Speaker 1: Pushkin. Welcome to Solvable. I'm Jacob Weisberg. Think now about
Speaker 1: the scenes from the Michigan State House militia members carrying
Speaker 1: AR fifteens. It's the most shocking thing you can imagine.
Speaker 1: It's shocking, and we're going to have a risk of
Speaker 1: seeing too much of that kind of thing. The states
Speaker 1: are extremely high for this year's election. Experts had anticipated
Speaker 1: the largest turnout in a century. States were registering voters
Speaker 1: and preparing their precincts, and then COVID nineteen hit. Priorities
Speaker 1: suddenly shifted. You know, you don't want a governor being
Speaker 1: able to say, oh, I'm going to postpone an election.
Speaker 1: I mean, we've had elections in this country under all
Speaker 1: kinds of dire circumstances, wars and in fact pandemics in
Speaker 1: the past. But having the paper ballot, having that backup
Speaker 1: so that you can do an audit, so that you
Speaker 1: can see if there was fraud, so that you can
Speaker 1: do a recount, that turns out to be the best
Speaker 1: system of all. Is there an argument other than the
Speaker 1: purely partisan one that more voting may advantage one party
Speaker 1: versus the other, You're more likely to be struck by
Speaker 1: lightning than commit in person voter impersonation in the United States.
Speaker 1: But there are other real hurdles to this year's election.
Speaker 1: With millions of Americans vulnerable to a deadly pandemic, social
Speaker 1: distancing measure is now a familiar part of life, and
Speaker 1: the country facing what is perhaps the largest economic crisis
Speaker 1: in its history, the challenge of securing a safe election
Speaker 1: with high rates of participation is huge. We can have
Speaker 1: an election that is participatory with robust turnout in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: This is a solvable problem. Michael Waldman is the author
Speaker 1: of the book The Fight to Vote. He's the president
Speaker 1: of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU. It's a
Speaker 1: nonpartisan law and policy institute that focuses on improving systems
Speaker 1: of democracy. Waldman is an expert in the practicalities of
Speaker 1: the democratic process. He's identified some straightforward solutions to this
Speaker 1: year's election challenges. My solvable is having an election that
Speaker 1: is safe and secure and fully participatory in the middle
Speaker 1: of the coronavirus pandemic and Mike, we can't really predict
Speaker 1: what it's going to be like in November. What are
Speaker 1: the main things we as a country and as states
Speaker 1: need to do. Well, You're right that we don't know
Speaker 1: what it's going to be like in November. The bottom
Speaker 1: line is we need to upgrade how we run elections
Speaker 1: in the United States for twenty twenty, so that people
Speaker 1: have the option of voting by mail, so that there
Speaker 1: are safe in person options and ample early voting, so
Speaker 1: that people can register to vote safely, and so that
Speaker 1: we count the ballots in a careful way. Recognizing that
Speaker 1: everything's changed, vote by mail seems like a pretty simple
Speaker 1: and obvious solution. I mean, I understand their legal obstacles
Speaker 1: in some states and their funding obstacles, but in your
Speaker 1: ideal world, wouldn't we just send a prepaid ballot to
Speaker 1: everybody who's registered and encourage them to vote that way. Well,
Speaker 1: a lot of states already run their elections by vote
Speaker 1: by mail, Western states, especially like California and Oregon and
Speaker 1: Washington and Colorado and Utah. That's pretty much how people
Speaker 1: vote right now. It will be impossible to imagine the
Speaker 1: whole country moving to vote by mail in November. What
Speaker 1: we can do in the meantime is make it so
Speaker 1: that people are notified of their opportunity to get a ballot,
Speaker 1: and that they don't need an excuse, they don't need
Speaker 1: the doctor's note, and we have every reason to think
Speaker 1: that most people right now will want to vote that way. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, you wrote a whole book about the history
Speaker 1: of voting in the expansion of voting rights in this country.
Speaker 1: The thing I don't understand about it older people who
Speaker 1: tend to be more conservative, tend to vote with the Republicans,
Speaker 1: are the most in need of remote voting options and
Speaker 1: the most in jeopardy from having to go out to
Speaker 1: vote in person. Yet it seems to be conservatives who
Speaker 1: are fighting the vote by mail things. So can you
Speaker 1: explain that to me? Well, you know, there's lots of
Speaker 1: things when it comes to voting that are controversial where
Speaker 1: there have been partisan fights. If you think about something
Speaker 1: like the debate over what kind of voter ID makes sense,
Speaker 1: that's pretty intense and has been in a kind of Democrat,
Speaker 1: Republican left right way. Vote by mail has not been
Speaker 1: one of the controversial things. The further away you get
Speaker 1: from the Fox News set or I guess the White
Speaker 1: House podium, the less partisan this is. Trump first said
Speaker 1: out loud what you're really not supposed to say, which
Speaker 1: is oh, we'll get levels of voting that are so
Speaker 1: high that we'll never win. And then after a few
Speaker 1: days he realized he'd gone off script, and what he
Speaker 1: said is, oh, I'm very worried about the specter of
Speaker 1: voter fraud. But he really made clear the goal was
Speaker 1: to restrict the electorate, but started drama. But that's my question.
Speaker 1: Is it possible that he's wrong? That is, in general terms,
Speaker 1: more people voting might advantage Democrats, but in specific terms,
Speaker 1: a lot of the things Democrats are advocating right now
Speaker 1: might just advantage Republicans. More political scientists say that it
Speaker 1: hasn't affected one party or another, that vote by mail
Speaker 1: hasn't benefited one party or another. Republican campaigns and Democratic
Speaker 1: campaigns are organizing voters to vote by mail. It hasn't
Speaker 1: stopped the Republican Party of Florida from pouring a lot
Speaker 1: of energy into organizing people by vote by mail. That's
Speaker 1: what's weird about this is vote by mail was probably
Speaker 1: one of the least partisan and least divisive issues in
Speaker 1: the whole voting area. And that is one one thing
Speaker 1: that I think is pretty hopeful. I mean, you say this,
Speaker 1: but we saw this play out in a seemingly just
Speaker 1: crazy and somewhat vicious way in Wisconsin, where democratic governor said,
Speaker 1: we're having a pandemic, let's extend, let's delay the election briefly,
Speaker 1: and let's have vote by mail. And I guess it's
Speaker 1: a Republican legislature and a conservative dominated state courts forced
Speaker 1: the election to happen, and there were these scenes of
Speaker 1: you know, people feeling very imperiled going out to vote
Speaker 1: in masks and so on. I mean, what happened there.
Speaker 1: People were so angry about their right to vote being
Speaker 1: taken away or about their health being put at risk,
Speaker 1: that they voted in greater numbers than anybody expected. One
Speaker 1: thing that happened is people in the state it wisconstant
Speaker 1: is one of those states that elects their state Supreme
Speaker 1: Court justices as much of the country does. The more
Speaker 1: progressive candidate won that race in a blowout in a
Speaker 1: way that nobody expected, and people being angry about what
Speaker 1: was happening with the voting seemed to be one of
Speaker 1: the reasons. Well, that's really interesting point, Michael. I mean,
Speaker 1: there is as part of an American history, you know,
Speaker 1: your vote acquires meaning in proportion to the effort by
Speaker 1: other people to deny you the right to vote. You know,
Speaker 1: you don't want a governor being able to say, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm going to postpone an election. I mean, we've had
Speaker 1: elections in this country under all kinds of die or circumstances,
Speaker 1: wars and in fact pandemics in the past, very tough circumstances,
Speaker 1: and we've always done it. We had an election in
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty four during the Civil War. Lincoln felt it
Speaker 1: was extraordinarily important to keep going and have the election,
Speaker 1: and it was actually the case that his victory speech
Speaker 1: was about why the significance of not letting the rebellion
Speaker 1: stop our elections. We had an election in nineteen eighteen.
Speaker 1: Turnout dropped and they had a lot of the same
Speaker 1: issues now and people wearing masks. But in the middle
Speaker 1: of the Spanish flu in nineteen forty two, when millions
Speaker 1: of people were caught up in World War Two, we
Speaker 1: ran elections. We've always had the steps taken that had
Speaker 1: to happen to make it so people could vote under
Speaker 1: the craziest of circumstances. We've never had a president basically
Speaker 1: saying out loud that he sees an opportunity to shrink
Speaker 1: turnout because of the crisis for political reasons. That has
Speaker 1: never happened before, and that would be really destructive if
Speaker 1: we let that guide. What we do as a part
Speaker 1: of assuring a fair election is making sure that you
Speaker 1: have technology that works that doesn't enable fraud or you know,
Speaker 1: just miscount votes, as of course we've dealt with in
Speaker 1: several recent elections. When we were kids, you know, we
Speaker 1: there was different technology from voting. I some of my
Speaker 1: favorite early memories are going with my parents in Chicago
Speaker 1: to vote on those giant machines, you know, with the
Speaker 1: curtain and they pulled the enormous lever and you know,
Speaker 1: my my parents would let me flick the little metallic
Speaker 1: levers to choose your candidate. And actually they still have
Speaker 1: machines when I go to vote in New York, but
Speaker 1: there are little machines and they they have this opti
Speaker 1: scan card. But you know, what's how does technology play
Speaker 1: into all of this? There was there was in you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of the country's history, a lot of fraud
Speaker 1: in voting. And one of the solutions has been technology.
Speaker 1: And you know, one of my earliest powerful memories around
Speaker 1: democracy about things that got me really interested in this
Speaker 1: whole thing is going with my parents to do this
Speaker 1: very sacramental thing where you not only could flick the switch,
Speaker 1: but you got to pull a lever to open the curtain,
Speaker 1: which meant the vote had been cast. The machine itself
Speaker 1: was considered a technological solution back in the late eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: It appears, you know, when you would go on election
Speaker 1: day and stand down at the river, you would see
Speaker 1: boxes floating on the river because the Democrats had gone
Speaker 1: to the Republican precincts and taken the boxes and throwing
Speaker 1: them in the river. And the Republicans had gone to
Speaker 1: the Democratic precincts and thrown them in the river. So
Speaker 1: they had basically they needed a technological fix. They said,
Speaker 1: we need a new voting system, a new voting machine.
Speaker 1: And the key specification was it had to be too
Speaker 1: heavy to pick up and throw in the river. And
Speaker 1: for all the problems with those machines, they were always
Speaker 1: too heavy to throw in the river, and it is
Speaker 1: the case that they were often prone to error or miscounting.
Speaker 1: The best way to have votes counted is with a
Speaker 1: paper ballot and counted by these machines. But having the
Speaker 1: paper ballot, having that backup so that you can do
Speaker 1: an audit so that you can see if there was fraud,
Speaker 1: so that you can do a recount. That turns out
Speaker 1: to be the best system of all, and we've evolved
Speaker 1: toward that even in this pandemic. That's what we've got.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the solutions for twenty twenty. You know,
Speaker 1: the COVID election, as I'm sure it will go down
Speaker 1: in the history books. What are the key things that
Speaker 1: we need to do to make this election work? Most
Speaker 1: important thing is to have everybody have access to vote
Speaker 1: by mail, and the polls show that most people now
Speaker 1: expect to and want to be able to vote by
Speaker 1: mail this year. In addition to that, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of people who want to or need to vote
Speaker 1: in person, a lot of communities where the mail doesn't
Speaker 1: work so well. So what that means is you need
Speaker 1: safe in person voting, especially lots of early voting opportunities.
Speaker 1: We also need to make sure that these in person
Speaker 1: polling places are sanitary, for example, having masks and PPP
Speaker 1: for poll workers. It means having sanitation, and means having
Speaker 1: enough polling sites so open, early enough and early voting
Speaker 1: so that people can spread out their times when they
Speaker 1: go and stand online if they need to, in a
Speaker 1: way that's safe. You're saying the poll workers won't be
Speaker 1: able to share donuts in the usual way. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of poll workers do it for the donuts.
Speaker 1: Let's be that's not really quite right. But the poll
Speaker 1: workers are very you know a lot of the poll
Speaker 1: workers are very dedicated. They've been doing it for years.
Speaker 1: They're often senior citizens. But this year we may need
Speaker 1: to make sure that there are the right number of
Speaker 1: people who can show up safely to run places. We
Speaker 1: have to change also how we register voters. Expand online
Speaker 1: voter registration, which a lot of states have, because you know,
Speaker 1: this year, people aren't going to be getting registered to
Speaker 1: vote with people standing in shopping centers with clipboards, and
Speaker 1: we did see voter registration rates of new voters collapse
Speaker 1: in March and April of this year. Whatever the results
Speaker 1: are an election night aren't going to be the final
Speaker 1: results because the states that vote by mail just take
Speaker 1: longer to count the ballots. States need to change their
Speaker 1: counting systems so that deadlines are going to shift because
Speaker 1: it takes longer to count paper ballots, and we have
Speaker 1: to have a real public education campaign to teach people
Speaker 1: how they can do it now it's different from what
Speaker 1: they're used to. All of these things can be done.
Speaker 1: They've all been done somewhere. That's why it's a solvable
Speaker 1: This is a solvable problem. We can have an election
Speaker 1: that is participatory with robust turnout in twenty twenty. But
Speaker 1: we've got to act. And what help do the states need?
Speaker 1: I mean, there's been discussion of congressional funding for vote
Speaker 1: by mail efforts and for some of these procedures that
Speaker 1: are needed to make in person voting safer. Do they
Speaker 1: really need a lot of money? And are we going
Speaker 1: to have an issue with supplies the way we did
Speaker 1: early in the crisis around PPP and masks. You know,
Speaker 1: is there enough watermarked paper for all these mail ballots
Speaker 1: or you know the technology around vote by mail? Do
Speaker 1: we have the supplies and equipment? The main thing they
Speaker 1: need is money. They need help from the federal government.
Speaker 1: Only the federal government can spend right now, states many
Speaker 1: of them have balanced budget requirements, and so that's why
Speaker 1: these stimulus bills and the ability of the federal government
Speaker 1: to spend and provide resources is so important. The Brennan
Speaker 1: Center has calculated that what will need to happen will
Speaker 1: cost up to four billion dollars in twenty twenty, and
Speaker 1: Congress past in appropriation for the first four hundred million dollars.
Speaker 1: Congress has to act, and if Congress doesn't act, it
Speaker 1: is going to be very hard for states to do
Speaker 1: what they want to and need to do. Time is
Speaker 1: really really of the essence. There are deadlines, there are
Speaker 1: supply chain issues. Election officials can't just walk into a
Speaker 1: Staples in October and buy a bunch of scanners to
Speaker 1: look at the voting machines. They have to order them now.
Speaker 1: And there are really tight deadlines. So one of the
Speaker 1: terrible things would be if we woke up in a
Speaker 1: few months and realized that we needed to do this
Speaker 1: but that the window to do it had closed. How
Speaker 1: worried should we be about the post Office? The post
Speaker 1: Office is going to run out of funding if something
Speaker 1: isn't done and September and the President again is sort
Speaker 1: of seems to see the post Office as part of,
Speaker 1: you know, this thing that's going to enable people to
Speaker 1: vote more than he wants them to, you know. And
Speaker 1: I was also amazed to learn reading about this that
Speaker 1: mail in ballots don't come post paid. That is, you
Speaker 1: need a stamp. And you know, I don't know your
Speaker 1: children are a little older than mine, but you know,
Speaker 1: people who are voting for the first time are often
Speaker 1: not familiar with the technology of mail and stamps as
Speaker 1: things you need to have to mail letters. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: the post office is running out of money. We think
Speaker 1: it's important that postage be prepaid. Also, a lot of
Speaker 1: people are kind of nervous about sticking a ballot in
Speaker 1: a mailbox you know, is going to really go where
Speaker 1: I want it to go. So a lot of places
Speaker 1: that do vote by mail, people get the ballots at home,
Speaker 1: but they can drop them off at their convenience, in
Speaker 1: a secure and guarded box, you know, at a government office.
Speaker 1: And that is actually how a lot of people vote.
Speaker 1: It's really voted home rather than vote by mail alone.
Speaker 1: By how will we know whether we've solved this problem?
Speaker 1: One measure will simply be whether people feel safe and
Speaker 1: secure and that they've been able to vote and their
Speaker 1: votes have been counted. You know, Should we be judging
Speaker 1: it by turnout? I mean, we've had this big oscillation
Speaker 1: and turnout in American elections is there a turnout level
Speaker 1: that will say to us, we've succeeded in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: In twenty fourteen, we had the lowest voter turnout in
Speaker 1: seventy two years. It was for a mid term, but
Speaker 1: that's how you do the comparison. That was like a
Speaker 1: real sign of a withdrawal of public trust, of disaffection.
Speaker 1: But in twenty eighteen, we had the highest voter turnout
Speaker 1: in a century. People were reacting to Trump, people were
Speaker 1: voting supporting Trump. They were certainly kindled in their activism
Speaker 1: and a real surge and youth voting and other things
Speaker 1: to repudiate and protest Trump. So this was gonna be
Speaker 1: We were all preparing for the highest turnout record high
Speaker 1: turnout in twenty twenty. If there's a collapse in turnout,
Speaker 1: that is not going to be because people just don't
Speaker 1: care whether Trump gets reelected. We'll also know if people
Speaker 1: are having to stand in line in very unsafe situations.
Speaker 1: You know, this election is already so much distrust and
Speaker 1: so much anger and so much misinformation. We can't allow
Speaker 1: anything to happen that's going to just make people distrusted
Speaker 1: even more. Think now about the scenes from the Michigan
Speaker 1: State House militia members carrying AR fifteens have invaded the
Speaker 1: state House and actually stop the state legislature from doing
Speaker 1: its work. It's the most shocking thing you can imagine.
Speaker 1: It's shocking, and we're going to have a risk of
Speaker 1: seeing too much of that kind of thing if people
Speaker 1: don't trust how the elections are being run and if
Speaker 1: they unfold in chaos in November. I'm very worried about
Speaker 1: this kind of thing, Mike. To wrap up, I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask you a little bit about what listeners can do,
Speaker 1: and in particular, if you are really concerned about the
Speaker 1: safety and security of the election in twenty twenty, should
Speaker 1: you focusing your efforts locally or nationally. First of all,
Speaker 1: speak out, let your members of Congress know that they
Speaker 1: should put aside the partisanship and support the resources for
Speaker 1: states to be able to do this, and let people
Speaker 1: in state capitals know the same thing this year too.
Speaker 1: There's individual steps that people can take. Find out and
Speaker 1: make sure you are registered. Most states have the ability
Speaker 1: to do that through a website online. You want to
Speaker 1: make sure that you're not purged from the voter rolls
Speaker 1: or that something hasn't happened so that it's all going
Speaker 1: to be very different now, and you want to make
Speaker 1: sure you're registered. Find out also what the deadlines are
Speaker 1: forgetting an absentee ballot or a mail ballot, if that's
Speaker 1: what you want to do. It's not going to just
Speaker 1: show up most of the time in your mailbox and
Speaker 1: you fill it out. You've got to ask for it.
Speaker 1: We can help our parents do that if they need
Speaker 1: the technological help, but we all have a big responsibility. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but is there a legitimate other side to this issue?
Speaker 1: I mean, when I hear you talking, this stuff seems
Speaker 1: so obvious. We should make it possible for people to vote.
Speaker 1: We should make it easier for people to vote, should
Speaker 1: be safe for people to vote. More people should vote.
Speaker 1: Is there an argument other than the purely partisan one
Speaker 1: that more voting may advantage one party versus the other,
Speaker 1: against the kinds of things that Brennan Center advocates in
Speaker 1: terms of expanding voting rights. You know, the notion that
Speaker 1: everybody who's eligible should be able to vote is in
Speaker 1: many ways at the heart of our civic religion. It's
Speaker 1: it's it's a core patriotic, widely shared view. You hear
Speaker 1: arguments that voting is a privilege, not a right, but
Speaker 1: the right to vote is actually in the Constitution, mentioned
Speaker 1: five times in the amendments. It's something we all really
Speaker 1: believe in. It As America, you also hear people say
Speaker 1: that they're worried about election integrity and voter fraud, and
Speaker 1: it's really important that we have elections that are reliable
Speaker 1: and that we have election integrity, and that means, among
Speaker 1: other things, focusing on the real threats such as cybersecurity.
Speaker 1: And we know that Russia in twenty sixteen try to
Speaker 1: get into the election systems in all fifty states, and
Speaker 1: this time there's every reason to worry that Russia or
Speaker 1: other countries or other malevolent actors will be doing the
Speaker 1: same thing. So it's not that there aren't risks of
Speaker 1: misconduct in fraud. It is not the case that millions
Speaker 1: of illegal voters are magically and mysteriously voting. And when
Speaker 1: you look at all the research, voter fraud is vanishingly rare.
Speaker 1: You're more likely to be struck by lightning than commit
Speaker 1: in person voter impersonation. In the United States, that worry
Speaker 1: is addressable and is overwhelmed by the need to make
Speaker 1: sure that everybody who's eligible to vote can vote. To me,
Speaker 1: that's the only legitimate way to run an election. Mike,
Speaker 1: is great to see you via zoom, and I want
Speaker 1: to thank you for joining us Unsolvable. Thank you. That
Speaker 1: was Michael Waldman, President of the Brennan Center for Justice.
Speaker 1: Remember to check out our show notes for links to
Speaker 1: the suggestions our guests make for ways that you can
Speaker 1: get involved. Next week, we'll continue our election series with
Speaker 1: a conversation with Kristen Clark, President and Executive director of
Speaker 1: the National Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights under Law. She
Speaker 1: believes that the problem of voter suppression is solvable. Please
Speaker 1: join us. Solvable is brought to you by Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 1: Our show is produced by Camille Baptista, Senior producer Jocelyn Frank.
Speaker 1: Catherine Girardou is our managing producer, and our executive producer
Speaker 1: is Mia Lobell. Special thanks to Heather Faine, Eric Sandler,
Speaker 1: Carle Magliore and Kidija Holland. I'm Jacob Weisberg.