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Welcome back to Heritage Explains. I'm Doug Blair. As stories
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about non-citizen voting and voter fraud become disturbingly common, Americans
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are beginning to lack confidence in our elections. The debate
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over the elections process has taken on a renewed urgency,
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given that we are just months away from the 2026
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midterms and just a few years out from what promises
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to be a very contentious 2028. That's why Heritage Foundation
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recently launched the latest edition of its Election Integrity Scorecard.
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This is a tool that evaluates how states are protecting
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election integrity. The scorecard also provides Americans with a clear
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look at where states are making progress and where reforms
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are still needed. On that note, my colleague Mark Guiney
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recently sat down with Ken Cuccinelli, former Virginia Attorney General
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and the chairman of Heritage Action's Election Transparency Initiative, to
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discuss Heritage's election integrity projects and what election officials must
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do to strengthen confidence in our elections. See you guys
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after the interview.
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Ken Cuccinelli, welcome to Heritage Explains.
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Yeah, glad to be here. Literally.
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Yeah, absolutely. Well, you come with a long pedigree, many
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other things. You're the former Attorney General of Virginia. Best
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job I ever had. We're glad to hear it.
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Yeah.
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And you're here because you have a new initiative here
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at the Heritage Foundation we're very excited about. Before you
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talk about that, can you tell us about who you are,
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how you wound up getting into public policy, and found
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yourself at the Heritage Foundation?
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Well, I am a near lifelong Virginian. Everything I remember
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from the time I was two and you mentioned or
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I mentioned that I'd been attorney general. Before that, I
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was in the state Senate policy geek engineer before I
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went to the dark side and went to law school
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and still think like an engineer. So and have found
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that sitting on the couch, throwing shoes at the television
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when you feel strongly about something isn't very effective. And
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if you're the television, it's particularly bad. So I've always
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been a get off the couch and go try to
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affect things person. First locally, and the focus of my
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attention changed as years go on and opportunities arise. Served
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in the first Trump administration, first running USCIS, which Joe
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Edlow now runs, also out of Heritage. And then I
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moved on to be the acting deputy secretary for the
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department for the last 15 months or so. Wasn't boring.
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2020 was an exciting year to be the deputy secretary
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and really the chief operating officer of a 250,000 person,
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$ 50 billion plus agency. that is on the front lines
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of American security. So it was exciting. I was happy
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to work for President Trump. He's a unique character for sure.
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And after that administration, with several other friends and colleagues,
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we started the Election Transparency Initiative to try to secure
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elections and bring, as the name would suggest, transparency was
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one of the key goals we had. And I've worked
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on that ever since. That's been five and a half years.
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While practicing law, I still do constitutional law and a
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few other odds and ends here. Got some good gun cases.
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And Virginia, unfortunately, has been on the map for gun disputes,
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gun law disputes. But the Supreme Court's just taken up
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a couple of assault weapons ban cases. Going to, I hope,
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favorably affect us and many other states across the country.
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including litigation I'm active in now. So I try to
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keep my hand in the constitutional law side of practice
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of law, and in addition to working to secure elections.
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So we're here today to talk about specifically the Election
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Transparency Initiative. Can you lay out what that is, what
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the big goals are, and its relationship to heritage? Sure.
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So The Election Transparency Initiative, as I noted, started after
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I left the Trump administration, so February of 2021. And
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since that time, we have worked to change legislation to
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make elections run better, more securely, and critically transparently. Our
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gold standard is that you should be able to see
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every single thing that happens in your elections, except how
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your neighbors mark their ballots. right down to the computer
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code on any machines used. And that means open source coding,
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not proprietary coding like Dominion and ESS and others use. Now,
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there's good reasons. If you're selling products, you might use
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proprietary code. But we have known for three decades that
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open source coding can work in a commercial space. And
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it's been fascinating. an extremely successful undertaking. It hasn't made
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its way into the election space yet. And we hope
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to achieve that. The other part of our gold standard,
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we're big fans of the KISS principle, keep it simple, stupid.
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And I would say that the rapid, really exponential advance
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of artificial intelligence might finally be convincing people that we're
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right about this, that the best way forward is back.
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And that's paper ballots, count it on dumb tabulators, meaning
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there's no connections of any kind on the machine. And
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all it does is count the filled in bubbles on
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your Scantron sheet. And it happens right there in your
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precinct the night of the election. And a lot of
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people on our side love their hand counts. Now, we
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believe the paper ballots are the official because machines can
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screw up. Nonetheless, when properly set up, machines count better
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than people. So now you hear my engineering school coming
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through instead of law school. But that's the gold standard.
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And it's very simple. It's a simplistic approach to how
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to run elections. And that sounds simple enough. But as
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Don Palmer here at Heritage will tell you, who has
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literally done almost every job there is to do in
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running elections, they're more complicated than they look. How do
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you secure ballots, especially with early voting? What form does
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mail-in voting take? How do you do voter identification with
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mail-in ballots? Do you mail out the whole voter roll
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every time, which some states do, which is insane. A
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simple stat, 2% of Americans move every month, every month.
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So in one two-year congressional cycle, that adds up to 48%. Now,
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some of those people are moving more than once, so
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half of America isn't moving, but some of us are
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moving two and three times in that time period. Well,
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every time you move, when was the last time you
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went to your registrar, you were leaving and said, hey,
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I'm leaving. take me off the rolls. No, you go
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to the new place and you register to vote and
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you just sort of assume they're going to let the
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former place know and take you off the rolls. Well,
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that doesn't really happen, at least not all the time
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or reliably. And so we have these swollen voter rolls
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and unused voter slots can be used for fraud, particularly
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in various circumstances. So there's a lot of piece, I'm
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walking through an example, but there are a lot of
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pieces to a well-run election. And even after the fact,
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there are things like audits and challenges. What are the standards?
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Who can bring them? How do they bring them? And
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so forth. And we have engaged in all of those.
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Some of those are legislation. Some are actually regulation. In
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North Carolina, for example, in Georgia, there's some regulatory level
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engagement on our part. So a lot of testimony. a
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lot of advocacy on the ground. And we, and we're
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going to continue to do this, we always find quality
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in-state partners who we can support. So we're not the front,
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we're the back. And we bring a lot of experience.
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We bring a lot of air cover, a lot of
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media opportunity to do public education. And we engage in
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it fast and furious. And at the state level, having
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been a state legislator myself, these issues can arise, get drafted,
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be voted on, and over in days or weeks. It
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can go very fast, unlike, say, Capitol Hill, which is
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the opposite, where you're in for the long slog like
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we've been with the Save America Act, which would provide
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not only voter ID, photo ID, but citizenship confirmation, which
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is critical. The That's been screwed up over the years,
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and that is a national concept. Only Washington can fix that.
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Only Washington can fix that. So we engage on all
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these issues. Things like the Heritage Scorecard of Good Practices,
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if you will, are great reference tools for us and
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for the whole Right of Center Coalition that we take
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an active role in leading so that all of our
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friends working in this subject can be as close to
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on the same page as possible. I've never seen five
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and a half years of the conservative movement and beyond
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the conservative movement working together as well as we have
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in the election reform space. And that's very important because
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the left has been doing this for 22 years, since 2004.
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George Soros funding, and he wasn't the only, there were
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three other billionaires in there, and they have been building C4s, C3s,
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and funding candidates and causes, whether they be secretaries of
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state or Soros prosecutors, as we call them now, I mean,
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if you've got an election fraud situation in Fairfax County, Virginia,
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with a Soros prosecutor who's responsible for doing the state prosecution, well,
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if it's a Democrat, he probably says it's not that
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big a deal and I have bigger things to work on.
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If it's a Republican, he says, oh, yeah, absolutely, we're
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going to defend democracy. We actually want everybody prosecuted in
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that situation. We don't want a side or the other.
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We want them all prosecuted. And, you know, there's a history.
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Human beings are what they are. There is always going
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to be some cheating. But more than that in elections
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are errors, sometimes of vast numbers. We just saw yesterday
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in New Jersey them admitting something they hate to admit
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on the left. They had over 6,000 non-citizens who they
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registered to vote through what they called a glitch. Well,
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one of the things that we have worked hard against
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at the Election Transparency Initiative is automatic voter registration. You
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and I and every other individual can register to vote themselves.
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It has never been easier to register to vote in
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American history than it is today. We don't need automatic
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voter registration, and it invites exactly the kind of problem
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that New Jersey admitted to yesterday. registering over 6,000 non-citizens,
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hundreds of whom we already know have voted.
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So you mentioned, this is a topic where the state
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advocacy part of it is very important.
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Very important.
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The states really, they administer their own elections.
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Right.
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And we're so- We want to keep it that way.
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And we want to keep it that way. We're so
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used to federal policy here at Heritage. We do- work
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with states as well. But this is a scenario where
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that state advocacy is super important. So can you talk about,
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you know, some of you already mentioned a few, but
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some of the wins, some of the things that you're
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tracking in different states?
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So, yeah, so let's talk about some of the history
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of success. So for those who don't remember Zuckerbucks, Zuckerbucks
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in the 2020 election was over $ 400 million that Mark
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Zuckerberg and his wife funneled using nonprofits, so they got
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tax deductions to do this, to election offices, and they
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skewed this to blue areas. And essentially, these offices did
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voter turnout. So for listeners and viewers who haven't participated
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in campaigns before, voter turnout is a campaign activity. Yes,
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we want people to vote. Of course, we want every
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registered voter to vote. But that first decision a voter
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makes in an election is whether to vote. That's part
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of the decision-making. And then, for whom will I vote
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is the second one. And for the government to be
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putting its thumb on the scale, and Mark Zuckerberg funded
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this all over the country in places like Philadelphia. Well,
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if you turn Philadelphia's election office into a get out
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the vote operation in a city that votes over three
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to one Democrat. That is a Democrat voter turnout operation.
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And they spread the money everywhere to make it look
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like they were helping everyone in COVID. But there's been
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very solid research on the amounts of money that went
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where and what they got used for. You need a
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sufficient concentration of money to start hiring new people. Philadelphia
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is a great example. They spent, Zuckerberg's folks, spent over
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$ 6 per voter in that jurisdiction. Other Pennsylvania jurisdictions got
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some money too that were red jurisdictions. They got around
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a dollar a voter. And how about that? What a coincidence.
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So the marginal difference was literally worth tens of thousands
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of votes just in Philadelphia. Now, repeat this all over
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the country with this kind of targeted effort. And to
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put it in ACC basketball terms, I'm a UVA engineer.
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You know, if North Carolina comes to Charlottesville to play
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UVA and UVA is paying the refs, what does North
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Carolina think the odds are that that's going to be
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a fairly called game? Even if it is, the impression
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is not there that it is. So here we have
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the ref being paid. by the left to go do
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its work for them. So the left says, oh, it
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was just COVID this, COVID that. No, it was and
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was intended to alter the outcome of the election, and
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it did. Then comes ETI and others, and we have
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worked very hard to help eliminate Zuckerbucks, made it illegal
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in two-thirds of the states. Well, we haven't reached two-thirds yet.
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We're close to two-thirds. But over 28 at the last count,
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and I think we added a couple since then. So
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we're in a very good place. And we've done some
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of this on a bipartisan basis in places like Wisconsin
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or Pennsylvania. Actually, Wisconsin, the governor vetoed it, and we
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got it by referendum, as we did in Louisiana. But
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in Pennsylvania, a Democrat governor signed it. In South Carolina,
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Democrats and Republicans supported this. In Virginia, it had bipartisan support.
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So a lot of these common sense things really are
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only partisan because of who advances them. And there's a
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bit of the, at the federal level, the orange man
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bad syndrome. If Trump says it, it must not be
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true to the left. And the fact of the matter
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is that a lot of the concerns he raises have
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very legitimate foundations. And we drill down on those. And
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we try to fix them. And we've had a lot
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of success over the years working state by state, issue
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by issue to do that. And I've been very pleased,
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just as a conservative, to see the right hang in
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there after 2024. I was a little worried President Trump
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would win again and everybody would say, oh, see, we
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fixed this problem. No, sir. We have a long way
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to go. But we have a lot of opportunities. You know, California.
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this year, has a voter ID referendum. Who could have
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thought we'd make progress in California? But we have a
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chance to do that this year. And you can bet
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that in the public debate, we will be engaged there
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as we have in voter ID referenda in a dozen
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other states over the last five years.
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What are you really excited about moving forward?
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Well, I will say the California opportunity is one thing
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I'm really excited about. I mean, It is so hard
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to find ways to make progress in California, and yet
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here we have one in front of us, the referendum process.
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I'm from Virginia. We don't have a referendum initiative in referendum.
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We have referendum, but it comes from the General Assembly.
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This bypasses their General Assembly and has been put on
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the ballot, like other things before it, that have been
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quite successful, frankly. And They didn't make the mistake that
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sometimes happens and has happened in other states where they
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put four or five different things in one resolution. And
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so if you're opposing that resolution, you just pick the
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least popular one and you run against that. Here, this
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is just voter ID to vote, and that has over
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70% support from Democrats. That, according to CNN, those radical right-wingers,
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And so this is a well-based issue. And frankly, it
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shouldn't be left or right. And among regular people, it isn't.
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So I'm excited about California. I am hopeful at the
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federal level that this upcoming reconciliation effort will see at
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least some progress on either citizenship confirmation or voter ID
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at the federal level. I'm most interested at the federal
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level in the citizenship confirmation because it is something that
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the federal government is absolutely critical to being able to
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fix after decades of badly written federal laws, a couple
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of bad Supreme Court and federal court decisions that leave
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state in a difficult position. Yes, it's illegal for non-citizens
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to vote, but we have no way to enforce it.
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So it's not particularly relevant. And I should point out,
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you know, in 21 and 22, we spent a lot
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of time and effort fighting the Democrats, H.R. 1, effort
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where they tried to do a complete Washington takeover of elections.
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You and I were talking about the states running them.
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They were going to dictate an enormous amount of how
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this worked. One of the things they were going to
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do is mandate automatic voter registration to dump all adults,
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note I don't say citizens, adults in all state databases
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onto their voter rolls and If you were not a
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citizen and you voted while being dumped onto the voter
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rolls this way, there'd be no punishment because they essentially
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would deem it not your fault. So they were legalizing
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non-citizens voting. That was written into their bill. And then
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they created a new crime, very generically worded, which is
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not how you're supposed to word criminal statutes. supposed to
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be specific, that said, you know, if you interfere with
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somebody's ability or their efforts to be a voter, you
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could be a federal felon. Well, in the hands of, say, Biden,
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Soros prosecutors that peopled the Justice Department, it'd be easy
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to see what this might be used for. If you
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work at a DMV and somebody shows up at the
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desk and you know they sign up for a that
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they're automatically dumped into the voter registration file, but they
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can't speak English. Well, that's a good clue. They're not
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a citizen and not legally eligible to vote. Well, that
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criminal law was intended to intimidate that person behind the
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counter at the DMV to say, you know, it's just
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one person and it's not worth me risking making myself
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a target for the Department of Justice. It was pure intimidation.
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So they were effectively legalizing non-citizens voting and dumping millions
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of them, millions, folks, onto the voter rolls of states
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across the country. That was their goal. So, you know, remember,
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they wrote it into a bill in 2021 and 2022.
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We fought that. That was a very close call, very
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close call. And it really hinged on keeping the filibuster.
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Then the Democrats kept it. Now you're seeing the Republican
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Senate keep it. And there's a lot of talk about
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how long it'll last and if it won't, should Republicans
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get rid of it now, etc. But they've held on
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to it and it's a defense for the minority. And
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it helped us in 2021 and 2022. And then at
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the same time and in parallel, we were working in
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the states and Now we're on the positive side at
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the federal level with the Save America Act, and we're
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still working in the states.
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For folks who want to learn more about the Election
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Transparency Initiative, where should they go?
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Well, I talk about this a lot on the Free
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Bird Twitter, at Ken Cuccinelli, and we have a special
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website set up for it, electiontransparency.org, and we'd love people
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to keep up with what we're doing. Like I said,
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there's a lot of little things always going on, whether
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it's rank choice voting, Referendum in Alaska or we're trying
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to fight it in the legislature in Ohio. It just
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keeps coming, keeps coming, keeps coming. And part of that
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is because technology changes. So things can alter. Although I
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would argue that if we go back to the KISS principle,
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we can actually have less change because it'll be the
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same thing year after year. One other benefit. We also
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work to shorten election periods. We have 45 days in Virginia.
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Nobody needs 45 days. And it's very hard to secure
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ballot boxes and everything else and to have volunteers who
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can observe and make sure everybody's obeying the law for
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45 days. Minnesota's even longer, 46. They have the longest.
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So we deal with issues like that all the time.
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And you can see and read about some of those
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at electiontransparency.org and Like I said, as they pop up quickly,
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we hit them on Twitter, we hit them on every
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form of media we can, and I appreciate the chance
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to be able to introduce it to folks.
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Well, it's a pleasure to have you here. Thank you
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for the work that you do. Ken Cuccinelli, thank you.
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Glad to do it. Thanks for having me.
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Thank you to Ken Cuccinelli and Mark Guiney for that
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absolutely fascinating conversation. And as always, thank you to you
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for tuning in to Heritage Explains. Feel free to drop
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your thoughts, questions, and or suggestions at HeritageExplains at Heritage.org.
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Until next time, this has been Heritage Explains.
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Welcome back to Heritage Explains. I'm Doug Blair. As stories
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about non-citizen voting and voter fraud become disturbingly common, Americans
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are beginning to lack confidence in our elections. The debate
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over the elections process has taken on a renewed urgency,
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given that we are just months away from the 2026
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midterms and just a few years out from what promises
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to be a very contentious 2028. That's why Heritage Foundation
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recently launched the latest edition of its Election Integrity Scorecard.
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This is a tool that evaluates how states are protecting
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election integrity. The scorecard also provides Americans with a clear
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look at where states are making progress and where reforms
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are still needed. On that note, my colleague Mark Guiney
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recently sat down with Ken Cuccinelli, former Virginia Attorney General
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and the chairman of Heritage Action's Election Transparency Initiative, to
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discuss Heritage's election integrity projects and what election officials must
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do to strengthen confidence in our elections. See you guys
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after the interview.
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Ken Cuccinelli, welcome to Heritage Explains.
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Yeah, glad to be here. Literally.
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Yeah, absolutely. Well, you come with a long pedigree, many
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other things. You're the former Attorney General of Virginia. Best
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job I ever had. We're glad to hear it.
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Yeah.
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And you're here because you have a new initiative here
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at the Heritage Foundation we're very excited about. Before you
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talk about that, can you tell us about who you are,
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how you wound up getting into public policy, and found
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yourself at the Heritage Foundation?
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Well, I am a near lifelong Virginian. Everything I remember
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from the time I was two and you mentioned or
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I mentioned that I'd been attorney general. Before that, I
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was in the state Senate policy geek engineer before I
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went to the dark side and went to law school
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and still think like an engineer. So and have found
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that sitting on the couch, throwing shoes at the television
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when you feel strongly about something isn't very effective. And
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if you're the television, it's particularly bad. So I've always
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been a get off the couch and go try to
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affect things person. First locally, and the focus of my
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attention changed as years go on and opportunities arise. Served
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in the first Trump administration, first running USCIS, which Joe
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Edlow now runs, also out of Heritage. And then I
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moved on to be the acting deputy secretary for the
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department for the last 15 months or so. Wasn't boring.
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2020 was an exciting year to be the deputy secretary
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and really the chief operating officer of a 250,000 person,
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$ 50 billion plus agency. that is on the front lines
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of American security. So it was exciting. I was happy
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to work for President Trump. He's a unique character for sure.
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And after that administration, with several other friends and colleagues,
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we started the Election Transparency Initiative to try to secure
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elections and bring, as the name would suggest, transparency was
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one of the key goals we had. And I've worked
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on that ever since. That's been five and a half years.
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While practicing law, I still do constitutional law and a
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few other odds and ends here. Got some good gun cases.
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And Virginia, unfortunately, has been on the map for gun disputes,
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gun law disputes. But the Supreme Court's just taken up
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a couple of assault weapons ban cases. Going to, I hope,
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favorably affect us and many other states across the country.
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including litigation I'm active in now. So I try to
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keep my hand in the constitutional law side of practice
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of law, and in addition to working to secure elections.
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So we're here today to talk about specifically the Election
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Transparency Initiative. Can you lay out what that is, what
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the big goals are, and its relationship to heritage? Sure.
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So The Election Transparency Initiative, as I noted, started after
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I left the Trump administration, so February of 2021. And
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since that time, we have worked to change legislation to
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make elections run better, more securely, and critically transparently. Our
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gold standard is that you should be able to see
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every single thing that happens in your elections, except how
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your neighbors mark their ballots. right down to the computer
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code on any machines used. And that means open source coding,
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not proprietary coding like Dominion and ESS and others use. Now,
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there's good reasons. If you're selling products, you might use
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proprietary code. But we have known for three decades that
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open source coding can work in a commercial space. And
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it's been fascinating. an extremely successful undertaking. It hasn't made
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its way into the election space yet. And we hope
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to achieve that. The other part of our gold standard,
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we're big fans of the KISS principle, keep it simple, stupid.
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And I would say that the rapid, really exponential advance
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of artificial intelligence might finally be convincing people that we're
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right about this, that the best way forward is back.
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And that's paper ballots, count it on dumb tabulators, meaning
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there's no connections of any kind on the machine. And
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all it does is count the filled in bubbles on
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your Scantron sheet. And it happens right there in your
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precinct the night of the election. And a lot of
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people on our side love their hand counts. Now, we
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believe the paper ballots are the official because machines can
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screw up. Nonetheless, when properly set up, machines count better
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than people. So now you hear my engineering school coming
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through instead of law school. But that's the gold standard.
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And it's very simple. It's a simplistic approach to how
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to run elections. And that sounds simple enough. But as
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Don Palmer here at Heritage will tell you, who has
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literally done almost every job there is to do in
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running elections, they're more complicated than they look. How do
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you secure ballots, especially with early voting? What form does
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mail-in voting take? How do you do voter identification with
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mail-in ballots? Do you mail out the whole voter roll
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every time, which some states do, which is insane. A
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simple stat, 2% of Americans move every month, every month.
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So in one two-year congressional cycle, that adds up to 48%. Now,
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some of those people are moving more than once, so
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half of America isn't moving, but some of us are
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moving two and three times in that time period. Well,
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every time you move, when was the last time you
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went to your registrar, you were leaving and said, hey,
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I'm leaving. take me off the rolls. No, you go
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to the new place and you register to vote and
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you just sort of assume they're going to let the
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former place know and take you off the rolls. Well,
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that doesn't really happen, at least not all the time
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or reliably. And so we have these swollen voter rolls
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and unused voter slots can be used for fraud, particularly
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in various circumstances. So there's a lot of piece, I'm
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walking through an example, but there are a lot of
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pieces to a well-run election. And even after the fact,
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there are things like audits and challenges. What are the standards?
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Who can bring them? How do they bring them? And
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so forth. And we have engaged in all of those.
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Some of those are legislation. Some are actually regulation. In
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North Carolina, for example, in Georgia, there's some regulatory level
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engagement on our part. So a lot of testimony. a
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lot of advocacy on the ground. And we, and we're
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going to continue to do this, we always find quality
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in-state partners who we can support. So we're not the front,
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we're the back. And we bring a lot of experience.
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We bring a lot of air cover, a lot of
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media opportunity to do public education. And we engage in
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it fast and furious. And at the state level, having
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been a state legislator myself, these issues can arise, get drafted,
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be voted on, and over in days or weeks. It
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can go very fast, unlike, say, Capitol Hill, which is
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the opposite, where you're in for the long slog like
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we've been with the Save America Act, which would provide
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not only voter ID, photo ID, but citizenship confirmation, which
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is critical. The That's been screwed up over the years,
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and that is a national concept. Only Washington can fix that.
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Only Washington can fix that. So we engage on all
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these issues. Things like the Heritage Scorecard of Good Practices,
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if you will, are great reference tools for us and
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for the whole Right of Center Coalition that we take
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an active role in leading so that all of our
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friends working in this subject can be as close to
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on the same page as possible. I've never seen five
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and a half years of the conservative movement and beyond
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the conservative movement working together as well as we have
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in the election reform space. And that's very important because
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the left has been doing this for 22 years, since 2004.
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George Soros funding, and he wasn't the only, there were
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three other billionaires in there, and they have been building C4s, C3s,
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and funding candidates and causes, whether they be secretaries of
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state or Soros prosecutors, as we call them now, I mean,
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if you've got an election fraud situation in Fairfax County, Virginia,
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with a Soros prosecutor who's responsible for doing the state prosecution, well,
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if it's a Democrat, he probably says it's not that
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big a deal and I have bigger things to work on.
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If it's a Republican, he says, oh, yeah, absolutely, we're
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going to defend democracy. We actually want everybody prosecuted in
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that situation. We don't want a side or the other.
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We want them all prosecuted. And, you know, there's a history.
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Human beings are what they are. There is always going
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to be some cheating. But more than that in elections
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are errors, sometimes of vast numbers. We just saw yesterday
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in New Jersey them admitting something they hate to admit
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on the left. They had over 6,000 non-citizens who they
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registered to vote through what they called a glitch. Well,
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one of the things that we have worked hard against
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at the Election Transparency Initiative is automatic voter registration. You
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and I and every other individual can register to vote themselves.
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It has never been easier to register to vote in
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American history than it is today. We don't need automatic
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voter registration, and it invites exactly the kind of problem
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that New Jersey admitted to yesterday. registering over 6,000 non-citizens,
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hundreds of whom we already know have voted.
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So you mentioned, this is a topic where the state
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advocacy part of it is very important.
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Very important.
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The states really, they administer their own elections.
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Right.
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And we're so- We want to keep it that way.
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And we want to keep it that way. We're so
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used to federal policy here at Heritage. We do- work
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with states as well. But this is a scenario where
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that state advocacy is super important. So can you talk about,
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you know, some of you already mentioned a few, but
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some of the wins, some of the things that you're
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tracking in different states?
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So, yeah, so let's talk about some of the history
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of success. So for those who don't remember Zuckerbucks, Zuckerbucks
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in the 2020 election was over $ 400 million that Mark
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Zuckerberg and his wife funneled using nonprofits, so they got
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tax deductions to do this, to election offices, and they
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skewed this to blue areas. And essentially, these offices did
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voter turnout. So for listeners and viewers who haven't participated
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in campaigns before, voter turnout is a campaign activity. Yes,
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we want people to vote. Of course, we want every
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registered voter to vote. But that first decision a voter
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makes in an election is whether to vote. That's part
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of the decision-making. And then, for whom will I vote
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is the second one. And for the government to be
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putting its thumb on the scale, and Mark Zuckerberg funded
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this all over the country in places like Philadelphia. Well,
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if you turn Philadelphia's election office into a get out
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the vote operation in a city that votes over three
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to one Democrat. That is a Democrat voter turnout operation.
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And they spread the money everywhere to make it look
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like they were helping everyone in COVID. But there's been
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very solid research on the amounts of money that went
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where and what they got used for. You need a
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sufficient concentration of money to start hiring new people. Philadelphia
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is a great example. They spent, Zuckerberg's folks, spent over
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$ 6 per voter in that jurisdiction. Other Pennsylvania jurisdictions got
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some money too that were red jurisdictions. They got around
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a dollar a voter. And how about that? What a coincidence.
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So the marginal difference was literally worth tens of thousands
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of votes just in Philadelphia. Now, repeat this all over
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the country with this kind of targeted effort. And to
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put it in ACC basketball terms, I'm a UVA engineer.
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You know, if North Carolina comes to Charlottesville to play
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UVA and UVA is paying the refs, what does North
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Carolina think the odds are that that's going to be
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a fairly called game? Even if it is, the impression
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is not there that it is. So here we have
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the ref being paid. by the left to go do
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its work for them. So the left says, oh, it
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was just COVID this, COVID that. No, it was and
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was intended to alter the outcome of the election, and
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it did. Then comes ETI and others, and we have
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worked very hard to help eliminate Zuckerbucks, made it illegal
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in two-thirds of the states. Well, we haven't reached two-thirds yet.
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We're close to two-thirds. But over 28 at the last count,
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and I think we added a couple since then. So
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we're in a very good place. And we've done some
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of this on a bipartisan basis in places like Wisconsin
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or Pennsylvania. Actually, Wisconsin, the governor vetoed it, and we
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got it by referendum, as we did in Louisiana. But
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in Pennsylvania, a Democrat governor signed it. In South Carolina,
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Democrats and Republicans supported this. In Virginia, it had bipartisan support.
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So a lot of these common sense things really are
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only partisan because of who advances them. And there's a
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bit of the, at the federal level, the orange man
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bad syndrome. If Trump says it, it must not be
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true to the left. And the fact of the matter
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is that a lot of the concerns he raises have
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very legitimate foundations. And we drill down on those. And
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we try to fix them. And we've had a lot
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of success over the years working state by state, issue
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by issue to do that. And I've been very pleased,
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just as a conservative, to see the right hang in
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there after 2024. I was a little worried President Trump
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would win again and everybody would say, oh, see, we
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fixed this problem. No, sir. We have a long way
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to go. But we have a lot of opportunities. You know, California.
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this year, has a voter ID referendum. Who could have
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thought we'd make progress in California? But we have a
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chance to do that this year. And you can bet
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that in the public debate, we will be engaged there
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as we have in voter ID referenda in a dozen
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other states over the last five years.
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What are you really excited about moving forward?
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Well, I will say the California opportunity is one thing
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I'm really excited about. I mean, It is so hard
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to find ways to make progress in California, and yet
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here we have one in front of us, the referendum process.
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I'm from Virginia. We don't have a referendum initiative in referendum.
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We have referendum, but it comes from the General Assembly.
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This bypasses their General Assembly and has been put on
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the ballot, like other things before it, that have been
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quite successful, frankly. And They didn't make the mistake that
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sometimes happens and has happened in other states where they
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put four or five different things in one resolution. And
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so if you're opposing that resolution, you just pick the
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least popular one and you run against that. Here, this
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is just voter ID to vote, and that has over
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70% support from Democrats. That, according to CNN, those radical right-wingers,
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And so this is a well-based issue. And frankly, it
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shouldn't be left or right. And among regular people, it isn't.
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So I'm excited about California. I am hopeful at the
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federal level that this upcoming reconciliation effort will see at
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least some progress on either citizenship confirmation or voter ID
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at the federal level. I'm most interested at the federal
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level in the citizenship confirmation because it is something that
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the federal government is absolutely critical to being able to
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fix after decades of badly written federal laws, a couple
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of bad Supreme Court and federal court decisions that leave
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state in a difficult position. Yes, it's illegal for non-citizens
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to vote, but we have no way to enforce it.
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So it's not particularly relevant. And I should point out,
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you know, in 21 and 22, we spent a lot
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of time and effort fighting the Democrats, H.R. 1, effort
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where they tried to do a complete Washington takeover of elections.
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You and I were talking about the states running them.
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They were going to dictate an enormous amount of how
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this worked. One of the things they were going to
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do is mandate automatic voter registration to dump all adults,
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note I don't say citizens, adults in all state databases
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onto their voter rolls and If you were not a
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citizen and you voted while being dumped onto the voter
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rolls this way, there'd be no punishment because they essentially
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would deem it not your fault. So they were legalizing
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non-citizens voting. That was written into their bill. And then
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they created a new crime, very generically worded, which is
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not how you're supposed to word criminal statutes. supposed to
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be specific, that said, you know, if you interfere with
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somebody's ability or their efforts to be a voter, you
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could be a federal felon. Well, in the hands of, say, Biden,
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Soros prosecutors that peopled the Justice Department, it'd be easy
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to see what this might be used for. If you
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work at a DMV and somebody shows up at the
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desk and you know they sign up for a that
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they're automatically dumped into the voter registration file, but they
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can't speak English. Well, that's a good clue. They're not
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a citizen and not legally eligible to vote. Well, that
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criminal law was intended to intimidate that person behind the
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counter at the DMV to say, you know, it's just
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one person and it's not worth me risking making myself
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a target for the Department of Justice. It was pure intimidation.
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So they were effectively legalizing non-citizens voting and dumping millions
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of them, millions, folks, onto the voter rolls of states
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across the country. That was their goal. So, you know, remember,
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they wrote it into a bill in 2021 and 2022.
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We fought that. That was a very close call, very
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close call. And it really hinged on keeping the filibuster.
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Then the Democrats kept it. Now you're seeing the Republican
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Senate keep it. And there's a lot of talk about
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how long it'll last and if it won't, should Republicans
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get rid of it now, etc. But they've held on
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to it and it's a defense for the minority. And
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it helped us in 2021 and 2022. And then at
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the same time and in parallel, we were working in
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the states and Now we're on the positive side at
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the federal level with the Save America Act, and we're
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still working in the states.
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For folks who want to learn more about the Election
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Transparency Initiative, where should they go?
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Well, I talk about this a lot on the Free
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Bird Twitter, at Ken Cuccinelli, and we have a special
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website set up for it, electiontransparency.org, and we'd love people
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to keep up with what we're doing. Like I said,
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there's a lot of little things always going on, whether
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it's rank choice voting, Referendum in Alaska or we're trying
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to fight it in the legislature in Ohio. It just
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keeps coming, keeps coming, keeps coming. And part of that
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is because technology changes. So things can alter. Although I
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would argue that if we go back to the KISS principle,
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we can actually have less change because it'll be the
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same thing year after year. One other benefit. We also
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work to shorten election periods. We have 45 days in Virginia.
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Nobody needs 45 days. And it's very hard to secure
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ballot boxes and everything else and to have volunteers who
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can observe and make sure everybody's obeying the law for
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45 days. Minnesota's even longer, 46. They have the longest.
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So we deal with issues like that all the time.
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And you can see and read about some of those
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at electiontransparency.org and Like I said, as they pop up quickly,
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we hit them on Twitter, we hit them on every
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form of media we can, and I appreciate the chance
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to be able to introduce it to folks.
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Well, it's a pleasure to have you here. Thank you
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for the work that you do. Ken Cuccinelli, thank you.
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Glad to do it. Thanks for having me.
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Thank you to Ken Cuccinelli and Mark Guiney for that
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absolutely fascinating conversation. And as always, thank you to you
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for tuning in to Heritage Explains. Feel free to drop
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your thoughts, questions, and or suggestions at HeritageExplains at Heritage.org.
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Until next time, this has been Heritage Explains.
