1
00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:03,400
Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Law. We're talking about Donald Trump's

2
00:00:03,440 --> 00:00:07,720
Speaker 1: call for an investigation into his allegations of voter fraud. UH.

3
00:00:07,800 --> 00:00:11,319
Speaker 1: An executive order is expected later today. Our guests are

4
00:00:11,400 --> 00:00:14,800
Speaker 1: Rick Hassan of the University of California, Irvine and the

5
00:00:14,840 --> 00:00:18,880
Speaker 1: founder of the indispensable election law blog dot org, and

6
00:00:18,960 --> 00:00:22,040
Speaker 1: Nate personally at Stanford University. A few minutes ago, I

7
00:00:22,040 --> 00:00:25,000
Speaker 1: I incorrectly said Nate was the research director of a

8
00:00:25,000 --> 00:00:28,920
Speaker 1: bipartisan commission that looked into the election that was actually

9
00:00:28,960 --> 00:00:33,239
Speaker 1: the election. Rick Um spell it. I know you're not

10
00:00:33,320 --> 00:00:36,360
Speaker 1: optimistic about what Donald Trump is gonna kinda come out with. UH,

11
00:00:36,640 --> 00:00:39,760
Speaker 1: but what would you see? What would a good investigation

12
00:00:39,920 --> 00:00:44,680
Speaker 1: into voting look like? Well, I think it would look

13
00:00:44,760 --> 00:00:48,360
Speaker 1: much like the commission that Nate was the research dirrector of.

14
00:00:48,479 --> 00:00:53,400
Speaker 1: In that commission, the Presidential Commission Election Administration. UH. The

15
00:00:53,479 --> 00:00:56,320
Speaker 1: leaders of that commission were two very well respected lawyers,

16
00:00:56,360 --> 00:01:01,000
Speaker 1: one Democrat Bob Bauer, one Republican Benkinsburg. It had had, uh, Nate,

17
00:01:01,040 --> 00:01:04,000
Speaker 1: it had, it had a professional staff. It brought in

18
00:01:04,080 --> 00:01:07,959
Speaker 1: social scientists and election administrators, and it issued a report

19
00:01:08,040 --> 00:01:12,959
Speaker 1: with concrete recommendations. You can imagine, uh that you could

20
00:01:12,959 --> 00:01:16,400
Speaker 1: tackle the issues of voter fraud and voter suppression with

21
00:01:16,480 --> 00:01:19,399
Speaker 1: the same kind of group, if you could actually get

22
00:01:19,440 --> 00:01:22,320
Speaker 1: people to agree to serve on the commission and to

23
00:01:22,400 --> 00:01:25,280
Speaker 1: do some findings. I'm just that's not what I'm expecting

24
00:01:25,959 --> 00:01:30,720
Speaker 1: we're going to see. But it's possible that if we

25
00:01:30,800 --> 00:01:33,640
Speaker 1: get something that looks more like a you know, a

26
00:01:33,640 --> 00:01:36,560
Speaker 1: fake commission or one that's where everything is predetermined, that

27
00:01:36,640 --> 00:01:38,960
Speaker 1: there could be some kind of shadow commission set up

28
00:01:38,959 --> 00:01:41,479
Speaker 1: to actually do this. That's actually one of the hopes

29
00:01:41,520 --> 00:01:47,400
Speaker 1: that I have. Nate. Yesterday, Representative Elijah Cummings and Robert

30
00:01:47,440 --> 00:01:51,600
Speaker 1: Brady sent a letter to every chief election official and

31
00:01:51,640 --> 00:01:56,560
Speaker 1: attorney general in all fifty states and d C asking

32
00:01:56,640 --> 00:02:02,880
Speaker 1: for specific information regarding confirmed incidents of voter fraud. Would

33
00:02:02,880 --> 00:02:06,920
Speaker 1: that be enough to satisfy the question of voter fraud

34
00:02:07,040 --> 00:02:11,519
Speaker 1: without having a commission? Well, we've sort of already done

35
00:02:11,560 --> 00:02:13,800
Speaker 1: all of this. I mean, there's for those of us

36
00:02:13,800 --> 00:02:15,760
Speaker 1: who've been working in this area, there's a sense of

37
00:02:15,800 --> 00:02:17,960
Speaker 1: frustration and that we keep studying the same thing and

38
00:02:18,000 --> 00:02:20,919
Speaker 1: we find the exact same thing over and over again,

39
00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:25,080
Speaker 1: so that um, what you will find is that there

40
00:02:25,120 --> 00:02:28,520
Speaker 1: are as, as Rick hinted at and even as Donald

41
00:02:28,520 --> 00:02:32,000
Speaker 1: Trump said, they're duplicate registrations. People move so they stay

42
00:02:32,040 --> 00:02:35,880
Speaker 1: on one thing, one voter role and another. UM. You

43
00:02:35,880 --> 00:02:38,840
Speaker 1: will see errors, plenty of errors whenever you're dealing with

44
00:02:38,880 --> 00:02:41,920
Speaker 1: a hundred and you know, thirty million or four forty

45
00:02:41,919 --> 00:02:45,079
Speaker 1: million voters in appalling place. Uh, but you will never

46
00:02:45,200 --> 00:02:50,120
Speaker 1: see this hordes of imaginary people turning out to vote

47
00:02:50,600 --> 00:02:54,200
Speaker 1: UM or hordes of illegal UM people turning out to

48
00:02:54,240 --> 00:02:56,919
Speaker 1: vote illegal being you know, people who are felons, people

49
00:02:56,919 --> 00:03:01,080
Speaker 1: who aren't citizens and the like, and so there there

50
00:03:01,080 --> 00:03:03,000
Speaker 1: are plenty of problems with the electoral system. But we

51
00:03:03,040 --> 00:03:05,400
Speaker 1: did study this. We spent a lot of money UM

52
00:03:05,440 --> 00:03:07,720
Speaker 1: three years ago studying this. You can see the report

53
00:03:07,760 --> 00:03:10,519
Speaker 1: at support the voter dot gov and you can see

54
00:03:10,560 --> 00:03:14,480
Speaker 1: all of the supporting documentation there from the political scientists UM.

55
00:03:14,520 --> 00:03:16,079
Speaker 1: And one of the things we said in the report

56
00:03:16,160 --> 00:03:19,360
Speaker 1: was that fraud is rare. UM. There is fraud, you know,

57
00:03:19,400 --> 00:03:21,560
Speaker 1: there's there are fraud and mistakes in the system. In

58
00:03:21,600 --> 00:03:26,240
Speaker 1: there sort of aberrant examples of that. UM. But if

59
00:03:26,280 --> 00:03:30,959
Speaker 1: you're searching for three million voters on election day who

60
00:03:31,000 --> 00:03:34,839
Speaker 1: were illegally voting, you're not going to find them. Rick,

61
00:03:34,880 --> 00:03:36,760
Speaker 1: since I said, you've said that you're worried about a

62
00:03:36,760 --> 00:03:38,640
Speaker 1: look concerned about what Donald Trump will come out with.

63
00:03:38,680 --> 00:03:42,440
Speaker 1: What What are you most concerned about? If what sort

64
00:03:42,480 --> 00:03:46,080
Speaker 1: of the worst case scenario scenario from your standpoint in

65
00:03:46,200 --> 00:03:49,640
Speaker 1: terms of what Donald Trump could order up. Well, we

66
00:03:49,640 --> 00:03:51,960
Speaker 1: could end up with a kind of sham report that

67
00:03:52,440 --> 00:03:57,080
Speaker 1: suggests falsely that uh, millions of fraudulent votes were cast,

68
00:03:57,160 --> 00:03:59,240
Speaker 1: and that this would then be used as a pretext

69
00:03:59,680 --> 00:04:03,480
Speaker 1: to engage in federal or to pass I should say,

70
00:04:03,480 --> 00:04:06,800
Speaker 1: federal legislation which would make it harder for people to

71
00:04:06,880 --> 00:04:08,800
Speaker 1: register and vote. And we can go down the list

72
00:04:08,840 --> 00:04:11,760
Speaker 1: of things national voter i D where the government doesn't

73
00:04:12,520 --> 00:04:15,880
Speaker 1: provide the kind of um help that voters would need

74
00:04:15,880 --> 00:04:17,520
Speaker 1: to actually be able to do this. You know, you

75
00:04:17,600 --> 00:04:19,520
Speaker 1: still have to show, say a state driver's license or

76
00:04:19,520 --> 00:04:22,320
Speaker 1: a passport, which would exclude millions of people who lacked

77
00:04:22,360 --> 00:04:27,000
Speaker 1: those documents. You can imagine changing the motor voter law

78
00:04:27,000 --> 00:04:30,920
Speaker 1: of the National Voter Registration Act so that voter registration

79
00:04:31,000 --> 00:04:33,760
Speaker 1: materials don't have to be offered at d m v

80
00:04:33,920 --> 00:04:37,000
Speaker 1: s and at public assistance agencies. You can imagine a

81
00:04:37,160 --> 00:04:40,200
Speaker 1: ban in congressional elections on early voting or same day

82
00:04:40,240 --> 00:04:43,520
Speaker 1: voter registration, federalizing the system in a way that makes

83
00:04:43,520 --> 00:04:46,720
Speaker 1: it look like some of the toughest restrictions we've seen

84
00:04:46,880 --> 00:04:50,200
Speaker 1: passed in some Republican states like Texas and North Carolina

85
00:04:51,360 --> 00:04:54,440
Speaker 1: and Nate this these are some of the concerns that

86
00:04:54,560 --> 00:04:58,800
Speaker 1: Democrats have expressed about what this investigation may lead to.

87
00:04:59,600 --> 00:05:04,560
Speaker 1: Is there an way to combat that? Well, again, there

88
00:05:04,760 --> 00:05:08,479
Speaker 1: you had fifty secretaries of state report that there was

89
00:05:08,600 --> 00:05:13,320
Speaker 1: no uh example of substantial voter fraud in this past election. Right,

90
00:05:13,360 --> 00:05:16,400
Speaker 1: so the National Association of Secretaries of State, which is

91
00:05:16,720 --> 00:05:20,560
Speaker 1: majority Republican, has you know, issued this report. You have

92
00:05:20,640 --> 00:05:24,320
Speaker 1: the governors saying the same thing, and so uh, you know,

93
00:05:26,080 --> 00:05:28,520
Speaker 1: there's a question at a certain point as to how

94
00:05:28,640 --> 00:05:31,760
Speaker 1: much evidence do you need from all the people who

95
00:05:31,800 --> 00:05:34,680
Speaker 1: are in charge of administering the elections from both parties

96
00:05:34,720 --> 00:05:37,760
Speaker 1: before you say, all right, that did not occur. Um.

97
00:05:38,080 --> 00:05:40,359
Speaker 1: And so either we have we if we have a

98
00:05:40,360 --> 00:05:43,200
Speaker 1: debate about the evidence, we know exactly where it's going

99
00:05:43,240 --> 00:05:45,880
Speaker 1: to point. If it then becomes just a political debate

100
00:05:45,920 --> 00:05:48,120
Speaker 1: like any other, well then we we we it sort

101
00:05:48,120 --> 00:05:52,960
Speaker 1: of descends into the polarization and partisanship of UM, all

102
00:05:53,000 --> 00:05:55,680
Speaker 1: these other debates we're having these days, I should say

103
00:05:55,760 --> 00:05:57,719
Speaker 1: that it is certainly Nate. I'm afraid we're gonna have

104
00:05:57,720 --> 00:05:59,560
Speaker 1: to leave it there. I want to thank thank you

105
00:05:59,680 --> 00:06:02,640
Speaker 1: Nate personally and Rick Hasson for your insights into Donald

106
00:06:02,640 --> 00:06:05,960
Speaker 1: Trump's call for an investigation into voter fraud. I'm sure

107
00:06:05,960 --> 00:06:09,000
Speaker 1: we'll be talking more about that. Thanks for listening to

108
00:06:09,080 --> 00:06:11,640
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Law. We'll be back tomorrow thanks to our technical

109
00:06:11,680 --> 00:06:15,040
Speaker 1: director Chris try Come and our producer David Suckerman. Coming

110
00:06:15,120 --> 00:06:17,640
Speaker 1: up on Bloomberg Radio, Bloomberg Markets with Carol Masser and

111
00:06:17,720 --> 00:06:20,960
Speaker 1: Corey Johnson. Carol, what what are you talking about today? Well, Greg,

112
00:06:20,960 --> 00:06:23,840
Speaker 1: we're awaiting a speech from UK Prime Minister to reason May.

113
00:06:24,000 --> 00:06:26,960
Speaker 1: We will take our listeners out live to that speech

114
00:06:27,000 --> 00:06:29,640
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia. Lots of earnings including Google after the close,

115
00:06:29,680 --> 00:06:33,080
Speaker 1: so it's gonna be busy afternoon. Back to you, fantastic, Carol.

116
00:06:33,200 --> 00:06:35,680
Speaker 1: Stay tuned for all that and more on Bloomberg Radio.

117
00:06:36,040 --> 00:06:37,040
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg