up. It shifted our whole focus in the military to focusing on social ideology. And many of us were very concerned and disturbed with the way that the borders were flung open and the way our election was conducted that year. And so I committed to myself that when I retired and I did that last year, I would move back to Ohio. I would get very involved and I have been with various local groups and tea party groups here in Ohio, and I decided that there was really a mindset in Ohio of a status quo. So a lot of folks don't want to friction when they run for office. They're focused on maintaining their electability, Jenny Beth. And so at the end, what it comes down to is somebody has to come in from the outside who's unafraid to address the issues in the elections, the risks, the vulnerabilities. And that's what I've dedicated the last two years of my life. First as a volunteer, but now as a candidate for Secretary of State.
Jenny Beth Martin (02:34):
So what was the moment that made you decide to go from volunteering to stepping up to Run? Was there one specific incident or was it just a combination of everything that we were seeing post 2020?
Marcell Strbich (02:47):
Yeah, it was really in 2022, I was a couple of years away from retiring from active duty and we had a local election race here with a county commissioner whose votes were not counted till about 20 days afterwards. And they were done in a way where there wasn't a Republican and a Democrat, which is what Ohio touts is always having this bipartisan group that counts. Well, the person in question won on election night and then reverse that decision. And I realized that this isn't just Illinois, it's not just Michigan and California that have a problem with election transparency, oversight and accountability. It's Ohio. And so that really forced me to delve into our election laws, our procedures. And what I found was we are really broken on the front end in terms of allowing people onto voter roll that should not be. And around that time last year for that matter, Ohio started to report identification of non-citizens had gotten onto our voter rolls. So I accelerated my activism. I organized a call to action in the state of Ohio and we started to prompt our secretary and state to seek more aggressively tools like federal and state databases. And that's starting to work more closely with the Election Integrity Network nationally on Kalida Mitchell and others who helped also bring the degree of credibility and resources into that fight.
Jenny Beth Martin (04:07):
So you really have seen firsthand how problems with the election really shake the foundation of trusting in the outcome of elections. So let's talk about how you plan to restore it. What do you think is the biggest threat to election integrity in Ohio?
Marcell Strbich (04:26):
I think the biggest issue that we have is that the ability to validate people who are applying to vote is not conducted at the local level. We have centralized the review process of every registration in Ohio at the Secretary of state level. And so our county Board of Elections, we have 88 counties in Ohio, none have access to identity residency or citizenship. And when you look at our law, it accepts the information that comes on registration at face value. We should be qualifying eligibility upfront that includes citizenship and other means. And we should be giving the board of elections not just the tools for verifying that information is correct, not just filled out, which is the current standard, but we should be ensuring that they are properly performing that function regardless of which county is doing it. And we're not doing that. So what that's leading to is tens of thousands of mismatched or invalid registrants are allowed to stay on our voter rolls.
Marcell Strbich (05:25):
And then we have third party groups in the state of Ohio knowing some of these registrants are vulnerable to that type of exploitation, are requesting no excuse mail-in ballots for those very invalidated registrants. So the job wasn't done properly on the backend with voter registration. And then as the election cycle moves forward and people start to request for ballots, now third party groups get involved and we have a no excuse system in Ohio. So it's not based on having a valid reason. I can't make it to the polling location in front or I'm not in the precinct. That's the system we used to have in Ohio. But over the last 20 years, all of our elected officials, whether they be Democrat, mostly Republican, wanted to placate people for the purposes of electability. So they made our system more loose. They made it more about ballot accessibility and voter convenience.
Marcell Strbich (06:23):
And the reality is we should have first secured the voting systems and we should have properly verified people. So my candidacy as a secretary of state is to utilize my skills as an intelligence and threat assessment expert that I acquired in the military over 20 years. And to apply that in context of looking at the elections like they're a risk management system. And if we do that and we properly hone the administration side, then we're not going to have fuel for third party groups to be able to exploit the election at the time when we're casting ballots.
Jenny Beth Martin (06:57):
Okay, that makes a lot of sense. And the comment that you just made about how the local level cannot verify the eligibility, especially when it comes to citizenship, that is something that we heard as we just finished the only citizen vote bus tour. We went around the entire country and a half from California to North Carolina and then Wisconsin to dc and that was one of the issues that we heard beginning in Arizona. Marissa Hamilton brought it to my attention and then we heard it in other places as well. The local election officials just don't normally have access to that information. Now the Trump administration is opening those databases up, but before the last four or five months, no local people really had access to that information. So I'm glad that that's something that you are working on and that is on your radar to address. When you mentioned that you want to bring your risk assessment background in, how does that work in practicality? So having that background that you have, what kind of changes would you like to see happen to the election system or are you able to address that yet because you maybe don't have all the information?
Marcell Strbich (08:15):
Yeah, so I would be in pursuit of a same day in person voting system in a valid excuse only may absentee ballot system. So we would go from having 28 days of early voting in Ohio to what President Trump has indicated should be really a same day in person system. We would account for people who couldn't be in the polling locations. We would make sure that those people have the 28 day window and that would be valid excuse only I would go to pre-printed hand mark paper ballots, which currently would replace the vote casting systems. The voting systems themselves are only secured to a 2005 standard and they're being certified as such. That's just unacceptable. We know that the level of threat over the last 20 years has grown exponentially. We know that countries like China have penetrated our telecommunication networks, the routers for example, that are used to help our check-in devices when we go to check in to a poll in location rely upon the routers which have been compromised by China.
Marcell Strbich (09:18):
And the supply components in all of the software are developed from overseas. So we just have no accountability over the supply chain of the electronic voting systems. So what I would be able to utilize is my military background that protected critical infrastructure for high level program offices and weapon systems in the military, and I could utilize those same standards we use to secure weapon systems in the military and apply them to secure voting systems. We're about 20 years past the baseline for that security. And so this lends itself very well to getting us to a level of our degree readiness. The other thing I'm doing different I think than any other Secretary of state and currently candidate if you would or our current Secretary of state, is I'm allowing the counties to choose themselves if they want to restore a method of hand counting. So right now, the vote counting takes place through electronic software, which has its efficiencies and it's touted as being the most accurate.
Marcell Strbich (10:18):
The truth of the matter is we don't really know that because after an election is over, we only audit in Ohio less than 5% of all of a county's vote. And so they tout a high degree of accuracy, 99.995%, but that's less than 5% of a county's vote. So the sample size is really skewed, and the problem is they only utilize three precincts. So there's a lot of gamesmanship on how they say the data is utilized to assure people that everything has been accurate, but there's no independent third party reviewer. We should be bringing somebody in to assess those and make that the basis for us to go forward. So electronic voting systems are a real issue. It's why I think President Trump has called for them to be done and our casting should be done through pen and paper, hand marketable. As far as the accounting of voting systems, I think that the county should decide that through a ballot referendum.
Marcell Strbich (11:15):
We have the ability to do that in Ohio, and I think that's the best way. Local control, oversight and accountability. What we have found, there's a big problem in our rural counties where a lot of tea party groups are active oxygen. The problem we have is that there are fewer and fewer election workers participating in our system as the years go on. And that's leading to the precincts being consolidated because of the lack of manpower, which means fewer polling locations, which means people have to travel further just to vote in person. And if these trends continue, then we are going to be accelerating toward remote voting, meaning the tested and honored way of casting a ballot in America, which is to go in person. It's going to become an issue for us to be able to sustain. And I've raised this issue and what I've discovered in just the last few weeks and over the last few years in Ohio is that many county board of elections are punishing election workers for speaking out about either voting systems or issues that they're seeing.
Marcell Strbich (12:17):
So what they're doing is they're suppressing people's first amendment rights, number one. Number two, they're pushing them away from the process because they don't want them to report problems in the system, so we can't then correct them. And so what that's doing is it's promoting what the vendors, the voting system vendors want. They want to go to a remote voting system enterprise. And so I recently exposed this in Ohio. I spoke out against this practice of blacklisting election workers, and I was joined by our gubernatorial candidate, Mave Ram Swami, who also threw his weight behind that issue and put out a Wall Street op-ed journal on this. But these type of things are happening because special interests have taken over and monetized and privatized in a sense our voting and our electronics, our entire election system. And they did that over the course of 10, 15 years and we pretty much let them do that. So I'm trying to pull that back. I'm trying to assume that level of oversight control so that the counties work with the Secretary of State and we push the interest lobby off of this issue.
Jenny Beth Martin (13:24):
Okay. I want to unpack a few things that you just said because there are a lot of people who are in my audience who are very plugged into election integrity, and then there are others who pay attention, but they don't understand all the details and also maybe they never program computers, which I used to do. So let's take a step back. Let's talk about the voting systems for just a second. You mentioned that the check-in systems, which are called poll pads have issues. And we know this is true because CISA from the government has issued a warning about that. Correct? Can you elaborate on that?
Marcell Strbich (14:06):
Absolutely. Just recently, CISA issued cisa, the agency that works under the Department of Homeland Security and monitors election system networks now across a number of states did warn that the network software for the poll books that check our voters in has been exploited previously and compromised by nation state actors like China. And I'm talking about the Cisco routers that are based that allow those poll pads like you were saying, Jenny, to communicate with each other to deconflict, whether a person has already voted in that location to make sure that that voter is eligible. So they're very convenient tools, but convenience doesn't equate to security. And if the underlying infrastructure that runs that pole pad has been compromised, then why are we to assume that the pole pad itself has not been compromised or can be accessible through backdoor means? Our secretary of state in Ohio knew this and in March of this year, a number of those poll pads activated themselves while they were in storage remotely in one of our counties, they downloaded videos, they did Google searches.
Marcell Strbich (15:24):
So clearly somebody got into our poll pads in a time when they weren't even active in the setting of an election. So our Secretary of State took down those EPO books in over 40 of our counties. That was the right move. Here's the problem. The CSA and DHS have not found the fix as they call a patch yet our Secretary of state just authorized that, that same brand of poll book to be active again and to be used for next month's November election. This is the type of irresponsible actions that take place when elected officials are following the politics and they're following the money when it comes to what the vendors are pushing and they're not doing the right thing in terms of security. We could have just used paper poll books in Ohio. We could literally go back to just looking at it, having that all ready and recorded for people. We did it in the election in March, but for the sake of getting back to normal and sweeping everything under the rug and not telling the people of Ohio what really happened, they didn't do a good job doing that. We're back to using this form of I would call vulnerable software vulnerable products because why? Because we own it and they figure if we own it, we might as well use it. I would never operate that way, not as a security professional or intelligence,
Jenny Beth Martin (16:45):
Absolutely not. And a Fortune 500 company would not operate that day that way. And anyone who has programmed computers would have an issue with this and would want to know what is the root cause? Where is a problem coming from? Have we corrected it? Have we tested the patch? Are we ready to roll it out and make it live around? In this case it would be for the whole state or for the counties that are using that. But you wouldn't just take the word for the vendor without testing it. And so I found that I have found as I have worked on election integrity issues since 2020 that so many of the elected officials and the election workers, they just simply don't understand computers. They don't have a background in it, they haven't programmed, they haven't worried about cybersecurity. And that's fine. They have an expertise in different areas and we need everybody to have different expertise.
Jenny Beth Martin (17:48):
But instead of paying attention to some of their own constituents who may be actually experts in cybersecurity or in computer programming or in understanding how systems work together instead of listening to them, they just listen to the experts who are the vendors. And the vendors have a vested interest in continuing their contracts. Sometimes you need that third party oversight to have checks and balances, and I'm not picking on any particular vendor. And of course they're going to defend their system and say they took care of it and hopefully they have and hopefully they are correct. But there still needs to be checks and balances on it, which is what you're talking about, ensuring that there will be.
Marcell Strbich (18:35):
Yes. And last year I proposed legislation that takes the responsibility of certifying voting systems out of the hands of the Secretary of State and the Board of Elections because it's a conflict of interest. I mean, in Ohio, we created a board 10 years ago that rubber stamps this process. How could the very same people that use the voting systems also have the right to be authorized to certify them? I mean these things are happening all the time. I uncovered the fact that the board of elections have directors, these are appointed officials, they're paid for by us, the taxpayers, and yet they sit on the lobbying arm of an association called the Ohio Association of Election Officials. And that organization Wines and dines, the political appointees, every year they promote the products. And so what happens is those people come out of those meetings and they're ready to attack anybody who comes at them and says, there's a problem here.
Marcell Strbich (19:27):
You should really be independently verifying this or Can you show me the information which would indicate this isn't have some level of compromise. Nobody can provide transparency and this is the problem and why? Six out of the 10 Americans before the November election last year said they weren't sure if they could trust the honesty of the elections. It is almost less to do with people not trusting a voting machine and has a lot more to do with people in elected office who do not want to show their cards, who do not want to open up transparency, find every excuse, and it's why I'm running in this race. I don't need the office. I'm not term limited. For me, I'd be very happy to raise my three young children, two, six, and eight and now enjoy what being a civilian is like. But I cannot put aside what happened to our nation, what will happen to our nation time and again if we do not address these problems as they exist and we don't recognize them and we got to stop lying to ourselves. So this job needs people who don't lead from behind. We need to lead from forward. And that's where my military experience comes in. I could literally look at it as an issue. What are the results we need to achieve? And I've pretty much detailed out the entire scope of voting from registration, vote casting, vote counting certification, and I'm ready to go and create the best system that there can be in this country.
Jenny Beth Martin (20:49):
That is very good and I appreciate your enthusiasm when you talk about CMD voting and then you were talking about the push towards getting us toward remote voting. I think that it's a push towards getting us towards remote voting. There is definitely that push going on. And you mentioned also that it's harder to hire people who will work at the precinct level and that winds up consolidating the precincts. Well, it is my opinion that part of the reason why it's harder to hire people is because it's no longer just a single day. If you were hiring people to work for one day, I think you still would be able to get people to work at the precinct for that single day. But we're talking about people who in Ohio have to work for 28 days. That is a full month of time and it's probably from eight o'clock in the morning till five o'clock in the afternoon.
Jenny Beth Martin (21:50):
So it is a full-time position for 28 days an entire month. It's hard to find somebody who can just give up a whole entire month of their life to go work the polls. So then you wind up consolidating the precincts. Well, when you consolidate the precincts and you have to be able to print the ballot at that consolidated precinct because you need each one to match the individual voter. And that creates the opportunity for mistakes to happen and problems to happen because everywhere along the way that you're interacting with a computer system and a human is doing it, there's opportunities for mistakes to happen and of course intentional deliberate interference with the election, but take that even out of the equation, it just creates more opportunities for problems. So what you're talking about with the single day voting, I like that idea. I don't know how voters feel about it at this point because they're so used to early voting, but it seems to me you've got a bit of a workaround for that because you still can absentee vote with an excuse.
Marcell Strbich (23:02):
And that's very important because you're right, for 15 years, Ohioans have now gotten accustomed to that and you don't deconstruct everything overnight. I always say this to folks, it took 20 years to build this apparatus. That's unaccountable, that's based on electronic. It's complicated. It needs to be simplified. We got to manage that. That's why I say my option is to let the counties choose their method of counting, but they've got to demonstrate proficiency first. That's got to be adjudicated by the Secretary of State before that's enacted. But with that said, the same day in person concept, many board of elections like it, many board of elections don't want that logistical burden. I'm going to tell you another thing. The reason people are not engaging as much or why the older population, it isn't just that it's 1214 hour days. We who's volunteering a lot of retirees, a lot of people are civically minded.
Marcell Strbich (23:49):
It comes out of the fact that people don't feel when they're in the process of volunteering, like they're playing a role. I mean, there's a electronic interface that you're dealing with and there's a contractor that operates it. So what do you do? You're looking at a poll pad. It's telling you this person can or can vote in the following way. You're checking an id. Okay, that's good. Not all states do that. But then you're not counting, you're not involved in it. And if you go back 25 years ago, you were going into the location, we were counting our votes, people were actively coming together. It was a really civic enterprise and we have failed to teach our children in the last 25 years the importance of this because as we embraced electronic, and I'm not an anti-technology guy, I've lived by it. I'm 43 years old, but it's not needed for voting.
Marcell Strbich (24:37):
It's a lot faster to fill out a pen and paper bubble and put it in a voting sheet. You're going to have to do that. And it's a lot easier for rural counties that have very few voters to count them. There's one county in Ohio that paid $63 a vote for the use of all of the machines and what it costs them and they couldn't afford it. These 15 rural counties in Ohio or financially in duress. And so they're looking for a way out of that. They have two to 500 people that want to volunteer. Why would we not be embracing that if we're facing a shortage? This stuff doesn't make sense because politicians are trying to fit a square hole in a round peg because they're trying to get through their job with the least amount of friction so they can move on and get to the next post. That's why this person really needs somebody to roll up their sleeves and take on the friction points that people are avoiding. That's what they do in government. They avoid the idea of us taking on the problems. The problems have to be looked at and acknowledge and addressed. And with the voting systems, it's going to take a political outsider, and that's why I'm running to be the Secretary of State of Ohio.
Jenny Beth Martin (25:43):
So that's very good. And you clearly have a lot of courage and citizens around the country want to see courage in their elected officials and they want that courage anchored in the constitution. Let's talk a little bit about what drives you and drives that conviction. So when it comes to the secretary of State position, do you see this as one that is more geared towards a constitutional office or is it a bureaucratic office and why?
Marcell Strbich (26:13):
Well, everything stems down from the constitution, right? Everything from only citizens vote states are required to verify eligibility. There's the time, place, and manner clause. So all of that comes down to that. At the end, no one wants to disenfranchise a vote or dilute a vote, but if we don't properly do our job as administrators, and this is where the bureaucratic part comes in. So the two are interconnected. If the county board of elections are not properly conducting or inconsistently conducting their review of eligibility, that it is going to introduce risk throughout the entire election cycle. And so go back to the motivation side. I mean, it doesn't matter what kind of candidate, what kind of campaign you run. If you don't have a solid election system that only includes valid registrations and valid votes and counts those, then what you're going to do is compromise the trust and confidence that people have in that system.
Marcell Strbich (27:08):
We will lose the consent of the governed, which is one of the most important things. The great equalizer, like my parents came from communist Europe, from Yugoslavia, but Croatia, right? 1970, they didn't have the right to pick and choose anybody. The party chose, and if you spoke out, you were punished, you were persecuted on all ways. In the United States, no matter what socioeconomic background you come from, you have the right to choose an equal level and whatever high level status another person has. So this is very, very unique to the United States, but we have allowed this system to over time degrade in terms of the conduct of it. And I'm not talking about people going voting on election day, that's pretty seamless for most people. I'm talking about the side that people don't know and see which is the side where the vulnerability is. And that's in the election administration.
Marcell Strbich (27:58):
It is the human factor, Jay. It's the human factor that has to be addressed because we have a bill in Ohio that says, you're supposed to check voter id. Right? Yet a million people cast their ballots by mail in without it because we exempted that in law because we wanted to elevate convenience. So then we said, okay, but if you vote in person, we'll check your ID and on the back, sure enough, on the back of our driver's license in Ohio, we're one of five states that does this. So only five states do this. We actually have a designator that says non-citizen. But what I've found is depending on the county, the directors of the elections or their poll workers say, you don't have to count that. You don't have to do that. So what is that? If you pass a law and nobody enforces it and there's no punishment in the system and there's no accountability or oversight, what good is the law?
Marcell Strbich (28:48):
And so I had to sue the Montgomery County Board of Elections, the fifth largest county in Ohio last year because as a poll worker, I wasn't being informed or instructed on how to properly check that. In other words, they were pushing poll workers into the roles without the enforcement of that law that they're supposed to check. We shouldn't get to that point anyway, we're on election day, you're looking for somebody solicit. If we got to that, we failed. But the point is even so this goes to show you how people who are desiring to not cooperate, whether that's at the local state or government level, are compromising our constitutional republic. And so it's going to take a Secretary of State like myself who understands the importance of the accountability and is going to execute that accountability if it means we're leaving people of their duties, so be it. That's what I'm getting at when I say that those who seek this office are trying to get through without any friction, but we're not going to save this country if we don't bring people in who have for conviction and are willing to fight the fight. And I think that's what's lacking in government is people coming in who are ready to disrupt if need be because it matters. Our future matters.
Jenny Beth Martin (29:58):
And when you see issues that arise if you're elected, when you see issues that arise, what if they're coming from your own party, you're running as a Republican, will you call them out as well?
Marcell Strbich (30:09):
Absolutely. I do it today. I called out the Secretary of State many times. When he does something good, I say, that's great. You took a high out of Eric, which is a faulty registration system that was selling our registration data to Democrat campaigns and other means. So my point is, if we are going to save this republic, we have to call out bad Republicans and bad Democrats. The fact that I run as a Republican is nor along the lines of the value system that I have, but that doesn't mean that I don't think that 80% of Republicans in my opinion, are falling short of the authority and the responsibility. And that's been the case since you started the Tea Party movement 15 years ago. What is it? 15 years ago you saw the same bad things. We can call 'em whatever we want to call.
Marcell Strbich (30:53):
They've always existed. It's just they have a weak backbone and that's because they're worried about something for themselves. Instead of looking at it and saying, Hey, if I just did a great job and I did what we're supposed to do, you're going to get reelected unanimously because our base will support you. I'm just reaching that point in my life where I went from being apolitical, just serving whatever military commander in chief was out there to realizing that that's not going to be enough because all of our institutions have been weaponized. Law enforcement, military, department of homeland security, I mean you name it. I mean it's been turned against the American people in some form or fashion censorship. I mean, I've experienced all of it, and I just said to myself, that's not the country I want to leave to my kids. And if it means I have to sacrifice spending quality time with them and deploying in a role of executive level office, I'm going to do it. And that's why I have the support of a ton of tea party groups and a ton of people why my campaign is really accelerated and why we're doing very well as a first time candidate because people want this type of candidate who's going to speak openly and truthfully and have the background to do the job, then somebody who's going to slogan here and divert and deflect and do what politicians always did.
Jenny Beth Martin (32:09):
And I appreciate that conviction and wanting to hold people accountable and to call out when they do good things no matter what the party is. You mentioned that people are having the rights, especially the First Amendment rights infringe. If they've posted something on social media, maybe they can no longer work as a poll worker. That's just sort of an example of something that you mentioned and you talked about censorship and weaponization, the rights that we have. Do you think that it is a government who grants those rights or are those rights, do they come to us naturally from God?
Marcell Strbich (32:49):
Just a latter. A hundred percent you can call it. We mix up rights and privileges. Everything that's a privilege has been now taken and converted and they call it a right. And so we've got this kind of duality in the terms that get used and how people try to rewrite in the meaning, the definition of meaning of words that they use. I see that coming predominantly from one strain of ideology in this country. So it is natural law in that sense, and really it all starts from individuals us. So what isn't stated in the 10th Amendment is for the states to determine and what isn't stated within a restriction. And that's why I promoted the idea of ballot referendums for Anne County because there's nothing that prohibits or restricts Ohio County in residence for putting a ballot referendum on their ballot, voting on it so they can hand count and have the level of oversight over that process. However, our Secretary of State saw it differently in Ohio, a Republican. He said they're not allowed to do it because it wasn't written exclusively in the law. So here we have a Republican who's taking the opposite point of view, isn't he? He's saying that if the government doesn't tell you you can count your ballots, then you can't count your ballots. What kind of a distortion is that? It goes to show you the deficit of understanding of the constitution that is prevalent in elected officials to include Republicans today.
Jenny Beth Martin (34:14):
You're very, very refreshing and I can tell from the fact that you served our country and now you volunteered for our country and now you're stepping up to run for office. Holding onto this republic is very important to you. When you think about how freedom requires eternal vigilance, what do you think vigilance means? Elaborate on that a little bit more because I can tell that your love for this country drives you.
Marcell Strbich (34:47):
That's a great question and I'm glad you asked me that. I'm a threat professional. I've been taught over years to look at everything from the standpoint of what's probable least likely and how to look forward in forecast and model five, 10 years, where is the country going? How is America seated within the context of the global world and how we are going to as a country sustain ourselves and our government, our economy and number of things. So for me, I have a mindset that looks 5, 10, 15 years ahead and sees it coming. And so vigilance goes back to all the people that served with me in the nine 11 war. We fought the longest war in American history. Afghanistan was 20 years, 7,200 at 90 days. Just like every other generation, we shed a lot of blood and a lot of treasure. And in most cases, we have little to show for it from the standpoint of geopolitics.
Marcell Strbich (35:42):
We came, we saw we left, and what came of it, right? I choose to look at that and I say, well, there was a sacrifice. It was had. Now it's for us to ensure that that sacrifice does not go in vain. And so when I look back at my colleagues and some that didn't come home, they would want to know that I was carrying that mantle for them and others and ensuring that while we spent all of this time overseas to give other countries the chance to a democracy, that we did not allow our own democracy, our own governance to slip. And unfortunately, we have not cared and fed for our own people as much in taking care of the issues at home, which is why I think we're living through a reset period where our politics now has more of a nationalistic approach to how we look at Republicanism because we have truly allowed a small group of selected folks and interests to guide the vast majority of us.
Marcell Strbich (36:48):
And so now I fall well into that realm of looking and caring for, if you want to call it America first. I do see it that way because we can't be strong overseas and vigilant, like you say, if we aren't strong at home and we are not reducing the threat at home, the elections is just one area where we could reduce it so that we do not have fraudulency again, because if people think it's fraudulent and there's a lot of people that don't vote because of that currently, then that's only going to allow the tyrants the ability to come in. And once they do, we may not get a chance to get them out. Look at England, look at Canada, look at all of these countries that are on the track of deconstructing their civilizations, not protecting their people. That could be us in five or 10 years. We have to look to that. We have to prevent ever getting to that point where they're at right now.
Jenny Beth Martin (37:44):
It is so refreshing to hear this. You are someone who cares more about duty than you do about power, and I think that that is incredibly important. Let's shift gears just a little bit and talk some about your campaign for this particular office. What is it that you wish every person in Ohio understood about the office of Secretary of State?
Marcell Strbich (38:08):
It is the gateway to every single other office or every other issue. It all starts with your elections. It is the cornerstone. And the difference is I'm a person pursuing this to do the job in cleanup. What hasn't been done in 20 years where most people are pursuing this for a political career because they see the Secretary of state as a stepping stone and many of them are trying to become senators or governors. I'm going in for years or eight years the most, and then I'm getting out because I've got a family to raise and I've got other duties and responsibilities to uphold. So I look at it like a deployment that may sound a little goofy, but I look at it like a deployment and I'm willing to do it because I've got the requisite background and understanding and I didn't think I was going to run until this year.
Marcell Strbich (38:56):
And I was hoping and praying somebody would step up into this role that I could advise them that I can help them succeed. And I realized I am that person. Isaiah six, eight send me. I am that person. So people said, why don't you do it? You have the energy, you've got the knowledge, you've got the conviction. We need people like you. And I am the type of person who I always try to fill that role or that duty on behalf of others. Maybe that's the selflessness of me. I grew up in a restaurant business. My mom was pushed me really hard from a very early age to succeed and excel like most immigrants you would who want their children to do well in this country. My family's a textbook case of what good assimilation looks like when you do it right and when you embrace America and its values. And so I have a lot to offer in that way.
Jenny Beth Martin (39:50):
That is very good. So is the current Secretary of State running for office still? Are you running against the current Secretary of State?
Marcell Strbich (39:58):
Yeah, nobody, I'm not running. It's an open seat. The current Secretary of state in every executive level office, this election cycle is term limited in Ohio. We have a little kind of a joke that it's a musical chair system, so when one of them is now term limited, they all tend to come to terms and agree with one another on the various offices they're going to rotate into. So I'm disrupting that the RA Swami who's running for governor disrupted that and I think the people of Ohio are tired of a system of patronage that's based on trading favors for endorsements. And that is why my campaign is resonating, not just my ideas. I mean these are common sense. I speak very plainly to what needs to be done and that resonates with people regardless of their background, but that's effectively what we're up against. We're up against a system that doesn't want to see newcomers.
Marcell Strbich (40:53):
And I don't like this aspect about the Republican party. I think they've been very close like this until President Trump and others came along. I mean, it's important we grow our tent. We are the last vestige for constitutional Republican form of government, and so we don't have time for self-interest to take over what is the broader interests of our country and our future. And so yeah, as much as I prefer to not have to be the front guy on it, but if that's what it takes, I've got the leadership experience from many assignments working at the Pentagon and working across number of leadership positions within military that I could do it.
Jenny Beth Martin (41:31):
That's very good. Now talk a little bit about your campaign. Don't give away any secrets, so you don't want people to know, but what are the things that you're doing to campaign? Are you raising enough money so you'll be able to actually execute the campaign and are people stepping up to volunteer with you?
Marcell Strbich (41:49):
I have over 4,500 small donors. I've raised over $250,000.
Jenny Beth Martin (41:54):
When did start, Kim, when did you launch? I
Marcell Strbich (41:55):
Started campaigning in May. I started early. Our primary is in May of 2026, so exactly one year prior to the primary because I'm a first time candidate, so my name ID iss not out there as much, but neither is the one that's running for this office as well. They're not that well known.
Jenny Beth Martin (42:12):
But from May to October, so in a few months you've had over 4,500 people put money out saying, I support you
Marcell Strbich (42:20):
And not lobbyists, not foreign lobby groups, all grassroots. Now I'm starting to do fundraisers. Now I'm starting to build momentum. Now I'm getting endorsements from pro-life groups. So I owe value voters Cleveland right to life. I'm picking up momentum in different ways. I'm going three, four days a week campaigning across the state, like it's basically a week to election day. So I'm doing all the right things. I'm getting earned media. I addressed the issues that involve blacklisting election workers. I was spoken of recently as a Trump ally, not a bad thing to be in a state that the president won three times in by 12 points. So we are out there. Certainly would welcome people to come on board. If they could contribute any dollar amount, it would help because the only deficit that I will have, but I don't need to be equal to is the money equation.
Marcell Strbich (43:15):
And that's what gets us every time we as grassroots don't always support fellow grassroots candidates in the financial way, and that's necessary because we have to be able to win and get our name ID out. That's been a lot of my focus in this few months before the filing deadline in December. The party as well in Ohio has taken notice of this. They know they can't just endorse. They typically like to do their favorite candidate and kind of push off newcomers, and so they avoided the endorsement when they could have made it in September. That doesn't mean in January they're not going to. They do tend to help each other stay in office, but this is another reason why we have to band together, whether it's nationally or locally in Ohio, you can go to my campaign website@sturbridgeforohio.com, STRB as in boy ICH spelled out for ohio.com, and you can volunteer. You can look up my platform, the election bill of rights. You can donate any amount. It helps. It gives me the fuel that I need to get out there and reach the 500,000 probable voters that I will need in order to win this election.
Jenny Beth Martin (44:32):
That is very good. And when it comes to donations, sometimes people get turned off when they hear candidates asking for money, but you have to send mail, you have to get on the air, you have to get your message out. It costs money to use other people's airwaves and their programming to get your message out. It costs money to put stamps on mail to get it mailed to voters, and it costs money to put yard signs out. All of it does cost money, and you have to be able to ask for money and people need to understand that is an important part of the ability to run for office and most especially, it's an important part to win.
Marcell Strbich (45:14):
Absolutely. I'm most proud that the people who kitchen table issues are rooting for me. The more people find out about me, I'm winning over wide crop wide crowds because of the reasons we talked. I'm in this not for myself. I'm in a way to reverse course and I tell all nine 11 veterans, all military veterans who served over two decades, Iraq, Afghanistan, like me. You need to get involved, become civically involved. We have so much to offer because we took an oath to the constitution. We served in some very difficult times. We have resilience. Many of us are critical thinkers. My generation still has some of that going on. We need to apply that. Our country needs us now more than ever, and we need to honor the traditions from those who started the Tea party movement in 2010, the next generation, what we say in the military, next man up, next man or woman up. Okay. And that's what it's going to take when it comes to saving the elections in this country and every other position.
Jenny Beth Martin (46:22):
That is absolutely right. And we need everyone to step up and to be involved and to be engaged, most especially veterans. But even if you're not a veteran, people need to step up and be engaged at every single level, whether it's running for office, which we need people like you who are willing to step up and do that. Volunteering on campaigns, making phone calls to elected officials to let them know how you want them to vote, understanding the issues and paying attention to the issues, showing up at school board meetings and county commission meetings. Every single bit of it is important in order for us to keep this republic. Marcel, let me shift gears to our last few questions, and these are a little bit shorter. You can make them take longer, but they don't necessarily have to be. So fill in the blank here. If we lose election integrity, we lose.
Marcell Strbich (47:21):
We lose our country. We will become basically privatized into whatever interest wants to drive whatever public official or elected official into office for their narrow set of interests. Okay? We will look a lot more like third world countries, right? Where the persons who run for office will persecute each other when the other person gets in. We already saw that President Trump, we're already hearing threats being posed against this current administration. If they decide they're going to go after people for insurrection or other issues where you see our cities trying to avoid federal enforcement of laws right now for immigration. I mean, we cannot. That is where we have to pitch our ground on that. We can't allow that. And the only way we're going to save it is if we get more involved in it. If we pull out the transparency, public oversight, and if we get elected officials who actually hold the enterprise of people in that accountable, accountability is everything. And if you look at institutions that don't practice it, it falls apart. Accountability begins with us as people. We have to hold ourselves accountable for the way we live our lives, number one. And number two, when we're given authority, which is responsibility to what, whom much is given, much is expected. That's what they would tell me every time I promoted as an officer in the military. And so that's a principle that we have to apply.
Jenny Beth Martin (48:54):
Absolutely. I think I always come back to that in running this organization, tea Party, Patriots action. I'm always thinking about when these things have been given to us and we must use them well to the very best of our ability so that it grows the organization and it protects our country and saves our country. Well,
Marcell Strbich (49:17):
Clearly you're doing an extraordinary job.
Jenny Beth Martin (49:20):
Well, thank you. Thank you. Okay. You mentioned that your parents immigrated here from a communist country, right, from a communist country. When did you first personally feel compelled to stand up for the Constitution?
Marcell Strbich (49:40):
As I was growing up, there was a war in that country. It was called Croatia. And my parents were concerned about family members that were there, and I would travel back and forth to that country and I saw personally people just trying to survive a war at a young age. And I think that drove me to realize you're going to have to serve some point. And at 18 and 19 when I was looking at my future, I'm thinking, what am I going to do with my life? I can go on and become a lawyer or a doctor. I had very good grades. I went to very good schools. In the end, I said, what can be better than doing something bigger than yourself? And that was the smartest thing I ever did. It's the most respect that I've ever gotten from people. It's put me with people at the very highest levels going into the White House.
Marcell Strbich (50:30):
Who would've thought that? A kid, first generation immigrant who grew up in his family's 50 style diner, working with mom and dad serving customers all the time, 360 some days a year, would go on to work for the number two military official and advise him on force modernization, the vice chairman. And so I feel extremely blessed. I know that that wouldn't have happened without my prayers with my mom's faith system, which she passed on to me, which I practice with my family, and it's not all in control and everything. We don't need to know sometimes the doors that are being opened for us or why I can go anywhere and speak unequivocally to these issues. And it's just people are like, I don't know how you're able to put all that together, but it's because I'm being guided by force. That's probably beyond even what I can comprehend.
Marcell Strbich (51:21):
I tell you that, and I mean that to you truthfully, seeing that word out racket, Afghanistan compelled me, but 2020 really, really opened my eyes and said, okay, we've reached an apex in this country and I basically, for the rest of my life, I will be dedicated to this. Whatever happens with this office that I'm working on attaining in order to straighten out the issues of Ohio's elections, I will be dedicated. That's just type of person like you. We're not going to stop. And we're natural leaders and people want to follow natural leaders, and that's just who we are.
Jenny Beth Martin (51:59):
Very good. Now, what would you see to people who have lost faith in the election system? What would you see to encourage them?
Marcell Strbich (52:09):
I could understand why you could lose faith in a system that doesn't hold itself accountable and finds ways to benefit certain people that oversee it or whatnot. But if you don't engage, if you don't lean in and somebody else will, there's a saying out there. It says something like, you don't have to do politics, but politics is going to do you. And I don't know if I got that 100% accurate, but people understand that concept. So if you want change, you have to be the change. You have to go and get involved in whatever level that is, and you will find the fulfillment in that isn't just come with an outcome, which I'm motivated by outcomes. I'm motivated by results. That's just how I am. However, it may come in that personal relationship that you develop with somebody like-minded, somebody who is willing to be as loving and sacrificial as you are in selfless.
Marcell Strbich (53:05):
And that is where you build meaningful relationships. And I'm sure you never thought that yourself, Jenny, when you started this journey, how many tens of thousands of people would be driven by your organization? How many results would come out of that? I mean, you could probably write a book on it yourself about the meaning of life that comes through our civic engagement. So my hat's tipped off to you because really what you've done with Tea Party Patriots will Yvonne Generationally, and anybody who needs proof of that is looking at him speaking to you because I'm coming up to help in what ways I can.
Jenny Beth Martin (53:47):
Well, thank you very much, Marcel. And then the last question, in one sentence, how would you define freedom?
Marcell Strbich (53:54):
Responsibility. Freedom is responsibility that we have. That has to be sums.
Jenny Beth Martin (54:02):
It's very good. And that's a message every American needs to hear. Freedom isn't inherited. Every single generation has to fight for it. Marcel Sturbridge, thank you so much for joining me today, and people can find you by going where on social media and what's your website?
Marcell Strbich (54:19):
Sure. My website is sturbridge for Ohio, S-T-R-B-I-C-H ohio.com. That's my campaign website. If you're an Ohio volunteer or anywhere donate so that you can help this grassroots candidacy make the necessary changes in back President Trump's agenda for election integrity in the state and the country. And I'm also on X at Marcel, M-A-R-C-E-L-L-S-T-R-B-I-C-H. And I'm on Facebook as well at Marcel Sturbridge for Ohio.
Jenny Beth Martin (54:50):
Very good. So go check him out, follow him, pay attention to him like his posts, retweet him and make sure that you are learning more about what he's doing as he runs for Secretary of Seat in Ohio. Marcel Stur, thank you so much for joining me today.
Marcell Strbich (55:08):
Thank you. It's my pleasure.
Narrator (55:09):
The Jenny Beth Show is hosted by Jenny Beth Martin, produced by Kevin Han and directed by Luke Livingston. The Jenny Beth Show is a production of Tea Party Patriots action. For more information, visit tea party patriots.org.
Jenny Beth Martin (55:29):
If you like this episode, let me know by hitting the light button or leaving a comment or a five star review. And if you want to be the first to know every time we drop a new episode, be sure to subscribe and turn on notifications for whichever platform you're listening on. If you do these simple things, it will help the podcast grow and I'd really appreciate it. Thank you so much.