September 24, 2024 • 45 mins
In this episode of "The Fourscore Project," Roger Clark interviews Derek Lyons, the president and CEO of the organization "Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections" (RITE). The discussion focuses on the importance of election integrity and the public's confidence in the electoral process. Lyons explains the organization's role in defending and enforcing election laws through legal avenues, highlighting the contentious nature of voter ID laws and the debate over voter suppression versus election security. The conversation explores various mechanisms for ensuring fair elections, including signature verification and the challenges of ballot harvesting. Lyons also addresses the complexities of maintaining accurate voter rolls, especially with the rise of absentee and mail-in voting. The episode delves into the broader implications of these issues for the democratic process in the United States.
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(00:22):
This is Roger Clark, and I'm your host.
Today on this episode of the Fourscoreand Seven Project,
a production of new majority foundations.
A questionthat many Americans are asking today
is, Do we have confidence and faithin our elections?
Most polling shows that somewherebetween one third to 50% of Americans
(00:44):
believe that they do not trustthe election process.
Maybe many reasons for that,but this is critical
because it raises the question
that if you have a substantial numberof Americans who don't trust
and have confidencein the election process,
do we have a viable representativedemocracy?
Well, we're fortunate today to havesomeone talk to us about these issues.
(01:04):
Derek Lyons.
Derek is the presidentand CEO of RIGHT, That's an acronym
standing for.
And there are correct meif I have this wrong, but restoring
integrity and trust in elections.
Derek is a Harvard graduate,also a Duke graduate, I believe.
(01:25):
So He's got some Southern education,Northeastern education in his blood.
So he's well rounded.
He also has tremendous amountof experience
and very senior positionson both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Derek,thank you so much for joining us today.
Roger, Thanks for having me. It'sgreat to be here.
So there. Are.
Tell us a little bitabout the history of right,
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how it came to beand where right is going.
Thanks.
So Right was founded about a year ago
and the idea behind it is that,
you know, citizens should
have 100% confidence in their
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institutions of
self-government,in their democracy, in the ballot box.
And so the idea was to foundan organization
that would work to preserve electionsas the democratic voice of the people.
You know, elections are incrediblyimportant, monumental events
in a republic such as ours.
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They are the institution,the only institution, really,
that ordinary citizens have to
speak their voiceand set the course of this great country,
whether it's on the local level,the state level or the federal level.
And for that reason, because,
you know, so many other institutionsare controlled by the elites,
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but elections are controlledby the people or should be.
And therefore, elections systemshave to be designed, implement
that and safeguard it so that the resultsreflect the will of our citizens
and enjoy the full faithand confidence of the public.
As you noted in your introduction,
without confidence in the elections,
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we really it's hard to saywe have a self-governing republic,
not only does it demoralize
people and keep them away
from the elected elections process,
but it also makes it impossible
to say that the electionsultimately reflect the will of the people.
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And so
that's why we were founded toto try and make sure
that this critical institutionis preserved and serves that that goal.
So, Derek, extraordinarily important workthat you're doing.
Can you give us some insighthow you implement
the goals that you seek to preserve?
(03:58):
Sure.
So our organization worksmostly through the courtroom or through,
you know, legal processes.
If it's not in the courtroom, perhaps
in front of a state administrative agency,like a board of elections.
And, you know, we sort of operate
with, you know,three pillars of our organization.
So we first of all, we tryto defend state laws that we believe are
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lawful, consistent with stateconstitutions, federal constitutions,
and thatprotect the integrity of the ballot box.
The second thing we do is, you know, oncethose laws are on the books,
they have to be enforced.
They have to be enforced even handedly
and according to their to their terms.
And, you know, there's a lot of actorsin the election system
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implementing those laws and willwe will bring lawsuits or file complaints
against election officialswho, in our view, are deviating from
from the from the law.
And, you know, ask courts to issueinjunctions to bring them back in line.
And the third thing we dois, you know, there is a there's
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a very well-funded industry out there
that is seeking to tear down these laws.
And so in the course of defending them,these election integrity laws, we're also,
you know, looking at these tools andtrying to make sure they're not abused.
You know, taketake the tool out of the toolbox
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from the leftso that, you know, they can't.
So this mistrust in our elections
like they like they've been doing and,you know, cast aspersions on on
election lawsthat are really only there to,
you know, ensurethat at the end of the day,
there is a a well-defined
resultthat enjoys the confidence and trust of
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of the citizenry project.
So so Derrick, the on this issue one man's
election integrity
is another man's voter suppression.
How did we get to this?
Yeah,I think I think one one way we got here
is that we we've lost sightof what elections are supposed to be,
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and they've turned into really sortof pure partizan power plays.
So, you know, when we step backand we think about elections
being the institutionthat ordinary Americans have to speak
to their government to say,this is how I want to be governed.
You know, I have a view about,you know, the course
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and direction of the nation,and I want to speak it.
And I want to say that,
you know, those are that's somethingthat's controlled by the people.
That's for the people.
And it's notyou know, it may have partizan outcomes,
but it's not a partizan exercise.
And I think, you know, what's happenedis because there's so much power
that is allocated
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on the basis of these elections,Partizan actors have gotten in there
and they want to paint peoplein black hats and white hats,
and they so they,
they're, they feel very comfortablecasting aspersions on
normal,everyday Americans who want nothing more
than a clean, fair election processrun by the rules.
And they want to,you know, they want to inflame passions.
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And they they're they feel comfortablecasting their fellow
citizens, neighbors, friends,as as votes, oppressors.
And it's really unfortunate,you know, in an era
where it's never been easierto vote in this country.
You know, now we have weeksin many states of early voting.
We have no excuse mailin voting in many states.
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Many states have extremely low barto registration.
Some states even have no registrationrequirements, I think in North Dakota.
Some states have same day registration.
The point is, is if you today have
a view about the direction of this countryand want to express it,
the obstacles to you doingthat are are very low.
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And the laws that we defendand the laws that we seek to enforce,
our democratic early popular laws
put in place by Democratic actors, electedrepresentatives
in response to their constituents, saying,
For me, for us to have confidencein the outcome of this election,
we want to be sure that the people whoshow up to vote are who they say they are.
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So we want voter ID,we want signature matching,
we want ballot integrity measures.
Those are the things that we wantso that we know that the outcome of this
election is what people say it is.
And it's it's not an unreasonable request.
And it's I think it's quite
it's a little beyond the pale, really,to call it vote suppression.
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Well, you mentioned voter ID
and from my perspective,
the issue of voter ID is ground zero
on the debate between voter suppression
and electorate election integrity.
Earlier this year, I believethe state of Ohio passed a voter I.D.
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requirement.
I understand there's been some litigationassociated with that.
Is right involvedin any of that litigation?
We we are we're supporting
a couple of citizens in Ohio
who have also worked as election workers
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to to come to the defense of that lawalongside the state of Ohio.
The solicitor general
sorry, the attorney general of Ohioand the secretary of state of Ohio.
And I think, you know,let's take a step back on voter ID
and just let's think aboutwhat it's trying to do.
It is trying to make surethat every person who shows up to
the ballotbox is the person they say they are. And
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that's a very reasonable
that's a very reasonable requestfor people to fulfill.
Doesn'tand it's not an overly burdensome one.
You know, in in state after statewhere we have voter ID, photo ID
put in place, you know, the electionsin those states are running fine.
It's not democracyhas not died in those states.
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And for the most part,
every voter whoevery person who wants to vote and again
speak their voice into the intothat election
can can satisfy these requirements,whether it's, you know, a U.S.
passport, a driver's license, another formof state I.D., the list goes on.
And in many states, you know, theythey've even taken the the step of saying,
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if you are willing to show up to to voteand tell us
and sign your name to certification saysI just could not get this I.D.,
even though it's readilyavailable and free
and you sign your name to that,you get to vote there, too.
So I think
I think this notion
that it's, you know, somehowsuppressing the vote
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again, is is is meant to rile uppartizan passions
and, you know, make the elections yetanother the elections itself,
the mechanics of the election, yetanother ground for partizan battle
in this country
and and it really shouldn'tbe that we all agree
that the person who shows up to voteshould be that person.
And it is not an unreasonable thingfor the state
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to verify that as far
as that process is taking place.
Well, the.
Wonderful thingabout the federalist system that we have,
we have 50 laboratories,
50 separate laboratories,
and quite a few of those laboratories,meaning states
have voter ID requirements.
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And I suspect that there are statisticsout there that we could go
to each of these individual laboratories,laboratories where voter I.D.
is required and other laboratories.
Again, stateswhere voter ID is not required.
And we can do a statistical comparisonon voter turnout.
Do we have any data like thatto compare voter
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turnoutin those different type of laboratories?
Sure.
There's I mean, there's athere's somebody could could do the work.
I think one of the things with voterturnout is you
you end up with alot of confounding variables
that that really distort the analysis.
So, you know, the main drivers of voterturnout are, it seems to me,
one, the culture of votingin that particular state or jurisdiction.
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So, for example, Minnesota has hadhistorically high turnout for a long time.
They liberalized their voting lawsand I think turnout sort of stayed high.
I'm not sure they sawan appreciable increase,
You know, in other states.
But the
another driver of turnout is, of course,going to be candidates from election
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to election.
So, you know, we saw we saw big spikesin turnout in 2016, 2018,
2020 compared to, you know, the previous
presidential or midterm before that.
And it's come downit came down a little bit in 2022.
I think pinning this on the lawsthat are in place in any particular state
is probably,
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you know,
you're probably lookingat for marginal impacts
to turnout because I thinkwhat really drives turnout is, you know,
do you think your vote countsand do you want it to count?
And do you have something to sayabout the government
in your state or your country?
You know, some states have had photo I.D.
like Virginia and then not had it,
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you know, my guess is
if you looked at the data,turnout went up, but only because
the elections after they got rid of itwere these sort of very intense
elections were where people had a lotto say about the direction of the country.
And I think it probably had very littleto do with, you know, that
Virginia didn't have voter photoID in place for the for those elections.
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So I think, you know, turnout is
is a is an interesting measureof the health of our democracy.
I think it's an important one.
I'm not sure we've,you know, come up with much that's better.
But, you know, disaggregatingdissecting the elements of turnout
I think ultimately doesn'thave as much to do with
these background laws as one might think.
Well, the law in Ohio was a law
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passed by a Democrat,practically elected legislature,
signed into lawby a democratically elected governor.
And it apparently has been challenged
in the courtroomas what is the basis to a challenge.
How would that legally be classifiedin a court of law?
Sure.
So, I mean, they're the basis of this.
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So let me take a step back for a second.
You know, photo ID
is is interestingbecause it's sort of this boogeyman.
It is the the alleged sine quanon of voter suppression.
You know, you ask somebodyto verify their identity at the ballot box
with a photoID and, you know, according to
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some folks on the leftand according to our current president,
you know, this is this is the reinsertionof Jim Crow into the United States.
But but really, it'soverwhelmingly popular
with people, you know.
And that's a very common thread throughoutthe planet, I believe, isn't it?
Most republics do have voter IDrequirements.
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It's extremely common throughout the world
where that'swhere there's voting taking place.
But it's also in this country,it's dramatically popular.
Overwhelmingbipartisan majorities of people support
photo ID and and it's not hard to see whythey want some assurance
that the people who are showing up to voteare the people who say they are.
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And overwhelmingly they are.
And so just but but verifying that is
is is something that people want
and something that people say gives themfaith in in their in their elections.
So in this particular case, too,to circle back to your question,
you know, the allegation
is that imposing a photo ID requirement
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undermines the fundamental right to vote.
The first Amendmentbased, fundamental right to vote that
that that every citizenof this country possesses
by virtue of their citizenship andthe First Amendment to the Constitution.
And, you know, this is
this is a that's the nature of the claim.
And the way that it's evaluatedis under a balancing test
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where you look at the burden that it's athat's being imposed, which we say
is extremely minimal against the benefitthat could be achieved. And
we say in
the government's interestin imposing that requirement,
which we say is is quite high,if for no other reason,
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and there are other reasons, butif for no other reason that it's it is a
a means of giving people confidence
that the election
that takes place
is is in fact, you know, legitimate,that gives them confidence
that they can wake up the next day,hear the results and say, okay,
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this is how my fellow citizenswanted our state to be governed.
This is how I feel thatthese are the types of representatives
my fellow citizenswanted to send to Washington.
And, you know, maybe I'm happy with that,or maybe I'm disappointed in that result.
But because there weresafeguards in place,
I know that that process had integrity.
And then I can go about my lifebeing a citizen and not worrying about,
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you know,if somebody's trying to steal elections.
Is there any court
anywhere in the United States
that has held a voter ID requirement
as being and impermissible
burdenon the First Amendment right to vote? So
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these these challenges often fail?
Most states have been successfulin defending their photo ID requirements.
I believe in
I believe the Fourth Circuit.
And, you know,
struck down a photo ID requirement
a few years ago,maybe about ten years ago.
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And I believe it was on on these grounds.
There may have also been
some additional grounds.
But the point was, is that I think whatthe court determined was there weren't
it wasn't easy enough for folksto get the right
type of ID at that time.
I think that was a contestable conclusion.
But in any event,that's what the court concluded.
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Virginia later rectified that.
You know what,the court said it was a deficiency
and it's next iteration of the law wasstood was still challenged.
So I think, you know, we can say going back to 2008 when the Supreme Court blessed
Indiana's photo I.D.
requirement, you know,
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the default presumption is reallythat these laws are constitutional
and it takes quite a bit of a showingfor the other side to to take them down.
But that doesn't stop themfrom trying every time their every time
they're enacted.
Well, with the Ohio case,
is there some effortto have a preliminary injunction before
or the final ruling to prohibitthe enforcement of the voter ID law? No.
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The other side, you know, they filedtheir lawsuit and they've been content to
see it,see it progress on the ordinary timetable.
And so, in fact,
in Ohio has an election.
They just had a primary electionthat was conducted
under this new law and
seems to have gone fine.
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You know, they didn't
they didn't seek to enjoin the lawfor that for that election.
So, really, you know,they're really after here is
they want to change the results,not in primary elections
so much as, again, it's a partizan ploy
to tilt the playing fieldin favor of their more liberal
substantive agenda.
(20:04):
Right. Right.
Well, see, November of 2024 is loomingon our near future.
It's on the horizon.
Is this an issue that you thinkis going to get resolved
in Ohiobefore the 2024 presidential election?
I expect it will be the court.
The court seems to be proceeding apace.
I don't think it will linger,
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you know, through the next election.
And I fully expect that election will beconducted with photo ID in place in Ohio.
Well, you also mentioned another term
and just kind of shiftthe crosshairs on this from voter I.D.,
because you mentionedsignature verification.
The statistics seem to indicatenow that maybe only about one quarter
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of voters show up on Election Day to vote.
40 50% of the people now vote by mail in.
And most placesdetermine the validity of those ballots
based upon a signature verification.
Walks through that a little bit.
How does a signature get verifiedwhen the mail in ballot is received
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to make sure that's the
true and accurate vote of the personthat purports to be from.
So thanks. Yeah.
This signature matching is,you know, an important
ballot integrity measure
in states that have that have it in place.
But not every state has it in place.
Some of the more liberal states
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will just accept a ballotthat has a a signature
that that purports to be from the voter,
but it doesn't compare it to anything
you know, before that ballots are counted,
other states have moved past signatures
to to alphanumeric codes
that are put in place on registrationand then matched with the ballot.
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Usually this is
a driver's license numbersor some other form of some other number
that's selected by the voter.
But where where it isn't played
and then where it is in place, itvaries in terms of how it's implemented.
Some states like Nevada runrun it through machines first
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and then you know, wherethe machine identifies a discrepancy.
Some humans will take a look at itand usually it's two or,
you know, usuallyit's more than one person.
And they, you know, sort oftry to come to an agreement.
And there's a process beyond that.If there's not not an agreement
and then
for the most part,
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you know, the ballots not rejectedif the signature doesn't match,
but the voters contacted
and they try to divine the provenanceof that of that ballot.
So it's a lengthy process.
But why is it important?
Well,
you know, without it, there's reallyno assurance that the ballot
came back from the person who was sent to,you know, ballots get sent in.
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Some states, live ballots will be sent outto every registered voter on the list.
Many of those will land in P.O.
boxes or
vacant lots,
apartment buildingsthat people have moved from.
And, you know,
these ballots can be returned by anybody,you know, who's
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willing to sign their name, subjectto the penalty of perjury, of course. But,
you know, with
with enforcement being what it is,
you know, there's that's thethat's the only check would be, you know,
some law enforcement
official noticing something has gone wrongand doing something about it.
But with signature matching, you know,you can see the you know,
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the ballot come back,you see the signature on file
and what they basically look for is,you know, sufficient points of comparison.
So, you know, do the loopslook the same, the hours generally
look the same and for the most part,if there's sufficient similarity,
the ballot goes through.
And if there's and if there's not enoughpeople, you know, or they can't
if people can't agree on it, again,there's typically a hearing process
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that will try to rehabilitate that ballotbefore it's before it's excluded.
Well.
I find it hard to believethat there are enough handwriting experts,
you know, in the countryto have professionally trained people
comparing these signatures.
What what kind of qualificationsor training do the people who are actually
doing the comparison have to make sureit's an accurate comparison?
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Well, again, it's going to varyfrom state to state to, you know, Nevada.
They do have these machinesthat take the first cut at it.
After that,there is there's a fair amount of,
I think, trainingthat the election workers go through.
I think the rigor would depend,you know, from state to state.
But the point is, is that
a ballot is not being excluded, you know,
just because there'sno sort of forensic analysis on it.
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For the most part, they're lookingfor a few points of comparison
they give that gives the folks enoughconfidence that, you know, more likely
than not came from thefrom the person who reports to be from.
And then if not reaching outto that person to give them an opportunity
to confirm, know that that's my ballotand that and and put it in the ballot box.
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Well, you mentioned I want to want to justdwell on this other point for a moment.
You mentioned that
some states have an alphanumeric match.
Describe that. How how does that work?
Yes, I think so.
For example, Georgia, you know,had a lot of trouble with its signature
matching, I think, you know,somewhat famously in 2020,
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you know, ballot rejection rates
went way down in Georgia.
And there was some concernthat the signature matching process
had gotten too loose, thatthey were clearing more signature more,
they were determining matchesin more cases than they had in the past,
but did.
So what they did is a legislaturegot to work and said,
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you know, signature matching is important.
It's the thing that, you know, ensures usthat the ballot
came back from the right person, butit was something better we can be doing.
And I think what they put in placeis, you know, an ID number,
the driver's license number, so that,you know, when you fill out your absentee
ballot,you put your driver's license number
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when it when it comesin, it's a much more objective comparison.
They can look to see if the numbers matchand if they do that, ballots
cleared for the certification process.
So so that's moreit's a more objective process.
Yeah. What has that been
described as voter
suppression or Jim Crow 2.0?
(26:38):
Yeah.
So all of those laws in Georgia are stillare subject to litigation right now.
I mean, this is all part of what's calledthe SB 202 litigation.
It's pending before the federal courtsin Georgia right now.
You know, do you thinkwe'll have a resolution to that before
the November 2024 presidential election?
I do.
That case also seemsto be proceeding apace.
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You know, the question of full resolutionis a little more challenging
because you're right,
there's appellate courtsand you never know
if they're going to take the case,you know, on
an emergency expedited timeframe or not.
But I do think we'll have at least,
you know, an initial cut at it from thefrom the district court by then.
There's there's some tension between voterID requirements and all these
(27:21):
very huge mail in ballotsbecause we're talking
about signature verification,maybe an alphanumeric in Georgia
to verify that the ballot is fromthe person who it purports to be from.
But are there any statesthat require a photocopy
of the driver's license or the voterID to be returned along with the
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absentee ballot?
Yes, I think Wisconsin
does that and one other state,I believe, but was Wisconsin for sure.
So they're requiring
photocopy of the ID to be returnedalong along with the ballot.
But again, this is
you know, this is this is just a wayto ensure that the ballots are coming back
from the people that they're supposedto be coming back from.
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You know, as more as more voting movesout of the ballot box,
you know, we need to continueto be sure that the ballot box
is being protected, because, again, it is
the it's it's the institutionwe have to to
to set the course, the country.
And we should be we should be enforcingthe rules around it so that everybody,
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after it happens, can have confidenceand trust that, you know,
that the way that this countryis going to be governed
is the waythe people want it to be governed.
Well, it
kind of brings us to the issueof what's called ballot harvesting.
California has kind of been in theforefront of this of ballot harvesting.
You know, a program where individuals
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can go out and, you know, collecta number of ballots from others.
Generally, I think in the past,
some states allowed family membersto return, other family members ballot.
But California has opened it upwhere it's much broader than that.
And there's a lot of concernthat the ballot harvesting destroys
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the concept of a secret ballotbecause there could be direct interference
between the person harvesting the ballotand the voter, some influencing exercise
in a private room or an officeor wherever that contact may take place,
or I think even in North Carolina, I thinkit was a ninth congressional district
a couple of years ago.
There was some hankie panky,so to speak, where
(29:31):
harvesting was going on,but the ballots were being falsified
and that all got worked out in the washthrough litigation.
But your thoughts on ballot harvesting,
the threats that ballot harvesting posesto the sanctity of fair elections?
Sure.
So, I mean, I think actually NorthCarolina is greater
North Carolina example's a great onebecause not for the country.
(29:54):
But, you know, it didn't it didn'treally get washed out in litigation.
They ended up runninga whole new election.
They determined that electionirredeemably tainted by fraud.
And they had a special election to electa new to elect a new representative.
You know, I think, you know, ballotharvesting, ballot trafficking,
this this is something that one,
(30:17):
as you mentioned, resulted in ain a very serious
flaw in an election
that seriously undermined its outcome.
And nobody should have had faithor confidence in that election.
And indeed they did.And they ran it right.
But also, it's an intrusion
on the on the secret ballot.
You know, we thoughtand people thought in this country
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for a long timesay the vote must be private.
It needs to be protectedfrom outside influences.
And we were willing to go to great lengthsto do that.
And so we put people, you know,in individual booths behind curtains.
And, you know,we make it clear that, you know,
election officials or people aroundaren't supposed to be near the voter
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while they're while they're voting.
And then they put it in the machinethemselves.
And, you know,then it's stored in a secure box.
And then and whenever it'sactually touched by anybody, it's,
you know, atthat point it's been anonymized.
But ballotharvesting sort of takes out away.
I mean, in theory, ballot harvesting,ballot traffickers are only,
you know, taking completed ballots.
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But the truth is, is we don't knowwhat happens behind the scenes.
We don't know what happens when.
So, you know, people go aroundcanvasing neighborhoods for ballots.
And you know that because we don't know.
We can't say that we still have a secretballot really, in this country.
I think another thing I'd like to sayabout ballot
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harvesting of ballot traffickingis that it's it's just the abuse
I think, of of what started outas a good idea, a well-intentioned idea,
which is that some people do need helpwith their ballots.
Some people need help in the ballot box.
You know, if they in the poll,
in the poll box and they're allowedto have people there to help them,
whether it's to read or translateor something like that,
(32:04):
you know,we know that some people need help voting.
And, you know,as we've expanded into mail balloting,
we know that some people needneed help with their ballots.
But it's a it's a it's a huge jump
to go from helping your family member,
you know, return their ballot.
You know, somebody whoperhaps they're confined to their bed
(32:25):
or something like thatto sort of this sort of blanket assumption
that, well, we all sort ofneed a little help with our ballot
and who isn't too busy to do,you know, all the daily tasks of life?
And if somebody shows upand wants to collect your ballot, all the
all the better for it, you know, sowhat if they're paid by the party?
So what if they're paid by peoplewith certain interests?
(32:47):
You know, give them your ballot,they'll help you out.
These people need assistance to youknow, there's a certain amount of work
that's involved in thein the in the product of self-government.
You know, we all we all need to,
you know, do what's required to be
heard, to participate in the process.
(33:07):
And so,you know, what they did is they took
they took an idea that was designedto help people who truly need it.
It basically expanded it into a loophole.
And now it's a get out the vote operation.
And it really shouldn't be that way.
You know,the people who want to speak to the
and have their voicesheard in the government should do so.
But they should they shouldfollow the rules and and and participate.
(33:29):
They're one of the many, many
easy ways to do soand in each state across the country.
And it's not too much really to ask peopleto return their own, their ballot or,
you know, atmost to hand it to a relative or friend
to return for them.
But this sort of large scaleballot harvesting, as I said, one,
(33:51):
we we know that it is susceptible to fraudand to it undermines the secret ballot,
which is a which has become,you know, a core tenet of our democracy.
I guess it doesn't have to be,but it is now.
And I think most people agreethat it should big.
Well well, I believe there's
eight states at last count anyway,
(34:12):
that have 100% mail in balloting.
And, you know,there's a number of states that have
no excuse, absentee balloting.
I think there's still 16 or 17 stateswhere you need
either need to be ill, disabledor out of the county
on Election Dayin order to request an absentee ballot.
(34:33):
Then there's a host of states that noexcuse, just hand me the absentee ballot.
But there's a number of states,eight of them.
California is one whereall the ballots are mailed to all voters.
So you have 100% absentee balloting
automatically, which raises the question
of the reliability of the individualswho are receiving these these ballots.
(34:57):
You know, California has a lot of peopleleaving the state now.
They were registered voters.
They could be in Nevada,
they could be in Texas,they could be in Kansas, Washington, Ohio.
We don't know where.
But yet you have someonethat's still registered in California.
They may be registerednow in the state of their new location.
(35:19):
So they could have two votes.
They may have two votes.
They could.
They could It's illegal,but you could cast two votes.
The question I have for you, though,with that background,
is there any process
where we have any type of uniformedpurging
of voter rolls that can cross-referencebetween the states?
(35:39):
We certainly have the technologyto do that.
The question,do we have the willpower to do it
or the coordinationamongst the states to do that?
Yeah.
So this is somethingthat we're working on.
The the answer is not not really,unfortunately.
For starters,
some courts have said thatit's perfectly fine
(36:02):
and reasonablefor people to maintain registrations
in two separate states,which we disagree we disagree with.
You know, you
to vote in a stateyou're supposed to be resident in that
state establishing residency for votingpurposes, not particularly difficult.
But the but you should only bea resident of one state at a time.
(36:25):
And so, for starters,it just isn't even the case that,
you know, being registered in two states
is seen as problematic by some,including some courts.
Additionally, cleaning the voter rolls is
has been a it's a full time endeavor
for some very some very passionate people
(36:45):
who work in my space,friends and colleagues of ours.
And they do great work.
But at the end of the day,
most many states voter rolls aren'tas clean as they should be.
You know, as you mentioned, people move,so they've left the state, People die,
People
some people surrender their registration.
(37:05):
But beyond that,
the that in states
where live ballotsare going out to 2 to 4 voter lists,
we just know that they're piling upin places where they shouldn't.
And these are not ballot applications.
These are
these are votes that if they come backand they have a signature and it let's say
it matches or is close enough to matchingor even states, some states
(37:27):
that don't have the match,that's the ballot comes back.
It goes in in the ballot box.
Nobody knows where it came from.
Nobody knows if it came from a personwho was formerly a resident
or if it was voted by somebodyon behalf of their deceased relative
or any or anything else.
And none of that,none of that should be happening.
So we do have
you know, the
technology does exist that would help us
(37:51):
better identify suspects,
registrations, flags,you know, that could then be investigated.
But the the legal framework ishas not caught up.
And one of the reasons isthe political will is just not there
for people to make clean cleaning upthe voter rolls a priority
(38:13):
at the federal levelor even or even at the state level.
So the truth is that our voterrolls are not as clean as they should be.
Some states do a better job than others,
but I think in some statesthey're almost there.
They're contentto focus their efforts elsewhere.
And it's not clear to me why.
I don't know whywe would want live ballots going out
(38:36):
to addresses
where people may not live anymoreto vacant lots to P.O.
boxes. Right.
None of those none of that makesa great deal of sense to me.
And we could we could clean it up
if we had the national willor or on the state level.
The state will to do it,but it doesn't seem like it's there.
Well, one thing you just said,and I want to make
(38:57):
I want to pause on thisbecause this is just shocking revelation.
So I could legally vote in California
and Nevada,at least according to some courts.
I can vote in both places and incurno criminal liability for that.
And I'm sorry if I wasn't clear,you could be registered in both places.
(39:18):
You're not supposed to votein both places.
I said I.
Supposed to vote and only one of them.
But the truth is, is if you'reregistered in both and you voted in both,
you know, we don't have great mechanisms,
at least in my knowledge,to identify those those people.
So for,for example, a college student who is
(39:40):
in Pennsylvania, but from Texas
and gets a mail ballot from Texasand walks into a ballot box in,
you know, somewhere in Philadelphia
or anywhere else in the state, you know,they're not supposed to do that.
They're not supposed to voteunder both registrations.
But I think
I'm not sure it would be very easilycaught or identified.
(40:04):
Well, if my constitutional law serves
me right, that the place, timing
and manner of elections
are supposed to be determinedby the individual states.
So if we wanted to have a mechanismwhere all 50 states could keep
track of the movement of votersand how they're registered,
(40:27):
it would require some cooperationamongst the states,
which the states don't necessarilyhave to provide, it seems to me,
or some type of federal lawwhich may raise
some constitutional implicationson whether it's enforceable or not.
What do you think about that?
Sure.
So Congress does have the powerunder the Constitution to,
you know, put some uniform system in place
(40:49):
for this.
I think we want to be carefulabout that, though.
You know, one of our one of our greatsafeguards is these laboratories
that you mentioned earlier and that statesdo ultimately control their elections.
And remember, most elections
are for offices that are not federal.
They're for a variety of state offices.
(41:10):
The difference from state to state.
Each state has a different culturearound voting.
You know, each state,the people in each state believe different
safeguards are needed.
Some you know, the people, as I mentioned,
North Dakota have been perfectly contentwithout a system of registration,
although they do have a systemof identification.
And on the on the back end, other states
(41:31):
have a registration system
plus a photoID system, you know, with no excuse or
absentee voting or some other system.
So, you know,
I think that we want to be carefulwith imposing a federal solution on this.
The states can get together.
They have I mean, there's been manythere have been efforts to do this.
You know, the Eric systemhas been in the news quite a bit lately
(41:54):
because this was supposed to bean interstate to clean the voter rolls.
So person moves to another state.
You know,they register their clients things.
The system, where did they come from?
He came from Texas.
You know, Texas.
Hey, we've got this steric linesat this type of Social Security number
(42:14):
registering here.
You know, you may want to contact him,make sure he wants to be off the back of
the rolls in Texas.
But, you know, this this, too, is ended upbeing a system
plagued by by partizanship and
is sort of falling apart because
more liberal states are using it
as a means to identify what they call
(42:37):
eligible but unregistered voters.
So and to contact them,sign them up and get them, you know,
get them into the system for voting,
which is,
you know, in this country,we should want people to participate
in the election
because they want to participatein the election,
because they have something to sayabout the election,
(42:57):
not necessarilybecause the government got after them
and cajoled them to become a voterand have a voice.
You know,the voice should proceed the voting
and the registration,but not sort of the other way around.
But in any event,
it wasn't
doing a lot to clean up the voter rollsfor for a variety of different reasons.
And, you know, some states protestedand they asked
(43:19):
Eric to reform itselfto do a better job of engaging
in this interstateclean up initiative in the organization.
You know, kind of refused.
And so we have this system, this situationright now
where states are withdrawing from Eric,I think largely as a protest
because it was supposed to be the systemthat helped
(43:42):
clean up the voter rolls, which is anand critical to election integrity.
And it was sort of co-optedand turned into something else.
And so it remains to be seen what happens.
I think there's people out theretrying to propose new solutions.
And as Eric,
it's pricey
as it falls, whereas itsort of comes apart a little bit.
(44:03):
But right to be seen.
I mean, it's it's a big gap
that states and secretaries of statesreally should be focusing on.
Well, before I let you go,
what do you see on the horizon
for write in 23, 2024?
So we're you know,we're active in about states
(44:24):
with about ten different lawsuitsgoing on.
And we're
we're going to keep pounding away at thatand expanding expanding our docket.
You know, our mission as we go into 2024
is to do everything that we canto make sure that
we have established rules in placethat are protecting
the integrity of the ballot boxand that those rules are enforced
(44:47):
so that, you know, when everybody sends
in their mail ballot or goes to the pollsearly or votes on Election Day,
you know, very shortly after that,we will see the results.
We will know, you know,
who is going to be the presidentof this country for the next four years.
We'll know who our senators
are going to be, who controls the Senate,who controls the House
(45:08):
at the state level, who are governors, are
we want as we want to know, those answersas quickly as possible
with as little controversy as possibleafter the election.
And so we'll be active in state
courthouses and federal courthousesacross the nation
to do our do our level best
(45:29):
to lay the groundwork for an electionthat Americans can have confidence in.
Well, Derek Lyons, president,CEO of Right Restore
Integrity and Trust in Elections,thank you so much for your time.
I hope to have you back some time.I would love to.
Thanks for having me. Take care. You too.
This is Roger Clark, and I'm your host.
Today on this episode of the Fourscoreand Seven Project,
a production of new majority foundations.
A questionthat many Americans are asking today
is, Do we have confidence and faithin our elections?
Most polling shows that somewherebetween one third to 50% of Americans
(00:44):
believe that they do not trustthe election process.
Maybe many reasons for that,but this is critical
because it raises the question
that if you have a substantial numberof Americans who don't trust
and have confidencein the election process,
do we have a viable representativedemocracy?
Well, we're fortunate today to havesomeone talk to us about these issues.
(01:04):
Derek Lyons.
Derek is the presidentand CEO of RIGHT, That's an acronym
standing for.
And there are correct meif I have this wrong, but restoring
integrity and trust in elections.
Derek is a Harvard graduate,also a Duke graduate, I believe.
(01:25):
So He's got some Southern education,Northeastern education in his blood.
So he's well rounded.
He also has tremendous amountof experience
and very senior positionson both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Derek,thank you so much for joining us today.
Roger, Thanks for having me. It'sgreat to be here.
So there. Are.
Tell us a little bitabout the history of right,
(01:46):
how it came to beand where right is going.
Thanks.
So Right was founded about a year ago
and the idea behind it is that,
you know, citizens should
have 100% confidence in their
(02:06):
institutions of
self-government,in their democracy, in the ballot box.
And so the idea was to foundan organization
that would work to preserve electionsas the democratic voice of the people.
You know, elections are incrediblyimportant, monumental events
in a republic such as ours.
(02:28):
They are the institution,the only institution, really,
that ordinary citizens have to
speak their voiceand set the course of this great country,
whether it's on the local level,the state level or the federal level.
And for that reason, because,
you know, so many other institutionsare controlled by the elites,
(02:51):
but elections are controlledby the people or should be.
And therefore, elections systemshave to be designed, implement
that and safeguard it so that the resultsreflect the will of our citizens
and enjoy the full faithand confidence of the public.
As you noted in your introduction,
without confidence in the elections,
(03:13):
we really it's hard to saywe have a self-governing republic,
not only does it demoralize
people and keep them away
from the elected elections process,
but it also makes it impossible
to say that the electionsultimately reflect the will of the people.
(03:36):
And so
that's why we were founded toto try and make sure
that this critical institutionis preserved and serves that that goal.
So, Derek, extraordinarily important workthat you're doing.
Can you give us some insighthow you implement
the goals that you seek to preserve?
(03:58):
Sure.
So our organization worksmostly through the courtroom or through,
you know, legal processes.
If it's not in the courtroom, perhaps
in front of a state administrative agency,like a board of elections.
And, you know, we sort of operate
with, you know,three pillars of our organization.
So we first of all, we tryto defend state laws that we believe are
(04:21):
lawful, consistent with stateconstitutions, federal constitutions,
and thatprotect the integrity of the ballot box.
The second thing we do is, you know, oncethose laws are on the books,
they have to be enforced.
They have to be enforced even handedly
and according to their to their terms.
And, you know, there's a lot of actorsin the election system
(04:44):
implementing those laws and willwe will bring lawsuits or file complaints
against election officialswho, in our view, are deviating from
from the from the law.
And, you know, ask courts to issueinjunctions to bring them back in line.
And the third thing we dois, you know, there is a there's
(05:06):
a very well-funded industry out there
that is seeking to tear down these laws.
And so in the course of defending them,these election integrity laws, we're also,
you know, looking at these tools andtrying to make sure they're not abused.
You know, taketake the tool out of the toolbox
(05:27):
from the leftso that, you know, they can't.
So this mistrust in our elections
like they like they've been doing and,you know, cast aspersions on on
election lawsthat are really only there to,
you know, ensurethat at the end of the day,
there is a a well-defined
resultthat enjoys the confidence and trust of
(05:50):
of the citizenry project.
So so Derrick, the on this issue one man's
election integrity
is another man's voter suppression.
How did we get to this?
Yeah,I think I think one one way we got here
is that we we've lost sightof what elections are supposed to be,
(06:13):
and they've turned into really sortof pure partizan power plays.
So, you know, when we step backand we think about elections
being the institutionthat ordinary Americans have to speak
to their government to say,this is how I want to be governed.
You know, I have a view about,you know, the course
(06:33):
and direction of the nation,and I want to speak it.
And I want to say that,
you know, those are that's somethingthat's controlled by the people.
That's for the people.
And it's notyou know, it may have partizan outcomes,
but it's not a partizan exercise.
And I think, you know, what's happenedis because there's so much power
that is allocated
(06:54):
on the basis of these elections,Partizan actors have gotten in there
and they want to paint peoplein black hats and white hats,
and they so they,
they're, they feel very comfortablecasting aspersions on
normal,everyday Americans who want nothing more
than a clean, fair election processrun by the rules.
And they want to,you know, they want to inflame passions.
(07:16):
And they they're they feel comfortablecasting their fellow
citizens, neighbors, friends,as as votes, oppressors.
And it's really unfortunate,you know, in an era
where it's never been easierto vote in this country.
You know, now we have weeksin many states of early voting.
We have no excuse mailin voting in many states.
(07:37):
Many states have extremely low barto registration.
Some states even have no registrationrequirements, I think in North Dakota.
Some states have same day registration.
The point is, is if you today have
a view about the direction of this countryand want to express it,
the obstacles to you doingthat are are very low.
(07:58):
And the laws that we defendand the laws that we seek to enforce,
our democratic early popular laws
put in place by Democratic actors, electedrepresentatives
in response to their constituents, saying,
For me, for us to have confidencein the outcome of this election,
we want to be sure that the people whoshow up to vote are who they say they are.
(08:22):
So we want voter ID,we want signature matching,
we want ballot integrity measures.
Those are the things that we wantso that we know that the outcome of this
election is what people say it is.
And it's it's not an unreasonable request.
And it's I think it's quite
it's a little beyond the pale, really,to call it vote suppression.
(08:44):
Well, you mentioned voter ID
and from my perspective,
the issue of voter ID is ground zero
on the debate between voter suppression
and electorate election integrity.
Earlier this year, I believethe state of Ohio passed a voter I.D.
(09:06):
requirement.
I understand there's been some litigationassociated with that.
Is right involvedin any of that litigation?
We we are we're supporting
a couple of citizens in Ohio
who have also worked as election workers
(09:27):
to to come to the defense of that lawalongside the state of Ohio.
The solicitor general
sorry, the attorney general of Ohioand the secretary of state of Ohio.
And I think, you know,let's take a step back on voter ID
and just let's think aboutwhat it's trying to do.
It is trying to make surethat every person who shows up to
the ballotbox is the person they say they are. And
(09:51):
that's a very reasonable
that's a very reasonable requestfor people to fulfill.
Doesn'tand it's not an overly burdensome one.
You know, in in state after statewhere we have voter ID, photo ID
put in place, you know, the electionsin those states are running fine.
It's not democracyhas not died in those states.
(10:13):
And for the most part,
every voter whoevery person who wants to vote and again
speak their voice into the intothat election
can can satisfy these requirements,whether it's, you know, a U.S.
passport, a driver's license, another formof state I.D., the list goes on.
And in many states, you know, theythey've even taken the the step of saying,
(10:38):
if you are willing to show up to to voteand tell us
and sign your name to certification saysI just could not get this I.D.,
even though it's readilyavailable and free
and you sign your name to that,you get to vote there, too.
So I think
I think this notion
that it's, you know, somehowsuppressing the vote
(10:58):
again, is is is meant to rile uppartizan passions
and, you know, make the elections yetanother the elections itself,
the mechanics of the election, yetanother ground for partizan battle
in this country
and and it really shouldn'tbe that we all agree
that the person who shows up to voteshould be that person.
And it is not an unreasonable thingfor the state
(11:20):
to verify that as far
as that process is taking place.
Well, the.
Wonderful thingabout the federalist system that we have,
we have 50 laboratories,
50 separate laboratories,
and quite a few of those laboratories,meaning states
have voter ID requirements.
(11:42):
And I suspect that there are statisticsout there that we could go
to each of these individual laboratories,laboratories where voter I.D.
is required and other laboratories.
Again, stateswhere voter ID is not required.
And we can do a statistical comparisonon voter turnout.
Do we have any data like thatto compare voter
(12:03):
turnoutin those different type of laboratories?
Sure.
There's I mean, there's athere's somebody could could do the work.
I think one of the things with voterturnout is you
you end up with alot of confounding variables
that that really distort the analysis.
So, you know, the main drivers of voterturnout are, it seems to me,
one, the culture of votingin that particular state or jurisdiction.
(12:27):
So, for example, Minnesota has hadhistorically high turnout for a long time.
They liberalized their voting lawsand I think turnout sort of stayed high.
I'm not sure they sawan appreciable increase,
You know, in other states.
But the
another driver of turnout is, of course,going to be candidates from election
(12:48):
to election.
So, you know, we saw we saw big spikesin turnout in 2016, 2018,
2020 compared to, you know, the previous
presidential or midterm before that.
And it's come downit came down a little bit in 2022.
I think pinning this on the lawsthat are in place in any particular state
is probably,
(13:09):
you know,
you're probably lookingat for marginal impacts
to turnout because I thinkwhat really drives turnout is, you know,
do you think your vote countsand do you want it to count?
And do you have something to sayabout the government
in your state or your country?
You know, some states have had photo I.D.
like Virginia and then not had it,
(13:31):
you know, my guess is
if you looked at the data,turnout went up, but only because
the elections after they got rid of itwere these sort of very intense
elections were where people had a lotto say about the direction of the country.
And I think it probably had very littleto do with, you know, that
Virginia didn't have voter photoID in place for the for those elections.
(13:55):
So I think, you know, turnout is
is a is an interesting measureof the health of our democracy.
I think it's an important one.
I'm not sure we've,you know, come up with much that's better.
But, you know, disaggregatingdissecting the elements of turnout
I think ultimately doesn'thave as much to do with
these background laws as one might think.
Well, the law in Ohio was a law
(14:18):
passed by a Democrat,practically elected legislature,
signed into lawby a democratically elected governor.
And it apparently has been challenged
in the courtroomas what is the basis to a challenge.
How would that legally be classifiedin a court of law?
Sure.
So, I mean, they're the basis of this.
(14:39):
So let me take a step back for a second.
You know, photo ID
is is interestingbecause it's sort of this boogeyman.
It is the the alleged sine quanon of voter suppression.
You know, you ask somebodyto verify their identity at the ballot box
with a photoID and, you know, according to
(15:00):
some folks on the leftand according to our current president,
you know, this is this is the reinsertionof Jim Crow into the United States.
But but really, it'soverwhelmingly popular
with people, you know.
And that's a very common thread throughoutthe planet, I believe, isn't it?
Most republics do have voter IDrequirements.
(15:21):
It's extremely common throughout the world
where that'swhere there's voting taking place.
But it's also in this country,it's dramatically popular.
Overwhelmingbipartisan majorities of people support
photo ID and and it's not hard to see whythey want some assurance
that the people who are showing up to voteare the people who say they are.
(15:42):
And overwhelmingly they are.
And so just but but verifying that is
is is something that people want
and something that people say gives themfaith in in their in their elections.
So in this particular case, too,to circle back to your question,
you know, the allegation
is that imposing a photo ID requirement
(16:04):
undermines the fundamental right to vote.
The first Amendmentbased, fundamental right to vote that
that that every citizenof this country possesses
by virtue of their citizenship andthe First Amendment to the Constitution.
And, you know, this is
this is a that's the nature of the claim.
And the way that it's evaluatedis under a balancing test
(16:27):
where you look at the burden that it's athat's being imposed, which we say
is extremely minimal against the benefitthat could be achieved. And
we say in
the government's interestin imposing that requirement,
which we say is is quite high,if for no other reason,
(16:47):
and there are other reasons, butif for no other reason that it's it is a
a means of giving people confidence
that the election
that takes place
is is in fact, you know, legitimate,that gives them confidence
that they can wake up the next day,hear the results and say, okay,
(17:07):
this is how my fellow citizenswanted our state to be governed.
This is how I feel thatthese are the types of representatives
my fellow citizenswanted to send to Washington.
And, you know, maybe I'm happy with that,or maybe I'm disappointed in that result.
But because there weresafeguards in place,
I know that that process had integrity.
And then I can go about my lifebeing a citizen and not worrying about,
(17:30):
you know,if somebody's trying to steal elections.
Is there any court
anywhere in the United States
that has held a voter ID requirement
as being and impermissible
burdenon the First Amendment right to vote? So
(17:51):
these these challenges often fail?
Most states have been successfulin defending their photo ID requirements.
I believe in
I believe the Fourth Circuit.
And, you know,
struck down a photo ID requirement
a few years ago,maybe about ten years ago.
(18:15):
And I believe it was on on these grounds.
There may have also been
some additional grounds.
But the point was, is that I think whatthe court determined was there weren't
it wasn't easy enough for folksto get the right
type of ID at that time.
I think that was a contestable conclusion.
But in any event,that's what the court concluded.
(18:36):
Virginia later rectified that.
You know what,the court said it was a deficiency
and it's next iteration of the law wasstood was still challenged.
So I think, you know, we can say going back to 2008 when the Supreme Court blessed
Indiana's photo I.D.
requirement, you know,
(18:57):
the default presumption is reallythat these laws are constitutional
and it takes quite a bit of a showingfor the other side to to take them down.
But that doesn't stop themfrom trying every time their every time
they're enacted.
Well, with the Ohio case,
is there some effortto have a preliminary injunction before
or the final ruling to prohibitthe enforcement of the voter ID law? No.
(19:21):
The other side, you know, they filedtheir lawsuit and they've been content to
see it,see it progress on the ordinary timetable.
And so, in fact,
in Ohio has an election.
They just had a primary electionthat was conducted
under this new law and
seems to have gone fine.
(19:42):
You know, they didn't
they didn't seek to enjoin the lawfor that for that election.
So, really, you know,they're really after here is
they want to change the results,not in primary elections
so much as, again, it's a partizan ploy
to tilt the playing fieldin favor of their more liberal
substantive agenda.
(20:04):
Right. Right.
Well, see, November of 2024 is loomingon our near future.
It's on the horizon.
Is this an issue that you thinkis going to get resolved
in Ohiobefore the 2024 presidential election?
I expect it will be the court.
The court seems to be proceeding apace.
I don't think it will linger,
(20:25):
you know, through the next election.
And I fully expect that election will beconducted with photo ID in place in Ohio.
Well, you also mentioned another term
and just kind of shiftthe crosshairs on this from voter I.D.,
because you mentionedsignature verification.
The statistics seem to indicatenow that maybe only about one quarter
(20:47):
of voters show up on Election Day to vote.
40 50% of the people now vote by mail in.
And most placesdetermine the validity of those ballots
based upon a signature verification.
Walks through that a little bit.
How does a signature get verifiedwhen the mail in ballot is received
(21:08):
to make sure that's the
true and accurate vote of the personthat purports to be from.
So thanks. Yeah.
This signature matching is,you know, an important
ballot integrity measure
in states that have that have it in place.
But not every state has it in place.
Some of the more liberal states
(21:28):
will just accept a ballotthat has a a signature
that that purports to be from the voter,
but it doesn't compare it to anything
you know, before that ballots are counted,
other states have moved past signatures
to to alphanumeric codes
that are put in place on registrationand then matched with the ballot.
(21:52):
Usually this is
a driver's license numbersor some other form of some other number
that's selected by the voter.
But where where it isn't played
and then where it is in place, itvaries in terms of how it's implemented.
Some states like Nevada runrun it through machines first
(22:12):
and then you know, wherethe machine identifies a discrepancy.
Some humans will take a look at itand usually it's two or,
you know, usuallyit's more than one person.
And they, you know, sort oftry to come to an agreement.
And there's a process beyond that.If there's not not an agreement
and then
for the most part,
(22:33):
you know, the ballots not rejectedif the signature doesn't match,
but the voters contacted
and they try to divine the provenanceof that of that ballot.
So it's a lengthy process.
But why is it important?
Well,
you know, without it, there's reallyno assurance that the ballot
came back from the person who was sent to,you know, ballots get sent in.
(22:55):
Some states, live ballots will be sent outto every registered voter on the list.
Many of those will land in P.O.
boxes or
vacant lots,
apartment buildingsthat people have moved from.
And, you know,
these ballots can be returned by anybody,you know, who's
(23:15):
willing to sign their name, subjectto the penalty of perjury, of course. But,
you know, with
with enforcement being what it is,
you know, there's that's thethat's the only check would be, you know,
some law enforcement
official noticing something has gone wrongand doing something about it.
But with signature matching, you know,you can see the you know,
(23:35):
the ballot come back,you see the signature on file
and what they basically look for is,you know, sufficient points of comparison.
So, you know, do the loopslook the same, the hours generally
look the same and for the most part,if there's sufficient similarity,
the ballot goes through.
And if there's and if there's not enoughpeople, you know, or they can't
if people can't agree on it, again,there's typically a hearing process
(23:59):
that will try to rehabilitate that ballotbefore it's before it's excluded.
Well.
I find it hard to believethat there are enough handwriting experts,
you know, in the countryto have professionally trained people
comparing these signatures.
What what kind of qualificationsor training do the people who are actually
doing the comparison have to make sureit's an accurate comparison?
(24:22):
Well, again, it's going to varyfrom state to state to, you know, Nevada.
They do have these machinesthat take the first cut at it.
After that,there is there's a fair amount of,
I think, trainingthat the election workers go through.
I think the rigor would depend,you know, from state to state.
But the point is, is that
a ballot is not being excluded, you know,
just because there'sno sort of forensic analysis on it.
(24:46):
For the most part, they're lookingfor a few points of comparison
they give that gives the folks enoughconfidence that, you know, more likely
than not came from thefrom the person who reports to be from.
And then if not reaching outto that person to give them an opportunity
to confirm, know that that's my ballotand that and and put it in the ballot box.
(25:08):
Well, you mentioned I want to want to justdwell on this other point for a moment.
You mentioned that
some states have an alphanumeric match.
Describe that. How how does that work?
Yes, I think so.
For example, Georgia, you know,had a lot of trouble with its signature
matching, I think, you know,somewhat famously in 2020,
(25:30):
you know, ballot rejection rates
went way down in Georgia.
And there was some concernthat the signature matching process
had gotten too loose, thatthey were clearing more signature more,
they were determining matchesin more cases than they had in the past,
but did.
So what they did is a legislaturegot to work and said,
(25:54):
you know, signature matching is important.
It's the thing that, you know, ensures usthat the ballot
came back from the right person, butit was something better we can be doing.
And I think what they put in placeis, you know, an ID number,
the driver's license number, so that,you know, when you fill out your absentee
ballot,you put your driver's license number
(26:14):
when it when it comesin, it's a much more objective comparison.
They can look to see if the numbers matchand if they do that, ballots
cleared for the certification process.
So so that's moreit's a more objective process.
Yeah. What has that been
described as voter
suppression or Jim Crow 2.0?
(26:38):
Yeah.
So all of those laws in Georgia are stillare subject to litigation right now.
I mean, this is all part of what's calledthe SB 202 litigation.
It's pending before the federal courtsin Georgia right now.
You know, do you thinkwe'll have a resolution to that before
the November 2024 presidential election?
I do.
That case also seemsto be proceeding apace.
(26:59):
You know, the question of full resolutionis a little more challenging
because you're right,
there's appellate courtsand you never know
if they're going to take the case,you know, on
an emergency expedited timeframe or not.
But I do think we'll have at least,
you know, an initial cut at it from thefrom the district court by then.
There's there's some tension between voterID requirements and all these
(27:21):
very huge mail in ballotsbecause we're talking
about signature verification,maybe an alphanumeric in Georgia
to verify that the ballot is fromthe person who it purports to be from.
But are there any statesthat require a photocopy
of the driver's license or the voterID to be returned along with the
(27:43):
absentee ballot?
Yes, I think Wisconsin
does that and one other state,I believe, but was Wisconsin for sure.
So they're requiring
photocopy of the ID to be returnedalong along with the ballot.
But again, this is
you know, this is this is just a wayto ensure that the ballots are coming back
from the people that they're supposedto be coming back from.
(28:05):
You know, as more as more voting movesout of the ballot box,
you know, we need to continueto be sure that the ballot box
is being protected, because, again, it is
the it's it's the institutionwe have to to
to set the course, the country.
And we should be we should be enforcingthe rules around it so that everybody,
(28:29):
after it happens, can have confidenceand trust that, you know,
that the way that this countryis going to be governed
is the waythe people want it to be governed.
Well, it
kind of brings us to the issueof what's called ballot harvesting.
California has kind of been in theforefront of this of ballot harvesting.
You know, a program where individuals
(28:49):
can go out and, you know, collecta number of ballots from others.
Generally, I think in the past,
some states allowed family membersto return, other family members ballot.
But California has opened it upwhere it's much broader than that.
And there's a lot of concernthat the ballot harvesting destroys
(29:10):
the concept of a secret ballotbecause there could be direct interference
between the person harvesting the ballotand the voter, some influencing exercise
in a private room or an officeor wherever that contact may take place,
or I think even in North Carolina, I thinkit was a ninth congressional district
a couple of years ago.
There was some hankie panky,so to speak, where
(29:31):
harvesting was going on,but the ballots were being falsified
and that all got worked out in the washthrough litigation.
But your thoughts on ballot harvesting,
the threats that ballot harvesting posesto the sanctity of fair elections?
Sure.
So, I mean, I think actually NorthCarolina is greater
North Carolina example's a great onebecause not for the country.
(29:54):
But, you know, it didn't it didn'treally get washed out in litigation.
They ended up runninga whole new election.
They determined that electionirredeemably tainted by fraud.
And they had a special election to electa new to elect a new representative.
You know, I think, you know, ballotharvesting, ballot trafficking,
this this is something that one,
(30:17):
as you mentioned, resulted in ain a very serious
flaw in an election
that seriously undermined its outcome.
And nobody should have had faithor confidence in that election.
And indeed they did.And they ran it right.
But also, it's an intrusion
on the on the secret ballot.
You know, we thoughtand people thought in this country
(30:40):
for a long timesay the vote must be private.
It needs to be protectedfrom outside influences.
And we were willing to go to great lengthsto do that.
And so we put people, you know,in individual booths behind curtains.
And, you know,we make it clear that, you know,
election officials or people aroundaren't supposed to be near the voter
(31:00):
while they're while they're voting.
And then they put it in the machinethemselves.
And, you know,then it's stored in a secure box.
And then and whenever it'sactually touched by anybody, it's,
you know, atthat point it's been anonymized.
But ballotharvesting sort of takes out away.
I mean, in theory, ballot harvesting,ballot traffickers are only,
you know, taking completed ballots.
(31:21):
But the truth is, is we don't knowwhat happens behind the scenes.
We don't know what happens when.
So, you know, people go aroundcanvasing neighborhoods for ballots.
And you know that because we don't know.
We can't say that we still have a secretballot really, in this country.
I think another thing I'd like to sayabout ballot
(31:41):
harvesting of ballot traffickingis that it's it's just the abuse
I think, of of what started outas a good idea, a well-intentioned idea,
which is that some people do need helpwith their ballots.
Some people need help in the ballot box.
You know, if they in the poll,
in the poll box and they're allowedto have people there to help them,
whether it's to read or translateor something like that,
(32:04):
you know,we know that some people need help voting.
And, you know,as we've expanded into mail balloting,
we know that some people needneed help with their ballots.
But it's a it's a it's a huge jump
to go from helping your family member,
you know, return their ballot.
You know, somebody whoperhaps they're confined to their bed
(32:25):
or something like thatto sort of this sort of blanket assumption
that, well, we all sort ofneed a little help with our ballot
and who isn't too busy to do,you know, all the daily tasks of life?
And if somebody shows upand wants to collect your ballot, all the
all the better for it, you know, sowhat if they're paid by the party?
So what if they're paid by peoplewith certain interests?
(32:47):
You know, give them your ballot,they'll help you out.
These people need assistance to youknow, there's a certain amount of work
that's involved in thein the in the product of self-government.
You know, we all we all need to,
you know, do what's required to be
heard, to participate in the process.
(33:07):
And so,you know, what they did is they took
they took an idea that was designedto help people who truly need it.
It basically expanded it into a loophole.
And now it's a get out the vote operation.
And it really shouldn't be that way.
You know,the people who want to speak to the
and have their voicesheard in the government should do so.
But they should they shouldfollow the rules and and and participate.
(33:29):
They're one of the many, many
easy ways to do soand in each state across the country.
And it's not too much really to ask peopleto return their own, their ballot or,
you know, atmost to hand it to a relative or friend
to return for them.
But this sort of large scaleballot harvesting, as I said, one,
(33:51):
we we know that it is susceptible to fraudand to it undermines the secret ballot,
which is a which has become,you know, a core tenet of our democracy.
I guess it doesn't have to be,but it is now.
And I think most people agreethat it should big.
Well well, I believe there's
eight states at last count anyway,
(34:12):
that have 100% mail in balloting.
And, you know,there's a number of states that have
no excuse, absentee balloting.
I think there's still 16 or 17 stateswhere you need
either need to be ill, disabledor out of the county
on Election Dayin order to request an absentee ballot.
(34:33):
Then there's a host of states that noexcuse, just hand me the absentee ballot.
But there's a number of states,eight of them.
California is one whereall the ballots are mailed to all voters.
So you have 100% absentee balloting
automatically, which raises the question
of the reliability of the individualswho are receiving these these ballots.
(34:57):
You know, California has a lot of peopleleaving the state now.
They were registered voters.
They could be in Nevada,
they could be in Texas,they could be in Kansas, Washington, Ohio.
We don't know where.
But yet you have someonethat's still registered in California.
They may be registerednow in the state of their new location.
(35:19):
So they could have two votes.
They may have two votes.
They could.
They could It's illegal,but you could cast two votes.
The question I have for you, though,with that background,
is there any process
where we have any type of uniformedpurging
of voter rolls that can cross-referencebetween the states?
(35:39):
We certainly have the technologyto do that.
The question,do we have the willpower to do it
or the coordinationamongst the states to do that?
Yeah.
So this is somethingthat we're working on.
The the answer is not not really,unfortunately.
For starters,
some courts have said thatit's perfectly fine
(36:02):
and reasonablefor people to maintain registrations
in two separate states,which we disagree we disagree with.
You know, you
to vote in a stateyou're supposed to be resident in that
state establishing residency for votingpurposes, not particularly difficult.
But the but you should only bea resident of one state at a time.
(36:25):
And so, for starters,it just isn't even the case that,
you know, being registered in two states
is seen as problematic by some,including some courts.
Additionally, cleaning the voter rolls is
has been a it's a full time endeavor
for some very some very passionate people
(36:45):
who work in my space,friends and colleagues of ours.
And they do great work.
But at the end of the day,
most many states voter rolls aren'tas clean as they should be.
You know, as you mentioned, people move,so they've left the state, People die,
People
some people surrender their registration.
(37:05):
But beyond that,
the that in states
where live ballotsare going out to 2 to 4 voter lists,
we just know that they're piling upin places where they shouldn't.
And these are not ballot applications.
These are
these are votes that if they come backand they have a signature and it let's say
it matches or is close enough to matchingor even states, some states
(37:27):
that don't have the match,that's the ballot comes back.
It goes in in the ballot box.
Nobody knows where it came from.
Nobody knows if it came from a personwho was formerly a resident
or if it was voted by somebodyon behalf of their deceased relative
or any or anything else.
And none of that,none of that should be happening.
So we do have
you know, the
technology does exist that would help us
(37:51):
better identify suspects,
registrations, flags,you know, that could then be investigated.
But the the legal framework ishas not caught up.
And one of the reasons isthe political will is just not there
for people to make clean cleaning upthe voter rolls a priority
(38:13):
at the federal levelor even or even at the state level.
So the truth is that our voterrolls are not as clean as they should be.
Some states do a better job than others,
but I think in some statesthey're almost there.
They're contentto focus their efforts elsewhere.
And it's not clear to me why.
I don't know whywe would want live ballots going out
(38:36):
to addresses
where people may not live anymoreto vacant lots to P.O.
boxes. Right.
None of those none of that makesa great deal of sense to me.
And we could we could clean it up
if we had the national willor or on the state level.
The state will to do it,but it doesn't seem like it's there.
Well, one thing you just said,and I want to make
(38:57):
I want to pause on thisbecause this is just shocking revelation.
So I could legally vote in California
and Nevada,at least according to some courts.
I can vote in both places and incurno criminal liability for that.
And I'm sorry if I wasn't clear,you could be registered in both places.
(39:18):
You're not supposed to votein both places.
I said I.
Supposed to vote and only one of them.
But the truth is, is if you'reregistered in both and you voted in both,
you know, we don't have great mechanisms,
at least in my knowledge,to identify those those people.
So for,for example, a college student who is
(39:40):
in Pennsylvania, but from Texas
and gets a mail ballot from Texasand walks into a ballot box in,
you know, somewhere in Philadelphia
or anywhere else in the state, you know,they're not supposed to do that.
They're not supposed to voteunder both registrations.
But I think
I'm not sure it would be very easilycaught or identified.
(40:04):
Well, if my constitutional law serves
me right, that the place, timing
and manner of elections
are supposed to be determinedby the individual states.
So if we wanted to have a mechanismwhere all 50 states could keep
track of the movement of votersand how they're registered,
(40:27):
it would require some cooperationamongst the states,
which the states don't necessarilyhave to provide, it seems to me,
or some type of federal lawwhich may raise
some constitutional implicationson whether it's enforceable or not.
What do you think about that?
Sure.
So Congress does have the powerunder the Constitution to,
you know, put some uniform system in place
(40:49):
for this.
I think we want to be carefulabout that, though.
You know, one of our one of our greatsafeguards is these laboratories
that you mentioned earlier and that statesdo ultimately control their elections.
And remember, most elections
are for offices that are not federal.
They're for a variety of state offices.
(41:10):
The difference from state to state.
Each state has a different culturearound voting.
You know, each state,the people in each state believe different
safeguards are needed.
Some you know, the people, as I mentioned,
North Dakota have been perfectly contentwithout a system of registration,
although they do have a systemof identification.
And on the on the back end, other states
(41:31):
have a registration system
plus a photoID system, you know, with no excuse or
absentee voting or some other system.
So, you know,
I think that we want to be carefulwith imposing a federal solution on this.
The states can get together.
They have I mean, there's been manythere have been efforts to do this.
You know, the Eric systemhas been in the news quite a bit lately
(41:54):
because this was supposed to bean interstate to clean the voter rolls.
So person moves to another state.
You know,they register their clients things.
The system, where did they come from?
He came from Texas.
You know, Texas.
Hey, we've got this steric linesat this type of Social Security number
(42:14):
registering here.
You know, you may want to contact him,make sure he wants to be off the back of
the rolls in Texas.
But, you know, this this, too, is ended upbeing a system
plagued by by partizanship and
is sort of falling apart because
more liberal states are using it
as a means to identify what they call
(42:37):
eligible but unregistered voters.
So and to contact them,sign them up and get them, you know,
get them into the system for voting,
which is,
you know, in this country,we should want people to participate
in the election
because they want to participatein the election,
because they have something to sayabout the election,
(42:57):
not necessarilybecause the government got after them
and cajoled them to become a voterand have a voice.
You know,the voice should proceed the voting
and the registration,but not sort of the other way around.
But in any event,
it wasn't
doing a lot to clean up the voter rollsfor for a variety of different reasons.
And, you know, some states protestedand they asked
(43:19):
Eric to reform itselfto do a better job of engaging
in this interstateclean up initiative in the organization.
You know, kind of refused.
And so we have this system, this situationright now
where states are withdrawing from Eric,I think largely as a protest
because it was supposed to be the systemthat helped
(43:42):
clean up the voter rolls, which is anand critical to election integrity.
And it was sort of co-optedand turned into something else.
And so it remains to be seen what happens.
I think there's people out theretrying to propose new solutions.
And as Eric,
it's pricey
as it falls, whereas itsort of comes apart a little bit.
(44:03):
But right to be seen.
I mean, it's it's a big gap
that states and secretaries of statesreally should be focusing on.
Well, before I let you go,
what do you see on the horizon
for write in 23, 2024?
So we're you know,we're active in about states
(44:24):
with about ten different lawsuitsgoing on.
And we're
we're going to keep pounding away at thatand expanding expanding our docket.
You know, our mission as we go into 2024
is to do everything that we canto make sure that
we have established rules in placethat are protecting
the integrity of the ballot boxand that those rules are enforced
(44:47):
so that, you know, when everybody sends
in their mail ballot or goes to the pollsearly or votes on Election Day,
you know, very shortly after that,we will see the results.
We will know, you know,
who is going to be the presidentof this country for the next four years.
We'll know who our senators
are going to be, who controls the Senate,who controls the House
(45:08):
at the state level, who are governors, are
we want as we want to know, those answersas quickly as possible
with as little controversy as possibleafter the election.
And so we'll be active in state
courthouses and federal courthousesacross the nation
to do our do our level best
(45:29):
to lay the groundwork for an electionthat Americans can have confidence in.
Well, Derek Lyons, president,CEO of Right Restore
Integrity and Trust in Elections,thank you so much for your time.
I hope to have you back some time.I would love to.
Thanks for having me. Take care. You too.
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