of Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.
We'll begin our live coverage tomorrow morning with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in Lidditz, Pennsylvania, and we'll follow the candidates as they hold their last rallies and events prior to Tuesday's election.
You can also watch all of C-SPAN's campaign coverage online at c-span.org or with our free mobile video app, C-SPANNOW.
And we've got more from the last weekend of Campaign 2024 with Donald Trump.
He's traveling to Greensboro, North Carolina, and we'll have live coverage of him when the event begins here on C-SPAN.
Joining us now to discuss voter intimidation in Campaign 2024 is Jonathan Diaz.
He is the Voting Advocacy and Partnerships Director at the Campaign Legal Center.
Jonathan, thank you for being with us.
Good morning.
Why don't we start with having you remind us about your organization, what is the Campaign Legal Center, and what is the mission?
Sure.
So Campaign Legal Center is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization here in Washington, D.C.
And our mission is to advance democracy through law.
We do that through a combination of litigation, policy advocacy, and public education focused on the pillars of the democratic and electoral process, campaign finance reform, voting rights, redistricting, and government ethics.
So when you're talking about those issues, who are you working with?
And also, how's your organization funded?
We represent individual voters and nonpartisan civic and community organizations.
We work really closely with election officials and members of the public to advance pro-voter policies and try and explain and simplify what can sometimes be a complicated electoral system to voters and the members of the public.
We are funded by individual donations as well as some foundation donors as well.
In your title, you are the voting advocacy and partnership director.
Explain what that means and what you focus on.
So I work on some litigation across the country, but most of my work focuses on policy advocacy, especially administrative advocacy with local election officials especially, making sure that they are developing policies that reduce barriers to accessing the ballot.
And I also coordinate our work with the many partner organizations we work with at the national, state, and local level.
And you're here today.
We're going to be talking about voter intimidation.
When we hear that, what exactly are we talking about?
So there are a variety of federal and state laws that are meant to protect voters from undue influence.
It is illegal under federal law to threaten, intimidate, or coerce someone into voting or not voting a particular way.
Those laws are enforced by not only the Justice Department, but also state law enforcement agencies like district attorneys.
And, you know, they're taken very seriously.
We want to make sure that every American has the right to vote safely, freely, and privately without fear of any kind of consequence for participating in the political process.
And what can voter intimidation look like?
It can take many forms.
I think viewers are probably familiar with some of the historical examples, armed men on horses and fire hoses and dogs and things like that.
But in today's day and age, voter intimidation can take subtler, more modern forms, online harassment, publishing people's personal information or their home address online, threatening them with job or economic consequences.
There's lots of different ways that people can try to intimidate or coerce somebody into voting or not voting.
And that's why we have these legal protections to make sure that everyone's vote is cast freely and safely.
How often is voter intimidation happening and is there a typical target?
Unfortunately, it is a recurring issue over the whole of American history and today is no exception.
But fortunately, the response from law enforcement and good government groups like Campaign Legal Center is really robust.
And so we are not seeing it maybe quite as often as we did decades ago.
But there are still isolated incidents every election cycle of voters feeling unsafe or feeling threatened.
And so we respond pretty quickly to those.
We've seen individuals who have been in the news for going to polling places and trying to intimidate voters as they're waiting in line to vote.
This also from this morning's Washington Post.
It says creepy voting mailers provoke ire in Maryland.
And it's talking about these mysterious letters titled Voting Report Cards.
And it's giving recipients' names alongside their voting histories and those of their neighbors.
They've been landing in voters' mailboxes across the country in recent days.
They are coming from a group, the Voter Participation Center and the Center for Information.
Is it typically more individuals who are focused on voter intimidation or groups and organizations like that?
It can be both.
I want to be careful to draw a distinction between persuasive political messaging like mailers that are protected by the First Amendment as political speech and can sometimes make people uncomfortable or people may not like the message that they received.
But that kind of just pure speech is that's protected by the First Amendment.
There's lots of speech that you or I or anyone else may not like that folks have a constitutional right to express.
That's different from threats of physical violence or financial consequences or the things that are designed not to persuade people to vote, but to threaten or induce fear to prevent people from voting or to try and push somebody.
Sometimes you cross the line.
We have to balance the right to vote a free and safe ballot with the right to free speech and political persuasion.
We are talking with Jonathan Diaz.
He is the voting advocacy and partnership director for the Campaign Legal Center.
The topic is voter intimidation in campaign 2024.
If you have a question or comment, you can start calling in now the lines.
If you're a Democrat, 202-748-8000.
Republicans, 202-748-8001.
And Independents, 202-748-8002.
And going back to the distinction, it sounds like there's a gray area.
What do protections look like for what we know is voter intimidation versus something that maybe just makes something somebody uncomfortable?
So context really matters.
It's not just what someone says or does, but also when, where, how.
And that's why I think law enforcement looks at allegations of voter intimidation really carefully.
Because again, we're balancing protecting voters and keeping them safe with protected First Amendment political expression.
So some conduct that may not be voter intimidation in some contexts, if it's done at a polling place by a line of voters, if it's directed at primarily voters of color or things like that, all of those factual questions really matter.
And that's why, you know, I think when in doubt, it's always safe to report any instances of suspected voter intimidation to local election officials or law enforcement.
Our first caller for this segment is Mike in Woodbridge, Virginia on the line for independence.
Good morning, Mike.
Yeah, I want to know his opinion on Supreme Court ruling about Virginia's voter registration.
Yeah, and on this issue, I think the Supreme Court heard in their decision because DMV does not have anything to do with immigrants or objects of immigrant citizenship.
We only go there to acquire driver license.
When you go there with your green card, you will take that.
You are not a citizen.
Along the line, your status can change.
And when you change, that is where you go and register to vote.
And the only place that can determine your citizenship is immigration.
It's citizen and immigration service, not DMV.
So when they went into DMV to check your old forms, that was wrong.
And they didn't even give the opportunity for the immigrant to show whether he is a citizen or not.
Mike, we'll get a response from Jonathan.
Yeah, so in the interest of full transparency, Campaign Legal Center represented some of the voters who challenged those removals in Virginia from the voter registration list.
We were extremely disappointed in that Supreme Court decision.
I do think that it was wrong.
You know, I think the district court and the Fourth Circuit, which is the intermediate appeals court, I think they got it right.
Virginia was relying on outdated information and stale data.
And what we found, and the clients we represented in that case, showed was that these were naturalized U.S. citizens who maybe at one point were not citizens and had indicated as much to the DMV, but then ultimately naturalized, became citizens, and then registered.
And Virginia is relying on outdated information to identify potentially ineligible voters and remove them from the roles, we think, in violation of federal law.
The good news is that in Virginia, there is same-day voter registration.
So anyone who was wrongfully removed from the roles can still go and vote in person on Election Day and register at the polling place.
But that's not the case in every state.
You know, we've challenged similar programs, removing naturalized citizens from the roles in Alabama, Texas, elsewhere.
And I think it's a real concern when states are using bad data and removing eligible American citizens from the voter rolls.
Can you talk about the distinction between intimidation and suppression?
Sure.
Voter intimidation is a form of voter suppression.
Anything that prevents people from going to the polls, whether it's because an administrative barrier has been erected or because they're afraid.
And in a democracy, we want our elections to reflect the will of all eligible voters.
And so, you know, anything that is preventing people from voting is really damaging our government and our elections' ability to fully represent the views of all Americans.
Ted in Ocean View, Hawaii, line for Democrats.
Good morning, Ted.
Good morning.
Yeah, we're just talking about the voter intimidation, and people need to just turn it around on somebody that tries to intimidate you and say, if you want to pass information in a nice, normal tone of voice, that's not intimidation.
But if you're going to be threatening or intimidating, just turn it around and say, why can't you win my vote with information rather than intimidation?
Everybody needs to think about that.
Information, not intimidation.
It's real easy.
Any response for Ted?
I mean, I don't think I could have said it better by myself.
I think we want to persuade our friends and neighbors with ideas and with policies, not with fear or threats.
Sergio in Texas, line for Republicans.
Good morning, Sergio.
Good morning.
I have a very serious concern with mail-in ballots for this reason.
Say you have a family of five.
You get five ballots, all voting age.
You get five ballots dropped off in the mailbox.
You've got a dominant figure in the family.
He gathers the ballots, opens them all up, fills them all out, seals them, and tells his children and his wife, hey, I've already done your voting for you.
All you need to do is sign these things.
I'll take them over to the drop-off box.
No one addresses that issue, but it's a very real concern that I have.
Don't know that it would be too widespread, but it's something that you would never be able to track it or figure out how to stop it.
Yeah, I mean, I think that's certainly an interesting concern that is not the typical kind of voter intimidation concern that I think we often think about.
You know, voter intimidation, and I think that that scenario would qualify, is illegal no matter where it happens.
It doesn't necessarily need to be at a physical polling place.
You know, coercion, which is what I think the collar just described, is specifically listed in the voter intimidation statutes as something that is not okay.
And voter intimidation is, you know, it's not just illegal, it's a crime.
It carries, you know, potential sentences, including jail time, pretty serious fines, and civil liability.
And so, you know, I think that that's why we have these protections in place.
What impact does voter intimidation have?
Do we know how many people are opting not to vote because they feel like it's not safe?
You know, it's hard to quantify exactly because if somebody is too scared to show up to the polls, they may not report it.
And so we don't have a full picture.
But Campaign Legal Center, like many nonpartisan legal organizations, works on the national nonpartisan election protection hotline at 866OURVOTE.
And we get reports every single election cycle from voters who report feeling afraid, being intimidated.
Many of them still are able to go and vote.
They go back to the polling place the next day or they vote by mail.
But just because someone is able to overcome intimidation and cast their ballot doesn't mean that voter intimidation hasn't taken place.
And the law also prohibits attempts to intimidate or threaten or coerce voters to affect their vote, even if it's not ultimately successful.
You just mentioned a phone number, if you want to say it again, that people can report intimidation to, if you can give us a phone number again, but then also what else can voters do if they are feeling like they're experiencing intimidation?
What resources are available?
Sure.
So the number I mentioned is 866OURVOTE, which is the national nonpartisan election protection hotline.
It's staffed by legal volunteers and election lawyers like myself.
And that's a place where voters can report any issues that they're having with their ballot, whether it's your mail ballot hasn't arrived at your home, you're not sure where your polling place is, you don't know how to check if you're registered, or you're at the polls and you're experiencing voter intimidation.
Other suggestions that I would make to voters who are concerned about what they're seeing would be to report it to your local election official.
Those are usually the folks best equipped to immediately respond to any issues.
They often have very close relationships with law enforcement in their local area who will be fastest to respond if necessary.
So I would say between the national nonpartisan hotline at 866 hour vote and your local election official, those would be my go-to's if voters have intimidation concerns.
Ethan in Rapid City, South Dakota, line for Democrats.
Good morning, Ethan.
Hey, good morning, guys.
So my question is, and this is something I just want to have everybody kind of ponder.
Voter intimidation, is it?
I mean, we've had some circumstances where, yes, voter intimidation here in Canada and America, and we've had that over this series of years, a series of decades.
Maybe, have we ever considered how much people aren't just voting because they don't have the faith or in any of the systems that we've built?
People have lost interest, millennials as myself, have lost interest in this entire system.
Voter intimidation is just a random amount of word of being like, oh, people are going out and about and just burning ballots and stuff like that.
Maybe people aren't just voting.
And this might just be a thing that people kind of use to stir up the fire trying to get millennials to vote.
I just feel like, I don't know, are we really confident 100% that voter intimidation is the actual problem?
Maybe we should be considering something more realistic here: that voter intimidation isn't real as much as it compares to voter just doesn't what's it called?
I don't know what voter apathy.
Ethan, we'll get a response from Jonathan.
Yeah, I mean, I think both are concerns, right?
You know, voter intimidation certainly still happens.
I think just this week, there were a couple of arrests in my home state of Florida because individuals were brandishing weapons at the polling place and making anti-Semitic remarks at voters in line.
So it certainly still happens.
But I think voter apathy is also a very real problem.
I think many Americans are disillusioned with the political system, whether that's because of the influence of big money in politics or of partisan gerrymandering.
And that's something that Campaign Legal Center is really concerned about and something that we have worked to, I think, overcome with voter education, letting people know that their votes really do matter.
There are local races decided every election cycle by just a handful of votes.
And most often, those local races, your city councilor, your mayor, things like that, are the ones that have the most direct impact on your daily life.
And so, you know, I definitely hear what you're saying.
And I think that we can be concerned about both voter intimidation as a real threat and folks' lack of confidence in the election system.
And working to combat things like misinformation and other, you know, other elements that reduce public confidence in our election system is something that Campaign Legal Center is very focused on.
This headline in the Hill, you mentioned an incident in your home state of Florida.
The headline, Florida teenager accused of using machete to intimidate voters at the polling station.
It's a pretty eye-catching headline.
You see machete.
It's an incident that happened.
What's being done to prevent voter intimidation from happening to begin with?
Who's involved?
So it's a wide constellation, I think, of law enforcement agencies, election officials, nonpartisan groups like ours.
The Department of Justice is sending monitors to many jurisdictions across the country to keep an eye out for things like voter intimidation or other violations of federal law.
And this incident, I think, is a perfect example.
Local election officials and law enforcement work together to respond very quickly.
I believe that individual has been charged with a criminal offense by local prosecutors in Florida because there are countless local officials both in law enforcement and in election offices who are working tirelessly to keep our elections safe.
Bob in Eagle River, Wisconsin, on the line for Republicans.
Good morning, Bob.
Good morning.
I just wanted to ask, since you've researched and studied it, you had spoke of the people that were actual legal citizens at the time and they registered to vote.
I think there was one state that took off 2,500 people off the voter rolls because they were ineligible to vote because they were non-citizens.
Do you have the number of how many people were actually non-citizens on the roll that got removed and how many were actually citizens that got put back on the roll out of all the different investigations?
Basically, they're just purging the system, which the voter rolls, which is required by law.
And how do you feel about the states that are no longer using ID?
How can you vote with you can't do anything in America without proving you're an American citizen?
I don't know how this is even federally legal to vote without an ID.
That means anybody, a tourist on vacation, can come here and fly here just to vote in our election.
How is this even happening?
So there's a lot packed in there.
So I'll start at the beginning.
I'm not sure exactly which state you're referring to with that specific number.
But I can tell you that in most of these instances, when a state official announces that there's some number of suspected ineligible voters on the rolls, that's all it is.
It's suspicion.
They haven't confirmed those numbers, which is why when we investigate and we reach out to some of the folks who are on those lists, we find that they are in fact eligible citizens.
The state of Georgia, I think, is a really great example to give some concrete numbers.
They did a comprehensive audit of their voter rolls going back several years and identified only 20 non-U.S. citizens who had become registered to vote in Georgia over a period of several years out of the more than, I think it's 7.5 million registered voters in Georgia.
And none of those 20 had ever cast or attempted to cast a ballot.
So they were likely only put on the rolls through some kind of administrative or clerical error.
And that's Georgia's Republican Secretary of State that conducted that investigation.
So what that says to me is that the safeguards that are built into our election system to make sure that only eligible Americans are able to cast a ballot are working.
Whenever somebody violates one of these laws and they are serious laws, the system finds them and they are often prosecuted.
As far as voter ID, there are many states that require a voter ID, but every state has safeguards built in where voters are required to validate not only their identity in some way, but also their eligibility to vote, including U.S. citizenship.
Different states use different methods to validate the eligibility of their voters, but you have to remember that it's all.
It also depends on how something like a voter validation law is structured.
If a state is only permitting some forms of ID but not others, we have to think about how that affects different kinds of voters who may or may not have access to those kinds of ID.
Loretta in Cleveland Ohio, line for Democrats.
Good morning, Loretta.
Oh, I'm sorry, I think we lost Loretta.
Give us a call back Loretta, we'll go to Eric in Pennsylvania.
Line for independents.
Good morning, good morning, thank you.
My question is, what is your opinion or have you taken any action on agencies that have shown nonpartisanship, such as FBI DOJ IRS, and how can you convince me or the audience that you are nonpartisan and honest?
Thank you.
Well, I don't do a ton of work with FBI and IRS and CIA, so I don't know that I can answer that question.
But you know Campaign Legal Center.
You know fights for access to the ballot for all eligible Americans and for accountability from politicians, regardless of party.
I think if you look us up, you'll see that we are not afraid to initiate litigation or call out politicians of either party when they violate the law.
We file campaign finance complaints against Republicans Democrats Independents, super PACs.
You know I've sued red states, blue states, purple states, states of every color, because our commitment is to democratic principles of good governance and of, you know, equal access to the ballot.
I've never once asked a client, you know, what party they affiliate with and I've never thought about the political affiliation of a state or county official when I think that they've done something that violates the law and I think that that's how all of our election laws should be administered, you know, without preference or favor for voters of any one political party, and it's not.
We're talking about voter intimidation.
But it's not just voters who can feel threatened.
This headline from NBC, almost 40% of local election officials surveyed report threats or abuse, says a new report that came out, I believe, in March.
What precautions have been put in place at polling locations to protect poll workers and election administrators?
Yeah, I think that is a troubling recent trend over the last few years is poll workers and election officials receiving lots of threats to themselves, their safety their, their staffs, their families, and you know both election officials and law enforcement take those threats really seriously.
We've certainly seen criminal prosecutions of folks who've made credible threats to election officials over the last several years, and election offices have invested a lot in In physical security for their physical offices.
Cybersecurity is a major concern as well.
You know, election officials have been doxxed over the last few years, had their home addresses and pictures of their children published online, which is really scary.
And I think it's important to remember that election officials are, in most cases, your neighbors, especially at the local level.
These are people from your own community who, if they're volunteers, are taking time out of their lives and not even necessarily being paid for it to perform a really critical service for our country, for our society, to run elections.
The election system is really decentralized, and what that means is that elections are run at the local level by city and county workers and volunteers.
And so I think it's incumbent on all of us to remember that to support our election workers.
And, you know, I don't want to get into too much detail about what election officials are doing specifically to protect themselves, but I know that they've taken a lot of steps and are working with state, local, and federal law enforcement to make sure that they stay safe this election season.
Carol in Jacksonville, Florida, line for Democrats.
Good morning, Carol.
Good morning.
How are you doing, C-SPAN?
Good morning.
My comment today is that, like Mr. Biaz stated, that I was really surprised to see that voter intimidation was showing up in Jacksonville and was really the interviews on TV and I really was concerned about that.
I already voted early, so I knew that my vote was in.
My background in growing up, both my parents worked with the Justice Department.
So I had a view of seeing how things were done and carried out.
Both my parents always stated that, you know, it's your right.
Also, I want to state when an official is running for high office, when they state that you don't have to vote again, that is really voter intimidation because that's stating that our rights will be taken away.
Thank you for taking my call.
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you for that call.
I mean, I think it's worth repeating that every American has the right to vote safely, freely, and privately.
And that's why voter intimidation laws exist and why DOJ and local and state law enforcement make sure that those laws are enforced.
Loretta, Cleveland, Ohio, Democrat line.
Loretta, thanks for calling us back.
I'm sorry I hung up on you.
Oh, well, thank you.
And good morning, Jonathan.
Good morning, America.
Yesterday, 11 family and friends, we all went to vote yesterday morning.
And after voting, we went to breakfast.
And I'm telling you, it was, I don't think we dispersed until like two or three o'clock.
We were having such a good time just talking about everything.
But My cause specifically is about January 6th.
And the Secret Service just had all these investigations about the Trump attempted assassinations, but they skipped over what happened to the text that were erased on January up to January 6th.
They erased all the tapes maybe from January 1st to we don't even know where it ended.
And not only did they erase the text from the individual phones, they erased the information from the cloud.
And I'm calling to say that it takes specific people to do that kind of stuff.
And I don't like the kind of people that Trump got doing things.
And people got to start thinking about their own pockets because they might like click on their own bank account.
They ain't got a damn in there.
And you don't know where it all come from.
Loretta, that might be out of Jonathan's expertise, but we'll see.
I think most of that is.
But when it comes to January 6th, that is the legally mandated date when the joint session of Congress will come together to count the electoral votes again in 2025, like they did in 2021 and every four years before then.
And I mean, for those of us here in Washington, I think we are already starting to see, you know, the security measures around the Capitol get erected.
You know, the Department of Homeland Security has designated that joint session a major national security event.
So there are lots of resources being put in to make sure that the newly elected Congress, which takes office on January 3rd, will be able to meet and carry out their duties to count the electoral votes on January 6th.
This is also the first presidential election being conducted using the procedures under the new Electoral Count Reform Act, which was passed in 2022 by a bipartisan majority of Congress that has really modernized the process of counting electoral votes in Congress and really, I think, has limited opportunities for disruption of that process.
So we should hopefully see a quieter January 6th this time around.
January 6th, 2025 is a Monday next year.
And just like in 2020, C-SPAN will have full coverage of that.
David in Maryland on the line for independence.
Good morning, David.
Good morning.
Yeah, I had a question.
I had heard stories of local voting officials coordinating with high schools in the area where they would bring call voting age students out of class to come and register at the high school.
And then in certain situations, the official would recommend who they should vote for.
And I just wondered if that was considered gorgeous and if that would be legal or not to do that.
I could take my answer offline.
I think it probably depends on the specific context of what was said and when and where.
I think it is probably inappropriate for an election official to recommend to a new registrant, no matter their age, who they should be voting for.
On the flip side, I think voter registration, especially at high schools and in the states that allow pre-registration for voters who will be 18 on election day but aren't yet, is a really great way to increase voter participation and get young folks involved early.
But election officials in every state are supposed to administer their responsibilities and conduct our elections in an impartial way.