Speaker 1: From Kurt Coe media. What you gonna do about. Well.
Speaker 1: More strange days.
Speaker 2: Are incumbent president insists that are voting process is the
Speaker 2: disaster and that the results won't be legitimate. And Americans
Speaker 2: can't trust the outcome of the election in November.
Speaker 3: That's if he loses of course if he wins he'll
Speaker 3: call it a perfect election. In particular he's attacked a
Speaker 3: mail in ballot.
Speaker 4: Especially in states that are concerned with covered and are
Speaker 4: sending ballots to all registered voters. Never before in my
Speaker 4: memory has a president attacked the validity of our voting
Speaker 4: system and worked so hard to create doubt and distrust
Speaker 4: for the democratic process that we hold so dear. Is
Speaker 4: it possible that there's some truth to what our president
Speaker 4: is claiming.
Speaker 3: Do we understand it. Are we prepared for the likely
Speaker 3: mess that November will bring. What can each of us
Speaker 3: do to prepare and optimize the likelihood for a peaceful end.
Speaker 3: To this crazy year. We're at ground zero people so
Speaker 3: today we're asking one of the world's greatest election experts
Speaker 3: to set us straight. This is politics. Meet me in
Speaker 3: the middle. I'm Bill Kurtis. Let's meet our panel. A
Speaker 3: Pulitzer Prize winning historian best selling author prolific lecturer and
Speaker 3: a beloved professor at Pepperdine University. Ed Larson Nice to
Speaker 3: see a zoomed in ED.
Speaker 4: Nice to see you as well Bill. Also zooming in
Speaker 4: Jane Albrecht. She's an international trade attorney who fought for U.S.
Speaker 4: economic and business interests to high level government officials all
Speaker 4: over the world.
Speaker 3: She is a dedicated political activist and has participated on
Speaker 3: numerous presidential campaigns. Hi there. Nice to see you remotely Jane.
Speaker 3: Nice to see you too. And now our special guest
Speaker 3: Robin Carnahan. She is the former secretary of state of
Speaker 3: Missouri and as secretary of state one of her primary
Speaker 3: functions was ensuring that elections were fair. She's known for
Speaker 3: having modernized and improved Missouri's Election Systems implementing the first
Speaker 3: statewide voter registration system creating the Missouri Voting Rights Center
Speaker 3: and launching new interactive election results Web site. She's also
Speaker 3: served as co-chair of the elections committee for the bipartisan
Speaker 3: National Association of Secretaries of State since her tenure as
Speaker 3: secretary of state. In her role with the National Democratic
Speaker 3: Institute Robin has served in countries all over the world
Speaker 3: monitoring elections training political leaders in drafting voting laws. Welcome
Speaker 3: Robin Carnahan.
Speaker 4: Good of you to join us. It's great to be
Speaker 4: here Bill.
Speaker 5: So Robin I wonder if you could tell us what
Speaker 5: is the state secretary of state's function when it comes
Speaker 5: to elections.
Speaker 6: So the original job of secretary of state was very
Speaker 6: much administrative. I actually think back to that time of
Speaker 6: kings where you had to have a seal to show
Speaker 6: that something was an official document. The original secretaries were
Speaker 6: always the keepers of the great seal which showed these
Speaker 6: were official documents or actions of the government. And so
Speaker 6: that continues to be an important role in offices. And
Speaker 6: over time in many states the secretary of state is
Speaker 6: the chief elections officer of the state. It's a sort
Speaker 6: of a strange reference because in as you know in
Speaker 6: our system elections are all completely run locally. So no
Speaker 6: secretary of state ever touches a ballot or prints a
Speaker 6: ballot or counts a ballot. But they do set policies
Speaker 6: and they are the sort of conduit for federal money
Speaker 6: and state money that flows down to counties or local
Speaker 6: election jurisdictions.
Speaker 5: Was there ever a time where a candidate attempted to
Speaker 5: invalidate an election prior to Election Day.
Speaker 7: Oh sure there many times when a candidate has predicted
Speaker 7: disasters and warned of disasters in coming elections probably the
Speaker 7: most famous with 1876 when the Republicans feared enormous voter
Speaker 7: suppression of African-Americans in the America in the South during Reconstruction.
Speaker 7: So sure. And there were worries during wars there have
Speaker 7: been a lot of times where there's been worried now
Speaker 7: local level. I assume it comes up at the local level.
Speaker 7: There've been a lot of accusations of fraudulent largest state
Speaker 7: legislative elections and state elections and in a variety of
Speaker 7: states I'm sure Robin served as a secretary of state
Speaker 7: next door to notorious Illinois. And she probably has endless
Speaker 7: stories about Illinois elections.
Speaker 6: Well look there's always a lot of speculation around elections
Speaker 6: any time that you have one hundred and fifty million
Speaker 6: Americans doing the same thing at the same time with
Speaker 6: essentially volunteers running the process. I mean even in the
Speaker 6: best of times elections are pretty miraculous because of all
Speaker 6: the logistics that it takes to pull them off. But
Speaker 6: certainly now with the threats are not just one off
Speaker 6: threats they're more systemic. And that's what makes it troubling.
Speaker 5: And when did election results shift from taking months to
Speaker 5: count to an expected election day outcome.
Speaker 7: Oh for all practical purposes that came with the electronic
Speaker 7: transmission of results which would come with the Telegraph before
Speaker 7: that it would take a long time for the results.
Speaker 7: I know that in Eighteen Hundred John Adams went to
Speaker 7: bed thinking he'd won the election over Jefferson of course
Speaker 7: he hadn't but he didn't know what South Carolina had
Speaker 7: done in Pennsylvania and the other states. But once you
Speaker 7: had the electronic transfer of results that happened pretty quick
Speaker 7: because remember vaccines used to take place in person. There
Speaker 7: was no ballots to count. People just went down and
Speaker 7: dropped the ball a in a bucket or made their announcement.
Speaker 7: And so people on the spot knew exactly how the
Speaker 7: results had come out there and just had to communicate it.
Speaker 7: And once you had telegraphs it communicated elections very quickly
Speaker 7: became the biggest news there was in America. People followed
Speaker 7: those closely.
Speaker 5: So if I may I'd like to read a list
Speaker 5: of eight states for no particular reason and ask you
Speaker 5: how secure you feel their election process is. And if
Speaker 5: they're going to be prepared to deal with the stress
Speaker 5: of mail in ballots Wisconsin Florida Minnesota Ohio Pennsylvania North
Speaker 5: Carolina Georgia and Arizona for no particular reason other than
Speaker 5: those are pretty much the states that are going to
Speaker 5: make or break this election for one of the other
Speaker 5: party they believe. Let's start with Wisconsin Florida and Minnesota
Speaker 5: are those states prepared for this unique election that we're
Speaker 5: about to have.
Speaker 6: I certainly hope so. I don't pretend to have a
Speaker 6: crystal ball about all the preparations that those states have
Speaker 6: made but all of this comes down to the ability
Speaker 6: of these election officials to do their job. And that's
Speaker 6: been hard this year. It's hard because they want to
Speaker 6: do the right things. It's hard because the rules are
Speaker 6: changing it's hard because the way people want to vote
Speaker 6: are changing and it's hard because of all the political
Speaker 6: rhetoric around what's happening with elections and sort of undermining
Speaker 6: people's confidence in what they do.
Speaker 5: So congratulations you've just been re-elected as secretary of state
Speaker 5: of oh let's pick Wisconsin. What are you going to
Speaker 5: do to try to ensure that this election is beyond reproach.
Speaker 6: So I think elections are about a couple of things.
Speaker 6: Anytime elections are short of a miracle as I said
Speaker 6: but you have to agree on the rules. And so
Speaker 6: the first thing I would want to do is have
Speaker 6: a lot of clarity with all the folks who are
Speaker 6: running the elections about what the rules of the process are.
Speaker 6: And I would want to make sure they had whatever
Speaker 6: they needed to effectively administer that. And whether that's extra
Speaker 6: PPE whether that's extra staff that know how to do
Speaker 6: technology on their teams whether it's helping with media and
Speaker 6: communicating about when results are going to come in all
Speaker 6: of those things are things I would be focused on
Speaker 6: to try to just give them support. You know one
Speaker 6: of the things that a lot of states are thinking
Speaker 6: about right now is how to change their election reporting
Speaker 6: sites that they've had for all these years the parlance
Speaker 6: since the secretaries of state and election officials has always
Speaker 6: been election night reporting that you go as a voter
Speaker 6: or you go is a press outlet to the Web
Speaker 6: site for the election night results. Well guess what. We
Speaker 6: don't have an election day anymore and we don't have
Speaker 6: an election night results anymore. And the reason for that
Speaker 6: is people are just voting on Election Day. They're voting
Speaker 6: weeks in advance of Election Day. So this is an
Speaker 6: election season and those votes can be counted. Past Election
Speaker 6: Day if they're postmarked on election day generally in most
Speaker 6: states now state rules are different about when you can
Speaker 6: begin to process ballots. But it's 100 percent certain that's
Speaker 6: not going to be counted on election night. And in
Speaker 6: Wisconsin and Pennsylvania states you mentioned in particular they are
Speaker 6: not by law allowed to begin to process those until
Speaker 6: election day.
Speaker 8: Normally the Secretary of State's Office certifies the vote in
Speaker 8: the end do they not.
Speaker 6: And how long does it take the certification by the
Speaker 6: secretary of state is weeks after the election but these
Speaker 6: counties which are the jurisdictions that run the election they
Speaker 6: have what's called a canvass and those generally happen at
Speaker 6: various times I was on with an election official recently
Speaker 6: I think maybe in Wisconsin who said that the night
Speaker 6: was the day of the campus in Wisconsin. So they
Speaker 6: had until the night to get all their votes counted.
Speaker 6: And so that's that's a week after Election Day.
Speaker 5: So Jane let me put you on the spot if
Speaker 5: I may. Doesn't Trump sort of have a fair point
Speaker 5: here in. You hear stories about states sending out mail
Speaker 5: in ballots to every registered voter including dead people people
Speaker 5: who've moved duplicates. Why don't states do more to ensure
Speaker 5: that their voting records are up to date. Why do
Speaker 5: you suppose we're kind of back in the dark ages.
Speaker 8: Trump's complaint is that when you're sending out mail in
Speaker 8: ballots to everyone that's different than when someone requests an
Speaker 8: absentee ballot. So a lot of states including California sometimes
Speaker 8: don't keep their voting registries up to date. How widespread
Speaker 8: is that and what would it take to fix it.
Speaker 6: Well that's a great question. And there are lots of
Speaker 6: ways states try to keep their lists up to date
Speaker 6: and they do that regularly and by federal law are
Speaker 6: required to do that to send mail and make sure
Speaker 6: that folks still live in that address. There is also
Speaker 6: a consortium of states that has I think more than
Speaker 6: 30 involved with a cross state matching system where you
Speaker 6: can duplicate your voter lists but lists are notoriously hard
Speaker 6: people die.
Speaker 5: People move but but then again let's talk about a
Speaker 5: process for a minute Robyn because in this day and
Speaker 5: age while you can do your banking online and keep
Speaker 5: track of the flow of money and security is high
Speaker 5: and it is incredibly specific in three four five times
Speaker 5: checked over. Why is it that a D duping process
Speaker 5: can't occur after the vote to make sure that a
Speaker 5: people haven't voted twice. B someone who has voted is
Speaker 5: still alive. Wouldn't you eliminate 99 percent of the problem
Speaker 5: that could occur from a database.
Speaker 9: Number one the banking system has billions of dollars invested
Speaker 9: in it and the election system not much. So that's
Speaker 9: number one. Number two there are some accounts of election
Speaker 9: fraud but not very many in the grand scheme of things.
Speaker 9: And the actual occurrence of people voting more than once
Speaker 9: or a dead person voting is like completely remote. And
Speaker 9: the thing of fiction in most cases. So do dead
Speaker 9: people have ballots that sometimes are sent to their homes
Speaker 9: because that list hasn't been updated with Social Security death records.
Speaker 9: Of course do sometimes dead people's names still occur on
Speaker 9: these lists of voter lists. Of course it happens but
Speaker 9: there's no evidence of a dead person voting. There's just
Speaker 9: not dead people don't get out of the grave and vote.
Speaker 9: People don't go and vote more than once. And so
Speaker 9: the D duping process doesn't have to happen after the fact.
Speaker 5: It happens before the fact but we're now two months
Speaker 5: into our election process being second guessed by the current
Speaker 5: sitting president. So that means we have to react differently
Speaker 5: than we would normally react. And all I'm suggesting is
Speaker 5: if there is doubt in the process of sending out
Speaker 5: too many ballots to too many people to addresses where
Speaker 5: they no longer live or maybe they're no longer living
Speaker 5: then an easy way to solve the issue would be
Speaker 5: a D duping process after the election which has got
Speaker 5: to be almost instantaneous as you scan and upload someone's vote.
Speaker 5: If it's paper or you have someone voting by machine
Speaker 5: I can't understand why there isn't more of an overwhelming
Speaker 5: solution to a ridiculous accusation of our election process.
Speaker 9: So this is totally not a technology problem.
Speaker 10: Like you're 100 percent correct that there are lots of
Speaker 10: ways you could have technology used to fix all of this.
Speaker 10: That takes money and takes an investment. And we haven't
Speaker 10: made it as Americans and so we're getting through this
Speaker 10: process as best we can with lots of rules changing
Speaker 10: and not much money invested in the process. So are
Speaker 10: there improvements. Heck yeah. At my forum. Absolutely. And I'm
Speaker 10: hoping that after this election we'll be able to come
Speaker 10: to some consensus as a country to have some more
Speaker 10: standardization in some of these rules like frankly if you
Speaker 10: ask me. It's completely unfair that some people get easily
Speaker 10: voted home and have a ballot mailed to them and
Speaker 10: other people have to have an excuse and a notary
Speaker 10: and show up or show up in person in order
Speaker 10: to vote. To me that is equal protection. Big difference
Speaker 10: and should be challenged under equal protection provisions.
Speaker 5: I understand that there have been a lot of bills
Speaker 5: introduced to Congress that would have provided money to the
Speaker 5: states to upgrade their voting systems. Most of those were
Speaker 5: actually put up by the Democrats. I understand. But did
Speaker 5: any of them ever pass and if not why not.
Speaker 10: Yeah. So I think they passed a 400 million dollar
Speaker 10: bill this spring and they had another significant chunk of
Speaker 10: the last year the year before the problem is a
Speaker 10: lot of that was a little bit too little and
Speaker 10: a little too late. There are only a few folks
Speaker 10: who make election voting machines not a giant market for it.
Speaker 10: This is very specific. You need to have some advance
Speaker 10: warning and that's not a thing that you can just
Speaker 10: flip the switch on in two or three months and
Speaker 10: have everybody up to speed with new machines and everybody
Speaker 10: trained on how to use those elections only happen every
Speaker 10: couple of times a year at best. And so that's
Speaker 10: why this is a challenge is because we only do
Speaker 10: this every now and then and we keep changing the
Speaker 10: way we do it.
Speaker 8: And so keeping up with that is expensive is the
Speaker 8: problem that the states generally don't have the money or
Speaker 8: don't want to spend the money on new technology for
Speaker 8: voting and therefore they always need help from the federal government.
Speaker 11: Yes states don't tend to spend money on this because
Speaker 11: they have limited budgets. And so then you have to
Speaker 11: decide like is this just a state problem or is
Speaker 11: this a national problem. And every now and then the
Speaker 11: Congress decides it's a national problem. If it gets big
Speaker 11: bad enough and they throw some money at it.
Speaker 5: Have there been any cases where the security of at
Speaker 5: least the computer and software process of counting votes from
Speaker 5: machines has been compromised that we've known of what I
Speaker 5: know is that the voting machines are not connected to
Speaker 5: the internet in any state and that's good right.
Speaker 11: Because it's only things that are connected to the Internet
Speaker 11: that have the ability to be easily hacked.
Speaker 5: How do they communicate their results.
Speaker 11: So that's not the actual voting she. That is the
Speaker 11: election reporting sites and that is a thing that goes
Speaker 11: on the Internet. And so I think that there is
Speaker 11: a lot of effort being made right now to make
Speaker 11: sure those are robust and secure as possible. But just
Speaker 11: remember even if things change even if God forbid somebody
Speaker 11: messed with the results in one of these states that
Speaker 11: was just reported that doesn't change a vote. Right. And
Speaker 11: every state goes back and they do audits and they
Speaker 11: double check and triple check before they certify the actual
Speaker 11: results of the election. So just because something looks funky
Speaker 11: on election night or the next day doesn't mean that's
Speaker 11: the end of it. There are backstops and belts and
Speaker 11: suspenders for for all of these things and that's what
Speaker 11: we need to keep in mind.
Speaker 4: We're going to take a quick break. We're here with
Speaker 4: Robin Carnahan Anderson and Jean Albrecht. We'll be right back.
Speaker 12: On medicine. We're still practicing. Join Dr. Steven Tabak and
Speaker 12: Bill Kurtis for real conversations with the medical professionals who
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Speaker 12: the modern world. Available on all your favorite podcasting platforms
Speaker 12: produced by critical media.
Speaker 3: OK we're back with Robin Carnahan. Ed Larson and Jane Albrecht.
Speaker 3: Will Wonder Robin if we can get on to this
Speaker 3: November election.
Speaker 5: We're in a place where the incumbent has damaged our
Speaker 5: faith in the process. Of course unless he wins what
Speaker 5: will the secretaries of state do if their state elects
Speaker 5: one candidate but the incumbent denies its validity basically slapping
Speaker 5: the secretary of state in the face. How will they
Speaker 5: react to that.
Speaker 11: I can only tell you how I would react to
Speaker 11: that and how I think that my former colleagues would
Speaker 11: react and that is that they were elected by the
Speaker 11: citizens of their state to do a job one of
Speaker 11: which is to oversee the elections. So that's who they
Speaker 11: answer to. And I would expect them to stand up
Speaker 11: for the results that their county officials have provided to them.
Speaker 11: So I can't anticipate what all these circumstances are but
Speaker 11: they're doing their job. And if they feel like they've
Speaker 11: done it well I can't imagine that they would publicly
Speaker 11: say that.
Speaker 5: So Ed if you were in charge of this election
Speaker 5: and you wanted to make this election most impervious to
Speaker 5: doubt and objection by the loser what would you enact.
Speaker 7: Well I don't anticipate former Vice President Biden raising questions.
Speaker 7: And when I think about President Trump I don't know
Speaker 7: what he believes. And so he may truly believe there
Speaker 7: is a problem with mail in voting. And if he
Speaker 7: truly believes that he may just be saying it. So
Speaker 7: he keep office but he may truly believe it and
Speaker 7: if he truly believes it well he should do something.
Speaker 5: Well but I'm curious why does he believe that the
Speaker 5: problems would result in Biden becoming elected as opposed to
Speaker 5: the problems resulting in him getting elected. Why is all
Speaker 5: the corruption supposedly on one side. Jane what do you think.
Speaker 8: I think first and foremost you have to get out
Speaker 8: really solid information of the kind that Robin's providing today.
Speaker 8: I think public education is going to be really important
Speaker 8: and then have a solid and election process and days
Speaker 8: you could if I was a state official it's not
Speaker 8: within the secretary of state's power. But if I were
Speaker 8: a governor or I was mayor or whoever I would
Speaker 8: have true protection at as many polls stations and I
Speaker 8: could not intimidation but just protection to be sure things
Speaker 8: are safe and calm there. How do you feel about
Speaker 8: that Robin.
Speaker 11: This is a really delicate thing right. Because some people
Speaker 11: see the police as protectors and some see the police
Speaker 11: as not protectors. So that is a delicate thing in
Speaker 11: most states. There are very clear rules about who can
Speaker 11: and cannot come into an election polling place that there
Speaker 11: are official watchers or people delegated by the parties to
Speaker 11: be there and they're allowed and other people are not allowed.
Speaker 11: And the whole idea is to prevent disruption on Election Day.
Speaker 11: So I think having people ready to go if needed
Speaker 11: is important but I don't think we should have intimidation
Speaker 11: on either side.
Speaker 8: I agree I think it is a delicate question and
Speaker 8: I think that's a good ideas how people are ready
Speaker 8: to go if there are people at the polls intimidating
Speaker 8: to try to get them away because that's against the
Speaker 8: law because at that point you're enforcing the law.
Speaker 5: So I don't think that it's about the security of
Speaker 5: the voting process the professionalism of the voting process. I
Speaker 5: think that the results of this vote will be objected
Speaker 5: to in the event that the vote goes a certain
Speaker 5: way and that it's really not subject to how secure
Speaker 5: and how professional and how specific we are. Robin I
Speaker 5: understand it's expected that more Republicans are going to vote
Speaker 5: by machine counted on election day and more Democrats will
Speaker 5: vote by mail substantially more. And those are going to
Speaker 5: be counted in the days and weeks subsequent to the election. Right.
Speaker 5: So election night may be misleading until the mail in
Speaker 5: ballots are counted correct.
Speaker 10: Well that's for sure. So that was the second part
Speaker 10: of your question The first was the presumption that more
Speaker 10: Democrats are going to vote in person and more Republican
Speaker 10: to vote by mail. Well that's what the polls are saying.
Speaker 9: So I don't know that that's true and I think
Speaker 9: people's preferences are changing all the time. So I think
Speaker 9: that we can't count on any of that being accurate
Speaker 9: come Election Day. People change their minds and they can't.
Speaker 9: As for the results on election night I 100 percent
Speaker 9: do not think we will have final results on election night.
Speaker 9: Let me go back again and I'll say in part
Speaker 9: because we know that Pennsylvania Wisconsin two important swing states
Speaker 9: that are close can't even start processing. Vote by mail
Speaker 9: ballots until Election Day. There are gonna be millions of
Speaker 9: ballots to process and they are not going to get
Speaker 9: through those all on election night. So I just think
Speaker 9: that unless it is a blowout one way or another
Speaker 9: I think that we should not expect to have final
Speaker 9: results on election night.
Speaker 5: So what you're saying is that we could get to
Speaker 5: the end of election night and you know the media
Speaker 5: pundits they're going to be busy reporting on every nuance
Speaker 5: every lead every there's 1 percent of the voting in
Speaker 5: there trying to project who's going to win. What advice
Speaker 5: do you have for our listeners to be prepared for
Speaker 5: a complex election day a frustrating election week and potentially
Speaker 5: the months after.
Speaker 10: So you know you're only going to control the things
Speaker 10: you can control. So I always encourage voters who want
Speaker 10: to know what they can do to either vote early
Speaker 10: in person or vote their mail ballot and get it
Speaker 10: back early for states where you can start processing those
Speaker 10: ballots before Election Day which is most of them.
Speaker 9: It just makes it easier on election officials. So the
Speaker 9: sooner you can vote and just be out of the
Speaker 9: process the easier it is on election officials who have
Speaker 9: a lot of pressure come Election Day.
Speaker 5: So for example if you want your vote counted and
Speaker 5: reported on on election day it's a good idea.
Speaker 9: If you're going to vote by mail vote early vote
Speaker 9: now and if you're gonna vote in person if you
Speaker 9: have a chance to do it before Election Day do
Speaker 9: that too.
Speaker 7: But as you pointed out that varies by state. There
Speaker 7: are states that they won't count if you even if
Speaker 7: you vote early they won't count your ballot until Election Day.
Speaker 7: There are some states there are other states that will
Speaker 7: count your ballot when it comes in and you can
Speaker 7: see that if you're watching on election night because in
Speaker 7: some states as soon as the polls close there's an
Speaker 7: explosion of number of votes. Those are the states where
Speaker 7: they've already counted them in other states where they don't
Speaker 7: do that. That's where you get this long red shift
Speaker 7: or blue shift happening later. But of course there's only
Speaker 7: a red or blue shift if members of one party
Speaker 7: are supporting one person tend to vote by write in
Speaker 7: more than the other. And as Robin points out we
Speaker 7: don't know that's going to be true. There's a tremendous
Speaker 7: push by the Democratic Party now to encourage their people
Speaker 7: to vote live. I am wondering though many people are
Speaker 7: not using mail in ballots but they're going to early
Speaker 7: voting when you vote early like the previous Sunday or
Speaker 7: a week before two weeks before in-person early. When are
Speaker 7: those votes counted.
Speaker 10: So I can't speak for every state or election jurisdiction
Speaker 10: but in my state those would be treated as absentee
Speaker 10: ballots and those could be counted in my state prior
Speaker 10: to Election Day and those would be reported in that
Speaker 10: first tranche of returns. So we always would refer to
Speaker 10: those as the midday numbers. So all of the things
Speaker 10: that came in before the polls closed would be basically
Speaker 10: the early votes that either came in by mail or
Speaker 10: came in in person that could be reported. And that's
Speaker 10: what you put out as soon as the polls close
Speaker 10: because those you've already taken care of. So that's why
Speaker 10: I think wherever you can vote early in person wherever
Speaker 10: you can vote early by mail but just go ahead
Speaker 10: and get it over with.
Speaker 5: Let's talk about the scenario in which Trump doesn't accept
Speaker 5: the outcome of the election. And the most likely scenario
Speaker 5: is if election night looks like he wins and then
Speaker 5: subsequently as mail in ballots are counted it shifts and
Speaker 5: he loses because then he will say that the fraud
Speaker 5: occurred in a place that he can identify which is
Speaker 5: the mail in ballots the counting of the mail in ballots.
Speaker 5: That's what we're really afraid of is a situation can
Speaker 5: get created where there is a reason to doubt the
Speaker 5: validity of the election which is why we're saying to
Speaker 5: people get out and vote now vote early make sure
Speaker 5: that your vote is counted in the first tranche of
Speaker 5: your state's accounting right.
Speaker 11: Yeah. It's just everything is easier if it gets done early.
Speaker 11: So I would be for that. I think that look
Speaker 11: every state has a law. This is not a law
Speaker 11: that's made by Donald Trump or anybody else it is
Speaker 11: a law that's made by the states about the rules
Speaker 11: of what ballots get counted. And for most states you
Speaker 11: have to have a postmarked by Election Day. And then
Speaker 11: there is some number of days that the mail has
Speaker 11: to arrive and those are valid votes that they are
Speaker 11: by law required to count.
Speaker 4: Well we're going to talk about the various types of
Speaker 4: court challenges that you may expect in just a minute.
Speaker 4: We'll be back. Actually. I got.
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Speaker 14: called to stop me from playing the piano she buys
Speaker 14: walkie talkies wonders to whom she should give the second
Speaker 14: dance don't love humans we never did we never will.
Speaker 15: We just find what you do of rock climbing is
Speaker 15: that you can only focus on what's right in life
Speaker 15: and so are American life begins.
Speaker 13: We may need to stay apart but let's create together
Speaker 13: available on all podcast platforms. Submit your piece at Kirk
Speaker 13: dot com slash a moment of your time.
Speaker 3: OK. We're back with Robin Carnahan and Robin I wonder
Speaker 3: if you could tell us a little about where do
Speaker 3: you think that the likely appeals to a court decision
Speaker 3: may occur in this election.
Speaker 5: In the event it doesn't go the way that our
Speaker 5: incumbent president hopes.
Speaker 11: Yeah. There are an awful lot of court challenges that
Speaker 11: have already been filed that I suspect are sort of
Speaker 11: setting up for the next stage for post-election. We've seen
Speaker 11: them in South Carolina about witness requirements. We've seen them
Speaker 11: in North Carolina about how you do ballot curing for
Speaker 11: any kind of problem with the ballot. We've seen them
Speaker 11: in Pennsylvania about opening times and when ballots are getting
Speaker 11: sent to people so yeah I think we're gonna have
Speaker 11: a crazy amount of litigation about the election and very
Speaker 11: sort of specific processes about the elections and have we
Speaker 11: kind of had a history of candidates trying to suppress votes.
Speaker 7: Oh my gosh. America has a deep and rich history
Speaker 7: of voter suppression that goes back to the beginning of
Speaker 7: our country colonial times. You go from colony to colony
Speaker 7: and there was systematic voter suppression. Of course black people
Speaker 7: couldn't vote women couldn't vote. Usually you had to own
Speaker 7: property to vote. And in some states considerable amount of
Speaker 7: property immigrants couldn't vote in many places. And then when
Speaker 7: we declared our independence and we went to the Constitutional
Speaker 7: Convention with the constitutional convention did after much debate was
Speaker 7: institutionalized those state efforts to suppress votes or not suppress
Speaker 7: votes they left it to the states. Many people at
Speaker 7: the Constitution Convention led by Ben Franklin wanted to have.
Speaker 7: Well it's gonna be federal elections for Congress. We should
Speaker 7: have federal standards but they decided instead to leave it
Speaker 7: entirely up to the states. So every state was able
Speaker 7: to perpetuate their particular efforts. I mean in some states
Speaker 7: you had to be a member of the established church
Speaker 7: to vote in colonial times and then all that was
Speaker 7: pushed even further by the Electoral College system because the
Speaker 7: Electoral College system one of its purposes was to facilitate
Speaker 7: suppression of votes by states because you were given a
Speaker 7: number of votes in the Electoral College not based on
Speaker 7: how many people voted but on how many people people
Speaker 7: whether you allowed them to vote or not. How many
Speaker 7: people lived in that state. So if you suppress the
Speaker 7: votes based on race or based on religion or braced
Speaker 7: on ethnicity or based on immigrant status or based on
Speaker 7: wealth you still got your full Electoral College. So it
Speaker 7: was intentionally adopted the Electoral College system as a way
Speaker 7: to perpetuate or facilitate voter suppression. We have a long
Speaker 7: history of voter suppression but continues to this day.
Speaker 5: But there's a type of suppression that I don't really understand.
Speaker 5: I can certainly understand why one party or the other
Speaker 5: would try to suppress a specific people that are very
Speaker 5: likely going to vote the other party. But for example
Speaker 5: in the case we have a state that is expecting
Speaker 5: to throw out 100000 ballots because the voter won't know
Speaker 5: to put the security envelope around their ballot and and
Speaker 5: supply it in the way that the instructions outlined. And
Speaker 5: for some reason the Republicans want those ballots to be
Speaker 5: thrown out. The Democrats are fighting against that. What I
Speaker 5: don't understand is is there a suggestion that there are
Speaker 5: more Republicans that are highly educated than Democrats that are
Speaker 5: highly educated and therefore can read and follow instructions or
Speaker 5: what would be the reason behind that kind of clear
Speaker 5: in my mind voter suppression if you just simply forgot
Speaker 5: the security envelope and didn't read the instructions.
Speaker 8: Well I think the general feeling in the Democratic Party
Speaker 8: is that when more people vote Democrats tend to win
Speaker 8: and in a state like North Carolina or South Carolina
Speaker 8: the general feeling is that the more people turn out
Speaker 8: the less wealthy people turn out the more people of
Speaker 8: color the more the Democrats are going to win.
Speaker 6: Robert any any thoughts here obviously that people think that
Speaker 6: they're going to be more mistakes made by certain voters
Speaker 6: than others. Why they're trying to do this. I think
Speaker 6: with those particular rules in Pennsylvania about the envelope those
Speaker 6: were originally intended for a feels like a pretty legitimate
Speaker 6: purpose which is secrecy at a ballot. Right. And so
Speaker 6: the idea was to protect the vote and its secrecy
Speaker 6: in the privacy of the voter but also to prevent
Speaker 6: anybody mess and like looking at the vote and deciding
Speaker 6: whether they were going to tear it up or not.
Speaker 6: So you can imagine that for security reasons it would
Speaker 6: make some sense to have something like that.
Speaker 5: And last question Robin before we run you have served
Speaker 5: in a number of countries helping them to run elections
Speaker 5: in a democratic way smaller. You have put in a
Speaker 5: tremendous amount of your own personal time and sweat and
Speaker 5: effort there. How does our situation today and this doubt
Speaker 5: that's being sown about our election process injure our reputation
Speaker 5: internationally as the gold standard of election processes I do
Speaker 5: worry about that a lot.
Speaker 11: We hold ourselves out as being this grand democracy that
Speaker 11: people should strive for. And yet we're struggling as a
Speaker 11: country to figure out what are the things we value
Speaker 11: about this. So I as my friend Madeleine Albright says
Speaker 11: an optimist who worries a lot and that defines me too.
Speaker 11: I worry a lot about this election and about the
Speaker 11: potential for political violence. But I didn't think we'd ever
Speaker 11: have in this country. I've seen lots and lots of
Speaker 11: other countries where I've observed elections. But I'm optimistic that
Speaker 11: the more we talk about this and have people understand
Speaker 11: what's at stake and then it's beyond party that Americans
Speaker 11: as they have in the past will rise to the occasion.
Speaker 11: For hundreds of years we've been able to do peaceful
Speaker 11: transitions of power. We've been able to like count all
Speaker 11: the votes that needed to be counted and have people
Speaker 11: accept that result. And I am optimistic that we will
Speaker 11: do that again as a country.
Speaker 5: So we've learned a couple of things today. If we
Speaker 5: want to avoid confusion and have the lowest risk of
Speaker 5: objection in violence as a result of this election don't
Speaker 5: just send in your vote on Election Day. Vote early
Speaker 5: if by mail vote by machine if you can and
Speaker 5: tell your friends and family to do the same. Check
Speaker 5: your state's voting rules and schedules on vote dawg so
Speaker 5: you can vote as soon as your state makes voting available.
Speaker 4: Not only does your vote count a lot this year
Speaker 4: but your early voting allows first returns by your state
Speaker 4: to reflect your choices. It's a good thing and you'll
Speaker 4: even be doing your part to protect our country's global
Speaker 4: reputation for elections and peaceful transitions of power. Both are
Speaker 4: important in these unique times. Robin Carnahan thank you so
Speaker 4: much for joining us today. And of course Ed Larson
Speaker 4: as always you're a font of knowledge. Jane Albrecht we
Speaker 4: appreciate your perspectives too and by the way thank you
Speaker 4: for introducing us to Robin. Robin how do people follow
Speaker 4: you if they want to keep in touch.
Speaker 16: I'm on Twitter at Robin Carnahan. So happy to hear
Speaker 16: from folks until next time.
Speaker 3: Don't forget to hit the subscribe button so you don't
Speaker 3: have to hunt around for Meet me in the middle
Speaker 3: next week. Thank you to our producer A.J. Mosley audio
Speaker 3: mixing by Michael Kennedy music for Meet me in the
Speaker 3: middle is composed and performed by Celeste and Eric Dick
Speaker 3: and the executive producer for this episode is Stuart Halperin. Again.
Speaker 3: The most powerful takeaway from this show no matter who
Speaker 3: your candidate is. We strongly encourage you to tell your
Speaker 3: friends to vote.
Speaker 16: Vote early or vote in person. Don't wait until election
Speaker 16: day to mail in your ballots and don't freak out
Speaker 16: on election night. No one will know the actual outcome
Speaker 16: of this election on November 3rd. Catch you next week everybody.
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