WEBVTT
1
00:00:00.120 --> 00:00:03.640
Well. Ripple effects and strong opinions are still flowing out
2
00:00:03.680 --> 00:00:06.599
of a lengthy interview with President Trump on NBC's Meet
3
00:00:06.599 --> 00:00:09.439
the Press over the weekend. Among the points of contention
4
00:00:09.880 --> 00:00:13.439
Trump's baseless claims about the twenty twenty election results and
5
00:00:13.480 --> 00:00:17.199
the security of current elections. Our Lisa Dejardin has more.
6
00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:21.359
Trump walked out of the NBC interview after he repeatedly
7
00:00:21.399 --> 00:00:25.239
made false, unproven accusations that the California elections were, in
8
00:00:25.320 --> 00:00:28.800
his words, rigged, while also asserting the same about his
9
00:00:28.960 --> 00:00:31.719
loss in twenty twenty. Here's a portion of that interview.
10
00:00:32.679 --> 00:00:35.840
Your elections are crooked, and you're crooked, and leads the
11
00:00:35.920 --> 00:00:40.920
PRESSUS crooked, and so is ABC and CBS and CNN.
12
00:00:41.119 --> 00:00:44.000
That's a press for one sided, crooked network. So let's
13
00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:46.119
call it question because I've had a note.
14
00:00:47.960 --> 00:00:51.119
Joining us now to sort out fact from fiction. Is
15
00:00:51.159 --> 00:00:54.039
Tammy Patrick. She's the chief executive officer of Programs at
16
00:00:54.039 --> 00:00:57.600
the National Association of Election Administrators. She was also an
17
00:00:57.640 --> 00:01:01.560
elections official in Arizona for eleven years. Tammy, let's start
18
00:01:01.560 --> 00:01:05.120
with twenty twenty. We're still talking about this, unbelievably, but
19
00:01:05.519 --> 00:01:09.120
six years later, what do we know about any evidence
20
00:01:09.159 --> 00:01:10.400
of fraud in that election.
21
00:01:13.519 --> 00:01:15.519
Well, it's great to be here talking about the twenty
22
00:01:15.560 --> 00:01:18.840
twenty election. Once again, It's important to remember the twenty
23
00:01:18.840 --> 00:01:23.079
twenty election was audited, it was recounted, all court challenges
24
00:01:23.159 --> 00:01:26.359
were heard and ruled on, and there was no evidence
25
00:01:26.480 --> 00:01:29.799
to dispute the official results of who won the twenty
26
00:01:29.840 --> 00:01:31.400
twenty presidential election.
27
00:01:31.760 --> 00:01:34.400
It's long past time we move on now.
28
00:01:34.519 --> 00:01:37.680
President Trump does want one thing that is generally popular
29
00:01:37.719 --> 00:01:41.400
in polling, and that is the idea of more voter
30
00:01:41.519 --> 00:01:44.719
id But he also wants some very unpopular ideas like
31
00:01:44.799 --> 00:01:48.879
banning voting machines and in addition, limiting or entirely banning
32
00:01:49.280 --> 00:01:51.599
mail in voting. And he is actually taking.
33
00:01:51.400 --> 00:01:52.359
Action on that front.
34
00:01:52.599 --> 00:01:56.280
So under his order, the Postal Service itself last week
35
00:01:56.359 --> 00:02:00.640
proposed new rules. They would standardize ballot envelopes, but also
36
00:02:01.040 --> 00:02:03.920
would require that states give the federal government all the
37
00:02:04.040 --> 00:02:07.760
names and addresses of every voter that is slated to
38
00:02:07.840 --> 00:02:11.400
get mail in ballots. That of course faces some serious
39
00:02:11.400 --> 00:02:13.759
court challenges. But I want to ask you for those
40
00:02:13.800 --> 00:02:17.599
skeptical about mail in voting, which has been a drum
41
00:02:17.639 --> 00:02:21.159
beat for President Trump since twenty sixteen, what do you
42
00:02:21.240 --> 00:02:25.000
say to them about the chances of fraud from mail
43
00:02:25.039 --> 00:02:26.039
in ballots.
44
00:02:28.439 --> 00:02:32.680
All across the country. Voter eligibility is verified and the
45
00:02:32.800 --> 00:02:36.280
voter is authenticated both when they request a ballot and
46
00:02:36.360 --> 00:02:39.759
also when the ballot is returned to the election official. Now,
47
00:02:39.759 --> 00:02:42.319
this can be done in a variety of ways, depending
48
00:02:42.360 --> 00:02:45.560
on state laws, and every state has a law about this.
49
00:02:46.080 --> 00:02:49.039
In some cases it's a comparison between the signature on
50
00:02:49.080 --> 00:02:52.159
the envelope and the signature on the voter's file. But
51
00:02:52.240 --> 00:02:56.680
in every case, the voter's eligibility is authenticated using what
52
00:02:56.879 --> 00:03:00.000
that state law has determined is correct in the state,
53
00:03:00.560 --> 00:03:03.000
and we ensure that the ballot packet is from the
54
00:03:03.000 --> 00:03:03.800
intended voter.
55
00:03:04.199 --> 00:03:05.719
Do we know how hard it is to fake a
56
00:03:05.759 --> 00:03:07.560
signature in that case?
57
00:03:10.599 --> 00:03:13.439
So I've taken forensic signature training, and i will tell
58
00:03:13.479 --> 00:03:16.719
you it's pretty difficult, because it's not just that everyone
59
00:03:16.840 --> 00:03:20.800
signs their signature exactly the same each time, because we don't.
60
00:03:20.919 --> 00:03:23.599
We're creatures of habit, but we are not perfect.
61
00:03:23.960 --> 00:03:26.120
So there are other things that are taken into account,
62
00:03:26.360 --> 00:03:29.919
the slant and slope, the line orientation. It turns out
63
00:03:30.039 --> 00:03:32.800
some people are what we call floaters, where you sign
64
00:03:32.840 --> 00:03:36.879
your name above the line, or the signature is bifurcated
65
00:03:36.919 --> 00:03:39.800
by the line. It's that sort of characteristic of how
66
00:03:39.879 --> 00:03:43.599
someone signs their signature that someone wouldn't know who's just
67
00:03:43.800 --> 00:03:46.560
randomly trying to forge a signature.
68
00:03:46.879 --> 00:03:49.240
So that's part of the security in the system.
69
00:03:49.639 --> 00:03:52.560
All right, Now, let's go to California, which Trump referenced
70
00:03:52.840 --> 00:03:55.400
the result as they are coming in right now. Let's
71
00:03:55.400 --> 00:03:57.759
look at the LA mayor's race. Right now, the top
72
00:03:57.800 --> 00:04:00.439
two move on to November. Currently that is too Democrats,
73
00:04:00.680 --> 00:04:03.919
Republican and former reality star Spencer Pratt. You see there
74
00:04:03.960 --> 00:04:07.080
has fallen to third again. Results are still coming in.
75
00:04:07.479 --> 00:04:11.360
President Trump wrote today not possible for Spencer Pratt to
76
00:04:11.400 --> 00:04:14.319
have lost the LA runoffs after the big lead he
77
00:04:14.400 --> 00:04:18.560
had third world nation rigged elections, and also not long ago.
78
00:04:18.600 --> 00:04:22.680
Speaker Johnson also raised sort of vague doubts about California.
79
00:04:22.759 --> 00:04:25.240
California is an outlier in terms of how long it
80
00:04:25.279 --> 00:04:29.240
takes to count votes. But why do results change there?
81
00:04:29.399 --> 00:04:34.160
And is there an opening for fraud for voters.
82
00:04:34.199 --> 00:04:37.439
It's important to realize that for the election professionals conducting
83
00:04:37.439 --> 00:04:40.399
our elections, it's about the process, not the outcome of
84
00:04:40.439 --> 00:04:43.800
the election. So while it's true that California has the
85
00:04:44.600 --> 00:04:48.959
longest certification period based on their state's law, in every
86
00:04:49.000 --> 00:04:51.240
state in the nation, there's a period of time after
87
00:04:51.319 --> 00:04:54.600
election day where the election officials are checking to make
88
00:04:54.639 --> 00:04:58.279
sure that all eligible ballots are in fact correctly adjudicated,
89
00:04:58.560 --> 00:05:01.000
that they're counted if they're supposed to be counted, and
90
00:05:01.000 --> 00:05:03.120
that they shouldn't be counted, that they are kept from
91
00:05:03.120 --> 00:05:06.920
the final tabulation. So in California it doesn't really take
92
00:05:07.040 --> 00:05:10.120
that much longer than the rest of the nation. On
93
00:05:10.199 --> 00:05:13.439
election night, the press project who they think the winner
94
00:05:13.519 --> 00:05:16.759
will be, but when the elections are close, we pay
95
00:05:16.800 --> 00:05:20.199
closer attention to the process. In those days after election,
96
00:05:20.680 --> 00:05:22.879
there's a lot of discussion about, well, why can't it
97
00:05:22.879 --> 00:05:25.240
be like Florida. Well, the truth of the matter is
98
00:05:25.279 --> 00:05:28.720
in Florida they're also counting ballots after election day, but
99
00:05:28.879 --> 00:05:31.360
unless the race is close, people are not paying as
100
00:05:31.399 --> 00:05:34.480
close of attention. So what's really important here to understand
101
00:05:34.720 --> 00:05:37.360
is that part of the reason it takes a while
102
00:05:37.839 --> 00:05:41.000
is because of the security of the system, And it's
103
00:05:41.079 --> 00:05:43.959
not so much that it's opening up for fraud, it's
104
00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:47.480
the fact that it's securing it from any other influence
105
00:05:47.879 --> 00:05:52.399
outside of the voters intent on marking their own individual ballot.
106
00:05:52.360 --> 00:05:54.240
In just our last few seconds here, we know there
107
00:05:54.279 --> 00:05:59.879
are some documented instances of fraud that Conservatives track, some alleged,
108
00:06:00.079 --> 00:06:03.680
some proven. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative group, sited forty
109
00:06:03.680 --> 00:06:07.600
three in twenty twenty four, But that doesn't mean that
110
00:06:07.639 --> 00:06:10.920
these are mass attempts at fraud. Are these generally just
111
00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:13.600
individual cases in our last few seconds.
112
00:06:16.240 --> 00:06:16.560
It is?
113
00:06:16.639 --> 00:06:18.199
I mean, I want to make really clear that voter
114
00:06:18.319 --> 00:06:22.079
fraud is exceedingly rare. The number of instances is not zero,
115
00:06:22.199 --> 00:06:24.360
but it's also not in the triple digits. Even as
116
00:06:24.439 --> 00:06:27.160
millions of ballots are being counted, we can't point to
117
00:06:27.240 --> 00:06:30.279
a single election where voter fraud changed the outcome of
118
00:06:30.279 --> 00:06:30.720
the election.
119
00:06:31.199 --> 00:06:32.720
And don't get me wrong, we want to make sure
120
00:06:32.759 --> 00:06:34.199
that's as little as possible.
121
00:06:34.439 --> 00:06:37.160
But that's why election professionals all across the country have
122
00:06:37.279 --> 00:06:40.680
so many security processes in place, and that's why our
123
00:06:40.720 --> 00:06:45.199
elections are transparent and observable, with observers able to watch
124
00:06:45.399 --> 00:06:47.759
as the whole process plays out, no matter how long
125
00:06:47.800 --> 00:06:48.279
it takes.
126
00:06:48.519 --> 00:06:51.199
Tammy Patrick, thank you for covering so much ground such
127
00:06:51.199 --> 00:06:52.480
a short time. We appreciate it.
128
00:06:54.839 --> 00:06:55.759
Thank you for having me.
129
00:07:05.639 --> 00:07:07.240
Support journalism you trust.
130
00:07:07.560 --> 00:07:12.079
Support PBS News. Donate now, or even better, start a
131
00:07:12.079 --> 00:07:34.519
monthly contribution today
1
00:00:00.120 --> 00:00:03.640
Well. Ripple effects and strong opinions are still flowing out
2
00:00:03.680 --> 00:00:06.599
of a lengthy interview with President Trump on NBC's Meet
3
00:00:06.599 --> 00:00:09.439
the Press over the weekend. Among the points of contention
4
00:00:09.880 --> 00:00:13.439
Trump's baseless claims about the twenty twenty election results and
5
00:00:13.480 --> 00:00:17.199
the security of current elections. Our Lisa Dejardin has more.
6
00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:21.359
Trump walked out of the NBC interview after he repeatedly
7
00:00:21.399 --> 00:00:25.239
made false, unproven accusations that the California elections were, in
8
00:00:25.320 --> 00:00:28.800
his words, rigged, while also asserting the same about his
9
00:00:28.960 --> 00:00:31.719
loss in twenty twenty. Here's a portion of that interview.
10
00:00:32.679 --> 00:00:35.840
Your elections are crooked, and you're crooked, and leads the
11
00:00:35.920 --> 00:00:40.920
PRESSUS crooked, and so is ABC and CBS and CNN.
12
00:00:41.119 --> 00:00:44.000
That's a press for one sided, crooked network. So let's
13
00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:46.119
call it question because I've had a note.
14
00:00:47.960 --> 00:00:51.119
Joining us now to sort out fact from fiction. Is
15
00:00:51.159 --> 00:00:54.039
Tammy Patrick. She's the chief executive officer of Programs at
16
00:00:54.039 --> 00:00:57.600
the National Association of Election Administrators. She was also an
17
00:00:57.640 --> 00:01:01.560
elections official in Arizona for eleven years. Tammy, let's start
18
00:01:01.560 --> 00:01:05.120
with twenty twenty. We're still talking about this, unbelievably, but
19
00:01:05.519 --> 00:01:09.120
six years later, what do we know about any evidence
20
00:01:09.159 --> 00:01:10.400
of fraud in that election.
21
00:01:13.519 --> 00:01:15.519
Well, it's great to be here talking about the twenty
22
00:01:15.560 --> 00:01:18.840
twenty election. Once again, It's important to remember the twenty
23
00:01:18.840 --> 00:01:23.079
twenty election was audited, it was recounted, all court challenges
24
00:01:23.159 --> 00:01:26.359
were heard and ruled on, and there was no evidence
25
00:01:26.480 --> 00:01:29.799
to dispute the official results of who won the twenty
26
00:01:29.840 --> 00:01:31.400
twenty presidential election.
27
00:01:31.760 --> 00:01:34.400
It's long past time we move on now.
28
00:01:34.519 --> 00:01:37.680
President Trump does want one thing that is generally popular
29
00:01:37.719 --> 00:01:41.400
in polling, and that is the idea of more voter
30
00:01:41.519 --> 00:01:44.719
id But he also wants some very unpopular ideas like
31
00:01:44.799 --> 00:01:48.879
banning voting machines and in addition, limiting or entirely banning
32
00:01:49.280 --> 00:01:51.599
mail in voting. And he is actually taking.
33
00:01:51.400 --> 00:01:52.359
Action on that front.
34
00:01:52.599 --> 00:01:56.280
So under his order, the Postal Service itself last week
35
00:01:56.359 --> 00:02:00.640
proposed new rules. They would standardize ballot envelopes, but also
36
00:02:01.040 --> 00:02:03.920
would require that states give the federal government all the
37
00:02:04.040 --> 00:02:07.760
names and addresses of every voter that is slated to
38
00:02:07.840 --> 00:02:11.400
get mail in ballots. That of course faces some serious
39
00:02:11.400 --> 00:02:13.759
court challenges. But I want to ask you for those
40
00:02:13.800 --> 00:02:17.599
skeptical about mail in voting, which has been a drum
41
00:02:17.639 --> 00:02:21.159
beat for President Trump since twenty sixteen, what do you
42
00:02:21.240 --> 00:02:25.000
say to them about the chances of fraud from mail
43
00:02:25.039 --> 00:02:26.039
in ballots.
44
00:02:28.439 --> 00:02:32.680
All across the country. Voter eligibility is verified and the
45
00:02:32.800 --> 00:02:36.280
voter is authenticated both when they request a ballot and
46
00:02:36.360 --> 00:02:39.759
also when the ballot is returned to the election official. Now,
47
00:02:39.759 --> 00:02:42.319
this can be done in a variety of ways, depending
48
00:02:42.360 --> 00:02:45.560
on state laws, and every state has a law about this.
49
00:02:46.080 --> 00:02:49.039
In some cases it's a comparison between the signature on
50
00:02:49.080 --> 00:02:52.159
the envelope and the signature on the voter's file. But
51
00:02:52.240 --> 00:02:56.680
in every case, the voter's eligibility is authenticated using what
52
00:02:56.879 --> 00:03:00.000
that state law has determined is correct in the state,
53
00:03:00.560 --> 00:03:03.000
and we ensure that the ballot packet is from the
54
00:03:03.000 --> 00:03:03.800
intended voter.
55
00:03:04.199 --> 00:03:05.719
Do we know how hard it is to fake a
56
00:03:05.759 --> 00:03:07.560
signature in that case?
57
00:03:10.599 --> 00:03:13.439
So I've taken forensic signature training, and i will tell
58
00:03:13.479 --> 00:03:16.719
you it's pretty difficult, because it's not just that everyone
59
00:03:16.840 --> 00:03:20.800
signs their signature exactly the same each time, because we don't.
60
00:03:20.919 --> 00:03:23.599
We're creatures of habit, but we are not perfect.
61
00:03:23.960 --> 00:03:26.120
So there are other things that are taken into account,
62
00:03:26.360 --> 00:03:29.919
the slant and slope, the line orientation. It turns out
63
00:03:30.039 --> 00:03:32.800
some people are what we call floaters, where you sign
64
00:03:32.840 --> 00:03:36.879
your name above the line, or the signature is bifurcated
65
00:03:36.919 --> 00:03:39.800
by the line. It's that sort of characteristic of how
66
00:03:39.879 --> 00:03:43.599
someone signs their signature that someone wouldn't know who's just
67
00:03:43.800 --> 00:03:46.560
randomly trying to forge a signature.
68
00:03:46.879 --> 00:03:49.240
So that's part of the security in the system.
69
00:03:49.639 --> 00:03:52.560
All right, Now, let's go to California, which Trump referenced
70
00:03:52.840 --> 00:03:55.400
the result as they are coming in right now. Let's
71
00:03:55.400 --> 00:03:57.759
look at the LA mayor's race. Right now, the top
72
00:03:57.800 --> 00:04:00.439
two move on to November. Currently that is too Democrats,
73
00:04:00.680 --> 00:04:03.919
Republican and former reality star Spencer Pratt. You see there
74
00:04:03.960 --> 00:04:07.080
has fallen to third again. Results are still coming in.
75
00:04:07.479 --> 00:04:11.360
President Trump wrote today not possible for Spencer Pratt to
76
00:04:11.400 --> 00:04:14.319
have lost the LA runoffs after the big lead he
77
00:04:14.400 --> 00:04:18.560
had third world nation rigged elections, and also not long ago.
78
00:04:18.600 --> 00:04:22.680
Speaker Johnson also raised sort of vague doubts about California.
79
00:04:22.759 --> 00:04:25.240
California is an outlier in terms of how long it
80
00:04:25.279 --> 00:04:29.240
takes to count votes. But why do results change there?
81
00:04:29.399 --> 00:04:34.160
And is there an opening for fraud for voters.
82
00:04:34.199 --> 00:04:37.439
It's important to realize that for the election professionals conducting
83
00:04:37.439 --> 00:04:40.399
our elections, it's about the process, not the outcome of
84
00:04:40.439 --> 00:04:43.800
the election. So while it's true that California has the
85
00:04:44.600 --> 00:04:48.959
longest certification period based on their state's law, in every
86
00:04:49.000 --> 00:04:51.240
state in the nation, there's a period of time after
87
00:04:51.319 --> 00:04:54.600
election day where the election officials are checking to make
88
00:04:54.639 --> 00:04:58.279
sure that all eligible ballots are in fact correctly adjudicated,
89
00:04:58.560 --> 00:05:01.000
that they're counted if they're supposed to be counted, and
90
00:05:01.000 --> 00:05:03.120
that they shouldn't be counted, that they are kept from
91
00:05:03.120 --> 00:05:06.920
the final tabulation. So in California it doesn't really take
92
00:05:07.040 --> 00:05:10.120
that much longer than the rest of the nation. On
93
00:05:10.199 --> 00:05:13.439
election night, the press project who they think the winner
94
00:05:13.519 --> 00:05:16.759
will be, but when the elections are close, we pay
95
00:05:16.800 --> 00:05:20.199
closer attention to the process. In those days after election,
96
00:05:20.680 --> 00:05:22.879
there's a lot of discussion about, well, why can't it
97
00:05:22.879 --> 00:05:25.240
be like Florida. Well, the truth of the matter is
98
00:05:25.279 --> 00:05:28.720
in Florida they're also counting ballots after election day, but
99
00:05:28.879 --> 00:05:31.360
unless the race is close, people are not paying as
100
00:05:31.399 --> 00:05:34.480
close of attention. So what's really important here to understand
101
00:05:34.720 --> 00:05:37.360
is that part of the reason it takes a while
102
00:05:37.839 --> 00:05:41.000
is because of the security of the system, And it's
103
00:05:41.079 --> 00:05:43.959
not so much that it's opening up for fraud, it's
104
00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:47.480
the fact that it's securing it from any other influence
105
00:05:47.879 --> 00:05:52.399
outside of the voters intent on marking their own individual ballot.
106
00:05:52.360 --> 00:05:54.240
In just our last few seconds here, we know there
107
00:05:54.279 --> 00:05:59.879
are some documented instances of fraud that Conservatives track, some alleged,
108
00:06:00.079 --> 00:06:03.680
some proven. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative group, sited forty
109
00:06:03.680 --> 00:06:07.600
three in twenty twenty four, But that doesn't mean that
110
00:06:07.639 --> 00:06:10.920
these are mass attempts at fraud. Are these generally just
111
00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:13.600
individual cases in our last few seconds.
112
00:06:16.240 --> 00:06:16.560
It is?
113
00:06:16.639 --> 00:06:18.199
I mean, I want to make really clear that voter
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00:06:18.319 --> 00:06:22.079
fraud is exceedingly rare. The number of instances is not zero,
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but it's also not in the triple digits. Even as
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millions of ballots are being counted, we can't point to
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a single election where voter fraud changed the outcome of
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the election.
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And don't get me wrong, we want to make sure
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that's as little as possible.
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But that's why election professionals all across the country have
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so many security processes in place, and that's why our
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elections are transparent and observable, with observers able to watch
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as the whole process plays out, no matter how long
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it takes.
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Tammy Patrick, thank you for covering so much ground such
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a short time. We appreciate it.
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Thank you for having me.
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Support journalism you trust.
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Support PBS News. Donate now, or even better, start a
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