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Speaker 1: The votes are coming in in the US, and I

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Speaker 1: see Fox News just flash up on the screen before

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Speaker 1: predicting Trump will win Pennsylvania and will secure the electoral

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Speaker 1: College votes he needs. Now it seems early on, but

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Speaker 1: I mean they're still voting over in the West. But

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Speaker 1: at the moment, twenty three electoral College votes to three,

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Speaker 1: So very early on in the piece, Let's go to

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Speaker 1: the US because on the line Professor Christina Bellentoni, Professor

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Speaker 1: of Professional Practice and director of the Media Center, US

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Speaker 1: College Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, and a former

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Speaker 1: journalist herself. Christina, good morning.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, And you forgot my most important qualification that

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Speaker 2: I am married to Patrick who who is from Adelaide

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Speaker 2: and grew out there.

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Speaker 1: Excellent. All right, So have you been to our city.

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Speaker 3: I'm sure you have many times. We got Mary in

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Speaker 3: the hills and love it very much. Love South Austria.

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Speaker 1: Lovely to hear. All right, now, looking at this, you're

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Speaker 1: putting your professional eye ee over of the campaign. This

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Speaker 1: would have been the most extraordinary election you've witten this time.

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Speaker 2: Sure, without a doubt, history making on every front. The

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Speaker 2: biggest thing to see happen was the sitting president decide

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Speaker 2: not to seek reelection. That's just never happened in that way,

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Speaker 2: that after having already mounted a campaign, and then you

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Speaker 2: had two assassination attempts on the former president, who happens

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Speaker 2: to be the first person to ever have been president

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Speaker 2: who has now been convicted of felonies where things hang

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Speaker 2: in the balance with his own convictions and what that

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Speaker 2: sentencing could look like whether he's president or not. And

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Speaker 2: then you have somebody who could make history and becoming

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Speaker 2: a first female president. So at every level, this has

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Speaker 2: been exactly that unprecedented. And I get to teach political

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Speaker 2: reporting now, and it's been really interesting to look at

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Speaker 2: all of this through the lens of history and then

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Speaker 2: also through actual events. I've taken my students to the

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Speaker 2: battleground states of Michigan, Arizona, and Nevada and they have

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Speaker 2: been doing real reporting, talking to hundreds of voters and

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Speaker 2: talking about those contests. One thing I will just point out,

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Speaker 2: you mentioned Pennsylvania. I think that I'm not quite sure

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Speaker 2: where that's coming from, because Pennsylvania is will open and

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Speaker 2: the networks are being extremely careful and calling anything. There

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Speaker 2: have been exit polls that show where voters are what

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Speaker 2: they're saying as they're leaving the polls throughout the these

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Speaker 2: swing states.

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Speaker 1: But has been made all right, Maybe that's what they've

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Speaker 1: based it on. I'm not sure it's disappeared off the

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Speaker 1: TV anyway. Pretty it appeared very quickly and briefly, so

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Speaker 1: whether they realized it was wrong eye, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: but it was certainly up a few seconds ago. How

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Speaker 1: do you think it's going to play out? I mean,

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Speaker 1: Trump leading at the moment is what I can say.

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Speaker 1: Twenty three college votes to three. And for the sake

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Speaker 1: of people who just tuned in every state they've got,

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Speaker 1: it's winner takes all. For the state, the state carries

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Speaker 1: an electoral college number who get together in about a

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Speaker 1: month or so and formally elect the president based on

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Speaker 1: the state results. So the bigger the state, the more

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Speaker 1: congress people it has, the more electoral college votes. It

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Speaker 1: carries five hundred and thirty eight in total to seventy

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Speaker 1: the magic number.

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Speaker 3: That is right, the magic number.

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Speaker 2: And you know, there's slightly more nuanced way to look

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Speaker 2: at that, but a good way to look at it

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Speaker 2: is through population. So California, where I am based, has

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Speaker 2: fifty four electoral College votes because of it's that's how

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Speaker 2: many the high population. We have more than thirty million

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Speaker 2: voters and sixty million humans, so a lot of people.

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Speaker 2: And then you see larger states like Texas and so on,

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Speaker 2: where smaller states such as Alaska only have three. You

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Speaker 2: have to think about the results that you're having now

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Speaker 2: are kind of twofold. It's the states that have the

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Speaker 2: polls that close the earliest, but also who counts votes

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Speaker 2: the quick quickest, and in some cases those are states

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Speaker 2: with pretty restrictive voting. Here in California, we actually have

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Speaker 2: voting month. People are permanent mail in ballots, so everybody

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Speaker 2: gets mailed in a ballot and as long as they

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Speaker 2: it is postmarked by today and they count it by Friday,

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Speaker 2: they receive it by Friday, it will get counted. So

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Speaker 2: it will take us weeks before we know the final results.

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Speaker 2: In California and in many of these other states, you're

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Speaker 2: seeing very long lines, huge numbers of same day registrants

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Speaker 2: where that's allowed. So that's where you're going to have

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Speaker 2: places like West Virginia where they actually just called one

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Speaker 2: of the Democratic senators has lost that they've lost a

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Speaker 2: Democratic seat. The person had decided to retire and a

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Speaker 2: Republican has picked up that seat. So that's the first

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Speaker 2: pick up for Republicans who are looking to reclaim the Senate.

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Speaker 3: It's a really big deal.

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Speaker 2: But you're going to see kind of as the map

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Speaker 2: moves toward the left if you look it moves toward

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Speaker 2: the west. If you're looking at that map, you'll start

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Speaker 2: to see a lot more mixed voting and more states

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Speaker 2: start to close. North Carolina is one of those battleground

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Speaker 2: states that both the Trump and Harris campaigns have spent

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Speaker 2: a lot of time in and they have an early

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Speaker 2: closing time, so I'm really looking at results from there

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Speaker 2: and also from Virginia, where there's some contested US House

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Speaker 2: races for Congress, where we'll be able to get a

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Speaker 2: sense of how well Republicans and Democrats are doing based

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Speaker 2: on those states. But it's going to be a really

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Speaker 2: long night. We have three hours and twenty minutes before

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Speaker 2: polls close here in California, And in addition to that,

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Speaker 2: we know that there's going to be a lot of

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Speaker 2: legal challenges to these states. So I would be highly

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Speaker 2: surprised if we know who won the president seed this evening.

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Speaker 1: All right, legal challenges aside, will we have a sense

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Speaker 1: of that will will they be a Kali related do

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Speaker 1: you think or are the polls correct in predicting it

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Speaker 1: is as tight as it seems to be.

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Speaker 2: So I hesitate to make predictions because even as many

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Speaker 2: South Australians know, I've made many predictions when visiting there

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Speaker 2: in twenty sixteen, and I was incorrect, like most of them.

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Speaker 2: But I will say that turnout today in person on

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Speaker 2: election day has shattered all previous records. Already some of

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Speaker 2: these swing counties are at one hundred and fifty percent

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Speaker 2: of their record highs from twenty twenty. You're seeing record

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Speaker 2: numbers of women voting and then record numbers of young

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Speaker 2: people voting. And those are coalitions that polls suggest are

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Speaker 2: with Vice President Harris. We don't know that for sure,

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Speaker 2: but there's certainly an indication that she has momentum at

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Speaker 2: the end. Here Republicans had an early vote advantage based

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Speaker 2: on nail balloting, and we don't know where it's going

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Speaker 2: to go. I think we will see a lot of

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Speaker 2: numbers as the ballots are counted tonight, but we will

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Speaker 2: not have a clear sense this is going to be

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Speaker 2: a closely divided nation and in the end I don't

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Speaker 2: think you will see a situation where someone wins the

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Speaker 2: popular vote and a different person wins the electoral college

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Speaker 2: vote tonight. Based on this turnout, the moment is going

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Speaker 2: to be with whoever got their people out.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And that's that's part of the key thing here.

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Speaker 1: They do take people out to vote, don't they say? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Do we know? With Indiana, for instance, if I just

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Speaker 1: picked that one which has declared for Trumps, that seems

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Speaker 1: to be across the board that Trump in his twenty

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Speaker 1: three electoral college votes so far as one Indiana, do

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Speaker 1: we know if that margin he's looking at figures showing

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Speaker 1: he's got sixty two percent of the vote to Harris's

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Speaker 1: thirty five point eight, sixty two point six to thirty

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Speaker 1: five point eight, is that a bigger result than it

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Speaker 1: was four years ago?

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Speaker 2: I'm not sure off the top of my head, in

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Speaker 2: part because Indiana is not a competitive state, so you know,

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Speaker 2: he was always slated to win those electoral college votes.

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Speaker 2: The states that I am looking at are you know,

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Speaker 2: kind of the seven key battlegrounds, but North Carolina, Pennsylvania

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Speaker 2: being the biggest, Michigan, Wisconsin, You've got Arizona, Nevada, Georgia

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Speaker 2: are kind of the key ones you can throw in Minnesota.

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Speaker 2: You could throw in a little bit of Virginia. Some

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Speaker 2: people think Florida might have, but really it's those seven

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Speaker 2: and that's really the only boats to matter. We know

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Speaker 2: there's a foregone conclusion that, for example, Kamala Harris will

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Speaker 2: win the states of New York and California, which are

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Speaker 2: huge prizes. Texas Democrats always say they feel confident about

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Speaker 2: Texas and Republicans have won it for basically all of

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Speaker 2: my lifetime and probably all beyond that. I would be

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Speaker 2: highly surprised if anything changed there. So what we're not

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Speaker 2: really expecting any shocking surprises here. If you start to

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Speaker 2: see numbers closer to fifty to fifty in some of

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Speaker 2: these Midwestern states like Iowa or Kansas, those two states

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Speaker 2: have had polls recently showing a huge surge momentum from

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Speaker 2: the Democrats over the issue of abortion right. This is

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Speaker 2: a huge issue. This is the first presidential race since

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Speaker 2: Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court in

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty two. And we see that women are turning

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Speaker 2: out in numbers, huge numbers, and that might end up

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Speaker 2: being the deciding factor here, and it might make these

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Speaker 2: states that are foregone Republican conclusions actually be much more

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Speaker 2: competitive in the in the.

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Speaker 1: End, interesting the difference between North and South Carolina. North

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Speaker 1: is is Democrat. South seems to be Republican and just

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Speaker 1: you know, next to each other.

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Speaker 2: Sure, and North Carolina is definitely a swing state. I

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Speaker 2: would not be surprised if the Republicans are able to

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Speaker 2: win their president. Former President Trump has spent a ton

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Speaker 2: of his time actually in North Carolina in the last

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Speaker 2: couple of weeks here, but they're they're quite different. South

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Speaker 2: Carolina has you know, one Democrat representing the entire state

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Speaker 2: in Congress. North Carolina is not only more racially diverse,

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Speaker 2: but it is also a state where people move from

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Speaker 2: the New England, which tends to be more liberal. So

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Speaker 2: you have an influx of people going to the universities

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Speaker 2: there who are moving for jobs there. There's a lot

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Speaker 2: of tech jobs, and and that inherently makes the state

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Speaker 2: more left leaning or democratic. So that has been a

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Speaker 2: more competitive state in recent years. Barack Obama was the

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Speaker 2: first Democrat to win North Carolina in two thousand and

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Speaker 2: eight since nineteen sixty four, and we are expecting some

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Speaker 2: things like that if there ends up being a big

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Speaker 2: turnout for Harris too.

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Speaker 1: Well, at the moment, she's on track. I mean it's

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Speaker 1: just two percent countered or reported. She's got seventy six

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Speaker 1: thousand votes to Trump's thirty four thousand. Now that could

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Speaker 1: be the counties perhaps, or whatever it is, but Jake

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Speaker 1: well ahead at the moment.

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Speaker 2: I would just caution on any of the numbers because

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Speaker 2: every state is different in how they count. So, for example,

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Speaker 2: in Arizona, they have early voting for about two weeks

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Speaker 2: before the election. They start counting those votes the second

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Speaker 2: they're received. So when Arizona's poll closes poles closed, you

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Speaker 2: will see numbers that are all the people that voted

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Speaker 2: from October twentieth or whatever on, and things changed over

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Speaker 2: the course of time, and so then you don't know

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Speaker 2: how the votes of people who decided on election day

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Speaker 2: or late breaking deciders or undecided people voted. So anything

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Speaker 2: that you see this early stage, I would just say, like,

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Speaker 2: pretend you don't see it. I know that's hard because

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Speaker 2: it's exciting, but until you have more than half of

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Speaker 2: the votes counted, you really can't get a sense of

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Speaker 2: the state unless it's a really red state, like Indiana,

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Speaker 2: like Oklahoma. Those are states they're going to be able

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Speaker 2: to call right away, Idaho, South Dakota. But in terms

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Speaker 2: of these raw numbers that are coming in, they could

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Speaker 2: be mail in ballots, they could be the ballots from

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Speaker 2: seven am, they could be boots in. Every state has

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Speaker 2: different rules, and sometimes it's really hard to keep track

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Speaker 2: of that, especially if you're covering this from a national perspective.

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Speaker 2: And as my students now I'm overseeing the media center,

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Speaker 2: as you said, they're covering this tonight, I have to

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Speaker 2: caution them, you know, to not just read into a

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Speaker 2: lot of these numbers.

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Speaker 1: All right, very good advice. Now tell us what happens

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Speaker 1: out of five hundred and thirty eight college votes if

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Speaker 1: it comes down to two sixty nine apiece.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, So I had to look this up recently

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Speaker 2: because it is a possible scenario. I don't want to

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Speaker 2: get into why it's a possible for scenario. But you

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Speaker 2: can play around with these maps.

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Speaker 3: All the news outlets have them.

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Speaker 2: I like two seventy to win, which is just very

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Speaker 2: clear and easy to use if you want to play

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Speaker 2: around with it. But there is several scenarios where they

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Speaker 2: come to sixty nine apiece and then effectively it goes

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Speaker 2: to the US House of Representatives, and that is not

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Speaker 2: clear how that would go. Republicans control it by a

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Speaker 2: handful of votes right now, but there are all kinds

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Speaker 2: of factors that could make it just either really ugly

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Speaker 2: or really uncertain. I it would be a journalist's dream

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Speaker 2: to see that happen, but I haven't spent a ton

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Speaker 2: of time preparing for it just because it is it

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Speaker 2: is unlikely since it has never happened before.

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Speaker 1: Has Congress has ruled previously, has not in early elections

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Speaker 1: long gone in the eighteen hundreds, I think determined who

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Speaker 1: should win.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there is there's some history again centuries, not recent

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Speaker 2: history at all, But the country was so different then.

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Speaker 2: The population was much much less, and also things were

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Speaker 2: not not so closely divided when it comes to party

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Speaker 2: and the lines of congressional boundaries. So you can't really

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Speaker 2: make a comparison to that time just because the overall

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Speaker 2: system of government is so different, even though the rules

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Speaker 2: are the same.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I understand that all right.

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Speaker 3: Now.

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Speaker 1: You talked earlier about the likelihood of court challenges, so

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Speaker 1: I talk US through that. Now, if Donald Trump wins,

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Speaker 1: obviously Republicans sound going to challenge anything, are they, But

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Speaker 1: Democrats might.

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Speaker 3: Well, so it's not just about Donald Trump. So let's

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Speaker 3: say he wins.

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Speaker 2: But we're not sure who controls the US Senate or

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Speaker 2: the US House right now. Republicans control the House by

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Speaker 2: very narrow margin. A lot of these races are going

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Speaker 2: to be decided by a few thousand votes, and the

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Speaker 2: Senate is controlled by Democrats, and they're pretty likely to

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Speaker 2: lose tonight. Regardless of the presidential outcome, where you will

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Speaker 2: see election challenges, even if former President Trump is elected

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Speaker 2: tonight or in the next couple of days, you will

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Speaker 2: probably see challenges in these House races, maybe even in

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Speaker 2: state legislative races that are decided by an even narrower margin,

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Speaker 2: because that controls power when it comes to how electors

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Speaker 2: are named, what abortion restrictions are on the ballot, gun law,

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Speaker 2: like many many many things are decided by the states,

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Speaker 2: and so I will expect a lot of legal challenges.

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Speaker 2: And that's where anybody with legal experience, if they have

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Speaker 2: a partisan bent, they are really working with the campaigns

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Speaker 2: to make sure that they are available and ready to

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Speaker 2: go if there are any irregularities. One irregularity we're hearing

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Speaker 2: this is very interesting happening on college campuses everywhere. Many

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Speaker 2: many states have a signature verification process where you sign

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Speaker 2: you mail your ballot and you sign it, and then

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Speaker 2: they look at your signature on file. In most cases

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Speaker 2: it's from your driver's license, which you get at the

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Speaker 2: age of sixteen, but you can't sign up to vote

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Speaker 2: till you're eighteen. And in most cases their first presidential

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Speaker 2: vote is this one, and they're twenty one or twenty two,

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Speaker 2: their signature at twenty two looks quite different than how

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Speaker 2: they signed their driver's license at sixteen years old. I mean,

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Speaker 2: heart's over the eyes, maybe it's not incursive. All those things.

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Speaker 2: People change. And so in my own class, I have

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Speaker 2: twenty students. I had two students who have stories about

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Speaker 2: signatures getting rejected from their peers in swing states. So

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Speaker 2: to me, that's going to be a story we see

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Speaker 2: all across the country, and there's a potential for them

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Speaker 2: to challenge that legally. You know, you could write an

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Speaker 2: affidavit and just say, hey, my signature change from the

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Speaker 2: time I was a teenager who you know is still

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Speaker 2: in high school, and you're going to see lawyers challenge that,

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Speaker 2: especially if the turns out that young people did make

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Speaker 2: the difference in one of these elections. I think you're

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Speaker 2: going to hear a lot about that, and to me,

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Speaker 2: it's just a fascinating story. You also see signature degradation

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Speaker 2: when it comes to older people. Maybe they can't write

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Speaker 2: as well because they have our thrited, you know, many

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Speaker 2: many things. Or when people first registered to vote, they

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Speaker 2: didn't speak the language as well, so they weren't as

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Speaker 2: confident as a writer. And now they do speak the

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Speaker 2: language well, so their signature change. So these are all

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Speaker 2: examined by by lawyers over the course of the certification process,

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Speaker 2: which will last several weeks, if not more than a month.

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Speaker 1: Christina, you say, don't get excited yet on these early numbers.

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Speaker 1: When should we start getting excited? What four or five o'clock?

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Speaker 3: Maybe we's what is it about eleven?

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Speaker 1: As so about six hours would you say.

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Speaker 2: You know, we'll have more information. It's really important to

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Speaker 2: remember it's not votes cast that are getting reported, it's

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Speaker 2: votes counted. And in so many cases like you will

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Speaker 2: still have people in line to vote for the next

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Speaker 2: six hours of across this country, and these lines are

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Speaker 2: wrapping around buildings, They're at capacity, they're running out of ballots.

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Speaker 2: I mean, it is absolutely shattering every record in every

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Speaker 2: single state, even red states. So to me, that tells

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Speaker 2: me like you will have results to report on. But

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Speaker 2: I just think we really I'm just cautioning people. I mean,

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Speaker 2: even here at my school, I'm hosting an event tonight,

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Speaker 2: and that event, we are telling people it will end

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Speaker 2: at eleven, no matter what has happened, because we're not

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Speaker 2: going to know the results until Wednesday Thursday. If you remember,

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Speaker 2: in twenty twenty, they did not call the election for

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Speaker 2: Joe Biden until Saturday, right was on a Tuesday.

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Speaker 3: It got called on a Saturday around lunchtime.

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Speaker 2: So again, very very very very narrow margins are determining

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Speaker 2: each of these states.

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Speaker 3: And the lawyers are ready.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Can I ask you about the polls if you've

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Speaker 1: got a minute old two still that we've seen, and

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Speaker 1: polls in the past twenty sixteen, twenty twenty underestimated Trump,

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Speaker 1: particularly especially twenty sixteen, has corrections would have been put

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Speaker 1: in place? Could they be under estimating Harris in this campaign?

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Speaker 2: There's a bunch of different ways that polls work that

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Speaker 2: for me suggests they're kind of a thing of the past.

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Speaker 2: So one of those ways is that they apply a screen.

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Speaker 2: They'll say, you know, well, the first question if you're

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Speaker 2: looking at a poll to know if it's a good

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Speaker 2: poll or not, is it a likely voter or just

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Speaker 2: a voter? Right, if someone is registered to vote, that

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Speaker 2: doesn't mean they are going to vote. So likely voter

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Speaker 2: tells you something. It means they voted more than once.

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Speaker 2: I mean, if they're saying they're one hundred percent likely

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Speaker 2: to vote, or whatever that may be. But then in

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Speaker 2: addition to that, they apply racial demographic screens. So, for example,

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Speaker 2: if you call a thousand people, but you accidentally only

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Speaker 2: have three percent of that those thousand people are black,

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Speaker 2: and the US population is not three percent, or the

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Speaker 2: population of Michigan, for example, is not three percent black.

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Speaker 2: So then you actually adjust your numbers to say, well

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Speaker 2: that those three percent of black people who said this,

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Speaker 2: we're going to amplify their voice in this particular poll

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Speaker 2: to make the data match right the population, which is

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Speaker 2: a smart thing to do if.

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Speaker 3: Things make sense.

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Speaker 2: But we have seen, particularly in the last election cycle,

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Speaker 2: but also for the last eight years is that demographics

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Speaker 2: are no longer reliable. We know Kamala Harris is not

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Speaker 2: going to win one hundred percent of the black vote.

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Speaker 2: We also know that Latinos and especially Latino men, and

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Speaker 2: especially young Latino men, are now overwhelmingly starting to favor

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Speaker 2: former President Trump. So where you used to apply a

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Speaker 2: screen for Latinos to be representative of the population, you

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Speaker 2: cannot do that. In addition to that, demographics in general

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Speaker 2: are so vastly changing here in the United States, which

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Speaker 2: is rapidly becoming a majority minority country, but not just

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Speaker 2: majority minority, multi racial country. So someone might be you know,

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Speaker 2: Cuban and also black, or maybe they are from Nicaragua

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Speaker 2: as a refugee, but they are married to a Chinese person.

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Speaker 2: Like there are, like these coalitions of demographics just don't

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Speaker 2: You can't rely on them anymore. So those screens are

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Speaker 2: effectively worthless. We've seen that in polling, so you don't know.

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Speaker 2: In addition to that, the models of polls are based

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Speaker 2: on who we think will vote, So if you have

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Speaker 2: suddenly young people voted in record numbers in twenty twenty

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Speaker 2: two are midterm elections for the congressional elections, which is

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Speaker 2: why the Republicans did not have the quote unquote red

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Speaker 2: wave that they had been predicting, because young people showed

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Speaker 2: part to protest real v wave being overturned. They turned

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Speaker 2: out in like I think it was about forty eight

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Speaker 2: percent or something. That was one of the highest turnouts

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Speaker 2: of young people. I don't have the number off the

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Speaker 2: top of my head. Let's say they show up at

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Speaker 2: seventy five percent of all young people vote today. That

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Speaker 2: will shatter every expectation we ever had, so inherently the

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Speaker 2: screens that we put on these polls are wrong.

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Speaker 3: Now.

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Speaker 2: That said, my students and I went to these battleground

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Speaker 2: states and we went to college campuses, and we did

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Speaker 2: encounter people on college campuses that were like.

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Speaker 3: Uh, is there an election going on? Who's on the ballot?

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Speaker 2: Like, there are definitely low information voters, but sometimes they

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Speaker 2: get caught up and they can register the same and

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Speaker 2: they will indeed.

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Speaker 3: Well cast about even if they're not an informed for her.

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Speaker 1: So that excuse it all. Look really appreciate your insights, Christina,

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much. I know you'll be following this

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Speaker 1: with great interest, as will people write around the world,

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Speaker 1: including people here in Adelaide.

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Speaker 2: Lovely chatting with you likewise my pleasure.

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Speaker 3: Have an amazing day.

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Speaker 1: Thank you you too. Professor Christina Bellentoni, who is a

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Speaker 1: professor of professional practice and director of the Media Center

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Speaker 1: USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and married to

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Speaker 1: an Adelaide boy. As she said, the most important qualification