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Coming up on Washington Journal this morning, your calls and comments live.
And then we'll discuss how elections are administered and efforts to boost election security ahead of Election Day with Benjamin Hovlin, chair of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
And Dan Dekaji, Dean and Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin Law School, will talk about the voting lawsuits that have been filed across the country ahead of Election Day and the legal battle that's expected to follow.
C-SPAN's Washington Journal is next.
Join the conversation.
Good morning.
It's Monday, November 4th, and it's the eve of Election Day 2024.
Millions of Americans have already voted either by mail or in person.
Millions more go to the polls tomorrow.
This morning, we'll get your thoughts on the campaign while we show you news articles and video of the candidates and their surrogates from the weekend.
Here's how to call us.
If you support the Harris-Walls ticket, 202-748-8000.
Supporters of the Trump Fance Ticket, 202748-8001.
If you support neither or are undecided, it's 202-748-8002.
You can send us a text to 202-748-8003.
Include your first name in your city-state.
You can also post to social media, facebook.com slash C-SPAN, and X at C-SPANWJ.
Welcome to today's Washington Journal.
Let's start with the front page of the New York Times.
Tightest contest in decades grows tighter at finish.
A stressed electorate eagerly votes early.
It says an anxious America weary from a vitriolic campaign season and worried about the state of the nation's democracy is voting with determination with roughly 75 million people having cast ballots in the early voting period.
In North Carolina, nearly 4.5 million voters set an early in-person voting record in the state amid devastation from Hurricane Helene.
Georgia voters Also set a record with 4 million voters casting an early ballot.
In Pennsylvania, 1.7 million people voted by mail.
And increasingly caustic litigation over whose mail ballots should count, nine states have seen more than 50% of eligible voters already vote.
And it also says here, shift in swing states Times poll finds its presidential race appears to be hurtling toward a photo finish with the final set of polls by the New York Times and Siena College finding Vice President Kamala Harris showing new strength in North Carolina and Georgia as former President Donald Trump erases her lead in Pennsylvania and maintains his advantage in Arizona.
It's important to note that all of these results are within the margin of sampling error, meaning neither candidate has a definitive lead in any of them.
Let's take a look at Vice President Harris in Michigan talking about the war in Gaza.
Here she is.
And we are joined today by leaders of the Arab American community, which has deep and proud roots here in Michigan.
And I want to say, this year has been difficult given the scale of death and destruction in Gaza and given the civilian casualties and displacement in Lebanon.
It is devastating.
And as president, I will do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza to bring home the hostages, end the suffering in Gaza, ensure Israel is secure, and ensure the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, freedom, security, and self-determination.
And we continue to work on a diplomatic resolution across the Israel-Lebanon border to protect civilians and provide lasting stability.
And as president, I will work tirelessly toward a future with security and dignity for all people.
That was yesterday.
And also yesterday, former President Trump was in Macon, Georgia, talking about immigration.
Kamala wants to defund ICE.
Think of that.
She wants to.
She said, oh.
She said, they're not nice people.
They better not be nice people.
They're nice people.
They're going to have a lot of problems with living, but they are tough as hell, but they love our country equally as much.
They love our country so much they just want to be able to do their job.
So, ICE and Border Patrol, and all of you, sheriffs, and law enforcement officers, and yes, firemen and sanitation men and every you are on the A-list, all of you.
I will invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
Can you imagine?
That's when they ran it a little tougher.
They weren't so politically correct in 1798 to target and dismantle every migrant criminal network operating on American soil.
And if they come back into our country, it's an automatic 10 years in jail with no possibility of parole.
And I am hereby calling for the death penalty for any migrant that kills an American citizen or a law enforcement officer.
And I will immediately ban all sanctuary cities in the United States of America immediately.
And he did mention the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
I've got a little bit more information for you on that from npr.org.
What's the purpose of the Alien Enemies Act?
It specifically allows the president to detain, relocate, or deport non-citizens from a country considered an enemy of the U.S. during wartime.
It says that Congress was in support of President John Adams passed the Alien Enemies Act as part of the four Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 as the U.S. stood on the brink of war with France.
It says that the controversial group of laws severely curtailed civil liberties, including by tightening restrictions on foreign-born Americans and limiting speech critical of the government.
Go to your calls now to Michael in Syracuse, New York.
Good morning, Michael.
Good morning, C-SPAM.
I'm a proud enemy of the fraudulent, sexual abusing, un-Christian felon, bitshit Donald Trump.
I, Michael, am the true patriot.
Go blue wall to all.
And here's Mary in Florida, Trump supporter.
Hi, Mary.
Yes, I didn't know that you were going to show the items that you did with the border, but that's what I'm calling about.
I voted for Donald Trump twice, and I'll do it again.
I did it again.
Mary, did we lose you?
Mary, are you still there?
Yes, I'm here.
Okay.
Can you hear me?
Yes, you just dropped out.
Yes, you said you already voted for Donald Trump.
I already voted for Donald Trump.
I did not know that you were going to show the items that you did pertaining to the border.
That's the reason I'm calling.
With the Biden-Harris administration, all their money went to the Ukraine border, but all the illegal aliens came into our border, over 20 million of them, because of the fact that they want them to vote for the Democrats.
And there's a problem already with the voting.
So many states have illegal aliens on their elections, and it's a sad state.
We did not have this problem before Donald Trump came into power in 2016, in 2020, and now.
This did not start with the border until 2020 when Joe Biden became president.
Everything was secure.
The economy, everything was secure under Donald Trump.
When Joe Biden came in, he quickly changed everything, signed everything into law opposite of what Donald Trump did.
And it's a sad, it's a very sad country that we're living in now because Joe Biden.
Let's talk to Mike in Huntington, Indiana, supporting neither.
That's right.
I can't support Trump or I can't support Pamela because they're both liars.
The main thing is the reason why I can't, I can't understand why Pennsylvania, Michigan, and stuff is close.
Because everybody knows that the government can do what they want.
And if Pamp or Pamela or whatever her name is wants to say she supports fracking, let me tell you, she can make it miserable.
And same way in Michigan on this deal with the automotives.
She wants to make all America like California.
And California, we don't want it.
We don't want them high prices.
All right, Mike.
And this is Ray in Tucson, Arizona, supporting Harris.
Good morning.
Good morning, America.
So nice to be with you.
I just have a couple things to say.
The first thing I want to say is to our Republican people out there, you are who you support.
You embrace everything about the person you support.
And that usually makes people uncomfortable when I hear that.
Just one little statement.
He lacks any shred of human decency, humility, or caring.
He is morally bankrupt, breathtakingly dishonest, totally incompetent, and stunningly ignorant of virtually anything related to governing history, geography, human events, or world affairs.
He is a traitor and a malignancy in our nation and represents a clear and present danger to our democracy and the rule of law.
And, boy, I'm so excited to get through right before this election.
It's the most important election of my life and all our lives.
And just to finish up, you are who you support.
So, Ray.
Ray, do you think that that's really fair?
I mean, do you, I mean, you're supporting Harris?
Would you say that you are fully in line with everything that she stands for?
Everything?
Everything?
Everything except the border policies of the past administration, but I think that's going to change.
But yeah, I do think that's fair because we certainly have had enough chances to figure out who we're talking about and who we want to support.
And I believe you are who you support.
Okay, wait, let me push back on that for a minute here because we do have callers that'll say I support former President Trump's policies.
I support, for instance, what he did at the border or his economic policies, his foreign policy, let's say.
But I don't like his personality.
I agree, but I think there should be no distinctions.
I think you either all in 100% or you're not.
So I agree with your point, but I'll tell you what.
I'm so tired of this 10 years of chaos.
And I just wanted to put that out there.
I realized that.
We got it, Ray.
And here's Paul in Plantation, Florida, Trump supporter.
Good morning.
Good morning.
I think your last caller just described himself.
But what I'd like to say is I'd like to congratulate the alliance between the administrative state, the mainstream media, in making a complete incompetent, so obviously incompetent Kamala Harris as a legitimate runner for president of the United States.
How can you look at that woman and not know how completely she can't answer a question?
And today she kind of exposed herself.
They asked her about Proposition 36, and she wouldn't say how she voted.
But we know how she voted on the talk on crime in California because she's the one that helped the shoplifting.
Nobody gets prosecuted with shoplifting under $1,000.
So this country is going to be a mess if she gets elected and the Democrats are in control in any way.
There was a Democrat congresswoman on CNBC a few days ago that completely frightened me.
She told me, she said what the Democrats would do if they got everything, president and Congress.
One of the things, they would start stacking the Supreme Court.
She made no secret of it.
They would abolish the rule of needing 60 senators to vote on a bill.
Forces the opposition party to negotiate with the other party.
That's good for America.
And the only way these people are going to negotiate with each other is if they're forced to.
So I am frightened that the Democratic Party and Camel Harris would have anything to do with the power of governing this nation.
It's frightening.
We're the ones who are the dictatorship.
You did mention the ballot measure for reversing criminal justice reforms.
Here she was yesterday talking about that.
Simply, how are you feeling and have you submitted your ballot?
I am feeling great.
I am looking forward to these next 48 hours to continue to talk with the voters and talk about the stakes and talk about the future of our country, which I think is bright when we are working with the same spirit of building community, building coalitions, and building the strength of our economy and our country.
I have.
I've actually just filled out my mail-in ballot, so I have voted.
Charlene.
Madam Vice President, have you returned the ballot to California, and how did you vote on Prop 36?
So I have, my ballot is on its way to California, and I'm going to trust the system that it will arrive there.
And I am not going to talk about the vote on that because honestly, it's the Sunday before the election, and I don't intend to create an endorsement one way or another around it.
But I did vote.
And here is USA Today with this headline.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says Donald Trump would seek to remove fluoride from water if elected.
Here's what the article says.
RFK Jr. said Saturday that former President Trump would seek to remove fluoride from public water sources as one of his first presidential actions if he is re-elected, falsely suggesting that the compound is dangerous.
Here's the quote on X. On January 20th, the Trump White House will advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water.
He claimed without proof that fluoride in U.S. water is linked to a variety of medical conditions, despite studies proving evidence to the contrary.
Local communities have added fluoride to their public drinking water since 1945.
The CDC described these public water fluoridation efforts as among the top 10 public health achievements of the 20th century.
And Joe in Des Moines, Iowa, Harris supporter.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Top of the morning to you.
You too, Joe.
I just got a couple of things to run by you.
Nothing was good under Donald Trump.
He just lied and said it was and repeated it over and over to brainwash his cult members.
That's a global tactic.
That is a fascist tactic.
Bernie Brothers, I am one of you.
Do not let Trump fool you again what he did for you, besides lie to you.
You can't name one thing, can you, that he did for you.
Fool you twice, shame on you.
Trump has been guilty of everything he's been charged with.
His criminal congress mission, the boys, did not hold him accountable to the rule of law.
Hey, Trump humpers, you all that call in on steasman, you reveal that you're poorly educated and get an education and grow up.
Jeff in Oil City, Pennsylvania, Trump supporter.
Good morning, Jeff.
Yeah, there's no doubt about it that Donald Trump was the very best president that we've ever had in American history.
And I'm going to tell you exactly why, because look what happened in Afghanistan.
They pulled right out of there, led to Israel, the problem that they have over there, as well as Russia going into the Ukraine.
The economy was so much better.
I'm from Pennsylvania.
Jobs is all pourish here, but when Donald Trump was in president of the United States, there was plenty of jobs, and it was deflated.
This administration has done a terrible job of gas prices, inflation, border security.
I can't even imagine the kind of terrorism that could become across that border.
I look at that when people say, well, you're uneducated because you like Donald Trump.
I disagree.
I feel like I'm really smart because I'm looking at a guy that was very can-do.
And if it wouldn't have been for COVID, he was on a pace to do better than any president that we've ever had.
And Jeff, have you already voted or are you voting tomorrow?
I'm voting tomorrow.
And I'm voting for Donald Trump.
And I'm glad to do it.
As well as I'd like to say that all three members of my family are registered Republican and we're all ready to vote.
And it's funny because I live in Pennsylvania and I know they call this a critical state.
I don't know anybody that's voting for Kamala Harris.
And let's go to Jim in Pittsburgh, a Harris supporter.
Jim.
Yes, good morning.
Within the last two or three weeks, Donald Trump had a town hall meeting type situation.
And a gentleman asked him, why on January 6th did you not interfere with what was going on?
And what is the reason that you did what you did on January 6th?
And Donald Trump said January 6th was a day of love.
Now, if you think that January 6th was a day of love, you should vote for Donald Trump.
But if you think it's not, then you should vote for Harris.
Thank you very much.
So, Jim, have you, since you're also in Pennsylvania, have you voted or not, not yet?
No, I've already sent my vote in.
I initially called it the independent elect because I voted for Republicans and Democrats, but I did vote for Harris for Multiple number of reasons, but I thought that town hall beaty.
I think that said it all.
I think that our country was attacked on January 6th.
And I think Donald Trump, whether he was to admit that he started or not, is irrelevant because when it happened, he watched it on television and didn't do anything about it.
And he accused his vice president of being a traitor in so many words.
That's ridiculous.
I mean, the man is not qualified, has never been qualified.
And here's Roger in Abilene, Kansas, Trump supporter.
Yes, I've been, I've called in a few times and over the last, well, really, since Biden took over, and there is only one subject that I really cannot believe we let happen for the last four years, and that's letting our borders be open.
Our borders have called in probably two to three times a year saying a policy, a vote for Kamala is a vote for open borders.
A vote for Trump is closed border.
And that's that's really the main issue.
A lot of things Trump says, I don't agree on because he's, you know, he's not a perfect person.
My mother was the only perfect person I know.
So there's my reasons.
Thank you.
And here's Patrick in Michigan supporting neither.
Good morning, everybody.
I would like to remind everyone who wants to see change that in order to achieve change, changes must be made.
And I, for one, would like to see change in our political system happen as quickly and democratically as possible.
I also believe that in order to achieve this, the following four things have to happen.
First of all, I believe that everyone has to admit that things aren't going as well as they should be, and that every one of us is responsible to one degree or another for the problems we all face.
And we have to stop believing that our children will be able to fix the problems that we have created.
We also must realize that we don't have a lot of time to begin building a better future.
Secondly, everybody has to vote.
I believe that voting is how a democracy in which the majority rules works best.
And I know of nothing better than voting to get a true measure of what the majority wants.
So, Patrick, oh, sorry.
Yeah, go ahead with your third point.
I was going to ask if you've voting and who you're supporting because you're on the neither line.
I'm supporting the Green Party.
Okay.
Have you already voted, or you're doing that tomorrow?
No, I have already voted.
Okay.
And what about down ballot?
I'm just curious about the other like Congress and things like that.
I support the Green Party as much as I possibly can.
If they're on the ballot, I vote for them.
And what if they're not on a particular race?
What do you do in that case?
I tend to lean toward the Democratic Party because of their idealistic principles, but I don't believe that they're necessarily doing the job that they should be.
And so is your main issue, if you have one, is it the war in Gaza?
What's making you support the Green Party?
What do you like about their candidate, Dr. Stein?
I think that they are sincere in saying that they are for saving the planet.
I think they are sincere that they want to see peace in the world.
And they're four people, social justice.
All right.
And here's Shirley in New York, New York, Harris supporter.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Thank you for taking my call.
I'm just calling in because I have kept up with C-Stan through this whole election.
And I just can't believe these Republicans.
I mean, nobody fact checks anything before calling in.
We already know, number one, our laws need to be changed because we don't need a selling India for president of the United States.
And Trump just lies and speaks about himself.
You know, he's so worried about going to jail that all he needs to speak up for himself, not about the country, not trying to unite us the way Vice President Harris does.
You know, we already know.
I listened to him yesterday.
He wants to talk about his white skin.
It's ridiculous, you know, what he's trying to, the next day, trying to send out to the people.
Do people really realize that his father was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, was arrested back here?
So you know where Trump is coming from.
He's a racist.
He's not trying to build us up.
He's trying to care us down.
And just to say, we're an all-white country that bears the privilege.
You know, there's so much I want to say.
I won't say anymore.
But Kamala has my vote, and I have voted already.
Thank you.
And this was from yesterday's CNN State of the Union.
Here is CNN anchor Dana Bash with Senator Tim Scott, a Republican of South Carolina, about the claims of former President Trump on election validity.
Will you urge the former president not to prematurely declare victory again and allow the process to play out so the American people can trust the final legitimate outcome?
Dana, we're looking forward to a very good day on Tuesday night without any question.
I'm excited to see that the battleground states that we just talked about are all leaning towards Trump.
So the good news is we will have a fair election and Donald Trump will be our next president.
I look at the facts that in Wisconsin, when I was in Wisconsin just recently, the voters are heading in our direction.
And the good news is two out of three voters want to vote in person in Wisconsin, even though they have mail-in ballots.
You just showed a stat a few minutes ago where 400,000 votes swing towards Republicans in Pennsylvania.
You take the number of Democrats not voting and the number of Republicans who have registered.
And that's before you add on top of that the 300,000 Jewish voters who find themselves being polarized away from the Democrat Party.
This is going to be a very good election.
And we, the people, will make that decision.
I appreciate your optimism.
That's your job on the eve of the election.
But what I'm asking about is what if he doesn't win?
And the fact of the matter is that Trump is already spreading false claims about cheating in Pennsylvania.
He has repeatedly predicted a massive victory, even though polls show that the race is very close.
He's setting the stage for his supporters not to believe the results if he loses.
Do you want him to stop doing that?
I would never tell any candidate on the ballot to talk about what happens if they lose.
Obviously, you're going to lean into the victory, especially if you're running forward.
You're running ahead of your candidate.
Totally.
But saying false things about fraud.
Totally disagree with this.
You think it's okay to spread false rumors about fraud and undermine the integrity of the election, regardless of what happens?
Dana, the liberal media has done a better job of spreading misinformation than any candidate I've seen so far.
That's true.
Listen, here's the fact: we're not seeing the coverage of two assassination attempts on CNN.
We've seen wall-to-wall coverage.
I've never seen the comments about Kamala Harris talking about fascists calling Donald Trump a fascist.
John Kelly called him a fascist.
His former chief of staff.
The opportunity, giving, giving, and she repeated it, giving people the opportunity.
Well, wouldn't you, if Kamala Harris, his former chief of staff, called her a fascist, I would guess that you would repeat it too.
And Donald Trump has called him one as well.
The bottom line is this, Dana.
Bottom line is we should focus on the issues that the American people are talking about.
And we've got a couple of posts.
This is on, this is Janet from Cedar Hill, Texas, via text.
I voted the first day of early voting in my county.
I'm a supporter of Harris, and I voted down ballot for all Democrats.
We need change in this country and unity.
And this is also a text, one day left until election.
But if the polls are to be believed, many more for final outcome.
Both political parties are definitely lawyered up to the max for this one.
Hopefully things are not just as close as they seem.
And we will, by the way, have a segment later in the program about litigation and what that could mean for the election.
And finally, Michelle and Jessup, Pennsylvania, groceries are too high.
So I'll be voting for Donald Trump to bring them down.
And this is Homer, a Trump supporter in Florence, Massachusetts.
Good morning.
Hello, how are you today?
Thank you for taking my call.
You're welcome.
This election is really bad.
I'm in Massachusetts, and my vote doesn't count, but I will vote.
The way that this primaries or whatever you want to call it, election season, you have people calling Donald Trump Hitler and his supporters Nazis, yet they're talking about they want unity.
If Donald Trump wins, which I hope he does, there's going to be riots in the streets across all the cities.
Somebody's going to try to shoot him.
And the Democrats are going to try to not certify the election and do whatever they can to stop Trump.
And as far as what Trump has done, how can anybody say there was chaos when he was president?
And there isn't now?
We had no wars when he was president.
Grocery prices and everything else was down low.
The border, although there were people coming across, nothing even close to what's coming across today.
And the other thing that I'd like to mention is how the hell do non-citizens be able to vote?
They had to go to court to kick them off the ballot.
People shouldn't, the ballots shouldn't be sent or received from dead people, people moved, or non-citizens.
That's in our Constitution.
I just don't understand.
And this is going to be really, really bad, I believe.
Thank you.
Here's Nate in Milwaukee, Harris supporter.
Hi, Nate.
Hi.
Thank you very much for having me.
I was going to point out a couple issues that I don't think there's been much digging into history on.
Pointedly, let's start with inflation in that inflation was 1.4% under Obama and then went up to 1.9% under Trump.
So inflation went up.
Yes, it spiked under Biden.
But if anybody checks macrochatons.net, they'll notice that inflation has actually been dropping since 2022 because that's when we had the pandemic, restarting of the economy, plus the war that Putin started.
And something that I thought was interesting is that The Economist endorsed Harris, which is not exactly the most left-wing magazine because they saw Trump as an unacceptable risk.
And Mr. Musk, while he's supporting Trump and is supposedly getting promised an important position, has said that people will be getting hardships potentially if Trump gets elected.
And he's been saying things that mirror what the President of Argentina did in terms of massive cuts that resulted in the recession Argentina is going through right now.
MSNBC pointed out that the austerity caused trouble in Argentina.
Also, Trump was not a peace president.
He was thinking about launching Mexico missiles into Mexico at one point.
Plus, he's taken money from Miriam Adelson, who with the understanding perhaps that he would allow Netanyahu to annex parts of the West Bank.
And that just sounds like a recipe for, unfortunately, more suffering rather than peace in the Middle East.
And on the idea of election integrity, I am a U.S. citizen and one of the 200,000-plus people in my state that Trump did not want to have our ballots count as part of his attempt to steal the last election.
He had lawsuits, and the lawsuits were dismissed as one case without merit in my state.
So the idea that it's other people cheating is frankly been disproven for a long, long time.
All right.
And here's Brian, an undecided voter in Elk River, Minnesota.
Hi, Brian.
Yeah, hi.
This is just hilarious listening about no cheating.
My concern is, is watching you guys, the misinformation that you're spreading just right on your show right there.
You have the report about the fluoride in the water, but you do know that that did go to trial.
That did go through court.
That was proven in court.
So you put up a what was proven in court, Brian.
The use of fluoride being hazardous to one's health.
When where did that go to court?
Can you give me some more information about that?
United States.
You're the one that's supposed to know all this stuff.
So then you tell me you say a study.
Was that a peer-reviewed study?
Diane in Arkansas, Trump supporter.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Thank you for taking my call.
I'm voting for Trump because they're letting in all these immigrants, 22 million, and they're giving them free housing.
They get Section 8 housing.
They get food stamps.
They get free medical.
You know, Medicare doesn't have any money now, and they're putting them all on free insurance.
People out here in the real world, they're out of touch with us.
We're suffering out here, you know, and they're putting all these people in, and they're wanting to change the diagram of the United States.
They're wanting to turn it all democratic.
They're wanting to change our ideology and what we were founded on.
And they just have not supported Israel.
There's just a lot of reasons.
They've put so many regulations on drilling.
You have trickled down the economy, made everything go up.
They flooded the economy with money.
During the COVID, they gave people $4,000 for unemployment and then $400 a week for over two years and then no taxes on it.
I worked through it and I made $15 an hour and I worked through it.
A lot of these people on unemployment never even had a job.
All they had to come down there and say they cleaned houses or whatever.
And what did you do, Diane?
What was your job during COVID?
I worked at the hospital.
I worked in the service part of the hospital.
And you saw a lot of COVID patients come through, I would imagine.
Well, yes, I did.
But during that time, they got $13,000 for every patient that came in the door that they said had COVID.
They got $30,000 for every COVID patient that died.
So if you had a heart attack or no matter what kind of illness you had, you had COVID.
All right.
And some more information from USA Today on the fluoride.
It says, why is fluoride added to drinking water?
It says that the American Dental Association says adding fluoride to water streams is a quote safe, beneficial, and cost-effective public health measure, citing studies that it cuts cavities in children and adults by 25%.
It's quoting the president of the American Dental Association saying, Decades of research and practical experience indicate that fluoride is safe and beneficial to oral health.
You can, of course, if you're interested in that, find out more from the American Dental Association and look at the studies that they're citing.
Eric, Buffalo, New York, Harris Supporter.
Good morning.
Oh, yeah, this is out to the so-called mega-cult and fake Christians.
Remember when they asked Donald Trump, do we pray for forgiveness?
He said, no, he has no reason to pray for forgiveness.
You know, when you preachers lay your hands on Donald Trump and go to praying, believe me, he thinks you're praying to him as the God.
He dogs the media because the media deals with facts.
And facts is very controversial to him and his cult.
So, you know, they go to Fox News, they live in this bubble, and in that bubble, they don't deal with reality.
It's a sad thing when an old, old man cannot accept losing.
But after Tuesday, catch the tears, Donald, because it's going down again.
Chuck in Louisville, Kentucky.
You're undecided, Chuck?
Yes.
I don't know who set up this system where half of the United States is divided, where some states, over half, are an international state.
So does this mean we can accept votes from all over the world on our election?
This sounds like a Chinese plot to overthrow.
You're talking about ballots coming from overseas from American citizens.
So, like military or.
Citizens, but they call them states like Columbia is now a state.
So Columbia can vote on the United States elections.
That's crazy.
No, no, they cannot vote in U.S. elections.
No, well, why are they an international state?
Like New Jersey is an international state.
So Willie in Texas, Trump supporter.
Good morning, Willie.
Good morning.
Okay.
That guy was a perfect example.
What I want to talk about really quickly is that he and every Harris supporter that called today has been on Trump and calling him names.
And they had not said one thing about anything about policy.
You know, these folks honestly know nothing about Donald Trump.
They probably only just heard of the guy coming through when he was in the apprentice.
But believe me, New Yorkers definitely, we know that I'm a kind of a but Willie, that's not fair.
He was president for four years.
So you can't say people only know him from the apprentice.
No, no, ma'am.
I'm talking about even before then, before then, like in 2016, when he comes down the elevator, the escalator, and they're like, holy cow, this is the apprentice guy.
Okay, but anyway, here's more, you had a clip about Dana Bash, and she was talking to Tim Scott, and she asked him that question about, well, can you get Donald Trump to, I'm paraphrasing, can you get him to accept the, you know, the rulings or whatever it was?
Here's the thing.
And I'm Donald Trump, and he's answered it plenty of times.
And I wish Tim Scott had just listened and the rest of these guys and stopped playing mealymouth.
Because the fact is that Donald Trump said, if it's cheating, if there are all kinds of discrepancies in the voting, in the ballots, he's not going to automatically say, okay, well, I guess I lost.
You know, no, it's not going to happen like that.
He's not Mitt Romney or any of these other folks who just give in.
So let me ask you what Dana Bash was asking about in 2020.
Ben President, is that what his plan is?
And, you know, should he not do that?
Even then, ma'am, he was not planning on saying that.
What happened?
He was not planning on declaring victory early?
No, he didn't declare victory early.
What he did was he got up there after it was like the next day after all the counting.
And he said, you know what?
I think we did win.
I think I did win.
Why?
Because of all of the ridiculous cheating that was going on.
And just one last thing before you cut me off.
It's happening again.
Okay?
It's happening again.
We've got, if you look at the...
And you have proof of cheating, Willie.
You have proof.
Ma'am, I will ask you this, please.
And I know you like the Washington Post and the New York Times and all the, you know, you quote from those newspapers.
Go ahead, Willie, with your point.
My point is, pull up the gateway pundit.
There's all kinds of proof that talks about how they are cheating now with all of the ballots going to different states.
Got it.
And this is Stephen on X who says, the two-party system is failing Americans.
Look to your third-party candidates, and I am sure most Americans would be surprised they fit more into one of the third parties.
And Riddle says, I cannot wait for this to be over.
Mike in Bessemer City, North Carolina.
I live in a rural area, and I sure do not want the country to become California and New York.
And if Harris gets in, we will not have an American country anymore.
And here is Chas in Jacksonville, Florida.
The former president lacks decency, and anyone supporting him condones his wild and dangerous statements like the media is fake news, and a bullet should pass through them first.
Mimi, please play this clip.
We will see if we can't find that for you.
But here is more from CNN's State of the Union.
This is anchored Dana Bash and Senator Fetterman of Pennsylvania.
How worried are you about this being a repeat?
Because he didn't win, but it caused a lot of problems.
Well, I'm not worried.
I'm not worried about it.
It's just like a thing.
It's the same thing that he tried in 2020.
And, you know, we had absolutely a secure election.
And now there was voter fraud in Pennsylvania, and it was a handful of Republicans, and they had their dead moms voting for Trump.
And I'd like to remind everybody that they were all caught and they were prosecuted.
And now, and again, Dan Patrick in Texas still owes me a significant lot of money for the reward that he owes from 2020.
There was no voter fraud.
He tried.
And I would just tell him that desperation is the worst cologne.
And I expected he was going to do that.
It's not going to be effective, just any more effective than it was in 2020.
And anyone that platformed his lies, that was a very expensive kinds of habit as well, too.
You know, Fox had to pay over $800 million for those kinds of lies.
And all of his supporters, you know, they were all dragged into court and they all turned their minds and they're like, oh, no, oh, no.
I'm so sorry that I lied.
And remember the kraken?
The kraken?
You know, and her defense was, nobody takes her possibly seriously.
It's again, it's the same sad story that he had in 20.
And I'd like to remind everybody that Biden wrecked his shit by 80,000 votes.
And now we're going to be back in the same situation.
He's going to try to lie and claim these baseless things.
But now we're going to have a new team leading America, and that's going to be Harrison Walls.
But it is going to be close.
And here is Omari in Columbia, Maryland, a Harris supporter.
Good morning.
Good morning.
I want to try to make this quick.
It's kind of a lightning round trying to get to these points, but I can't vote for Donald Trump on his economic policies.
I mean, this is a guy who bankrupted multiple casinos.
There's a special kind of incompetence to bankrupt casino, whereas the business model is people get you money.
He added $8 trillion in debt for four years.
And economists are saying conservatively he could add another $7 trillion if he's able to implement his policies again.
At worst, another $15 trillion.
He also says that he won't tax the rich.
Well, if he's not going to tax the rich, then who's going to get taxed?
The middle class and poor people.
And what happens is they're going to start making cuts to social programs that have a misconceptible effect on the amount of debt that we have.
His leadership can't vote on him, vote for him because of his response to COVID.
If you look at like the movie Jaws, where the mayor of the town refused to, he refused to close the beaches because he didn't want to ruin the 4th of July celebration.
That's kind of what Donald Trump has done, let people go out to the waters knowing that COVID was dangerous.
And he admitted as much to Bob Woodward.
The Capitol riots, as Trump supporters like to say, when he told the protesters go down to protest peacefully.
Well, they went down there and he watched as Ben Limon sued for hours and didn't say anything until a lot of harm was already done.
On immigration, another analogy I'm going to use is if you view immigration as like a house fire, you can be upset at the slow response from the Democrats on it.
But who am I going to be more upset with?
The slow response or the person who says, Don't put out the fire and let other people take the blame and don't fix it until I'm in charge.
That's kind of what he's done on Haitian immigrants.
You know, Dan Quayle, his career was basically done when he misspelled potato.
But here, Donald Trump is telling the most outrageous of lies about Haitian immigrants eating cats and dogs.
JD Vance jumps in on it, and JD jumps in on it and says, Crime has exploded, HIV cases have exploded.
None of these things are true.
And the Haitian migrants have been subject to threats and violence, well, threatened violence ever since.
They've never come out and told people, hey, we can't do this kind of thing.
We can't threaten people's lives like this.
All right, Amari.
Let's talk to Michael in Grosspac, Texas, supporting neither.
Hello.
Hi.
Go ahead, Michael.
Okay.
Yes, I support neither party because honestly, I do not see any real significant difference on the most important issues, just minor disputes.
What I think the American people really need is an election reform, particularly something like ranked choice, maybe, but honestly, it would have to be something much more than that, considering I think it seems to me that both parties are captured by special interest lobbying groups, and that's absolutely evil.
But there needs to be viable other options than what we have now.
And that's pretty much what I had to say.
So thank you.
And Sean in Niagara County, New York, Trump supporter.
Good morning.
Good morning, Mimi.
How are you?
Good.
Yes, I just want to remind my fellow Americans that it seems like the Democratic callers are totally following the Rules for Radicals tactics, which is accuse others of what you're guilty of, demonize the other side so they don't look human.
So I just want my fellow Americans to be aware of this, look into it, and inform yourselves because that's the most important thing.
Is we need to inform ourselves and do our own research because relying on the media now seems to be difficult at best.
You know, believe what you research.
You know, do your due diligence, do your research.
You know, I was a history major in college, and it's just everything's just gone crazy as far as I'm concerned.
So just I just want my fellow citizens to be aware of, do their own research, and, you know, vote your conscience too.
Okay.
So but everybody get out there and vote, whether you vote for Trump or Harris.
Just get out there and vote and definitely use your right to vote because a lot of people made the ultimate sacrifice for us.
They have that right.
Thank you, Mimi.
And in Silver Spring, Maryland, a Harris supporter, Mark, you're next.
Good morning.
I'm really impressed how you parry all the call-ins.
I have four points, and you could stop me after 60 or 90 seconds.
The four points follow with detail: why to vote for Vice President Harris?
Health care, COVID, and the economy, guns and flee immigrants, and U.S. world standing.
What do I mean?
Quickly.
Obamacare now covers 40 million Americans.
This saves 40,000 lives for those who didn't have access before.
And Vice President Harris will let women decide how to care for themselves.
COVID and the economy.
Reminding people, 1.2 million Americans have died during COVID in four years.
You see the CDC.
That's twice the American military has lost in World War II and World War I combined.
It was devastating emotionally, socially, and economically.
And under Trump, fighting COVID was mayhem.
And under Biden, it was organization.
And the Fed Reserve in May recently said, U.S. has the world's best post-COVID recovery.
Yes, things are expensive, but don't forget, we were devastated during COVID.
Guns and fleeing immigrants.
U.S. floods Central America with guns.
See The Economist 2019.
And Trump is in bed with the gun industry.
I hate to tell them, but drug cartels don't have Second Amendment rights.
Okay, last point.
U.S. world standing.
Trump will backstab Ukraine, destabilize Poland, and that and Europe, and that would destabilize the Mideast and threaten Israel.
All right, Mark.
Be very patient.
Thank you.
Rhonda, California, Undecided Voter.
Hi, Rhonda.
Undecided.
Yes, I am from California, born and raised in the Bay Area where Kamala Harris was once district attorney.
I saw her live and in action as a district attorney as I was interning to become a probation officer.
She took over the courtroom.
She had everyone entrance, the judge, the attorneys, and the prosecution.
When she and Biden ran on the first ticket to become president and vice president, she visited Oakland, California, where she made promises across the board to Oakland, California.
Since then, two major franchises, not only will three, the Oakland Raiders, the Oakland A's, and the Golden State Warriors, all left Oakland, taking revenue out of Oakland, California.
Oakland, California now has the highest rate of homelessness, along with San Francisco, has the highest rate of homelessness.
Here I am on the eve to decide who am I going to vote for.
Trump, I can't, his rhetoric is just too hardcore.
It would be against my ethics to vote for him.
His policies, yeah, some of them are good, but some of them are not.
With Kamala Harris, she makes promises.
And where was she for the last four years?
Where she's been?
No one has seen her.
I haven't seen her.
So again, I'm homegrown here in California.
We are suffering here in California.
We have a high rate of homelessness.
Our prices are astronomical.
Our gas prices are almost $5.50 a gallon.
And I'm in California.
When are you planning to decide?
You are going to vote, right?
You know, I have been sitting watching C-SPAN, CNN, all the major networks.
I'm undecided.
And I'll be honest with you, I'll cast my vote, but I will cast neither Trump nor Harris and just vote for all the propositions.
I love C-SPAN.
Thank you for hearing me.
All right.
And here was former President Trump at an event in Littitz, Pennsylvania yesterday.
And I'm just looking here, and I'm watching.
And this has nothing to do with corruption, but has to do with a little bit of intelligence.
And I have a piece of glass over here.
And I don't have a piece of glass there.
And I have this piece of glass here.
But all we have really over here is the fake news, right?
And to get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news.
And I don't mind that so much.
I don't mind that.
I don't mind that.
So I have a piece of glass here.
And the problem with that glass is it's, I don't look great on television when you have a four-inch piece of glass that a Howitzer can't go through.
That was the former president yesterday in Pennsylvania.
And this is Ann in Huntington, West Virginia, Trump supporter.
Hi, Ann.
Oh, hello.
My comment, something I never thought I would have done before, but I am going to support President Trump.
We had terrorists and criminals, you know, from around the world here.
That didn't happen before.
That's insane.
And that one thing for me is disqualifying for Kamala Harris.
President Biden put her in charge of the border.
She hasn't really even been there, hasn't commented on the problems.
That one thing turned me away from her.
I haven't heard anything from her that would help me support her at all.
How can she possibly fix the problems we have here or problems around the world?
If we have all this coming in to our cities, we don't even know who is here.
We don't even know what's going to happen in the future.
It's a really terrifying thought, what has happened.
And I think it might have been something that was kind of not, I'm not going to say pre-planned, I don't know, but I think there's been some kind of plan from day one, and it's horrible.
It's insane, and there's just not enough talk about it.
It's absolutely insane.
And for me, it's disqualifying.
And I'm a former Democrat, but I'm an independent now, and I just cannot.
I've tried to listen to her and see if there's anything that I could like.
I can't find anything that one thing is a disqualifier for me.
All right, Ann.
Let's talk to Shirley in Virginia, a Harris supporter.
Shirley, are you there?
Doesn't look like we have Shirley.
And this is Nicholas on Facebook, who says, this day will once again be decisive for the whole world.
And it is something that preoccupied American people may not want to hear, as they most likely want their newly elected leader to focus on interior policy.
I really hope they choose for less turmoil, less lies, freedom, and liberty and justice for all.
I wish I were a U.S. citizen and I could vote.
And that's the time that we've got.
Up next, a conversation with the chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, Benjamin Hoveland.
We'll learn about the Commission's role in helping Americans vote and ensuring the security of this year's elections.
And later, we'll be joined by Dan Tokaji, Dean of the University of Wisconsin's Law School and Election Research Center.
We'll talk about the flurry of election lawsuits we're seeing before tomorrow's voting and what to expect after.
This election night, C-SPAN delivers something different.
Not just the presidential race, but the state races that will decide the balance of power in Congress.
No political pundits, no spin, no commercials.
Just the candidates, the results, and you.
Follow C-SPAN this election night beginning at 7 p.m. Eastern, live Tuesday, on TV, online, or on the free C-SPAN Now video app.
In the book Night of the Assassins, author Howard Bloom tells a story of Hitler's 1943 effort to assassinate three world leaders, FDR, Joseph Stalin, and Winston Churchill.
In the middle of World War II, these men were planning to meet secretly in Tehran.
The Nazis wanted to kill them.
Connecticut-based writer Howard Bloom says his initial idea was to tell the tale of Operation Long Jump.
In his note in the back on sources, he writes, I wanted to write a suspenseful character-driven story of men, heroes, and villains caught up in a tense, desperate time who needed to find courage and cunning to do their duty for their countries and to fulfill their own sense of honor.
Author Howard Bloom with his book, Night of the Assassins.
On this episode of Book Notes Plus with our host Brian Lamb.
BookNotes Plus is available on the C-SPAN Now free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts.
This election night, track up-to-the-minute detailed results for the national campaign down to the congressional district level on c-span.org slash results.
That's results by state, presidential, senate, house, and governor's races.
Stay informed on election night online at c-span.org slash results.
Washington Journal continues.
Welcome back to Washington Journal.
We're joined now by Benjamin Hoveland.
He is the U.S. Election Assistance Commission chair.
Welcome to the program.
Thanks for having me, Mimi.
It's great to be here.
So start by telling us about the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
How is it created?
What is its purpose?
Absolutely.
So we are a small federal agency.
We were created by the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which was Congress's response to the Florida 2000 election.
And we were designed to be independent bipartisan agency.
We really have four primary mission areas.
We test and certify voting equipment.
We distribute grants to the states from Congress.
Mostly those have been around security grants in recent years.
We do a survey of how elections are administered all across the country, how Americans engage in the process.
For example, do they get registered at a motor vehicle office or online?
Do they vote by mail, early in person on election day?
We even see what the average age of poll workers is.
And then finally, we serve as a clearinghouse of best practices.
Because each state runs elections a little bit differently.
We look across the country, we identify best practices and share those so that election officials don't have to reinvent the wheel and those best practices can benefit everyone and ultimately better serve voters.
Well, let's talk about those different practices because elections are run at the local level.
So how different are they across the country?
Yeah, it really does vary state by state, which is why when we talk about trusted information around elections, we always say that you should go to your state or local election official because those dates and deadlines matter, polling place hours, all of those things vary.
But what you see that's consistent all across the country is the people who run our elections are professionals.
They follow the laws of their state, and there's transparency built into the process.
And that's an important thing for people to know.
But aren't there lots of challenges given how different things are and from one locality to another, one state to another?
Should there be more uniformity?
Well, it's certainly something we can talk about, but there are a lot of benefits that we get from the decentralized nature of our elections.
I think back to 2020, when obviously in the pandemic, we were looking at more Americans than ever voting by mail.
You had states like Oregon and Washington who had spent over a decade transitioning to full vote by mail, and they had so many lessons learned that they and we were able to share with their colleagues across the country who were seeing record amounts of mail balloting.
And so those type of things allow us both to share those experiences, but also to have states pioneer new innovations.
Things like Arizona created online registration years ago, and now 41 states in the District of Columbia have that.
If we were waiting for federal legislation, we'd probably be still waiting.
So it is a great way to expand and see innovation in the field, but it certainly presents challenges as well.
I want to ask you about the level of confidence of Americans of this election.
This is a Pew Research poll that was conducted last month in October.
And it's asking, it says that most voters are confident that elections will be run well, but more skepticism among Trump than Harris supporters.
And here's a graphic of that.
It's showing of all voters, you know, it's up here at, you know, more rather than less.
At least that's good.
But there is a big difference here between Harris supporters and Trump supporters.
What do you make of those kinds of numbers?
Well, one thing we know from social scientists is that unfortunately trust in election outcomes is often tied to if your candidate wins or loses.
So there is that element.
But there's certainly a lot of pieces of the election administration process that most Americans are unfamiliar with.
And election officials have been doing a good job in the last several years trying to show more of that process.
I think historically most Americans would tune in on election night, hope there was a winner called by the media.
But what we know in the elections administration space is that election night results are always unofficial because there are processes and procedures that election officials follow to ensure the accuracy and integrity of our election.
But most people haven't historically been interested in that.
I know I've bored enough family members at Thanksgivings historically, but I can see the difference now where people are, more Americans are interested in that process.
And so at the AC, we've created a number of videos to try to explain the process.
We see election officials around the country doing behind-the-ballot tours, whether that's in person at their offices or doing videos to show people the work that goes into running elections, show people the safeguards that are in place that you don't see just as a voter.
You mentioned one of your objectives was certifying equipment.
And I want to show you this article from ABC News.
Elon Musk pushes false conspiracies about voting machines during Swing State Town Hall.
He says this, quote, I'm a technologist.
I know a lot about computers.
Musk told the crowd during the event, quote, and I'm like, the last thing I would do is trust a computer program because it's just too easy to hack.
What do you make of those comments and how easy is it to hack those voting machines?
Well, so first we don't trust them.
We have systems in place to utilize that technology, utilize the fact that technology is better at the mundane process of counting millions of ballots, but then we have checks in place for that.
So you mentioned the testing and certification program.
Certainly that's a part of it.
At the AC, we have both standards that voting systems are built to, and then we have accredited labs that accredit that equipment.
And they test it to a range of things, whether that's security, usability, accessibility.
It's very rigorous testing.
But then you have, at the local level, you have pre-election testing where you make sure the equipment is working the way it's supposed to.
And then you have post-election testing and or audits to ensure that it worked the way it was supposed to.
And so essentially, what you see, the vast majority of Americans, you know, over 95% of Americans, are going to be voting on a paper ballot or on a piece of equipment with a paper ballot audit trail.
And then on the back end of the election, again, you use that equipment for the efficiencies.
When you think about, again, millions of ballots, dozens of races, it's just an exponential amount to count when you compare to other countries where you see hand counting.
There's only one thing on the ballot.
And so that's a much more simple process.
We use the equipment for the efficiency, but then you have checks in place to ensure that it's working the way it's supposed to.
Now, these voting machines are not connected.
They don't have the ability to be connected to a network.
They can't be connected to Wi-Fi.
They can't be connected to Bluetooth.
So how easy would it be to cyber attack one of those computers and just switch all the votes?
Yeah, the vast majority don't.
Again, each state runs elections a little bit differently.
There's a few places where they utilize brief connection for sending results.
But by and large, you're talking about what would be physical access to the equipment.
Again, that would, and extended physical access, which would be difficult.
Again, what we've seen a lot more of and what is relatively speaking, particularly for our foreign adversaries, lower hanging fruit, is the information environment.
And again, we've heard from our intelligence community about foreign align influence, about actors from foreign adversaries trying to influence Americans online, putting out some of these false videos and false narratives about how elections are administered or potential issues that are arising.
We've seen that.
We saw it in 2016, 2020, and we've seen a lot of it already this cycle as well.
And if you'd like to join our conversation with Benjamin Hoveland, he is the chair of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
You can do so.
Our lines are Democrats 202748-8000, Republicans 202-748-8001, and Independents 202-748-8002.
You can start calling in now.
There's this article here, Ben, by on NPR.org, ballots set on fire in three states as election day approaches.
How worried are you about the physical security of those ballots of people that have already voted?
So a couple things there.
I mean, certainly that story, those incidents that have occurred are concerning.
Again, but it's also an outlier, bad actor, or bad actors, and fairly limited when you think that nearly 80 million Americans have already cast their ballot.
And those stories, while unfortunate, and I'm certainly hopeful that that person will be held to account.
But when you look at the work that election officials have done to identify impacted voters, to reach out to them to help mitigate the impact of that, again, it just tells you about the planning and preparation that goes into elections.
You know, so often election administrators hear someone will say, well, what do you do the rest of the year?
Or what do you do in the off years?
And the reality is that running elections is a huge logistical undertaking that takes a lot of planning and preparation for all types of scenarios, whether natural disasters or man-made.
I look at, you know, simply one of the things I think about this cycle is obviously the state of North Carolina, I mean, so much of the Southeast was impacted by hurricanes, but places in North Carolina that never would have expected to be impacted by a hurricane were.
But all 100 counties in North Carolina had early voting up and running on time.
And that's a testament to the election officials in that state and across the country and the work they do preparing to administer our elections.
Well, speaking of threats of violence against people, here is the front page of the USA Today that says prepping for protests and possible violence helps to protect ballot counting.
What have you been seeing around the country as far as security measures in place to protect not only the ballots and the counting of those ballots, but the people involved?
Yeah, so this has been certainly something that we've seen change since 2020.
It is partially a spin-off from some of that disinformation and the false narratives out there about how our elections are administered or the integrity of our elections.
Those have resulted in threats and harassment to people.
And what we've seen is, again, so much preparation, so much outreach to local law enforcement.
You know, there has historically been some relationship usually, but the outreach and tabletop exercises that we've seen around the country to prepare for an array of incidents has really been impressive.
Again, we distribute grant money I mentioned, the Havis, the Help America Vote Act security grants.
We've seen that used for a number of things.
It's very flexible, so it may go to replace paperless equipment.
It may go for audits.
It may go for cybersecurity protection.
But we've also seen it used significantly for physical security, whether that's cameras or swipe card access to particularly sensitive areas, but also hardening our physical barriers to facilities, things like bulletproof glass, things like making office space more secure for the election officials who work there.
All right, let's talk to callers.
So we'll start with Matt.
He's an independent in Maryland.
Good morning.
Good morning.
I think the elephant in the room is that Donald Trump, Mike Johnson, and other Republicans have already said that they're going to try to steal the election again, to overturn the election if Vice President Harris wins.
What are you doing to ensure that we're prepared for that?
And last time we weren't prepared.
It came very close, basically with if Mike Pence, who Trump's supporters wanted to hang and Trump said, fine, let it happen, had capitulated, we would be in a very different spot.
What are we doing to make sure that what they say that they're going to do, if they lose, doesn't happen again?
Thank you.
Well, thanks for the call.
A couple things that makes me think about, you know, first, we've seen more coordination than I've seen ever before at the federal level with a variety of our both intelligence community partners and law enforcement partners to talk about an array of scenarios that may come up to prepare for that, to support our election officials as they run elections.
The other part that I think is important to remember is I mentioned earlier that election night results are always unofficial.
Anyone who says that they won or lost coming up tomorrow night, we won't know that for sure.
And that's because there are safeguards and safety measures in place.
There are procedures, whether it is for confirming mail ballots, whether it is for provisional ballots.
Again, those are safeguards that are built into the place.
That's why it takes time.
And then election officials work through that.
They dot the I's, they cross the T's, they double-check the math.
And that's ultimately then when the election is certified.
And it's important for Americans to understand that and to understand that when you're looking for information about that, to go to your state and local election officials is the trusted source.
And hopefully that helps people understand when there is certain rhetoric out there that they know where to go to get accurate information.
We've got a question for you from John in San Antonio, Texas.
He says, in 2020, we saw a 131% increase in mail-in ballots.
The mail-in ballot rejection rate went from 2 to 3% in every other election to 0.02% in 2020.
Why was that?
There's a lot of numbers there.
I know that's going to be hard for you to keep track of.
I'm trying to do math in my head.
It's essentially the rejection rate of those mail-in ballots.
And what is that?
Absolutely.
So I don't exactly know where those numbers come from, so I'm not going to speak to those specifically.
But what I'll talk about broadly in 2020 was that we did see a record amount of mail ballots, but at the same time, it wasn't a new process for Americans.
In 2016, nearly a quarter of all Americans voted by mail.
That went up to almost 45% in 2020.
But this year, we'll see probably more mail ballots than any year other than 2020.
Because Americans experienced voting that way, because they like it, I vote that way.
But when you talk about the rejection rates, there's a number of things that go into that.
And what we also saw in 2020 was in anticipation of a lot of first-time mail voters or people who were new to the process, you also saw a huge amount of voter education, people talking about the process, talking about, you know, there were PSAs about naked ballots and things like that to get people's attention, to help them know to read the instructions, to fill out their absentee ballot according to those state instructions.
And that went a long way to reducing the amount of rejection rates.
And let's talk to Andre and Gates Mills, Ohio, Republican.
Yes, good morning.
Thank you for doing all of this.
It's great that we're talking about election security and yes.
So Andre, you got to mute your TV.
You got to just talk right into the phone.
Yep.
But we heard you.
Keep going.
Okay.
So we're talking about election security, election, call it doubts or skepticism.
I'm just wondering if, given the last, uh couple of elections, where there has been so much, so much misinformation, so so many lies uh, starting from um one part of the electorate, which is the national socialist election they,
they always plan to question elections.
That's one of their first plays in their book.
Who's the national socialist, andre?
Who are you talking about?
Yeah, I am talking about the national socialist mind that dominate the Republican Party these days.
Okay and so?
So what's your question about?
About election security?
Yeah exactly exactly okay, let's talk to Dan in Atlanta, uh line for Democrats.
And look, I just want to just just like, I want to just start at the beginning.
This whole uh, a segment, you know, you know this whole electric security it let's just get this straight.
It was based on a lie.
Can you hear me?
Yes, go ahead.
What was based on a lie, Dan?
Yeah okay okay, i'm sorry, okay with this whole thing was just based on a lie.
You know uh, what they're talking about, the voting machine.
You know FOX NEWS had to pay out 787 of a million, a million dollars.
Okay, so can we just get this?
There was never no voting fraud.
The only voter fraud, you know, like I live here in Georgia was up in Cherokee County where they went in and they tampered when the Republicans and Trumps people went up there and tampered with the voting machines, then we had another Republican here in one of the counties.
He actually voted nine times.
All of the election mess was, it was done by the Republicans.
They with color what they changed, Georgia voting laws.
Georgia voting laws based on a lie.
This is crazy.
Let's just call it what this is.
This is a lie.
This is nonsense.
You shouldn't be debating like.
This is not a intellectual and debate.
This is all based on a freaking lie.
All right, all right Dan, any comment Benjamin?
Well, I would say that uh, you know, certainly there is a lot of uh, false and misleading information out there about elections, but one of the things that uh, you know has stayed the same uh, election after election, is the work that election officials do to run our elections, the safeguards that are in place uh, every election, and that is uh all throughout the process, and it's important for people to understand that and to see that.
You know, one of the things that I say a lot about election administration is that, when you look at it, good election administration is not about politics.
It's about good governance and customer service.
It's about serving the voters and making sure they're able to participate in the process, and certainly to me that's a good you, You know, that's a good way to measure anything that comes up around elections.
Is this helping people to participate?
Is this helping them to be involved?
And certainly that can be a good line to look at.
Lance in Fort Lauderdale wants to know: how do you restore the ballots that were burned up in the ballot box fires?
That's a great question.
So, again, election officials do a lot of preparation.
There's a lot of work that goes into it.
Depending on the state of those, if they are, so in one of those instances, there was fire suppressant in there, and so it those ballots were largely saved as I understand it, but they might not be able to be scanned if there was some damage to them.
States have a process, most states have a process called ballot duplication, which is set out in law and is very specific and usually involves bipartisan teams.
They meticulously copy over ballots onto a new ballot that can be scanned.
That's then documented, and all the information is retained for chain of custody.
Again, there's a lot of documentation in election administration.
So, those are probably the easier ones.
The ones that are significantly damaged, there still may be indication on the envelope of who that voter was.
From what I've seen in reporting, several hundred of those have been able to be identified.
And election offices do outreach, ideally, through email or the phone.
Sometimes it may be sending another voter a ballot, and then certainly making announcements to say you know, ballot drop boxes are checked regularly.
So, it may be, you know, if you dropped off between 5 p.m. and 11 a.m. on this date, you know, please contact us.
There's also other tracking that occurs to see who's requested or received a ballot and what's been returned.
So, there are a number of ways for election officials to identify and reach out to voters.
But the bottom line is election officials are committed to ensuring that Americans are able to participate in the process and they do that work to make sure that they can.
Don in Salem, Indiana, Republican line, you're on with Benjamin Hubland.
Hello, hi.
Good morning.
I just have a comment, really.
We wouldn't have this problem if Donald Trump would learn to control himself and act like a gentleman.
If you stop and look at the past over the years, you would notice that we've never had this problem until he actually started politics and started with the lies.
Someone needs to fat-check that guy, but he's never fat-checked.
And I don't understand why, but I am a Republican, but that guy is not going to get my vote.
Thank you.
All right, Don.
And speaking of the past, Diane from Morristown, New Jersey says, We used to know the results on election night.
There isn't a significant increase in population.
Since it's all handled locally, what has changed?
So, again, that's a great thing to raise.
Actually, nothing has changed as far as the actual counting of the votes.
Election officials have election night results have always been unofficial, and election officials have always gone through their process.
Election night calls, if you will, are a product of the media, and that is the media making a decision, doing the math, taking those preliminary results, and making an assessment that an election can be called.
And certainly, if the campaigns have done similar math, you often see someone concede.
But if we don't have that concession and we're dependent on the election officials' process, those certification deadlines, there's something called the canvas and certification process, and that's where election officials, again, review all of the information that's happened throughout the election.
You know, they do that accounting.
You also have, again, different deadlines for starting the processing of mail ballots, for example.
Or some states have a postmark deadline where others have a received by-election day standard.
So if you're in a postmark state where the ballot just has to be postmarked by election day, then there's a number of days after that that can come in.
I mentioned provisional ballots earlier.
All of those are safeguards in the process to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the ultimate results.
And so election officials do all that to produce what is the canvas and certification process.
So they have all that accounting taken care of and then they present that and say, you know, here, here is the evidence of this election.
We've accounted for all the ballots.
You know, here are some issues that popped up because things do come up, but we've explained that, we've investigated it, we've identified it.
You know, here were the people that cast provisional ballots that were eligible.
Here are the ones that are ineligible.
All of that is documented.
And that's ultimately what's certified.
So a lot of it depends on how close the election is.
Absolutely.
Because if it's already there's not enough outstanding ballots to change the result, then they essentially call it for that state.
Yes.
And again, you can at some point make that assumption, but when margins are very close, you know, certainly people are cautious on that.
Exactly.
Vanita in Baltimore, Democrat.
Good morning.
Good morning.
I had a question or a comment.
I can't imagine with all the eyes that are waiting for cheating on this election, how anyone would get away with it.
I mean, I would think that trying to influence an election would take a lot of people and a lot of planning.
And to me, it seems as though if in the end anyone accuses anyone of cheating, it would be their fault, in my opinion.
I mean, I don't know.
You're sitting right in front of the store.
How did you let it get robbed?
I wondered how difficult it is to influence an election, especially a national one.
Maybe a state one might be easier.
So great question.
It would be extremely difficult at scale.
You know, again, I'll say we see very limited instances of voter fraud, but we know it's exceedingly rare.
Where you tend to see it occur the most often is in very small races, local races, school board, sheriff, things like that.
But it's still exceedingly rare.
And part of that is what would be involved.
First of all, there are certainly laws in place.
There are felonies.
And then I think it's, you know, the scope and scale of particularly statewide elections.
You think about all the polling we're seeing.
There's been a lot of talk about that.
You know, all of it is, you know, plus or minus 3%.
You know, you're talking about, I mean, essentially, you're talking about a conspiracy to commit hundreds of thousands of felonies.
And then that could be thwarted by the rain.
So, you know, just realistically, the scope and scale coupled with the protections that are in place makes it extremely unlikely.
We've certainly seen, never seen anything in recent history where you have sort of widespread fraud.
And again, throughout the process, you have safeguards and safety measures.
You have bipartisan teams.
I've been to so many election offices where you have to have a Republican and a Democrat swipe in together into the tabulation room.
And so, again, the likelihood that you would be able to do that and do that in an undetected way is extremely minimal.
Well, let's talk about non-citizen voting.
Yeah.
We know that that is against the law.
It's a felony.
How are non-citizens even allowed to register?
And is that possible in certain localities?
Again, this is exceedingly rare.
It does happen.
Usually where you see the registration occur is a mistake by someone.
Either most commonly, and that's still very rare, someone was given inaccurate information by maybe somebody that's doing voter registration, or we've even seen instances at motor vehicle offices where somebody checks the box, but the motor vehicle then says, no, I'm not a citizen.
But they actually are.
Like that was a mistake?
Well, so they're not, but the motor vehicle clerk or that got processed anyway.
And so there are certain things.
And they'll say, hey, do you want to register to vote while you're here?
And the person might be like, sure, if that's allowed, I'll go ahead and do it.
So again, there are mistakes that get made, but it is exceedingly rare.
And then the number of people that actually end up voting is also exceedingly rare.
And the penalties for that are severe.
I mentioned it is a felony.
You know, what is likely to happen in that scenario?
We had, you know, there has been an incident reported in the news this cycle about a student in Michigan.
You know, while the, you know, while the legal process has to take place, if that was intentional and the facts as reported are true, you know, that person is likely to do jail time and then be deported.
You know, that is a big risk for a single vote when you're talking about the scope.
And we're going to have 160 million Americans cast a ballot this election.
Catherine in New Jersey, Independent Lion.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Thanks so much for taking my call.
Just want you to know C-SPAN is the network that I will be tuned into exclusively tomorrow night.
So thank you so much.
I just have a word of encouragement for Benjamin.
I'm a politically undeclared Christian.
And so much of what I'm seeing right now at ballot boxes being burned and just the protocols that are in place for security just breaks my heart.
I can't believe that this is the United States of America.
I feel like at times it's more of the actions of a militant country.
All that to say, so much of this is motivated by fear.
And when I read my Bible, it says 365 times that we're not to fear.
So I just want to encourage those who are standing on their values today.
And I want to thank Benjamin.
He probably doesn't get a whole lot of that.
And just let him know I have been so burdened to pray for poll workers and the safety of poll workers.
And I'm so grateful for those who give up their time.
I think of that mom and that daughter in Georgia and what they went through in 2020.
And let us all stand together and pray for these individuals and say thank you.
Their job is not an easy one.
So that's all I wanted to say today.
Thank you.
I'll just say, one, I appreciate that.
Thank you.
But also, there's a couple things there that are really important to remember.
One, there have been some unfortunate incidents.
But again, those are outliers.
Those are the exceptions, not the rule.
Again, nearly 80 million Americans have already voted.
I was in Michigan earlier or late last week, and they were running early voting for the first time in a presidential.
And there was great turnout.
People were happy to be participating.
And that's by and large what you see.
Again, there are incidents that are worth highlighting.
But again, we can't lose sight of the fact that nearly 160 million Americans will make their voice heard.
And they should be proud to do that.
And that is an awesome thing.
And I really appreciated the flag in there to thank your poll workers.
You know, we forget so many times, we forget so often that elections are run at the local level.
And that's both the official who is running elections, but also the poll workers, those people in the polling place who are your neighbors, who are people from your community who are taking time out of their lives to serve that day, to serve their community, serve our democracy.
And so, well, they'll help you through the process and give you the I voted sticker and thank you for coming out.
You know, it's also great to thank them and to know that, well, this election is here.
If you're interested in being a part of that, what other profession, what other thing can you just step into for a day?
And so we created a website at the Election Assistance Commission, helpamericavote.gov.
It's got information about being a poll worker.
And for anyone who wants to be a part of the process, they should reach out to their local election official.
That website, helpamericavote.gov, can get them there and sign up.
Be a part of it.
Help administer our elections.
See those safeguards and safety measures that I've been talking about.
It's really a great experience.
I've done it a number of times.
And so I encourage people to do that.
But I also encourage people to thank their poll worker if they're out tomorrow.
Well, thanks for ending on a positive note.
That's Benjamin Hoveland, chair of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
You can find out more about their work at eac.gov.
Thanks so much for coming in.
Thanks for having me.
Coming up on Washington Journal, we'll be joined by Dan Takaji.
He's Dean of the University of Wisconsin's Law School and Election Research Center.
We'll talk about the flurry of election lawsuits we're seeing before tomorrow's voting and what to expect after.
We'll be right back.
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Welcome back to Washington Journal.
We're joined now by Dan Takaji.
He is Dean and Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
We're talking about Campaign 2024 litigation.
Professor, welcome to the program.
Thank you for having me.
Can you talk about the scale of litigation we're seeing already for this campaign cycle?
Sure.
We've seen a lot of litigation this campaign cycle.
We always see a lot of litigation in a year divisible by four, But there do seem to be more cases this time around than has been typically the case in cases that are brought by both sides.
In general, the Republican Party and their allies have been focusing more on election integrity and the Democratic Party and their allies more on voting access.
But, you know, I was doing some searching over the weekend and found dozens of cases that have been brought just in the past few weeks, really by both sides on all sorts of issues, from absentee ballots to voting by military and overseas personnel to voter registration and list maintenance and voting purges and election certification.
Certainly a lot of litigation this cycle.
So give us an example of what we're seeing.
You know, for instance, voting from military people overseas.
That has always been the case.
What kind of litigation would there be around that?
Yeah, I can give an example.
There was a lawsuit that was brought in Michigan over this issue by the Michigan Republican Party against that state's Democratic Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson,
a former election law professor, having to do with the spouses and dependent, or at least some of the spouses and dependents of military and overseas personnel and whether they were entitled to vote through the means that are provided ordinarily for military and overseas voters, even if they had never lived in the state of Michigan before.
That's an example.
We've certainly seen a lot of litigation over absentee ballots.
For example, in Georgia, the Fulton County Republican Party brought a case challenging the use of election offices as return sites for absentee ballots.
On the Democratic side, you know, as I mentioned a moment ago, most of the cases tend to have to do with access.
For example, cases regarding the ability to return ballots or have them counted, even if they're not dated or otherwise fully compliant in the law.
We've seen this naked ballots issue, which arose back a few years ago, which is not nearly as exciting as it sounds.
It has to do with ballots that are returned without the security envelope.
The current state of play is that those ballots don't get counted, but people who mistakenly cast them can vote a provisional ballot, which at least it seems for now ought to be counted on or after Election Day.
And are these lawsuits just in the battleground states as far as geographic location?
No, certainly not.
In fact, one of the most important cases that has been brought is in Mississippi, which is on no one's list of battleground states.
This was a case entitled Republican National Committee versus Wetzel, or is a case, where the Fifth Circuit and a very conservative panel of the Fifth Circuit issued a decision just a few days ago saying that absentee ballots in that state, which are received after Election Day, should not be counted, even if they were postmarked on or before Election Day.
That's an interpretation of federal law.
It only applies in Mississippi, but if it were affirmed, it could have play in other states, which allow absentee ballots to be counted if they are received after election day, so long as they were postmarked on or before Election Day.
And how have the campaigns been preparing for this?
Is this something that they do like all since 2020?
Have they been preparing for this?
Or is this something that just happens right before?
And how do you prepare?
Well, I don't have any inside information on what exactly the campaigns and parties are doing, but I suppose I can engage in some informed speculation of that.
Certainly after the last presidential election, I'm sure that the parties both looked at what happened in court, what was successful, what wasn't successful, and started doing some planning.
But I'm sure that that planning has ramped up considerably and that there are a lot of lawyers on both sides, both within the parties and campaigns as well as within other groups about litigation.
I suppose one of the things that I'm noticing this time around, I'm sure it's happened before, but I think it's a little bit more conspicuous is you see some cases that are being filed close to Election Day, which are not so much hoping to get an injunction or other court order before Election Day, but might be thought of as placeholders.
So you might think of them as placeholder lawsuits.
Bringing a lawsuit, raising an issue regarding whether certain ballots, for example, should be counted, and hoping perhaps that that lawsuit, if it winds up being close,
especially in one of the swing states, might be activated so that it could become a vehicle for post-election litigation, possibly over the presidential rates, or it could be in some down ballot race as well that winds up being close.
Professor, I want to just play a short portion of former President Trump accusing Democrats of conspiring to steal the election at a rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
This is from last Tuesday.
After that, we'll hear from Vice President Harris in an interview with NBC last month about how her campaign is preparing to handle challenges.
Here it is.
We've set an all-time record in the early voting, by the way.
So if you have a mail-in ballot, get that damn ballot in, please, immediately because they've already started cheating in Lancaster.
They've cheated.
We caught them with 2,600 votes.
Now we caught them called 2,600 votes.
Think of this, think of this.
And every vote was written by the same person.
I wonder how that happened.
It must be a coincidence.
It must be a coincidence.
Last election, the former president came out on election night and declared victory before all the votes were counted.
What is your plan if he does that again in two weeks?
Well, let me say this.
We've got two weeks to go.
And I'm very much grounded in the present in terms of the task at hand.
And we will deal with election night and the days after as they come.
And we have the resources and the expertise and the focus on that as well.
So my team is ready to go.
Is that what you're saying?
Are you thinking about that as a possibility?
Of course.
This is a person, Donald Trump, who tried to undo the free and fair election, who still denies the will of the people, who incited a violent mob to attack the United States Capitol, and 140 law enforcement officers were attacked.
Some were killed.
This is a serious matter.
The American people are at this point, two weeks out, being presented with a very, very serious decision about what will be the future of our country.
Professor, first about former President Trump's allegations of voter fraud in Lancaster.
Yeah, well, I have not seen any evidence to support those claims.
I'm not sure exactly what he's referring to.
But, you know, I think one of the principles that we should keep in mind, and that includes those of us who hold ourselves out as elections or elections law experts, is to be careful about making any claims or supporting any claims until we've seen the evidence.
That is really, really important.
You know, people can stand up and make all sorts of claims, whether it's about vote suppression or voter fraud or something else.
They can stand before a podium and make all sorts of claims.
But if you're going to go to court and try to prove those claims, it's not just enough that you assert it.
You've actually got to come up with evidence to support your claims.
And, you know, if the Trump campaign or anyone else believes there is evidence of illegal votes, they can certainly, as they did last time, go into court if they have credible evidence to support their claims and try to support those allegations and try to have those votes rejected.
The Trump campaign, of course, did this and their allies did this four years ago.
Those lawsuits were by and large not successful in part because they failed to come up with the evidence to support those claims.
But I think it's all important for all of us to recognize that it's very easy to say things in the public forum, in the court of public opinion, and sometimes you can persuade people.
But in a court of law, you need evidence.
And judges who are appointed by Democrats and Republicans alike recognized that in 2020, granted those claims where there was evidence to prove violations and rejected those where there was not.
And I expect the same thing to happen again from judges across the ideological spectrum in this year's election.
And we'll take your calls for Dan Takaji on election lawsuits.
The numbers are Democrats 202, 748, 8,000, Republicans 202, 748, 8,001, and Independents 202, 748, 8,002.
Professor, I want to ask you about the case in Virginia.
The Supreme Court has already weighed in on that.
Can you explain the case and what the decision was?
This was a case involving so-called purge or removal from the registration rolls of approximately 1,600 voters on the grounds that they were not citizens.
There's a federal law, the National Voter Registration Act, commonly known as motor voter, although it regulates the registration process generally and not just voting at DMV offices.
There was a lawsuit brought by the Virginia Coalition for Immigrants' Rights to challenge this purge of voters on the ground that it violated the National Voter Registration Act's limitations on systemic list maintenance programs within 90 days of an election.
A lower court had issued an injunction preventing this removal or purge from taking place.
The Supreme Court stayed that injunction.
And I think most people, most observers, although the Supreme Court didn't explain its rulings, as it often unfortunately doesn't in these cases, I think most observers attribute that action by the Supreme Court to the so-called Purcell doctrine, named after a case from many years ago out of Arizona, Purcell versus Gonzalez.
That case has come to stand for the proposition that federal courts generally shouldn't issue injunctions or court orders that change the state of play in a state close to an election.
And that's what had happened in this case.
So, you know, a relatively small number of votes in the state of Virginia at stake there around 1,600.
But that was one of the relatively few actions that the Supreme Court has taken this matter.
Now, Professor, the headline says Supreme Court allows Virginia to purge suspected non-citizens from voter registration rolls.
I mean, are they non-citizens or are they not non-citizens?
I'm not sure we know for sure.
Is that, I mean, is that part of the case that we don't know for sure?
It certainly could be.
It's hard to tell exactly what the basis for the Supreme Court's ruling was because they didn't, as they don't often explain it, whether they were or not non-citizens.
Plaintiffs claim that some of them at least are not.
Virginia maintains that they are.
But as I've said, you know, allegations and defenses have to be proven by evidence.
And we haven't had a full hearing.
We haven't had a full opportunity for a trial or anything like that in this case.
And Virginia isn't considered a battleground state, but could other states, based on this decision by the Supreme Court, start purging suspected non-citizens from their voter roles?
I mean, it's possible that they could.
You know, it's possible, however, that a state court could issue an injunction or a ruling on this question.
But I think the concern about this decision is that it opens the door to states violating this prohibition that the National Voter Registration Act imposes on systemic list maintenance programs within 90 days of an election, making it very difficult to get an injunction from a federal court to stop that from happening.
Vicki in Pilwaukee, Wisconsin, Democrat, good morning.
Good morning.
Yes, I'm just calling to thank you and both this guest and your previous guest for the talks on election security.
I am a single-issue voter, and I find real assurance in hearing about all the efforts put forth on both the national, state, and local areas to assure voter security.
So I just wanted to thank you.
And what's your one issue, Vicki?
My one issue is Donald Trump.
All right.
And this is Christopher, Ellicott City, Maryland, Republican.
Good morning.
Yes, good morning.
I hear Washington Journal every day, and I listen to these Democrats and their vitriolic language, all insulting Donald Trump.
Election interference has been evident in many of the last elections, but Donald Trump is a true patriot.
And Kamala Harris hasn't answered questions.
So, Christopher, getting back to our topic of litigation, what question do you have for Dan Takaji?
Yes, who are making the decisions on this?
What party affiliation do they have?
And how does that affect their rulings?
Yeah.
So great question.
You know, typically in the United States, election officials are, at least the state's chief election officials are affiliated with one party or the other.
And in some states, it's a Democrat.
In some states, it's a Republican.
For example, the chief election official in Georgia is a Republican.
The chief election official in Michigan, as I alluded to earlier, is a Democrat.
So those chief election officials are typically elected in partisan elections.
Some people, including me, think that's not an ideal system because you have effectively somebody who's a player for one of the teams being elected to the office.
But that is the norm in the United States as opposed to most other countries.
Now, judges are sometimes elected in our state court system.
In the federal court system, they are appointed by the president subject to confirmation by the United States Senate.
It is now a bare majority of the United States Senate.
But federal judges are technically nonpartisan.
They're not affiliated with the parties.
But of course, they were nominated by one party or the other's president.
Let's talk to David in Longmont, Colorado, Independent.
Yes.
My wife and I have been here for about a year and a half.
And my child just got married about three months ago, my youngest child.
So both my girls live here and they're married.
Now we're heading back to Florida.
We're going to take about five days, but we're not going to be able to vote in Florida.
I'm going to go out today and try to find out if I can get ballots and vote here in Colorado.
Now, I lived from 2000 to 2010 here and voted always here.
But then, because of my restaurants, I moved back to Florida where I built a couple more restaurants and then I voted there.
So I am in a dilemma.
Can I, you know, I don't know if I can vote here because the last time I voted, I voted in Titusville.
So David, are you registered in Colorado and in Florida?
What's the situation with your registration?
I believe I'm registered only in Florida right now.
But I voted, say, 10 years ago here a couple different times, probably four times, you know, in that 10-year period.
So I'm like stuck in the middle.
And I clearly want to vote for Trump.
But I need to vote for Trump here in Colorado, where we might have a prayer.
In Florida, we're going to win, hands down.
Okay.
Professor Takaji, what do you think?
Well, I'm not going to give a caller legal advice on TV, and especially not being admitted to the bar in either Colorado or Florida.
What I would say is that, you know, in most states, you have to be registered before the election, sometimes as long as 30 days before the election in order to vote in that election.
And you vote in the state of which you are a citizen, which means residing there with the intent to remain in that state.
That's the law.
And let's talk to Kathleen in Dayton, Ohio, Democrat.
Good morning.
Good morning.
C-SPAN is a treasure, a national treasure.
I'd like to ask the professor, I watched the VP debate with my two grandsons.
And it's funny the caller were prior to this.
We were in Longmont, Colorado.
I'm in Dayton, Ohio right now.
But anyway, we watched the debate.
They are 10 and 12.
So during that VP debate, my 12-year-old grandson, John, you know, sits upright and in shock.
And he says, I can't believe Vance just said that the way to deal with our gun issue is to make windows thicker at schools.
He was just appalled, I mean, and in shock.
My other grandson, about five minutes later, who is 10, sat up straight and said, Could anyone explain to me how an individual, he literally said this, how an individual with 34 felony counts is running for president.
So I want to ask the prof to try to explain to anyone, to any of us, why an individual is able to run for the presidency with 34 felony counts.
I want to encourage voters.
I went, I'm a Dem.
I went to two Trump rallies for four hours each.
I had a blast.
I had debates, conversations.
Everything was civil.
We can talk with one another, for God's sake.
We can talk with one another.
Thank you.
All right.
Kathleen.
Yeah.
There's nothing in the Constitution that prevents someone from running for president because they have been convicted of a crime, including a felony.
Now, there is a provision of the Constitution, a part of the 14th Amendment enacted after the Civil War, that prohibits someone from serving in federal offices, and most people think that includes president, if they have engaged in insurrection.
And some of your viewers may recall that the state of Colorado and its Supreme Court excluded President Trump from the ballot on the ground that he had engaged in insurrection.
But the United States Supreme Court in the Trump versus Anderson case reversed that decision, concluding that the state of Colorado, including its Supreme Court, was without the power to exclude President Trump on the ground that he had engaged in insurrection and was therefore ineligible to be president.
So President Trump will be on the ballot in all of the states.
And we don't have a determination, this defining determination from any court on whether or not he in fact engaged in insurrection.
If he did, most people believe that he would be constitutionally ineligible to serve.
But there being no federal law that allows an adjudication of that question, it's effectively out of the power of any court to exclude him from the ballot on that ground.
And Professor, regarding felons voting, having the right to vote, that would be a state issue.
So depending on which state you live in.
Correct.
State-by-state issue.
Some states have relatively strict laws on that.
Some states have more lenient laws.
But in general, eligibility to vote and the requirements in terms of, say, identification or when you have to register, how you can vote absentee, whether there's in-person early voting.
Those are all determined on a state-by-state basis.
And on the Republican line in Ellicott City, Maryland, Beth, good morning.
Yeah, hi, good morning.
Thanks so much for taking my call.
I'm a huge fan of this show.
I encourage everybody to listen to it.
I think it's so important for folks to hear both sides of the aisle, frankly, particularly in such divisive times.
My question is around the statement that the Trump administration did not present any evidence.
I'm actually an attorney.
I had heard, and so I actually researched this, and I'm not sure if you did, Professor, that a lot of the cases, actually all of them, that the Trump administration had submitted relative to voter alleging voter fraud had been dismissed not on the merits, but on a procedural basis.
And frankly, I could not find any case that went forward to hear the evidence.
So if you have knowledge of that, I'd like to hear that.
And you're talking about 2020, right, Beth?
Correct.
Yes.
My apologies.
Okay.
Go ahead, Professor.
Hey, Beth makes a very good point.
There were a lot of cases in which for procedural reasons like lack of standing, some of the cases, I think there were 73 cases that Trump or his allies brought in the last election cycle.
There were many cases in which they were dismissed on jurisdictional or procedural grounds without reaching the merits.
But there were a number of those cases in which Trump or his allies were allowed to present evidence.
In two of those cases, courts found for him that he had introduced sufficient evidence to prove his claims, but in most of them, he had, at least, courts determined that he had not.
And in the ones that they did find evidence of fraud, was it enough to change the results of the election?
It was enough to change the result of the elections.
There were relatively minor errors, and quite frankly, I can't remember exactly what they were, but they did not very significant issues in terms of the number of voters affected and certainly not to affect the result in any of the states.
Ben in Florida, Independent Line, good morning.
Good morning to you all.
Just a couple of questions.
Is the fact that he has not been sentenced on those charges in New York?
Does that matter as far as his ability to run?
And the second question was: I had thought that when the governor of Virginia entered into the, well, his right to purge the roles of people that were not citizens,
that the facts were they had written down themselves that they were not citizens and that anyone that was in error could appeal that particular thing.
And that a federal judge was the one who interviewed the state's rights to purge their own roles.
Am I right or wrong in that?
Yeah, I'll start with that question.
You're basically right about that, that at one point, I believe the state at least maintains that all of these people, the 1,600 or so people in Virginia, had indicated that they were non-citizens, possibly that they became citizens, or at least some of them became citizens at some later point.
And I think it is for that reason that the state had decided to purge them.
The question in this case, however, is whether that violated a provision of the NBRA that prohibits systematic list maintenance programs, basically the removal of voters within 90 days of a federal election.
Does that answer your question, Ben?
Thank you, yes.
But could you also touch on the other about Trump's ability to run?
Yeah, great question.
It wouldn't matter if he had already been sentenced, Ben, even if he had already been sentenced on those 34 felony counts and required to serve time in prison.
That wouldn't make him ineligible to run for or serve as president under our Constitution.
Barbara in East Point, Michigan, Democrat.
Good morning, Barbara.
Good morning.
Let me first tell you, I'm 84 years old, and my first election that I voted for president was in 1960 for Kennedy.
All I had to do was take my electric bill to the polling station, show it, and I voted.
It has become so outlandishly complicated and not just complicated, but everybody is suspicious of everybody else.
It just is disturbing to think of how far we've come.
We can't trust anybody or anything.
My second thing is I have been watching C-SPAN and watching the news, and I am really, really disturbed about how many respected, prominent Republicans have come out who have worked for him up close and personal and said he is a danger.
What do we need to know?
Other than that, you know, it's just become such a, I don't know, an anxiety.
All right, Barbara.
Professor Takaji.
Yeah, I won't comment on Barbara's anxieties about this coming race.
I think a lot of people are feeling anxious.
I understood the first part of her comment to be referring to the fact that in some states, requirements for voting and having one's vote counted have become more strict.
That's certainly true.
According to one report in 2024, nine states enacted laws making voting more restrictive.
On the other hand, a number of states have actually moved in the opposite direction and in one way or another, liberalized their laws, making it easier to vote.
By that same report's count, 19 states had gone in that direction.
So it's been a mix.
And as you might expect, you've generally seen states where Republicans pulled a majority in the legislature, making the laws more strict and Democrats making them more lenient.
Do you think, Professor, that that will have an impact, those voting changes since 2020, as far as maybe the number of ballots that will be counted or the amount of litigation that we might see after the election?
You know, whenever states are changing their voting laws, as they have in every election cycle in the more than 20 years that I've been following elections closely, you do see litigation.
I mean, that is inevitably the case.
Do I think they're likely to affect the result?
My short answer to that question is no.
Like, you know, of course, if we're in a Bush versus Gore type situation, Florida 2000, where the candidates are separated by just hundreds of votes, just over 500 votes, then sure, any small change in election rules could conceivably affect the result.
But it's unlikely in an election where the candidates are separated by tens of thousands of votes that these changes are going to be significant enough to affect the result.
But again, if the election is close enough in Key Swing states, then just about any change in law could matter.
Sid is a Republican in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Hi.
A little earlier you mentioned that Trump could be, was guilty of insurrection.
And from my understanding, none of the indictments against him had the word insurrection in them.
And also the 1,500 people that were arrested in connection with January 6th, none of them were charged with insurrection.
So I hope somebody could correct that so that that would not be a reason to not allow him to run.
And to be clear, I didn't say that he had engaged in insurrection.
What I said was that the Colorado Supreme Court had determined that President Trump had engaged in insurrection.
And there are, of course, indictments, including the federal case brought by Jack Smith in Washington, D.C., having to do with his actions leading up to the last presidential election.
That case is still pending.
But if Sid's point is that President Trump has not been found by any decision that is now in effect to have engaged in insurrection, that is correct.
And, Professor, as far as the status of that January 6th case, you said it's pending until after the election, are we going to see anything between the election and Inauguration Day on that case?
We could.
I couldn't tell you for sure what's going to happen in that case between now and the election.
I do expect that if President Trump is elected, he will order that case to be dismissed.
But before, if former President Trump wins on Election Day before he's inaugurated, is there a chance that something could happen in that case?
There could be, but I'm sure the case will not go to trial before his inauguration.
Bill in Cardington, Ohio, Democrat.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Yeah, my question is to the guest is under the 14th Amendment, since Trump was involved in an insurrection, in order for him to be able to serve, it would take two-thirds of the House and two-thirds of the Senate in order to allow him to be seated as president?
Oh, yeah.
So, well, that's a provision of the 14th Amendment saying that if someone has engaged in insurrection, that a supermajority of both houses of Congress, as you're referring to, can remove that disability, meaning allow that person to serve in federal office, including the office presumably of president.
But as I mentioned a moment ago, there's no binding decision from any court concluding that he has engaged in insurrection because of the U.S. Supreme Court's reversal of the Colorado Supreme Court's decision that he had engaged in insurrection and was therefore ineligible.
So, again, there's no binding decision from any court finding that President Trump engaged in insurrection, which means effectively the issue cannot and will not be litigated.
In Falls Church, Virginia Independent Line, Mike, you're next.
Good morning.
Just wanted to bring up about the 1600 vote registration purge in Virginia by Governor Glan Yanken.
The local news organizations looked into it and found out that 1,200 of those were citizens, many of them immigrant citizens who became citizens more than six years ago.
And it was because of a DMV clerical error, probably, that this happened.
The sad to see because the Heritage Foundation has looked into voting fraud in Virginia over the last 15 years and haven't found a single non-citizen voting in Virginia.
Most of the fraud has been because of mistakes by citizens who are not eligible to vote.
And this particularly puts a chill over immigrants who don't want to get into voting when there's mandatory voting in many countries like Australia and in America.
We're worried about non-citizens voting who never vote and they bait for becoming a citizen because they know the consequences of breaking the law.
They will lose their green card, they'll be deported, and non-citizens voting very, very rarely happens.
So any comments, Professor Takaji?
Yeah, just that I appreciate the information.
And yeah, it is generally the case that non-citizens actually voting in an election is quite uncommon.
And, you know, it is a crime and can be prosecuted if someone who is not eligible to vote intentionally does vote.
And Richard is in Fort Myers, Florida, Republican.
Richard.
Yeah, good morning.
As far as using a plurality of X votes, it's really half plus one.
When you talk about 10,000 vote plurality, it's really 5,001.
In the 76th election between Ford and Carter, I went through the entire list in the New York Times, and Ohio swung that vote.
If you went down precinct by precinct, city by city in Ohio in 76, you found that there was one city with a 10,000 vote plurality.
The reality is it's 5,001 votes, and that changed the entire election for Carter.
And so when you say 10,000, what the massive change is, it's really not.
It's really half that plus one.
And Ohio proved it, and it might prove it again.
All right.
Any information on that, Professor?
Okay, one more question for you from Mark on X. Why can't politicians, PACS, campaigns be sued for misleading ads or downright lying to the public?
Because of the First Amendment, which protects freedom of speech.
And generally speaking, false information is protected.
The main exception is for defamation.
If you knowingly or recklessly make a false statement that is injurious to someone's reputation, then you could be held civilly or criminally liable for defamation.
But in general, false statements, the Supreme Court has held, are protected by the First Amendment.
All right.
Dan Takaji, Dean and Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
Thanks so much for joining us today.
Thanks for having me.
And up next, more of your phone calls after the break.
This Monday morning, one day before Election Day, you can start calling in now.
The phones are, the numbers are on your screen.
If you support Harris Walls, it's 202-748-8000.
If you support Trump Vance, it's 202-748-8001.
And if you support neither of the candidates or are undecided, it's 202-748-8002.
We'll take your calls right after the break.
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Washington Journal continues.
And we're back and we are going to be taking your calls shortly on campaign 2024, what your thoughts are, how you're feeling about it.
Have you already voted?
What's your plan for voting?
But for your schedule, later today, I want to make sure you have a couple of these events on your calendar.
It's right after this program at 10 a.m. Eastern.
Former President Donald Trump will speak to supporters in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Live coverage of that starts right after this program at 10 Eastern.
We'll also have at 12.30 Vice Presidential nominee Tim Walz delivering remarks in La Crosse, Wisconsin for a final get out the vote rally there.
You'll see live coverage of that at 12.30 p.m. Eastern.
Then a little after 4, about 4.10 p.m., Vice President Kamala Harris will speak to supporters in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
That's here on C-SPAN right after 4 o'clock.
And then at 5 p.m. today, Senator JD Vance will speak to supporters in Atlanta, Georgia.
That starts again at 5 p.m.
All those are here on C-SPAN.
They're also on our app at C-SPANNow and at c-SPAN.org.
And with that, we'll go straight to the phones.
Tina, Oakland, California, Harris Supporter.
Good morning.
Hi, good morning.
Forgive my somewhat weak voice.
I'm in the hospital right now, actually, watching your program.
And it's giving me some hope.
I wanted to comment on the power that global public relations firms have over news information.
And that the public doesn't largely realize how much public relations firms inform the flow of information to a news network, local news, newspapers, particularly now that they're so corporate owned.
And there's only a handful of major globally owned public relations firms.
They have very, very little regulation, and they can pretty much say whatever they want.
Their clients are.
So, Tina, how do you think those PR firms have been impacting or influencing the election?
I think heavily.
I think that they throw out a narrative that Kamala Harris is not speaking to terms, or maybe she didn't go to the border when she did go to the border.
They allow for terms like the stupid terms like borders are, which have nothing to do with anything, as opposed to her going and actually doing a very productive thing in Central America,
where she got billions of dollars worth of people to remain in Central America and be able to deal with them.
to travel the huge risk and come to the United States.
And yet we don't, and yet we don't know this because political public relations firms are seeing this other narrative that simply isn't true.
All right, Tina.
We've got to move on to Lori in Pennsylvania, Trump supporter.
Good morning.
Morning.
So I just want to start by saying that the hate on Trump and MAGA needs to stop.
The support for MAGA is far, far greater than the Harris-Biden administration.
Harris is in the minority, by the way, not the majority.
And this is due to the fake news has led all astray.
Other countries are rooting for us, for Trump, because they know.
Biden led America to doom, and Harris recently said herself, clearly stated she wouldn't change anything going forward.
We are in the great awakening, biblical times.
Trump will lead us to the golden age.
So if you're a Harris voter, do you not see all that's been put in front of you for the past four years?
You had all this time to figure this out.
And lastly, tomorrow's extremely important, and hopefully you will not see we will not see the massive voter fraud like in 2020.
The proof I understand the proof of the 2020 fraud will be reflected in the Supreme Court Brunson case, which I understand is to surface very soon.
I had wished I had gotten through earlier on your guest, Dan, but that would have been a great question to give to him.
So all I can say is vote Trump.
And Lori, when you said that other countries are rooting for Trump, who are you referring to?
What other countries?
Well, because you can see all the truth sites for four years now have shown massive footage, videos, information on the uncensored truth sites where I get all of my information.
What are true sites?
Well, starting with social media like Telegram, Group Social, X, sites like Rumble, BitChute, RSBN, Real Raw News, Newsmax, OAN.
All right.
And Rocky in Tennessee, undecided voter.
Good morning.
Good morning, ma'am.
You know, I got to make a point if you don't care.
In the 2020 election, there's 15 million more people voted.
And my question is, I am undecided on a lot of things because that was about 150 million people voted.
And I heard one used gas that there's 260 million people vote that was able to vote in this country.
I like to know, my question is, how many people live in America counting legal and illegal?
Some say 320, 340, 40 million.
And I'll say this and I'll get off here.
There's at least probably 100 million children under the age of 18 can't vote.
You start figuring the people in the nurses I'm going to vote.
I just don't think nobody trusts nobody anymore.
And because of the numbers, you can add the numbers up and they don't add up right.
And that makes people wonder if you want to vote or don't vote.
And I'll get off here.
Can you find out the answer to that?
How many people are legal to vote?
How many people that's not able to vote?
And they come out on votes.
I mean, I just like to know that.
All right.
And is it Tiny in North Carolina, a Harris supporter?
Caller, are you there in North Carolina?
Yes, good morning.
I'm sorry.
I'm here.
I have a problem with all these people that Trump supporters.
When he's decided that he's going to take away all the freedom from the women, they got to realize that they got little children and they children are going to have children.
We'll be dead and gone.
And we do not want our kids to live up under these circumstances that he's putting down and to have a blitz bath.
If he don't win, stuff like that is not human for a president.
And they need to be thinking about him giving all our records to Putin.
He's worried about Putin.
He's not worried about the United States people.
And to take away my democracy, I think not.
And that's what he means when he's telling them that they don't have to vote anymore because they're going to take away my democracy.
But I don't think so.
God would not allow these things to happen that he's trying to do.
That 2025, it needs to be gone.
People need to do research and find out what he's talking about.
And he's talking about taking freedom away from other people, not from the rich and not from the followers that's following him, like Jim Jones had them people following him.
That ain't nothing but a cult.
And I feel sorry for them.
All right.
And this is Ron in Michigan, a Trump supporter.
Yeah, I just wanted to call the Kamala Harris.
Sorry, says she's for everyone, and Trump is for just himself.
Well, I just want to go through some facts about personally who he has spoken to and who she hasn't.
She's never spoken to the victims of the family members of the soldiers that were killed, the 13 soldiers killed in Afghanistan.
He has.
She's never spoken to the victims of the family members of the women and children that have been raped and murdered by the illegal immigrants.
Trump has.
She doesn't campaign only in swing.
She only campaigns in swing states and Democratic stronghold states.
Trump spoke in New York, Virginia, which aren't strong states.
And she's not for everyone when it comes to the women in sports who only want to compete against other women.
He is.
And when it comes to parents who believe in, they want parental consent for their minor children to have a sex chain.
She doesn't believe it, talk to them.
And lastly, about abortion.
She doesn't, she's not for men, the men or women who only believe in abortion with the exception of rape, incense, or the health of the mother.
And lastly, she doesn't, she only talks about the mother in the abortion.
Last I knew there's two people involved in that, and the other one is the baby, and she never speaks about the baby.
So I don't know who everyone is when she says she speaks for everyone because Donald Trump is the one that speaks for everyone.
And Ron, since you're in Michigan, have you already voted, or are you planning to vote tomorrow?
Typically, I vote on the day of because I believe in the day of, but because I know the Democrats' tricks, I did vote early.
So I did vote for Donald Trump.
And let's go to Edward, Keyport, New Jersey, Harris supporter.
Good morning.
Yeah, thank you.
So some things the GOP had voted against.
They voted against helping veterans with the burn pits.
They voted against senior dental and vision plans.
They voted against daycare subsidies, calling it a Marxist plot.
The fact is, these legislators could have came to the floor at any time and passed legislation, say, taxing solar companies and passing it on for gas and eggs rebates for everybody, but they didn't do any of that.
They decided to stay in their alternative reality nonsense.
I heard the other day somebody said, a Trump supporter said, oh, I could see right through Harris.
And you know what?
I see right through Harris, and I see right through her to the competent people based in facts and figures that are actually passing legislation that's going to be helping people.
And lastly, I'd like to say about the immigrant thing.
I mean, to all you Americans that are haters out there, it's ridiculous.
You guys like, where is your food coming from?
When you go to a restaurant, who's cooking your food?
When you go to a hotel, who's cleaning it?
When you go to your gym, who's doing that?
Who's repairing your roofs?
You know, for every one of these potential people that you say murdered somebody, there's the 10,000 other people that have been helped through the day by immigrants and the help that they do.
If you go to the doctor, you're not seeing a Peterson, you're seeing a Patel.
So let's just leave it all, all this nonsense along the way, and let's vote for the Democrats this time.
I mean, I'm unfortunate about the Gaza situation, you know, but we can't let that stand in the way of good policy and people that are willing to do the job for all of America.
All right, Edward.
And we had a caller that was asking about the number of people eligible to vote.
The Bipartisan Policy Center has this.
It says that roughly 244 million Americans will be eligible to vote in 2024.
The 2020 election saw record turnout at 66.6% of eligible voters.
If we see turnout that high again, more than 162 million ballots will be cast by November.
And as you know, we are at about 80 million at this point that have already voted.
And we'll hear from Lewis in California, Trump supporter.
Good morning.
Hello.
Hi, Lewis.
Hi, good morning.
And I want to say good morning to America and thank you for taking my call.
It's kind of hard right now, to be quite honest with you.
I am a Republican, but I am a Reagan Republican.
And I'm sorry, the ideas and what they stand for when Ronda Reagan was president, it's way different from today's Trump.
And to be quite honest with you, I am still kind of 50-50 as to what I'm going to do.
I'd rather vote for Mickey Mouse than vote for Donald Trump.
And unfortunately, because Donald Trump does not stick to policies in his rallies, he focuses on the size of his rallies.
Also, when he says that, you know, he stands for the American people.
A lot of the parts when he talks about the American people, it talks about the past.
It doesn't talk about the future.
He talks about more of, you know, for some reason, still, you know, I'm not sure if he's dramatized by what happened in the 2020 election, but he should focus more and just kind of like the difference between him and Vance.
Vance talks like a politician.
The debate that he had with Tim Waltz, that was a true debate like it was before.
They had their differences, but at the same time, they also had their agreements, and it was more of what it was before.
Today, what I see is a lot of bias, and unfortunately, with Trump, he is an unhinged, he is a tyrant, and he's an idiot because of the way that he speaks.
But yet, when he speaks of other people outside his party, he refers to them in a negative way.
And we've got to remember: children are also listening to these debates.
And what he's teaching is he's teaching these children that he has no respect for nobody outside who believes in him and backs him.
And again, like the previous colleague had spoken, that immigrants, a lot of these immigrants, maybe one in 10,000, maybe 1 in 100,000, yes, they are people that should not be here because of their past history.
But I do believe that this nation was built by immigrants because it wasn't just the American natives or the Mexicans that are America.
It's people from all over the world.
And he's got to remember that.
All right.
And here's Carol in Fortuna, California, Harris supporter.
Good morning.
Thanks for taking my call.
And I am, I have already voted.
First time I've ever voted by mail.
And I am a Harris supporter.
And I just have one thing to say.
If he was so great, why wasn't he reelected in 2020?
He inherited the previous administration's playbook.
And during the COVID epidemic, they had a plan.
They gave it to the president that was elected in 2016.
And he did not follow it.
And that's why we're at where we are today.
And as far as, you know, I know of dairy farmers that would love to hire many other people, young people too, to work in the industry of agriculture and in the dairy industry.
And they have, they, the only people that apply for these jobs, and I listened to a lady in Nevada, a farmer in Nevada, that said the same thing.
They're the only people that will work in that industry.
And so let's respect that.
When we, at Thanksgiving, when we give thanks at our table, let's thank all these people that worked so hard to put the food in our markets.
And it's just really sad.
It's sad at this point.
He was good on the apprentice.
He was good, but he wasn't really a good businessman.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have had so many bankruptcies.
All right, Carol.
And this is from the Associated Press about fluoride.
It says fluoride in drinking water poses enough risk to merit new EPA action.
Judge says it says that a federal judge ordered the EPA to further regulate fluoride and drinking water because high levels could pose a risk to the intellectual development of children.
It said that the judge ordered the EPA to take steps to lower that risk, but didn't stay, didn't say what those risks, those measures should be.
It says that last month, a federal agency determined, quote, with moderate confidence that there is a link between higher levels of fluoride exposure and lower IQ in kids.
The National Toxicology Program based its conclusion on studies involving fluoride levels at about twice the recommended limit for drinking water.
And this is Patrick, Alabama, Trump supporter.
Good morning.
Todd looks good on you.
Matches you have.
I want to own the solver mystery.
I own this immigrants.
It's not the immigrants.
It's the word illegal.
America needs immigrants, but they need them legal.
So they need to put the word illegal in front when they're talking about it.
But anyway, I want to solve an unsolved mystery.
They can fact check it for theirself.
Go back to Mark Trump's 2016 debate.
Look at the promises he made.
Look at the four years he was in there and look at what he kept.
When somebody makes you a promise and keeps it, you vote for him.
Ronald Reagan, he nailed it.
He said, we're one generation away from losing this country.
You look at the lawlessness that's going on.
People believe the truth over a lie.
They call evil good and good evil.
But to the viewers, it's media zombies, they have no clue what's going on.
The World Economic Forum, they've invested a lot of time and money in one speaker, and that was Obama.
She wasn't elected.
She was selected by Obama.
Do you want to know why they got Kim Waltz?
He's a communist.
And another thing, Congressman Clay Higgins, you've had him on your show before.
He can prove, he's got it proved that J-6 was an inside job.
But anyway, here's the.
All right, Patrick.
Let's take a look at what's happening since this is on Axios.
It says fencing erected at White House and Harris's residence ahead of Election Day.
The article says this on Axios.
Security fencing is going up around the White House, U.S. Capitol, and Vice President Harris's residence in D.C. as authorities brace for possible unrest on or after Election Day.
It says the security precautions in the nation's capital are the latest indication that the government views the culmination of the election as a potential powder keg.
Some businesses have boarded up last week.
It says that the Secret Service is working closely with our federal, state, and local partners in D.C., Palm Beach, Palm Beach County, Florida, to ensure the heightened levels of safety and security this election day.
That's according to the Secret Service.
It says that eight-foot-high metal fences are going up around the White House and the Naval Observatory grounds, which is the Vice President's residence, and in Palm Beach County Convention Center in Florida, where former President Trump will hold an election night party.
It says that the D.C. Police Department on Sunday announced road closures, no parking zones, and other security measures around Howard University this week, where Harris, the Harris Watch Party, will take place.
And Karen in Ohio, undecided voter.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Thank you.
I just wanted to express my opinion on the voting itself.
I would love for this country to go back to true absentee voting.
I'm old enough to remember that the only people who voted absentee were our military or Americans who are traveling out of the country.
And I think that some of these changes, like the drop boxes and early voting and all of this, has really convoluted and confused people.
I think that it would be great to have the national holiday and voting from 7 in the morning until 9 p.m.
I just, I don't like all of this, you know, voting by mail and people don't have to have a reason.
If you're able to get to the voting place, you should vote in person.
And then if not, they should have mini buses for the disabled and so on.
But to do what we've done and just take voting and slice it up in so many different ways, it's just really watering the process down, in my humble opinion.
Thank you.
All right, Karen.
A few more events for your schedule, in addition to the ones that I mentioned earlier.
Later today at 6 p.m., former President Trump will be speaking to supporters in Pittsburgh with one day left before Election Day.
That's at 6 p.m.
And then at 11 p.m., Vice President Kamala Harris will be delivering her closing message to voters with a final stop in Philadelphia.
So that's at 11 p.m. Eastern with our live coverage.
Then over on C-SPAN 2, at 10.30 a.m. this morning, Vice Presidential nominee JD Vance speaks to supporters in La Crosse, Wisconsin.
And at 2 p.m. over on C-SPAN 2, former President Trump will be speaking to supporters in Redding, Pennsylvania.
Then 10.30 p.m. tonight, former President Trump will be in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
That will be his final campaign rally before Election Day.
And again, those are on C-SPAN 2.
All of that is going to be on our app, C-SPANNOW, also on our website, c-span.org.
You can also visit our website.
If you missed any previous rallies or campaign events, you'll be able to see it there.
Let's talk to Leonard in Massachusetts, Trump Supporter.
Good morning.
Good morning.
I was calling there.
I know the people, I mean, when Roe versus Raid Wait there was overturned, they blamed Trump.
Basically, it wasn't Trump, it was the Democratic Party.
Because when the Senate was Democratic towards the end of his term, they changed the rules.
Instead of needing 60 votes to nominate a person on the Supreme Court, they changed it the majority vote to 51.
That was Henry Reid.
That was Reed when he was the president of the Senate.
And therefore, when Obama nominated his choice when one person was passed on, I mean, McConnell had the right, like any, like Democrats as well, to hold off until the election or whatever.
And then when the Republicans got the Senate, they had the 51 votes, and Trump got in, and therefore he nominated three different people and therefore put them on the Supreme Court.
Whereas if you had 60 people without the thing being changed, there would have been a different story.
You would have had to have eight or nine Republicans go along with the person or Democrats, whichever party was in the Senate, or the Senate.
So in that case, I believe it was basically the Democrats that changed it because the newsmedia said that was going to hurt the situation for any party.
All right, Leonard.
And here's Matt in Columbia, Maryland, Harris supporter.
Yes, good morning.
Good morning.
So, yes, I'd I'd ended up voting for Harris and Ken Wards.
And here how I came to the conclusion to the to that decision.
I'll focus on the main issue of these two these two candidates.
On Harris is the woman's right to choose.
Yes, I support that because I believe if you're pro-life, then you should respect the life that's already alive that's on earth.
I mean, some of the life that is already alive, just as much as you respect the life that is, you know, that's in the womb.
And then I focus on Trump's main issue that he's running on, the 21 million illegals that he said that are here.
Okay, let's look at this 21 million illegal number.
During the last Trump administration, it is reported, it is a fact, that he only deported 935,000 illegals, well, people, it says, it didn't say illegal, it said people.
And then, well, if you assume that that 935,000 is half of it is probably people that were intercepted at the border.
Remember all those people that were trying to come across the border, the caravan?
Well, if half of that 935,000 is people intercepted at the border and return, okay, then it's safe to assume that during the entire four years that Trump was in office, he only deported 2%, 2% of that 21 million illegal immigrants.
Okay, well, 2% in four years, 21 million immigrants, that should be a number that is very easy to find.
You should be able to find this immigrant.
I was expecting him to deport half of them or even a quarter of them, but that's 2%.
Do I want to give the White House to someone who is convicted of crime or for 2% of deportation?
It tells you that the number, that 21 million number, is not a true number.
It's a made-up number.
It's a made-up crisis.
All right, Matt.
And here's Carol in West Virginia, Undecided Voter.
Good morning.
Morning.
I find I really, it's a really tough decision because neither candidate is flawless, in my opinion.
We have one that just won't answer any questions, is not pushed on any tough questions.
And then we have another one that just talks and talks and talks.
I just, I can't figure out basically which unflawed candidate to go with.
We have one that once talks about deporting the illegals.
Okay, I want to know how We're going to do that because I think in order to do that, we would need some type of, if we're going to allow them just to, the illegals to come across the border, then we need to put them in a register and have them register so we know who they are and where they are, where they're at in the country.
Then we have another candidate talking about abortions.
And I'm okay, it's a woman's choice, but where was the woman's choice during COVID when, and please don't cut me off, please don't cut me off, when women were being forced to take a vaccine that we knew nothing about and they didn't know whether it would affect them if they if they were to get pregnant.
So I'm just, and then the candidate that she chose for her running mate, if you look it up, there was issues with botched abortions and those babies were left to die.
So, Carol, is you brought up a couple of things.
What's going to be your deciding factor?
And when are you planning to decide?
Are you going to decide tomorrow?
No, what I'm going to do today, I'm going to take the bills over the past year, and I'm going to see, I'm going to compare them to the bills that I had because I keep a database in my laptop where I do that.
And I'm going to see what it cost me under Trump a month or a year and what it cost me under the past four years.
It's what I'm basically the economics of it.
Okay, but you got to do all four years to all four years.
You said you're going to do a month or a year to four years.
No, I'm going to do the end of the month, or I'm going to take one month because I live on a budget.
And what I'm going to do is I'm going to take one month from when Trump was in office and one month under the Harris-Biden or Biden-Harris.
And what I'm going to do is that I'll just time, you know, do that.
And then if I've had more money in my pocket under Trump, then I'll vote Trump.
If I've had more money left over, I'll vote Harris.
All right, Carol.
Bob in Middleton, Wisconsin, Trump supporter.
Good morning.
Come on, Mimi.
I guess I would preface a conversation to say I'm a recent Trump supporter.
I've been a civil libertarian independent for time and eternity, but I want to say that I'm a single father of two beautiful women.
I've got a four-year-old granddaughter.
For many years, we've been told to think globally and act locally.
And I want to speak directly to women.
And I want to ask them to widen their aperture and look at the world that we live in today.
If you are a woman that lives in Ukraine or Russia, where you've lost your husband, your father, your son to a pointless war, are you better off than you were four years ago?
If you live in Gaza, where you can't feed your child, are you better off than you were four years ago?
If you're a mother, a single mother living in the northern suburb of Atlanta, where you've got to buy a gun because you feel like your government doesn't protect you, are you better off than you were four years ago?
Or if you've lost a child to fentanyl, are you better off than you were four years ago?
I think it's time for women to say yes.
I agree with abortion rights and reproductive rights.
I think I agree with Clinton.
Abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.
But I'd also implore women to think about the world we're living in.
And Afghanistan, you cannot, as a woman, be heard, seen, or even spoken to.
This world is not better off now than it was four years ago for women of the world.
And I want people to think about that.
Bob, have you already voted, or are you voting tomorrow?
I'm going to vote tomorrow.
All right.
James in Virginia, here a supporter.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Go ahead, James.
Yes, I want people to understand before Trump came down that elevator, we never had a big problem with voting.
Now, all of a sudden, he comes into the picture and we have all these problems.
And they have to listen to what his niece and nephew said about him.
His nephew have a child that's handicapped.
He has problems.
When Trump's father left the money to take care of him, they put Trump over it as the guardian.
And his father went to him and told him that his son needed more money to take care of him.
And Trump told him, said he don't even know you.
Let him die.
That's the type of person that Trump is.
And number one, he is a felon.
He is a racist.
And I'm just surprised that the American people that want a guy like that to lead the country when none of the banks in America would even lend him any money.
He didn't fire bankruptcy, I don't know how many times.
And when he was running for president in 2015, he said that he was going to build a wall and close the border.
And Cuba was going to pay for it.
I mean, Mexico was going to pay for it.
And that didn't happen.
So, I mean, the man just, every time he, every time his mouth moves, he either lying or he.
All right, James, let's go to an undecided voter in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Joe.
Hi.
Good morning, everyone.
The reason I'm kind of on the fence, one, being in Oklahoma, it's kind of a, you know, you can vote, but it's kind of a wash with the Trumpism.
I kind of lean independent because I understand that corporate America really runs most of what we are experiencing, including the inflation.
I know, and I tend to stay with fact-based information.
I've heard some Republicans give their resources that they get their information from, and I'm thinking all those are right-leaning type news outlets.
You have to dig deeper into the issues.
Like, for example, the guy that was talking about the courts in the Supreme Court, the Democrats had to change those, the number of votes it needed to get a person on the court because Republicans were blocking all the court nominations, and the federal courts were backlogged three years.
So he changed that rule to get the court system functioning.
And then when they got their chance, they made it apply to the Supreme Court, which is completely not comparable to a lower court.
So part of it's this not understanding the deeper deals.
As far as JD Vance, this is why I'm kind of leaning here.
JD Vance is the kind of person I run away from at the car lot.
You know, when you go to the car lot, you see that guy coming, you run away.
As far as inflation, once again, 70% of your extra prices, if you look at the value of the companies, their values are up about that 70%.
So it's the companies.
Presidents don't set prices.
Trump spent about as much Biden.
Are we blaming him for inflation?
No, because it makes no sense.
Record stock market, record profits, farmers making the same amount of money.
You got six companies running the meat industry.
You've got about eight companies running all of the food industries.
You look at all those brands of cereals, you're not choosing different companies.
I mean, different brands.
The same companies are controlling all of those foods you're buying.
So they can set those prices with the push of a button.
And you're choosing between Fruit Loops and Weedies, but it's the same company that's ripping you off.
So you have to, I'm going to vote probably for the person saying they're going to go after price gouging.
That would be Harris.
All right.
All right.
And this is Karen in Las Vegas, Trump supporter.
Good morning.
Good morning, Mimi.
You're doing good.
You're doing good.
Earlier, you asked what countries support Trump for president.
This is the big one.
This is Israel.
Everybody's got to know that.
Israel needs to get Trump in there if we're going to save the Middle East.
I'm Jewish, and I'm voting Trump.
All right, Karen.
Let's talk to Richard in Boston, Harris supporter.
Yes, hi.
Thank you.
I would like to say that, you know, in terms of policy and stuff, it's like, you know, the difference, you know, transcending differences, you know, I mean,
means like feelings of antagonism, discrimination, and selflessness, selfishness that arise from the tendency to see self and others or diverse phenomena or events as separate and disconnected.
The tendency that obstructs empathy and understanding.
So, I mean, it's, you know, the goodness does not exist in such negative, ego-driven mindset.
So, what I'm trying to say is that it's too easy, you know, to, you know, for the human heart to succumb to egoism and self-interest when one is tempted by power, prestige, or personal profit, strongly attached to status and position, or obsession with fame and fortune.
You know, faith is ultimately a struggle with our own self-centeredness.
So, no matter how high a leadership position or finding fine-sounding words a person may say, if they have lost their faith and are motivated by self-serving ends, they will find it impossible to remain in the pure and harmonious community of, you know.
All right.
And here's Jack, an undecided voter in Ohio.
Hi, Jack.
I'm not quite decided because both of the parties I think are evil, and they're both committed to war.
And Robert F. Kennedy at the one of at the one of Rally for Trump pointed out that exactly that, that the speech Harris gave at the Democratic Convention was written by neocon warmongers and very belligerent.
And it shows that the Democrats are, like the Republicans, our unit party for war, for Wall Street, the party of the military-industrial complex.
And the fact that if you're looking for some truth sites, the only one I've seen is Global Research, GlobalResearch.ca.
It has people within the Government and the CIA who could not be interviewed by any of the media because they have come out from the cold and become whistleblowers pointing out that the CIA controls the media.
Operation Mockingbird, CIA Operation Mockingbird controls the media and that anything we're getting concerning the foreign policy.
There's no difference between the Republicans and the Democrats.
The AM radio stations are controlled by 1,500 right-wing radio stations controlled by right-wing billionaires who have the same party of McCarthyism and smearing Russia, smearing China, smearing.
And one more call to John in DeSoto, Missouri, Trump supporter.
Good morning.
Hello, how are you doing today?
Good.
I just want to let you know that I'm a union man.
I've voted Democrat my whole entire life.
And I've seen things flip-flop from Democrat to Republican.
And I just, I don't see how anybody can see our lives were so much better when it was Trump.
That when I, when Trump went the last time, I voted Democrat.
But I tell you what, Trump made this country better.
And as soon as Biden got in, we just seen how bad it got.
So I'm voting Trump.
I'm a union man.
I'm going to vote Trump.
And I don't see why it's that hard for anybody to understand that.
Things were better four years ago.
Gas cheaper.
Food was cheaper.
Lives were easier.
So, and that's all I wanted to say.
Thank you.
All right.
And that's all the time that we've got for this show.
We'll be back again tomorrow morning, 7 a.m. Eastern.
Thanks to everybody that called in and for watching.
We're going to take you over to Raleigh, North Carolina now for a rally with Republican nominee former President Donald Trump speaking to supporters there.
This is live coverage.
We're live today in Raleigh, North Carolina, where former President Donald Trump is set to begin a campaign rally.
The Republican presidential nominee will be delivering remarks shortly, and we'll have that for you live right here on C-SPAN.
You can also watch on the C-SPAN Now app or at our website, c-span.org.
Welcome back to Washington Journal.
We're joined now by Benjamin Hoveland.
He is the U.S. Election Assistance Commission chair.
Welcome to the program.
Thanks for having me, Mimi.
It's great to be here.
So start by telling us about the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
How is it created?
What is its purpose?
Absolutely.
So we are a small federal agency.
We were created by the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which was Congress's response to the Florida 2000 election.
And we were designed to be an independent bipartisan agency.
We really have four primary mission areas.
We test and certify voting equipment.
We distribute grants to the states from Congress.
Mostly those have been around security grants in recent years.
We do a survey of how elections are administered all across the country, how Americans engage in the process.
For example, do they get registered at a motor vehicle office or online?
Do they vote by mail, early in person on election day?
We even see what the average age of poll workers is.
And then finally, we serve as a clearinghouse of best practices.
Because each state runs elections a little bit differently.
We look across the country, we identify best practices and share those so that election officials don't have to reinvent the wheel and those best practices can benefit everyone and ultimately better serve voters.
Well, let's talk about those different practices because elections are run at the local level.
So how different are they across the country?
Yeah, it really does vary state by state, which is why when we talk about trusted information around elections, we always say that you should go to your state or local election official because those dates and deadlines matter, polling place hours, all of those things vary.
But what you see that's consistent all across the country is the people who run our elections are professionals.
They follow the laws of their state, and there's transparency built into the process.
And that's an important thing for people to know.
But aren't there lots of challenges given how different things are from one locality to another, one state to another?
Should there be more uniformity?
Well, it's certainly something we can talk about, but there are a lot of benefits that we get from the decentralized nature of our elections.
I think back to 2020, when obviously in the pandemic, we were looking at more Americans than ever voting by mail.
You had states like Oregon and Washington who had spent over a decade transitioning to full vote by mail, and they had so many lessons learned that they and we were able to share with their colleagues across the country who were seeing record amounts of mail balloting.
And so those type of things allow us both to share those experiences, but also to have states pioneer new innovations.
Things like Arizona created online registration years ago, and now 41 states in the District of Columbia have that.
If we were waiting for federal legislation, we'd probably be still waiting.
So it is a great way to expand and see innovation in the field, but it certainly presents challenges as well.
I want to ask you about the level of confidence of Americans of this election.
This is a Pew Research poll that was conducted last month in October.
And it's asking, it says that most voters are confident that elections will be run well, but more skepticism among Trump than Harris supporters.
And here's a graphic of that.
It's showing of all voters, you know, it's up here at, you know, more rather than less.
At least that's good.
But there is a big difference here between Harris supporters and Trump supporters.
What do you make of those kinds of numbers?
One thing we know from social scientists is that unfortunately trust in election outcomes is often tied to if your candidate wins or loses.
So there is that element.
But there's certainly a lot of pieces of the election administration process that most Americans are unfamiliar with.
And election officials have been doing a good job in the last several years trying to show more of that process.
I think historically most Americans would tune in on election night, hope there was a winner called by the media.
But what we know in the elections administration space is that election night results are always unofficial because there are processes and procedures that election officials follow to ensure the accuracy and integrity of our election.
But most people haven't historically been interested in that.
I know I've bored enough family members at Thanksgivings historically, but I can see the difference now where people are, more Americans are interested in that process.
And so at the AC, we've created a number of videos to try to explain the process.
We see election officials around the country doing behind-the-ballot tours, whether that's in person at their offices or doing videos to show people the work that goes into running elections, show people the safeguards that are in place that you don't see just as a voter.
You mentioned one of your objectives was certifying equipment.
And I want to show you this article from ABC News.
Elon Musk pushes false conspiracies about voting machines during Swing State Town Hall.
He says this, quote, I'm a technologist.
I know a lot about computers.
Musk told the crowd during the event, quote, and I'm like, the last thing I would do is trust a computer program because it's just too easy to hack.
What do you make of those comments and how easy is it to hack those voting machines?
Well, so first we don't trust them.
We have systems in place to utilize that technology, utilize the fact that technology is better at the mundane process of counting millions of ballots, but then we have checks in place for that.
So you mentioned the testing and certification program.
Certainly that's a part of it.
At the EAC, we have both standards that voting systems are built to, and then we have accredited labs that accredit that equipment.
And they test it to a range of things, whether that's security, usability, accessibility.
It's very rigorous testing.
But then you have, at the local level, you have pre-election testing where you make sure the equipment is working the way it's supposed to.
And then you have post-election testing and or audits to ensure that it worked the way it was supposed to.
And so essentially, what you see, the vast majority of Americans, you know, over 95% of Americans, are going to be voting on a paper ballot or on a piece of equipment with a paper ballot audit trail.
And then on the back end of the election, again, you use that equipment for the efficiencies.
When you think about, again, millions of ballots, dozens of races, it's just an exponential amount to count when you compare to other countries where you see hand counting.
There's only one thing on the ballot.
And so that's a much more simple process.
We use the equipment for the efficiency, but then you have checks in place to ensure that it's working the way it's supposed to.
Now, these voting machines are not connected.
They don't have the ability to be connected to a network.
They can't be connected to Wi-Fi.
They can't be connected to Bluetooth.
So how easy would it be to cyber attack one of those computers and just switch all the votes?
Yeah, the vast majority don't.
Again, each state runs elections a little bit differently.
There's a few places where they utilize brief connection for sending results.
But by and large, you're talking about what would be physical access to the equipment.
Again, that would, and extended physical access, which would be difficult.
Again, what we've seen a lot more of and what is relatively speaking, particularly for our foreign adversaries, lower hanging fruit, is the information environment.
And again, we've heard from our intelligence community about formal lines influence, about actors from foreign adversaries trying to influence Americans online, putting out some of these false videos and false narratives about how elections are administered or potential issues that are arising.
We've seen that.
We saw it in 2016, 2020, and we've seen a lot of it already this cycle as well.
And if you'd like to join our conversation with Benjamin Hoveland, he is the chair of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
You can do so.
Our lines are Democrats 2027488000, Republicans 202748-8001, and Independents 202748-8002.
You can start calling in now.
There's this article here, Ben, by on NPR.org, ballots set on fire in three states as election day approaches.
How worried are you about the physical security of those ballots of people that have already voted?
So a couple things there.
I mean, certainly that story, those incidents that have occurred are concerning.
Again, but it's also an outlier, bad actor, or bad actors, and fairly limited when you think that nearly 80 million Americans have already cast their ballot.
And those stories, while unfortunate, and I'm certainly hopeful that that person will be held to account.
But when you look at the work that election officials have done to identify impacted voters, to reach out to them to help mitigate the impact of that, again, it just tells you about the planning and preparation that goes into elections.
You know, so often election administrators hear someone will say, well, what do you do the rest of the year?
Or what do you do in the off years?
And the reality is that running elections is a huge logistical undertaking.
It takes a lot of planning and preparation for all types of scenarios, whether natural disasters or man-made.
I look at, you know, simply one of the things I think about this cycle is obviously the state of North Carolina, I mean, so much of the Southeast was impacted by hurricanes, but places in North Carolina that never would have expected to be impacted by a hurricane were.
But all 100 counties in North Carolina had early voting up and running on time.
And that's a testament to the election officials in that state and across the country and the work they do preparing to administer our elections.
Well, speaking of threats of violence against people, here is the front page of the USA Today that says, prepping for protests and possible violence, election officials outline efforts to protect ballot counting.
What have you been seeing around the country as far as security measures in place to protect not only the ballots and the counting of those ballots, but the people involved?
Yeah, so this has been certainly something that we've seen change since 2020.
It is partially a spin-off from some of that disinformation and the false narratives out there about how our elections are administered or the integrity of our elections.
Those have resulted in threats and harassment to people.
And what we've seen is, again, so much preparation, so much outreach to local law enforcement.
You know, there has historically been some relationship usually, but the outreach and tabletop exercises that we've seen around the country to prepare for an array of incidents has really been impressive.
Again, we distribute grant money I mentioned, the Havas, the Help America Vote Act security grants.
We've seen that used for a number of things.
It's very flexible, so it may go to replace paperless equipment.
It may go for audits.
It may go for cybersecurity protection.
But we've also seen it used significantly for physical security, whether that's cameras or swipe card access to particularly sensitive areas, but also hardening our physical barriers to facilities, things like bulletproof glass, things like making office space more secure for the election officials who work there.
All right, let's talk to callers.
So we'll start with Matt.
He's an independent in Maryland.
Good morning.
Good morning.
I think the elephant in the room is that Donald Trump, Mike Johnson, and other Republicans have already said that they're going to try to steal the election again, to overturn the election if Vice President Harris wins.
What are you doing to ensure that we're prepared for that?
And last time we weren't prepared.
It came very close basically with if Mike Pence, who Trump supporters wanted to hang and Trump said, fine, let it happen, had capitulated, we would be in a very different spot.
What are we doing to make sure that what they say that they're going to do, if they lose, doesn't happen again?
Thank you.
Well, thanks for the call.
A couple things that it makes me think about, you know, first, we've seen more coordination than I've seen ever before at the federal level with a variety of our both intelligence community partners and law enforcement partners to talk about an array of scenarios that may come up to prepare for that, to support our election officials as they run elections.
The other part that I think is important to remember is I mentioned earlier that election night results are always unofficial.
Anyone who says that they won or lost coming up tomorrow night, we won't know that for sure.
And that's because there are safeguards and safety measures in place.
There are procedures, whether it is for confirming mail ballots, whether it is for provisional ballots.
Again, those are safeguards that are built into the place.
That's why it takes time.
And then election officials work through that.
They dot the I's, they cross the T's, they double check the math.
And that's ultimately then when the election is certified.
And it's important for Americans to understand that and to understand that when you're looking for information about that, to go to your state and local election officials is the trusted source.
And hopefully that helps people understand when there is certain rhetoric out there that they know where to go to get accurate information.
We've got a question for you from John in San Antonio, Texas.
He says, in 2020, we saw a 131% increase in mail-in ballots.
The mail-in ballot rejection rate went from 2% to 3% in every other election to 0.02% in 2020.
Why was that?
There's a lot of numbers there.
I know that's going to be hard for you to keep track of.
I was trying to do math in my head.
It's essentially the rejection rate of those mail-in ballots.
And what is that?
Absolutely.
So I don't exactly know where those numbers come from, so I'm not going to speak to those specifically.
But what I'll talk about broadly in 2020 was that we did see a record amount of mail ballots.
But at the same time, it wasn't a new process for Americans.
In 2016, nearly a quarter of all Americans voted by mail.
That went up to almost 45% in 2020.
But this year, we'll see probably more mail ballots than any year other than 2020.
Because Americans experienced voting that way, because they like it, I vote that way.
But when you talk about the rejection rates, there's a number of things that go into that.
And what we also saw in 2020 was in anticipation of a lot of first-time mail voters or people who were new to the process, you also saw a huge amount of voter education, people talking about the process, talking about, you know, there were PSAs about naked ballots and things like that to get people's attention, to help them know to read the instructions, to fill out their absentee ballot according to those state instructions.
And that went a long way to reducing the amount of rejection rates.
And let's talk to Andre and Gates Mills, Ohio, Republican.
Yes, good morning.
Thank you for doing all of this.
It's great that we're talking about election security.
And So, Andre, you got to mute your TV.
You got to just talk right into the phone.
Yep.
But we heard you.
Keep going.
Okay.
So we're talking about election security, election, call it doubts or skepticism.
Good morning.
I'm just wondering if given the last couple of elections where there has been so much, so much misinformation, so, so many lies, starting from one part of the electorate, which is the National Socialist election.
They always plan to question elections.
That's one of the first plays in their book.
Who's the National Socialist?
Andre, who are you talking about?
I am talking about the National Socialist mind that dominates the Republican Party these days.
Okay?
And so what's your question about election security?
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
Okay.
Let's talk to Dan in Atlanta, Line for Democrats.
I just want to just, just like, I want to just start at the beginning.
This whole segment, you know, you know, this whole elected security, let's just get this straight.
It was based on a lie.
Can you hear me?
Yes.
Go ahead.
What was based on a lie, Dan?
Yeah, okay.
Okay, I'm sorry.
Okay, with this whole thing, which is based on a lie.
You know, what they're talking about, the voting machine, you know, Fox News had to pay out $787 million.
Okay, so can we just get this?
There was never no voter fraud.
The only voter fraud, you know, like I live here in Georgia was up in Cherokee County where they went in and they tampered when the Republicans and Trump's people went up there and tampered with the voting machines.
Then we had another Republican here in one of the counties.
He actually voted nine times.
All of the election mess was, it was done by the Republicans.
They changed Georgia voting laws.
Georgia voting laws based on a lie.
This is crazy.
Let's just call it what this is.
This is a lie.
This is nonsense.
You shouldn't be debating like this is not an intellectual and debate.
This is all based on a freaking lie.
All right.
All right, Dan.
Any comment, Benjamin?
Well, I would say that, you know, certainly there is a lot of false and misleading information out there about elections.
But one of the things that has stayed the same election after election is the work that election officials do to run our elections, the safeguards that are in place every election.
And that is all throughout the process.
And it's important for people to understand that and to see that.
You know, one of the things that I say a lot about election administration is that when you look at it, good election administration is not about politics.
It's about good governance and customer service.
It's about serving the voters and making sure they're able to participate in the process.
And certainly to me, that's a good, you know, that's a good way to measure anything that comes up around elections.
Is this helping people to participate?
Is this helping them to be involved?
And certainly that can be a good line to look at.
Lance in Fort Lauderdale wants to know: how do you restore the ballots that were burned up in the ballot box fires?
That's a great question.
So, again, election officials do a lot of preparation.
There's a lot of work that goes into it.
Depending on the state of those, if they are, so in one of those instances, there was fire suppressant in there.
And so, those ballots were largely saved as I understand it, but they might not be able to be scanned if there was some damage to them.
States have a process, most states have a process called ballot duplication, which is set out in law and is very specific and usually involves bipartisan teams.
They meticulously copy over ballots onto a new ballot that can be scanned.
That's then documented, and all the information is retained for chain of custody.
Again, there's a lot of documentation in election administration.
So, those are probably the easier ones.
The ones that are significantly damaged, there still may be indication on the envelope of who that voter was.
From what I've seen in reporting, several hundred of those have been able to be identified.
And election offices do outreach ideally through email or the phone.
Sometimes it may be sending another voter a ballot, and then certainly making announcements to say, you know, ballot drop boxes are checked regularly.
So, it may be, you know, if you dropped off between 5 p.m. and 11 a.m. on this date, you know, please contact us.
There's also other tracking that occurs to see who's requested or received a ballot and what's been returned.
So, there are a number of ways for election officials to identify and reach out to voters.
But the bottom line is election officials are committed to ensuring that Americans are able to participate in the process, and they do that work to make sure that they can.
Don in Salem, Indiana, Republican line, you're on with Benjamin Hoveland.
Hello.
Hi.
Good morning.
I just have a comment, really.
We wouldn't have this problem if Donald Trump would learn to control himself and act like a gentleman.
And if you stop to look at the past over the years, you would notice that we've never had this problem until he actually started politics and started with the lies.
Someone needs to fat-check that guy, but he's never fat-checked.
And I don't understand why, but I am a Republican, but the guy is not going to get my vote.
Thank you.
All right, Don.
And speaking of the past, Diane from Morristown, New Jersey says, we used to know the results on election night.
There isn't a significant increase in population.
Since it's all handled locally, what has changed?
So, again, that's a great thing to raise.
Actually, nothing has changed as far as the actual counting of the votes.
Election officials have, election night results have always been unofficial, and election officials have always gone through their process.
Election night calls, if you will, are a product of the media.
And that is the media making a decision, doing the math, taking those preliminary results, and making an assessment that an election can be called.
And certainly, if the campaigns have done similar math, you often see someone concede.
But if we don't have that concession and we're dependent on the election officials' process, those certification deadlines, there's something called the canvas and certification process.
And that's where election officials, again, review all of the information that's happened throughout the election.
You know, they do that accounting.
You also have, again, different deadlines for starting the processing of mail ballots, for example.
Or some states have a postmark deadline where others have a received by election day standard.
So if you're in a postmark state where the ballot just has to be postmarked by election day, then there's a number of days after that that can come in.
I mentioned provisional ballots earlier.
All of those are safeguards in the process to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the ultimate results.
And so election officials do all that to produce what is the canvas and certification process.
So they have all that accounting taken care of and then they present that and say, you know, here, here is the evidence of this election.
We've accounted for all the ballots.
You know, here are some issues that popped up because things do come up, but we've explained that, we've investigated it, we've identified it.
You know, here were the people that cast provisional ballots that were eligible.
Here are the ones that are ineligible.
All of that is documented.
And that's ultimately what's certified.
So a lot of it depends on how close the election is.
Absolutely.
Because if it's already, there's not enough outstanding ballots to change the result, then they essentially call it for that state.
Yes.
And again, you can at some point make that assumption, but when margins are very close, you know, certainly people are cautious on that.
Exactly.
Vanita in Baltimore, Democrat.
Good morning.
Good morning.
I had a question or a comment.
I can't imagine with all the eyes that are waiting for cheating on this election, how anyone would get away with it.
I mean, I would think that trying to influence an election would take a lot of people and a lot of planning.
And to me, it seems as though if in the end anyone accuses anyone of cheating, it would be their fault, in my opinion.
I mean, I don't know.
You're sitting right in front of the store.
How did you let it get robbed?
I wondered how difficult it is to influence an election, especially a national one.
Maybe a state one might be easier.
So great question.
It would be extremely difficult at scale.
You know, again, I'll say we see very limited instances of voter fraud, but we know it's exceedingly rare.