Is the SAVE Act Necessary?

WEBVTT
1
00:00:01.550 --> 00:00:06.190
This week on Conservative Crossroads, the topic, is passage of
2
00:00:06.230 --> 00:00:11.490
the SAVE Act necessary to ensure election integrity? Don Palmer
3
00:00:11.990 --> 00:00:17.539
says yes. Stephen Richer says no. Passage of the SAVE Act,
4
00:00:18.079 --> 00:00:30.410
coming up on Conservative Crossroads, now. Conservative Crossroads Welcome back
5
00:00:30.429 --> 00:00:34.369
to Conservative Crossroads, the program where conservatives lean into their
6
00:00:34.409 --> 00:00:38.359
differences rather than deny them. I'm Henry Olson, senior fellow
7
00:00:38.479 --> 00:00:41.159
at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and your host
8
00:00:41.219 --> 00:00:45.060
and moderator for this episode. Today, we're talking about an
9
00:00:45.100 --> 00:00:48.869
important topic that conservatives have been arguing about pretty much
10
00:00:48.909 --> 00:00:54.000
for the entire Trump presidency. That's the SAVE Act, the Trump-sponsored,
11
00:00:54.119 --> 00:00:58.950
almost Trump-demanded Election Revision Act that is pending before the U.S.
12
00:00:58.969 --> 00:00:59.250
Senate.
13
00:00:59.770 --> 00:01:04.450
Is it necessary to protect election integrity? Here to talk
14
00:01:04.500 --> 00:01:07.359
about that are two experts. Experts who have, in fact,
15
00:01:07.450 --> 00:01:11.769
run election agencies themselves. Don Palmer, senior legal fellow of
16
00:01:11.829 --> 00:01:15.920
election integrity at the Heritage Foundation, will say it is essential.
17
00:01:16.459 --> 00:01:19.879
Stephen Richer, lecturer at Harvard Kennedy School and legal fellow
18
00:01:19.920 --> 00:01:23.159
at the Cato Institute, will say that it's not. As
19
00:01:23.219 --> 00:01:26.379
we usually have, each person will have five minutes to
20
00:01:26.659 --> 00:01:30.560
state their case, and then we'll have 40 minutes of
21
00:01:30.719 --> 00:01:34.260
mutual Q & A followed in reverse order of the
22
00:01:34.359 --> 00:01:37.159
order in which the opening statements are made, two minutes
23
00:01:37.219 --> 00:01:41.140
apiece for the closing statement. Don, as the person affirming
24
00:01:41.840 --> 00:01:44.609
the topic, I'm going to ask you to go first.
25
00:01:46.170 --> 00:01:48.170
Well, thank you, Henry, and thank you, Stephen.
26
00:01:49.189 --> 00:01:49.489
And so..
27
00:01:50.189 --> 00:01:53.180
My belief is that the SAVE Act, the Act of
28
00:01:53.200 --> 00:01:57.760
Verifying Citizenship, is necessary for election integrity. And I think
29
00:01:57.859 --> 00:01:59.920
the approach, if we step back for a minute, the
30
00:01:59.959 --> 00:02:03.840
big answer to the question why is it's because the
31
00:02:03.859 --> 00:02:09.150
American people demand it. They really, in many ways, want
32
00:02:09.169 --> 00:02:12.310
to have confidence in our election system. It's absolutely necessary
33
00:02:12.370 --> 00:02:16.289
for our republic that citizens have sort of a trust
34
00:02:16.819 --> 00:02:20.379
that their voting system is working and verifying registrants to
35
00:02:20.430 --> 00:02:24.090
vote and that their ballot is counted. And when non-citizens,
36
00:02:24.150 --> 00:02:27.069
which there's general agreement, and there's actually a federal law
37
00:02:27.090 --> 00:02:30.830
that says that citizens should not vote, shall not vote
38
00:02:30.990 --> 00:02:34.110
in elections, that that is actually taking place and that
39
00:02:34.150 --> 00:02:37.490
that is something that their government is verifying and confirming
40
00:02:37.930 --> 00:02:41.530
that non-citizens aren't voting. And so we could argue about
41
00:02:41.550 --> 00:02:43.849
the scope of the problem, but there is a problem.
42
00:02:44.669 --> 00:02:46.530
And so I think the big answer to the question
43
00:02:46.590 --> 00:02:49.129
why is that it's because the American people need it
44
00:02:49.310 --> 00:02:52.259
and demand it. But if we step back and we
45
00:02:52.500 --> 00:02:56.139
talk about it as conservatives, and I always heard the
46
00:02:56.199 --> 00:03:01.620
argument that, look, federal law, we don't want election integrity laws,
47
00:03:01.680 --> 00:03:05.370
even at the federal level, preempting state law. But what
48
00:03:05.430 --> 00:03:08.770
we have really here is we have the National Voter
49
00:03:08.789 --> 00:03:12.430
Registration Act, which is already preempting a lot of voter
50
00:03:12.449 --> 00:03:16.930
registration laws. and it's preempting a list maintenance. And so
51
00:03:16.969 --> 00:03:20.530
this is something that adding this section to the National
52
00:03:20.550 --> 00:03:24.449
Voter Registration Act would basically provide some uniformity to states.
53
00:03:25.050 --> 00:03:27.550
I think that's important. It also provides a cause, a
54
00:03:27.629 --> 00:03:31.169
reason why we are doing this. The NVRA was passed
55
00:03:31.210 --> 00:03:34.330
because the Congress believed that there was an increased need
56
00:03:34.349 --> 00:03:38.069
for access and some integrity. And so they passed this
57
00:03:38.129 --> 00:03:40.419
law over 30 years ago. But in many ways, it's
58
00:03:40.460 --> 00:03:44.210
not working. It certainly doesn't work when it comes to citizenship.
59
00:03:44.449 --> 00:03:47.830
It's really caused more problems, including in Arizona and the states,
60
00:03:48.180 --> 00:03:52.180
about how states are to verify citizenship. You have different
61
00:03:52.240 --> 00:03:56.020
courts and different circuits that are involved now in sort
62
00:03:56.060 --> 00:04:00.120
of trying to micromanage what state A can do and
63
00:04:00.159 --> 00:04:03.139
what state Z can do. I mean, so the Congress
64
00:04:03.199 --> 00:04:07.060
really needs to step in and and say, look, this
65
00:04:07.159 --> 00:04:11.639
is the one uniform way we're going to confirm and
66
00:04:11.680 --> 00:04:15.560
verify citizenship for the purpose of voting in the states.
67
00:04:16.519 --> 00:04:19.120
And so that is obviously something that we learned from
68
00:04:19.259 --> 00:04:22.470
Florida back in 2000, is that the lack of uniformity
69
00:04:24.089 --> 00:04:27.589
and sort of even small margins of errors, what I
70
00:04:27.629 --> 00:04:29.829
mean by that is if there's errors in our elections,
71
00:04:30.310 --> 00:04:36.230
that those can have impactful events on our nation. Voter
72
00:04:36.259 --> 00:04:40.149
confidence can dip to a point where Congress does require
73
00:04:40.209 --> 00:04:43.439
some sort of minimal standards and minimal accuracy standards. So
74
00:04:43.480 --> 00:04:47.829
in this case, I'm hopeful that there's not a crater event.
75
00:04:47.850 --> 00:04:50.160
I don't want to have a meltdown in elections where
76
00:04:50.480 --> 00:04:53.980
a very close presidential race is decided by 300 votes.
77
00:04:54.720 --> 00:04:57.339
And we find out that 100 of them are non-citizens.
78
00:04:57.980 --> 00:04:59.899
That should never have been on the rolls to begin with.
79
00:05:00.449 --> 00:05:03.889
And so while we can speculate that that would never occur,
80
00:05:04.350 --> 00:05:06.790
what we saw in Florida is that inaccuracies in our
81
00:05:07.050 --> 00:05:11.709
system can create, we have a It can create problems
82
00:05:11.750 --> 00:05:16.779
down the road, particularly later when there's political parties and
83
00:05:16.800 --> 00:05:20.540
candidates battling for every vote. And so as election officials,
84
00:05:20.660 --> 00:05:23.399
particularly election officials, we want to make sure that these
85
00:05:23.480 --> 00:05:26.300
issues are resolved early and that we have systems in
86
00:05:26.339 --> 00:05:30.500
place to make this as accurate as possible. And so
87
00:05:30.519 --> 00:05:33.889
then when there's a close race, even a presidential or
88
00:05:33.990 --> 00:05:37.629
even a local mayoral race, that there's no question about
89
00:05:38.589 --> 00:05:42.290
the process. And so I think the SAVE Act really
90
00:05:42.350 --> 00:05:46.550
identifies a couple of areas. It talks about citizenship. It
91
00:05:46.589 --> 00:05:50.129
also talks about photo ID. Now, once again, we have
92
00:05:50.170 --> 00:05:54.490
a very diverse country, states handle ID. And so the
93
00:05:54.529 --> 00:05:57.689
Help America Vote Act and the National Voter Registration Act
94
00:05:57.949 --> 00:06:04.779
particularly provide minimal voter ID for registrants who register by mail.
95
00:06:05.389 --> 00:06:07.850
But that's really sort of not a photo ID, and
96
00:06:07.910 --> 00:06:12.149
it can include everything from a government check to other
97
00:06:12.230 --> 00:06:14.930
forms of ID that aren't photo. And so what we need,
98
00:06:14.970 --> 00:06:19.329
because it's so popular, we're talking about 80% plus of
99
00:06:19.350 --> 00:06:21.810
the public support photo ID, is that that should be
100
00:06:21.910 --> 00:06:25.439
part of the uniform way of confirming identity at the
101
00:06:25.449 --> 00:06:29.379
polling place. It's really not too much to ask, particularly
102
00:06:29.399 --> 00:06:32.050
when we have so many options in registrant voting. And
103
00:06:32.069 --> 00:06:34.189
so with that, I'll leave it at that. I just
104
00:06:34.240 --> 00:06:37.579
think that we now have a national problem that provides
105
00:06:37.620 --> 00:06:44.170
some uniformity in requiring verification of citizenship at registration.
106
00:06:45.850 --> 00:06:48.269
Thank you very much, Don. Stephen, you're up.
107
00:06:48.970 --> 00:06:51.490
Well, it's no surprise that I agree with good bit
108
00:06:51.709 --> 00:06:54.189
that Don said, and that's because I should begin with
109
00:06:54.230 --> 00:06:56.269
saying that I'm a fan of Don and I'm very
110
00:06:56.310 --> 00:06:59.189
grateful the seven years that he served on the United
111
00:06:59.230 --> 00:07:02.769
States Elections Assistance Commission, as well as his leadership roles
112
00:07:02.990 --> 00:07:05.250
in elections in Florida and Virginia.
113
00:07:06.069 --> 00:07:07.970
But the Save America Act.
114
00:07:08.290 --> 00:07:12.850
While a legitimate public policy effort, is not critical, not
115
00:07:13.149 --> 00:07:18.509
critical for secure and lawful and accurate American elections. If
116
00:07:18.529 --> 00:07:20.930
you were to claim that, you'd either have to point
117
00:07:20.970 --> 00:07:25.310
to new circumstances that have recently unfolded, or by logic,
118
00:07:25.360 --> 00:07:29.019
you'd be suggesting that every past election to date, whether
119
00:07:29.079 --> 00:07:33.420
a local, state, federal, or presidential election, has been insecure
120
00:07:33.620 --> 00:07:37.720
or untrustworthy. Now, I think that's a fairly silly proposition.
121
00:07:37.920 --> 00:07:42.529
For example, the 2024 presidential election did not require the
122
00:07:42.569 --> 00:07:43.610
Save America Act.
123
00:07:44.069 --> 00:07:46.029
It was lawful. It was accurate.
124
00:07:46.439 --> 00:07:50.209
There is no evidence of significant fraud or error. Donald
125
00:07:50.230 --> 00:07:54.689
Trump won. Now, Trump agrees with this, obviously. Kamala Harris
126
00:07:54.730 --> 00:07:57.990
agrees with this, and so does most of America. UC
127
00:07:58.029 --> 00:08:02.230
San Diego administered a poll immediately after the 2024 election,
128
00:08:02.290 --> 00:08:06.240
and it found that 77% of Americans had confidence in
129
00:08:06.279 --> 00:08:12.810
the 2024 presidential election results, including 82% of Republicans. Nothing
130
00:08:12.829 --> 00:08:16.769
has fundamentally changed about how our elections are administered since
131
00:08:16.810 --> 00:08:21.389
the November 2024 election. Not federal law and no material
132
00:08:21.490 --> 00:08:27.040
changes to state law and not which office administers elections.
133
00:08:28.339 --> 00:08:31.899
American elections don't need to be rescued. That was true
134
00:08:31.939 --> 00:08:34.279
when Democrats in Congress proposed H.R.1, the For the People
135
00:08:34.299 --> 00:08:40.610
Act in 2021, and it's again true now. Now, as
136
00:08:40.649 --> 00:08:43.309
far as the Save America Act goes, there's much to
137
00:08:43.370 --> 00:08:46.980
criticize in how it's currently written. It would, for example,
138
00:08:47.080 --> 00:08:50.879
make online voter registration much more complicated, and it would
139
00:08:50.919 --> 00:08:56.519
effectively eliminate it for first-time registrants, something that I think
140
00:08:56.539 --> 00:09:01.570
would actually hurt election integrity. In Arizona, approximately 70% of
141
00:09:01.610 --> 00:09:06.519
our voters register online. And so the devil is in
142
00:09:06.539 --> 00:09:09.210
the details, and the details of the Save America Act
143
00:09:09.279 --> 00:09:12.830
are problematic in many sections. And I think it's those
144
00:09:12.889 --> 00:09:17.409
details that have made some Republican senators less than perfectly enthusiastic.
145
00:09:18.250 --> 00:09:21.129
But setting those aside, the core requirement of the Save
146
00:09:21.190 --> 00:09:25.669
America Act is requiring documented proof of citizenship for every
147
00:09:25.730 --> 00:09:30.029
single American voter. Not just attestation under penalty of law,
148
00:09:30.129 --> 00:09:33.129
as is currently the requirement of federal law under the
149
00:09:33.190 --> 00:09:37.730
National Voter Registration Act. I have no problem with documented
150
00:09:37.769 --> 00:09:39.269
proof of citizenship requirements.
151
00:09:39.429 --> 00:09:40.750
Again, I have no problem with that.
152
00:09:41.250 --> 00:09:43.990
If done right, I think it can be good public policy,
153
00:09:44.149 --> 00:09:47.529
as is the case in Arizona. But saying that the
154
00:09:47.610 --> 00:09:51.509
Save America Act is absolutely necessary for the integrity of
155
00:09:51.590 --> 00:09:54.710
our elections implies that we have a serious problem with
156
00:09:54.769 --> 00:09:58.129
non-citizens registering and voting in American elections.
157
00:09:59.009 --> 00:10:01.370
And the data just isn't. there to say that.
158
00:10:02.070 --> 00:10:05.610
Now, I've been tracking every citizenship audit done by states
159
00:10:05.669 --> 00:10:08.129
and counties for the past five years. So I'm going
160
00:10:08.149 --> 00:10:12.600
to cite a few examples. In May 2026, Utah announced
161
00:10:12.659 --> 00:10:16.840
the results of its audits of 2.1 million registered voters,
162
00:10:17.470 --> 00:10:23.649
It found 27 confirmed non-citizens and 25 probable non-citizens. It
163
00:10:23.710 --> 00:10:28.330
found 13 non-citizens who had voted in an election since 2018.
164
00:10:28.330 --> 00:10:33.029
And again, Utah has about 2.1 million registered voters. In
165
00:10:33.169 --> 00:10:39.240
April 2025, Michigan identified, quote, 15 non-citizens who cast a
166
00:10:39.279 --> 00:10:45.019
ballot in the 2024 general election, end quote. Michigan had 5.7
167
00:10:45.019 --> 00:10:49.320
million registered, or excuse me, had 5.7 million voters in its.
168
00:10:49.279 --> 00:10:51.080
November, 2024 election.
169
00:10:51.919 --> 00:10:55.970
Most recently in Yavapai County, in my home state of Arizona,
170
00:10:56.389 --> 00:11:00.450
they found 30 non-citizens, four of whom had voted in
171
00:11:00.490 --> 00:11:06.080
a past election. The county has about 200,000 voters. Now
172
00:11:06.120 --> 00:11:08.240
these findings don't even make up a 10th of a
173
00:11:08.299 --> 00:11:11.580
percent of the votes cast in those elections.
174
00:11:13.100 --> 00:11:13.480
Excuse me.
175
00:11:15.679 --> 00:11:18.000
Then there's the evidence of the dog that didn't bark.
176
00:11:18.440 --> 00:11:23.100
Since retaking office, President Trump has installed people at DHS, DOJ,
177
00:11:23.299 --> 00:11:26.240
FBI and elsewhere within the federal government who are loyal,
178
00:11:26.480 --> 00:11:30.049
very loyal to his vision of American elections. They've spent
179
00:11:30.090 --> 00:11:34.049
thousands of hours and millions of dollars investigating non-citizen voter fraud.
180
00:11:34.610 --> 00:11:37.269
And in the first 17 months of the president's second term,
181
00:11:37.919 --> 00:11:42.840
federal government charged 41 alleged non-citizens with allegedly unlawful voting
182
00:11:43.220 --> 00:11:47.500
in an election. So should we require documented proof of citizenship?
183
00:11:48.100 --> 00:11:48.600
I think so.
184
00:11:48.919 --> 00:11:52.070
And I think it's a legitimate public policy discussion. But
185
00:11:52.110 --> 00:11:54.789
we need to be honest with American voters. There aren't
186
00:11:54.870 --> 00:11:59.169
large numbers of non-citizens voting in American elections. American elections
187
00:11:59.230 --> 00:12:03.490
don't need rescuing. And if the Save America Act doesn't pass,
188
00:12:03.809 --> 00:12:07.750
we'll be just fine, just like we were in 2024.
189
00:12:07.950 --> 00:12:10.970
Thank you very much, Stephen. Gentlemen, the floor is now
190
00:12:11.029 --> 00:12:13.309
yours for the next 40 minutes. Who wants to kick off?
191
00:12:13.789 --> 00:12:16.149
One of the things I would ask you to get
192
00:12:16.169 --> 00:12:19.919
your sense of is when you mentioned the new circumstances.
193
00:12:20.779 --> 00:12:22.960
When I think back on my career and I go
194
00:12:23.019 --> 00:12:25.860
back to the Help America Vote Act, you know, for example,
195
00:12:25.899 --> 00:12:30.059
that law was passed primarily to assist with identity verification.
196
00:12:31.159 --> 00:12:35.519
We had the issues with the Florida issue. But when
197
00:12:35.559 --> 00:12:40.879
I think about the new circumstances is non-citizenship and registration
198
00:12:40.919 --> 00:12:44.820
and voting wasn't really a thing. We didn't have the
199
00:12:44.840 --> 00:12:49.179
same number of resident aliens or non-citizens that lived in
200
00:12:49.200 --> 00:12:53.330
the states, but now we do. With those new circumstances,
201
00:12:53.919 --> 00:12:56.509
does that change your mind at all about sort of
202
00:12:56.529 --> 00:13:01.750
the need for having more verification of citizenship? because we
203
00:13:01.789 --> 00:13:05.210
have more applicants at a driver's license agency who may
204
00:13:05.269 --> 00:13:06.389
happen to be non-citizens.
205
00:13:07.389 --> 00:13:09.549
Well, certainly we saw an increase in the number of
206
00:13:09.610 --> 00:13:14.059
non-citizens unlawfully, especially in this country during the Biden administration.
207
00:13:14.460 --> 00:13:19.240
But the feature of having non-citizens in the United States
208
00:13:19.340 --> 00:13:22.019
is by no means novel. And of course, many of
209
00:13:22.059 --> 00:13:24.759
them are here lawfully. And that's something that we've dealt
210
00:13:24.779 --> 00:13:27.669
with in the past. And to the extent that we
211
00:13:27.730 --> 00:13:29.929
felt it was necessary to deal with in a more
212
00:13:30.009 --> 00:13:32.460
comprehensive manner, then I would say the.
213
00:13:32.399 --> 00:13:35.580
States can invent on this. The states can innovate.
214
00:13:35.779 --> 00:13:38.990
As we did in Arizona in 2000 when we passed
215
00:13:39.490 --> 00:13:45.309
Proposition 204, which required documented proof of citizenship for being
216
00:13:45.370 --> 00:13:48.750
able to vote a full ballot in the state of Arizona. Now,
217
00:13:48.870 --> 00:13:51.590
as you mentioned, the hang-up there is actually the National
218
00:13:51.629 --> 00:13:55.899
Voter Registration Act. Act, which prevents us from applying that
219
00:13:56.000 --> 00:13:59.379
to all voters in Arizona, even if you just want
220
00:13:59.399 --> 00:14:01.850
to vote a federal-only ballot.
221
00:14:02.169 --> 00:14:03.110
So I think the.
222
00:14:03.049 --> 00:14:07.169
First places to start is not by passing some grand
223
00:14:07.230 --> 00:14:11.809
new legislation, but by simply amending the National Voter Registration
224
00:14:11.970 --> 00:14:16.419
Act to allow states more flexibility. But either way, while
225
00:14:16.460 --> 00:14:20.309
I accept the fact that there might be incrementally more
226
00:14:20.429 --> 00:14:24.269
non-citizens in the country now than there were, say, 16
227
00:14:24.269 --> 00:14:28.980
years ago. I would say that the dynamic hasn't changed
228
00:14:29.029 --> 00:14:32.879
that much since 2024. And even going back 100 years,
229
00:14:33.139 --> 00:14:36.399
we've long had lots of non-citizens in this country. So
230
00:14:36.440 --> 00:14:39.860
I guess I would turn to you and say, is
231
00:14:39.879 --> 00:14:44.320
there anything really different from 2024? And I assume you
232
00:14:44.360 --> 00:14:47.480
have some measure of confidence in the 2024 election, or
233
00:14:47.519 --> 00:14:50.659
you think that it was at least lawfully, accurately decided?
234
00:14:50.679 --> 00:14:55.590
I do. I mean, I think that, you know, when
235
00:14:55.610 --> 00:14:58.909
I think about the issue of 2024 or 2026, where
236
00:14:58.929 --> 00:15:01.269
we are today, I'm always thinking about how we can
237
00:15:01.309 --> 00:15:04.629
improve our process. I mean, I don't know about you,
238
00:15:04.710 --> 00:15:09.929
but as I served in the States, I went to
239
00:15:09.970 --> 00:15:12.669
war with the, you know, with the army that I had, right?
240
00:15:12.730 --> 00:15:15.309
I mean, and it wasn't perfect. There were a lot
241
00:15:15.350 --> 00:15:19.669
of problems that in the voting system. And you saw
242
00:15:19.710 --> 00:15:22.350
that with voting machines, you see that with voter registration,
243
00:15:22.850 --> 00:15:25.509
and there's a margin of error that's a part of that.
244
00:15:25.690 --> 00:15:28.409
And I just feel that there wasn't the same sort
245
00:15:28.450 --> 00:15:31.379
of scrutiny of a voter registration list as there were,
246
00:15:31.429 --> 00:15:34.399
let's say, with the voting system accuracy. And, you know,
247
00:15:34.419 --> 00:15:37.200
I can criticize myself that maybe I'm too much of
248
00:15:37.259 --> 00:15:40.899
attention to detail. I don't like there to be error
249
00:15:40.940 --> 00:15:44.860
rates of any real sort. but it is part of life.
250
00:15:45.200 --> 00:15:47.500
But I do think that we have a circumstance where
251
00:15:47.960 --> 00:15:53.490
our driver's license agencies aren't really designed to fully and
252
00:15:53.529 --> 00:15:59.230
comprehensively fix this problem that we have with verifying citizenship.
253
00:16:00.250 --> 00:16:03.129
And when we have problems and we audit our list
254
00:16:03.210 --> 00:16:05.590
and we find that we have failed and there's numbers
255
00:16:06.330 --> 00:16:08.649
on the voter registration list, we need to resolve to
256
00:16:08.730 --> 00:16:12.279
fix those problems and not just simply say, well, they're
257
00:16:12.320 --> 00:16:17.480
not big enough for me. You know, it's something that
258
00:16:18.279 --> 00:16:23.179
most election officials sort of come to, how can I
259
00:16:23.200 --> 00:16:26.879
improve this process? And one reason I am sort of
260
00:16:27.690 --> 00:16:33.330
positive about the SAVE Act is that it's trying to
261
00:16:33.409 --> 00:16:35.960
fix one of those problems. As again, I mentioned, The
262
00:16:36.000 --> 00:16:39.970
larger issue is the National Voter Registration Act. It has
263
00:16:40.019 --> 00:16:42.570
laid out these details that are 30 years or so plus.
264
00:16:43.169 --> 00:16:47.789
This is a problem that I think that Arizona has
265
00:16:47.830 --> 00:16:53.039
been the epicenter of. I really don't think, I don't believe,
266
00:16:53.179 --> 00:16:56.100
I'll put it that way, that the Congress really intended
267
00:16:56.159 --> 00:17:01.480
that a checkbox was going to preempt the states and
268
00:17:01.580 --> 00:17:05.359
how they verified citizenship. And to say that for all
269
00:17:05.420 --> 00:17:10.650
federal elections, this box is the only way that we're
270
00:17:10.690 --> 00:17:15.009
going to have an affirmation and sort of verification of citizenship.
271
00:17:15.670 --> 00:17:18.690
And so the real problem, when you talk about serious
272
00:17:18.730 --> 00:17:22.829
problem or real problem, is in the states. You mentioned
273
00:17:22.849 --> 00:17:27.460
that Proposition 200, how is the state of Arizona or
274
00:17:27.500 --> 00:17:32.180
how the state of Utah going to verify citizenship if
275
00:17:32.269 --> 00:17:35.410
we have no clear answer from the Congress? Because I
276
00:17:35.450 --> 00:17:41.289
don't think Congress really clearly stated the problem or resolved
277
00:17:41.329 --> 00:17:45.490
the problem with regards to citizenship. It really wasn't mentioned
278
00:17:45.750 --> 00:17:48.079
except for a box. And we sort of know that
279
00:17:48.119 --> 00:17:50.779
that's just the federal form. And so I think the
280
00:17:50.839 --> 00:17:53.559
Congress really needs to address this issue for the benefit
281
00:17:53.599 --> 00:17:57.700
of the states. There has to be some level of uniformity. Otherwise,
282
00:17:57.730 --> 00:18:01.009
Utah will be doing it different from Vermont. We do
283
00:18:01.049 --> 00:18:03.950
it different from Virginia. And so I think that this
284
00:18:04.029 --> 00:18:08.000
is why it's a big enough problem that the Congress
285
00:18:08.039 --> 00:18:12.319
needs to resolve it. If not Congress, what, the Supreme Court?
286
00:18:13.799 --> 00:18:16.339
Well, first, we need to recognize that there's a lot
287
00:18:16.380 --> 00:18:19.380
that the states do differently, depending on different state law.
288
00:18:19.539 --> 00:18:23.920
And that certainly wouldn't just be true of verification of citizenship.
289
00:18:24.829 --> 00:18:30.069
I think you're certainly right regarding Arizona's juxtaposition with the
290
00:18:30.130 --> 00:18:34.089
National Voter Registration Act for a little table setting purposes.
291
00:18:34.769 --> 00:18:38.750
Don's referring to a case called ITCA versus Arizona, in
292
00:18:38.809 --> 00:18:42.630
which the Supreme Court ruled that yes, the Congress had
293
00:18:42.730 --> 00:18:46.900
spoken on this topic. And for the purpose of federal elections,
294
00:18:46.980 --> 00:18:50.500
they intended it for it just to be attestation of
295
00:18:50.559 --> 00:18:54.220
proof of citizenship, not to require anything further than that.
296
00:18:54.299 --> 00:18:57.019
And again, that's why I would go back to the
297
00:18:57.059 --> 00:18:58.799
first thing that we should do if we really want
298
00:18:58.819 --> 00:19:01.910
to play in this space is potentially amend the National
299
00:19:01.950 --> 00:19:05.069
Voter Registration Act. But I want to point out that
300
00:19:05.390 --> 00:19:08.829
what you're talking about is continuous improvement. And that's a
301
00:19:08.900 --> 00:19:11.390
wonderful thing. And it's something that it's a mantra that
302
00:19:11.430 --> 00:19:15.150
a lot of election administrators have embraced. And I know
303
00:19:15.170 --> 00:19:18.589
that that was true of the Election Assistance Commission while
304
00:19:18.650 --> 00:19:22.690
Don was there. But continuous improvement is different from saying
305
00:19:22.750 --> 00:19:27.680
that our elections are fundamentally compromised if we don't have
306
00:19:27.720 --> 00:19:30.920
the Save America Act, that the Save America Act is
307
00:19:31.220 --> 00:19:34.700
necessary for the security of our elections. And again, I
308
00:19:34.740 --> 00:19:37.190
would just keep going back to the fact that The
309
00:19:37.230 --> 00:19:40.930
data just simply is not there. Are there non-citizens who
310
00:19:40.970 --> 00:19:42.920
are registered to vote in the United States?
311
00:19:43.420 --> 00:19:43.779
Yes.
312
00:19:44.160 --> 00:19:46.769
Are they a fraction of a fraction of a percent?
313
00:19:47.289 --> 00:19:48.009
Absolutely.
314
00:19:48.069 --> 00:19:51.019
And I think that those are important considerations. to take
315
00:19:51.059 --> 00:19:55.579
into account when you're designing any fix to that alleged problem.
316
00:19:55.700 --> 00:19:58.819
And so again, where there's always a sense of proportionality.
317
00:19:59.640 --> 00:20:04.549
If you said, I wanted to have zero fatalities on
318
00:20:04.970 --> 00:20:08.339
the roadways, then you would mandate that everyone has to
319
00:20:08.380 --> 00:20:10.549
have a car that's as big as a tank and
320
00:20:10.589 --> 00:20:13.130
you could only go five miles per hour. You would
321
00:20:13.170 --> 00:20:16.609
have no fatalities in that situation. Of course, very few
322
00:20:16.650 --> 00:20:19.890
people would be driving because it would be prohibitively expensive
323
00:20:20.289 --> 00:20:23.430
and very few people would be able to get where
324
00:20:23.450 --> 00:20:28.450
they want in a timely manner. Similarly, so with voter registration,
325
00:20:28.549 --> 00:20:31.809
we could, of course, make it much, much, much, much,
326
00:20:31.910 --> 00:20:35.740
much more burdensome and maybe incrementally more secure for But
327
00:20:35.779 --> 00:20:38.640
I think that's a cost-benefit analysis that the Congress would
328
00:20:38.680 --> 00:20:43.809
have to take into account. And by all evidence, the
329
00:20:44.140 --> 00:20:48.930
cost just seemingly, or the benefit just seemingly isn't really there. Again,
330
00:20:48.950 --> 00:20:52.690
I can cite a long list of audits done by
331
00:20:52.769 --> 00:20:56.910
state and local governments. Yes, they find non-citizens, but again,
332
00:20:56.930 --> 00:20:58.990
a fraction of a fraction of a percent.
333
00:21:01.009 --> 00:21:06.730
Stephen, let me ask you another question. I worked in
334
00:21:06.750 --> 00:21:11.019
the Civil Rights Division looking for instances where there may
335
00:21:11.079 --> 00:21:15.920
be people that were disenfranchised or their ability to vote
336
00:21:16.000 --> 00:21:20.559
was impacted. But also the Civil Rights Division, the voting section,
337
00:21:20.599 --> 00:21:24.119
enforces list maintenance. And are you complying with laws? I
338
00:21:24.140 --> 00:21:27.839
guess my point, having done that, and as well starting
339
00:21:27.880 --> 00:21:30.000
in the States, one of the issues I have is,
340
00:21:30.039 --> 00:21:32.720
you know, we talk about, is it a serious problem?
341
00:21:32.829 --> 00:21:35.849
Is it a widespread problem? But when we talk about,
342
00:21:36.410 --> 00:21:40.180
you know, let's say eight individuals were unable to vote
343
00:21:40.240 --> 00:21:46.339
because the ADA capable machine wasn't operational or a hundred
344
00:21:46.359 --> 00:21:53.039
people were accidentally. dropped off the voter rolls with the DMV,
345
00:21:53.480 --> 00:21:56.799
or someone's party was changed inappropriately. These are all issues
346
00:21:56.839 --> 00:21:59.200
that we're sort of, it's like, look, there's no margin
347
00:21:59.240 --> 00:22:03.289
for error. We cannot make mistakes in voting. And so
348
00:22:03.410 --> 00:22:05.109
I just ask you, you know, when we talk about
349
00:22:05.170 --> 00:22:08.410
non-citizens that are on the rolls, and some that actually vote,
350
00:22:09.009 --> 00:22:13.440
I mean, we are talking, you know, it's like, It's
351
00:22:13.460 --> 00:22:16.069
like there's a different standard for the accuracy of our
352
00:22:16.109 --> 00:22:18.549
voter rolls. And I think that actually they should be
353
00:22:18.630 --> 00:22:23.150
treated the same. Is that we have to, for the
354
00:22:23.190 --> 00:22:28.559
confidence of voters, we cannot accept errors. You might, or
355
00:22:28.640 --> 00:22:32.539
someone may articulate that. I just don't think it's significant
356
00:22:32.599 --> 00:22:37.309
enough But namely, a larger issue in our country over
357
00:22:37.349 --> 00:22:40.250
the last two to four years or six years of
358
00:22:40.349 --> 00:22:45.029
problems with voter registration or with voting. The most problems,
359
00:22:45.930 --> 00:22:49.519
the most significant problems are usually in voter registration, and
360
00:22:49.599 --> 00:22:54.230
it's usually with citizenship. And is there... Is it really
361
00:22:54.250 --> 00:22:57.309
that hard to fix the problem? I would say the
362
00:22:57.369 --> 00:23:00.660
issue is no. We can modify the NBR rate to
363
00:23:00.700 --> 00:23:04.400
require citizenship, and we can require states to do that
364
00:23:04.480 --> 00:23:07.809
verification on the front end and sort of make sure
365
00:23:07.880 --> 00:23:10.269
our voter rolls are as accurate as can be. And
366
00:23:10.289 --> 00:23:12.269
so I just– is there a double standard that we're
367
00:23:12.289 --> 00:23:16.569
willing to accept where– Yeah, you understand the question.
368
00:23:16.630 --> 00:23:17.829
No, no, I do understand.
369
00:23:17.950 --> 00:23:20.730
I actually hope that people would not apply that standard
370
00:23:20.759 --> 00:23:24.740
to any sort of alleged voter disenfranchisement. For instance, if
371
00:23:24.799 --> 00:23:28.240
a mail ballot was erroneously not sent out to one
372
00:23:28.599 --> 00:23:32.039
vote by mail registrant, I hope we wouldn't say, well,
373
00:23:32.079 --> 00:23:35.640
this is irrevocably corrupt. Without fixing this, then we don't
374
00:23:35.700 --> 00:23:40.980
have a competent, accurate, lawful election administration system. In fact,
375
00:23:41.119 --> 00:23:46.309
I've pushed back on any claims of rampant voter disenfranchisement because, again,
376
00:23:46.349 --> 00:23:49.230
that's just not borne out by the statistic. Now, as
377
00:23:49.269 --> 00:23:55.109
you rightfully note, both election offices, state legislators and federal
378
00:23:55.170 --> 00:23:58.690
legislators are continuously looking at those problems in the margins.
379
00:23:58.750 --> 00:24:01.539
And they're saying, how can we improve that such that
380
00:24:01.640 --> 00:24:04.930
everyone has a positive voting experience? How can we put
381
00:24:05.009 --> 00:24:09.230
accessible devices into every single voting location? Yes, we know
382
00:24:09.299 --> 00:24:15.059
that maybe only one person who can't touch and see
383
00:24:15.099 --> 00:24:19.759
a normal size ballot needs a large print ballot. Nonetheless,
384
00:24:20.059 --> 00:24:22.160
we're still going to do that. And I think that's
385
00:24:22.200 --> 00:24:24.980
a worthwhile thing. And I think for that reason, federal
386
00:24:25.019 --> 00:24:28.759
law and state law should continue to be revisited. But again,
387
00:24:28.819 --> 00:24:31.460
we need to be honest about where the situation is.
388
00:24:31.819 --> 00:24:36.440
And the situation is not that it's fatally flawed. As
389
00:24:36.500 --> 00:24:39.269
far as the problems in election administration, I agree with
390
00:24:39.309 --> 00:24:43.269
you that the number one flaw in American elections right
391
00:24:43.329 --> 00:24:47.190
now is voter registration. But if I had to point
392
00:24:47.230 --> 00:24:50.269
to a spot within voter registration, I would say it
393
00:24:50.390 --> 00:24:53.569
has more to do with data sharing, data sharing especially online.
394
00:24:53.880 --> 00:24:58.480
Between states, we know that many Americans move every single
395
00:24:58.720 --> 00:25:03.140
election cycle. And we know that these states don't communicate
396
00:25:03.200 --> 00:25:06.170
seamlessly with each other. And we know that while lots
397
00:25:06.210 --> 00:25:09.549
of people might immediately think of updating their Netflix account.
398
00:25:09.930 --> 00:25:13.289
and their credit cards, they're not necessarily thinking of updating
399
00:25:13.329 --> 00:25:16.470
their voter registration. And I think one way in which
400
00:25:16.529 --> 00:25:18.690
we need to give the Trump administration a lot of
401
00:25:18.730 --> 00:25:22.160
credit is it does recognize that the federal government does
402
00:25:22.359 --> 00:25:25.619
house some of that information, and it is trying to
403
00:25:25.680 --> 00:25:29.180
make more of that information available to the states. Now,
404
00:25:29.240 --> 00:25:32.579
whether or not that's always lawful is something that's being contested.
405
00:25:32.980 --> 00:25:36.549
But I would not say that there's any evidence, unlike
406
00:25:37.250 --> 00:25:40.990
for instance, having bloated voter rolls because people move away,
407
00:25:41.289 --> 00:25:44.569
of which we have some evidence, but there's just not
408
00:25:44.609 --> 00:25:48.069
the evidence there that the non-citizen thing rises to anything
409
00:25:48.250 --> 00:25:50.849
above the noise. So again, if we can do it
410
00:25:50.930 --> 00:25:55.690
in a way that is workable, in a way that
411
00:25:56.029 --> 00:25:58.849
doesn't unduly burden voters, then I.
412
00:25:58.829 --> 00:26:00.779
Think it's something that should be explored.
413
00:26:00.950 --> 00:26:03.400
And as I said at the outset, I have great
414
00:26:03.460 --> 00:26:07.980
sympathy for document-approved citizenship laws. Ours in Arizona, I think,
415
00:26:08.019 --> 00:26:10.450
is quite good. But it took us a long time
416
00:26:10.490 --> 00:26:14.069
to roll it out. And it was the process of
417
00:26:14.130 --> 00:26:21.680
an iterative legislative process and administrative process that took, gosh,
418
00:26:21.740 --> 00:26:25.230
about 20 years, and it's still not perfect. And so
419
00:26:25.269 --> 00:26:27.410
I think that's just something we should be mindful of.
420
00:26:27.690 --> 00:26:31.660
And again, we shouldn't overestimate the amount of good that
421
00:26:31.700 --> 00:26:34.640
we would be doing when we step forward on that path.
422
00:26:35.339 --> 00:26:37.799
Well, I would just I would ask you one additional question.
423
00:26:37.839 --> 00:26:39.859
I was giving you the opportunity, but I would I
424
00:26:39.900 --> 00:26:41.539
would argue, you know, one of the questions and I
425
00:26:41.579 --> 00:26:43.980
sort of alluded to it in my opening comments was,
426
00:26:44.819 --> 00:26:47.119
you know, the states obviously have a say in this.
427
00:26:47.319 --> 00:26:49.750
And now we have the Congress has acted with the
428
00:26:49.789 --> 00:26:52.839
National Voters Trition Act in nineteen ninety three. Here we
429
00:26:52.880 --> 00:26:56.960
are 30 years later, and the Supreme Court has weighed
430
00:26:57.039 --> 00:26:58.779
in on the Arizona model. They're going to weigh in
431
00:26:58.819 --> 00:27:04.269
again with another Supreme Court case, again with Arizona, on
432
00:27:04.309 --> 00:27:08.990
certain issues involving documentary proof of citizenship using the state form.
433
00:27:10.450 --> 00:27:13.869
But isn't it really time for Congress to weigh in
434
00:27:13.970 --> 00:27:17.099
on the issue? I mean, Congress really created a lot
435
00:27:17.119 --> 00:27:21.819
of this problem, maybe not intentionally, but we certainly the
436
00:27:21.859 --> 00:27:24.839
vagueness of the act has really caused a lot of
437
00:27:24.880 --> 00:27:27.180
problems in the states when it comes to this issue.
438
00:27:27.200 --> 00:27:30.809
But I would argue that the. I mean, unless we
439
00:27:30.890 --> 00:27:34.130
expect the Supreme Court to fix all the problems that
440
00:27:34.150 --> 00:27:37.450
the Congress has really tried to create here, and sort of,
441
00:27:37.750 --> 00:27:40.779
in my mind, circumstances have changed, the Congress has to
442
00:27:40.819 --> 00:27:43.279
be the one to act. And if they don't, we're
443
00:27:43.319 --> 00:27:45.579
just going to muddle, continue to muddle through this.
444
00:27:46.509 --> 00:27:48.450
Well, one, I would say that there are a lot
445
00:27:48.490 --> 00:27:51.230
of people who expect the Supreme Court to do everything
446
00:27:51.269 --> 00:27:53.210
because the Congress is asleep at the switch.
447
00:27:53.289 --> 00:27:54.089
And so there.
448
00:27:53.950 --> 00:27:55.670
Probably are a lot of people who'd be like, yeah,
449
00:27:55.710 --> 00:27:58.299
the Supreme Court should dissolve it. And indeed they might.
450
00:27:58.359 --> 00:28:01.700
And again, as Don has made reference to, Arizona is
451
00:28:01.779 --> 00:28:04.180
putting this up again in front of the United States
452
00:28:04.220 --> 00:28:07.150
Supreme Court. And they have agreed to take the case,
453
00:28:07.809 --> 00:28:10.650
which is going to revisit whether or not the National
454
00:28:10.670 --> 00:28:16.069
Voter Registration Act preempts Arizona's document of proof of citizenship law.
455
00:28:16.609 --> 00:28:18.849
But I would just point out more broadly that you're
456
00:28:18.869 --> 00:28:21.289
shifting the terms of the debate a little bit, which is,
457
00:28:21.670 --> 00:28:26.029
is this good public policy? Should we want Congress to
458
00:28:26.130 --> 00:28:29.569
require document of proof of citizenship? And again, I think
459
00:28:29.589 --> 00:28:33.009
that's a legitimate public policy conversation. I think there's a
460
00:28:33.049 --> 00:28:35.289
lot that goes into it, including the nuts and bolts
461
00:28:35.329 --> 00:28:38.339
of the Save America Act, but that is fundamentally different
462
00:28:38.380 --> 00:28:43.019
from are our elections so problematic and so flawed currently
463
00:28:43.359 --> 00:28:47.109
that they absolutely require the Save America Act for them
464
00:28:47.210 --> 00:28:52.670
to be lawful, accurate, and non-fraudulent? And I would say that, one,
465
00:28:53.009 --> 00:28:55.470
the Save America Act is not going to be passed
466
00:28:55.529 --> 00:28:59.039
and implemented by the time of the November 2026 election.
467
00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:02.799
But that does not mean that the November 2026 election
468
00:29:02.900 --> 00:29:05.980
won't be accurate. And indeed, I have great confidence that
469
00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:10.240
the 2026 election will be accurately and lawfully administered. I
470
00:29:10.289 --> 00:29:13.809
think it's even questionable about whether if this was passed soon,
471
00:29:13.910 --> 00:29:16.869
if it could even be in full implementation, full effect
472
00:29:16.930 --> 00:29:20.950
for the 2028 election. But if we open this conversation
473
00:29:21.049 --> 00:29:23.849
up to just whether or not Save America Act is
474
00:29:23.930 --> 00:29:26.630
good public policy, then I think we need to be
475
00:29:26.710 --> 00:29:30.809
talking about what is the appropriate role for Congress in
476
00:29:30.910 --> 00:29:34.549
the federal election, or excuse me, in the election law landscape.
477
00:29:35.430 --> 00:29:38.349
And we saw in 2021 that a lot of Dems
478
00:29:38.390 --> 00:29:41.859
who are screaming right now about state rights, states' rights,
479
00:29:42.559 --> 00:29:46.059
were saying that Congress should have a much bigger role
480
00:29:46.539 --> 00:29:52.460
in setting the standards, setting the floor for election law.
481
00:29:53.000 --> 00:29:56.539
They said that we should mandate a certain minimum number
482
00:29:56.859 --> 00:30:00.250
of early voting days. They said that we should mandate
483
00:30:00.349 --> 00:30:04.349
same-day voter registration. We should mandate that all states have
484
00:30:04.750 --> 00:30:07.609
no excuse vote by mail. And I think that you
485
00:30:07.630 --> 00:30:11.009
and I would probably both agree that that's an overextension
486
00:30:11.269 --> 00:30:13.990
of Congress's role in election administration.
487
00:30:15.089 --> 00:30:18.049
But I don't know that.
488
00:30:19.069 --> 00:30:22.890
Where we would say the appropriate role of Congress ends.
489
00:30:23.609 --> 00:30:26.170
And I worry that if we say it is appropriate
490
00:30:26.210 --> 00:30:30.200
for Congress to set some minimum standards then we would
491
00:30:30.220 --> 00:30:32.619
start sweeping in a whole lot of other things like
492
00:30:32.680 --> 00:30:36.049
same-day voter registration. But just want to flag that, again,
493
00:30:36.390 --> 00:30:40.170
we're talking about, is it good public policy? Not, do
494
00:30:40.210 --> 00:30:43.289
we have to worry about the 2026 election if this
495
00:30:43.630 --> 00:30:44.390
isn't passed?
496
00:30:46.809 --> 00:30:50.890
Well, I think that, I think documentary pre-precisionship is good policy.
497
00:30:50.990 --> 00:30:54.190
I think that, you know, I think the states in
498
00:30:54.230 --> 00:30:56.369
many ways have had one hand behind their back and
499
00:30:56.450 --> 00:30:58.839
actually Arizona sort of led the way and sort of
500
00:31:00.710 --> 00:31:04.650
combining not only verification on the front end with the
501
00:31:04.690 --> 00:31:10.230
driver's license agency, where most applicants, their documentation is already
502
00:31:10.289 --> 00:31:14.640
on file or available, but also adding a documentary proof
503
00:31:14.660 --> 00:31:17.980
of citizenship requirement where you reach out to the voter
504
00:31:18.140 --> 00:31:20.680
and you say, we need you to help with this process.
505
00:31:20.720 --> 00:31:22.940
We need you to provide this if you're a newly
506
00:31:23.000 --> 00:31:26.109
naturalized citizen. And And the reality of that, and it's
507
00:31:26.130 --> 00:31:30.210
been demagogued in the media and other places, that this
508
00:31:30.289 --> 00:31:33.569
is such a horrible burden on voters, is my experience
509
00:31:33.589 --> 00:31:37.539
is that it can be complicated at times. But the
510
00:31:37.579 --> 00:31:40.099
best practice really is to mail out to the voters
511
00:31:40.160 --> 00:31:43.460
and ask them to help us resolve the problem of documentation.
512
00:31:43.940 --> 00:31:46.589
And so I think that this could be done. in
513
00:31:46.609 --> 00:31:49.730
a very streamlined manner. Maybe I'm optimistic because I'm a
514
00:31:49.750 --> 00:31:53.730
state official. And you're sort of providing the guidelines. The
515
00:31:53.769 --> 00:31:56.930
hard work would be done by mostly the local election officials.
516
00:31:57.579 --> 00:32:00.940
But I think you could provide a process where verification
517
00:32:01.000 --> 00:32:04.259
is done on citizenship. And then for those individuals that
518
00:32:05.140 --> 00:32:07.960
no documentation can be found or you can't verify an
519
00:32:08.559 --> 00:32:13.799
identification number. So I think that in the end, implementation
520
00:32:13.880 --> 00:32:17.230
is the key, but it could become very good policy
521
00:32:17.269 --> 00:32:20.670
in states. And so, as you said, just as in Arizona,
522
00:32:20.819 --> 00:32:25.940
I think that most citizens of Arizona would agree that, look,
523
00:32:25.980 --> 00:32:29.819
we agree with documentary proof of citizenship. And obviously, the
524
00:32:29.880 --> 00:32:34.319
details are what count, the counts and implementation. And Arizona,
525
00:32:34.559 --> 00:32:36.920
I think, has done the best it can with litigation
526
00:32:37.359 --> 00:32:41.700
over its head all the time. But not every state
527
00:32:42.079 --> 00:32:46.980
will have the wherewithal to propose a Prop 200 or
528
00:32:47.019 --> 00:32:49.940
to have a legislature that's willing to do this. So
529
00:32:49.980 --> 00:32:53.759
we come back to the issue of uniformity. And that's
530
00:32:53.980 --> 00:32:55.700
one of my big concerns is not only at the
531
00:32:55.740 --> 00:32:59.339
state level that there's uniformity, but at the federal, we
532
00:32:59.400 --> 00:33:04.079
are the United States. And so how do we confirm
533
00:33:04.119 --> 00:33:08.220
that basic fundamental qualification of voting, which is citizenship? How
534
00:33:08.240 --> 00:33:12.279
do we do that in a uniform manner? And You know, look,
535
00:33:12.619 --> 00:33:14.740
I've been a state election official. I know part of
536
00:33:14.779 --> 00:33:18.609
it is getting from A to Z in a quasi-uniform manner.
537
00:33:19.960 --> 00:33:21.970
But the reality of it is there has to be
538
00:33:22.009 --> 00:33:25.509
some guidelines for the federal government or every state's going
539
00:33:25.529 --> 00:33:28.589
to be on its own. And if you'd asked me
540
00:33:28.609 --> 00:33:30.509
to design a system, I could. But that's why I
541
00:33:30.549 --> 00:33:33.069
think the SAVE Act is really required. I think it's
542
00:33:33.109 --> 00:33:36.789
really good policy, but it has to be done in
543
00:33:36.809 --> 00:33:41.640
a uniform manner. So we're all rowing in the same way.
544
00:33:41.960 --> 00:33:46.960
And we're not all creating a bifurcated system like Arizona.
545
00:33:47.309 --> 00:33:49.240
I don't think you would recommend that for anybody.
546
00:33:49.349 --> 00:33:50.390
No, no, no, no.
547
00:33:50.490 --> 00:33:52.210
And just to add a little color to that, what
548
00:33:52.250 --> 00:33:55.809
Don's talking about is that of the 3.5 million registered
549
00:33:55.829 --> 00:34:01.069
voters in Arizona, about 99.6% of them are on the
550
00:34:01.150 --> 00:34:04.390
full ballot, meaning that they've shown documented proof of citizenship.
551
00:34:04.710 --> 00:34:06.829
And when they get their ballot, it has every single
552
00:34:06.890 --> 00:34:07.730
contest on it.
553
00:34:08.110 --> 00:34:09.510
Approximately.
554
00:34:11.280 --> 00:34:15.679
Has attested that they are citizens under penalty of perjury,
555
00:34:15.699 --> 00:34:18.929
but they have not provided documented proof of citizenship. And
556
00:34:18.969 --> 00:34:22.030
therefore we have to mail them in Arizona or allow
557
00:34:22.070 --> 00:34:25.269
them to vote a ballot with just the federal contest.
558
00:34:25.309 --> 00:34:27.050
And that's called the bifurcated ballot.
559
00:34:27.409 --> 00:34:31.159
And I think that that impresses some validity to what
560
00:34:31.199 --> 00:34:34.039
Don is saying is that, look, we have gotten to
561
00:34:34.079 --> 00:34:36.420
a point in Arizona where 99.6% of registered voters voted
562
00:34:38.599 --> 00:34:40.949
Are able to comply with that. That's a pretty good
563
00:34:41.010 --> 00:34:44.650
compliance rate. Now, a critic would point out and say, well, yeah,
564
00:34:44.670 --> 00:34:47.210
but that system's been developed over a long.
565
00:34:46.989 --> 00:34:47.869
Period of time.
566
00:34:47.909 --> 00:34:50.429
We're not just talking about rolling this out in a
567
00:34:50.469 --> 00:34:53.269
few months and expecting everyone to comply with it. I
568
00:34:53.309 --> 00:34:55.969
think someone else would also get to sort of this front-end,
569
00:34:56.090 --> 00:34:59.409
back-end distinction that you were talking about. And the Save
570
00:34:59.469 --> 00:35:04.530
America Act contemplates a good amount of front-end documented proof
571
00:35:04.570 --> 00:35:07.659
of citizenship, which would actually be different than what we
572
00:35:07.699 --> 00:35:11.300
have in Arizona, because in Arizona, the vast majority of
573
00:35:11.440 --> 00:35:15.820
people provide documented proof of citizenship when they go and
574
00:35:15.860 --> 00:35:19.739
get their driver's license. And then when they later want
575
00:35:19.780 --> 00:35:23.789
to register to vote, The registrar simply pings the Motor
576
00:35:23.849 --> 00:35:27.480
Vehicle Division and says, does this person already have documented
577
00:35:27.519 --> 00:35:30.639
proof of citizenship on file? If yes, then we can
578
00:35:30.699 --> 00:35:35.059
register him. If no, then we would indeed, as you mentioned,
579
00:35:35.219 --> 00:35:38.280
mail out a letter to that voter and get them
580
00:35:38.320 --> 00:35:39.820
to do that. So I guess one of the things
581
00:35:39.920 --> 00:35:42.980
I would put to you is, should the Save America
582
00:35:43.159 --> 00:35:45.869
Act be redesigned? And it's a little hard to know
583
00:35:45.889 --> 00:35:48.210
where the Save America Act has landed on this because
584
00:35:48.269 --> 00:35:51.639
it's changed so many times. even its name has changed
585
00:35:51.699 --> 00:35:53.679
a few times from the Save Act to the Save
586
00:35:53.719 --> 00:35:56.760
America Act. At one point, there was Make Elections Great
587
00:35:56.800 --> 00:36:00.239
Again Act mixed in there. But should the Save America
588
00:36:00.480 --> 00:36:05.179
Act be post hoc? Should it be, you know, ex
589
00:36:05.579 --> 00:36:10.139
post rather than providing that upfront document to prove citizenship?
590
00:36:10.380 --> 00:36:13.320
Should the burden first be on the government to try
591
00:36:13.380 --> 00:36:16.239
and prove the citizenship of the voter?
592
00:36:17.760 --> 00:36:19.460
Well, you make a really good point. And I think
593
00:36:19.500 --> 00:36:22.469
that In the implementation in the states, most of the
594
00:36:22.510 --> 00:36:26.070
states have taken the approach that when it talks about documentation,
595
00:36:27.909 --> 00:36:30.389
what they're really meaning is the documentation at the driver's
596
00:36:30.429 --> 00:36:34.989
license agency that most individuals who have interfaced with them,
597
00:36:35.030 --> 00:36:37.630
and it's in the high 90s or mid 90s, a
598
00:36:37.630 --> 00:36:42.190
90 percentile, the birth certificate or other documentation of citizenship,
599
00:36:42.730 --> 00:36:46.309
that if that documentation is already in possession of the government,
600
00:36:46.369 --> 00:36:49.820
then the individual doesn't necessarily have to do anything. doesn't
601
00:36:49.840 --> 00:36:53.340
have to provide any sort of independent documentation. And it's
602
00:36:53.380 --> 00:36:57.570
really for those that, for some reason, they haven't interacted
603
00:36:57.610 --> 00:37:01.329
with state government or they haven't provided, there's no documentation
604
00:37:02.349 --> 00:37:06.389
at the driver's license agency that's available. And so this
605
00:37:06.449 --> 00:37:09.210
is where the use of the SAVE program, I used
606
00:37:09.250 --> 00:37:13.900
to say it's systematic billing and verification for eligibility program,
607
00:37:14.280 --> 00:37:18.400
has been helpful to states, the federal government assisting states
608
00:37:18.679 --> 00:37:23.679
and opt-in driver's license agencies to fill the gaps of documentation.
609
00:37:24.440 --> 00:37:27.179
I think we saw that in some Arizona counties that
610
00:37:27.219 --> 00:37:31.360
you had noted and in Florida counties where I reside,
611
00:37:32.239 --> 00:37:36.590
that joint partnership has worked to provide gaps in each
612
00:37:36.650 --> 00:37:40.269
other's databases. And so I really do, I agree with
613
00:37:40.309 --> 00:37:43.510
you on that, that documentation that's already in possession of
614
00:37:43.530 --> 00:37:46.429
the government and can be simply verified or pinged is
615
00:37:46.909 --> 00:37:49.610
probably the way that states would implement this law.
616
00:37:50.650 --> 00:37:51.360
Yeah.
617
00:37:51.469 --> 00:37:53.500
And I think you made one of the more compelling
618
00:37:53.599 --> 00:37:56.219
points for why this should be done by the United
619
00:37:56.239 --> 00:38:00.940
States Congress, not by state legislatures, which is that balkanization component.
620
00:38:01.000 --> 00:38:04.889
The reality is, is if the federal government doesn't require this,
621
00:38:05.289 --> 00:38:08.250
then we will see red states require this and we
622
00:38:08.389 --> 00:38:11.289
will see blue states not require this. And I think
623
00:38:11.329 --> 00:38:16.329
that will cast a pall over all of elections. That
624
00:38:16.389 --> 00:38:20.269
being said, my conservative bones bristle a little bit when
625
00:38:20.309 --> 00:38:23.170
I hear that because that justification can be used for
626
00:38:23.230 --> 00:38:26.610
so much. We'll have a balkanization of early voting. We'll
627
00:38:26.650 --> 00:38:32.380
have a balkanization potentially of same-day voter registration. And so, again,
628
00:38:32.449 --> 00:38:35.599
just as I pushed back in 2021 when the Democrats
629
00:38:35.739 --> 00:38:39.960
proposed the For the People Act, I'm at least reticent
630
00:38:40.710 --> 00:38:44.329
to grab on to Republican efforts here to set these
631
00:38:44.389 --> 00:38:47.750
standards at the federal level. Now, I will say that
632
00:38:47.849 --> 00:38:51.610
I think, again, that saying that documented proof of citizenship
633
00:38:51.769 --> 00:38:55.360
is required is materially different from saying you have to
634
00:38:55.409 --> 00:38:58.280
have seven days of early voting or.
635
00:38:58.280 --> 00:38:59.659
Whatever the case is.
636
00:39:00.519 --> 00:39:03.099
Confidence has been in the background of a lot of
637
00:39:03.119 --> 00:39:06.659
our discussion so far, and confidence was a key component.
638
00:39:06.579 --> 00:39:07.960
Of your opening remarks.
639
00:39:08.489 --> 00:39:12.349
I will say that I'm uncomfortable a bit with legislating
640
00:39:12.409 --> 00:39:15.409
based off of simply what will deliver confidence. I don't
641
00:39:15.449 --> 00:39:17.889
know that that's always, you know, that sort of leads
642
00:39:17.929 --> 00:39:21.590
you down the placebo route potentially. But more than anything,
643
00:39:21.670 --> 00:39:25.349
I think what would potentially build confidence vis-a-vis this topic
644
00:39:25.530 --> 00:39:28.369
is if we were at least forthcoming in all quarters
645
00:39:28.829 --> 00:39:33.699
about the extent of of non-citizen participation in American elections
646
00:39:34.239 --> 00:39:38.510
that we know so far. And again, just because I've
647
00:39:38.550 --> 00:39:40.630
compiled this list so I want to get my monies
648
00:39:40.710 --> 00:39:43.630
out of it, at Declare News, I have a list
649
00:39:43.690 --> 00:39:47.349
of all the state and county elections. voter registration audits,
650
00:39:47.650 --> 00:39:51.610
and they just find very, very, very few non-citizens as
651
00:39:51.650 --> 00:39:54.250
a percentage who are on the voter rolls and even
652
00:39:54.329 --> 00:39:57.829
fewer who have cast a ballot in an election. And
653
00:39:57.869 --> 00:40:00.309
when they do find those, they find that it's often
654
00:40:00.369 --> 00:40:03.469
the case of government error, such as the case with
655
00:40:03.530 --> 00:40:08.730
New Jersey, rather than some non-citizen purposely trying to break
656
00:40:08.809 --> 00:40:12.030
the law and circumvent the process such that he or
657
00:40:12.070 --> 00:40:12.789
she can vote.
658
00:40:14.099 --> 00:40:17.500
Well, I think that you talk about voter confidence. Part
659
00:40:17.519 --> 00:40:20.679
of it is, as an election official, I'd like things
660
00:40:20.719 --> 00:40:25.360
to be more accurate. I just would. But sometimes the
661
00:40:25.429 --> 00:40:29.230
inaccuracies of the voting system falls on the election officials,
662
00:40:29.929 --> 00:40:34.030
and that lack of trust falls directly on election officials.
663
00:40:34.130 --> 00:40:36.409
And so when I'm in the state of Florida and
664
00:40:37.030 --> 00:40:42.139
the Palm Beach Post posts an article about 48,000 felons
665
00:40:42.179 --> 00:40:44.860
being on the Florida voter rolls. And that was simply
666
00:40:44.900 --> 00:40:48.179
because government wasn't doing its job, the lack of communication,
667
00:40:48.519 --> 00:40:52.780
the lack of database matching. The result was it was
668
00:40:52.940 --> 00:40:56.619
obviously a very negative story that impacted voter confidence. But
669
00:40:57.099 --> 00:40:59.619
in the end, it actually got the Florida Division of
670
00:40:59.639 --> 00:41:02.690
Elections and the Florida Department of State to say, okay,
671
00:41:02.789 --> 00:41:05.389
we're going to fix the problem. Otherwise, it wouldn't have
672
00:41:05.409 --> 00:41:09.039
been fixed. And so I think that when you have
673
00:41:09.099 --> 00:41:12.570
reports from all, I would say all states, but as
674
00:41:12.610 --> 00:41:16.150
you mentioned, it's a significant number of states and counties
675
00:41:16.170 --> 00:41:18.369
that have now done analysis of the voter rolls and
676
00:41:18.389 --> 00:41:22.769
have identified non-citizens on those rolls. And some that have voted,
677
00:41:23.269 --> 00:41:25.550
some will say, well, it's not a significant issue. But
678
00:41:25.840 --> 00:41:30.000
for others, it really is impactful that someone who's not
679
00:41:30.059 --> 00:41:33.820
even a citizen of their state As you mentioned, you
680
00:41:33.860 --> 00:41:36.059
can live, some people, that's why we need to have
681
00:41:36.099 --> 00:41:39.119
interstate data sharing is that someone from Georgia, we don't
682
00:41:39.159 --> 00:41:41.710
want them to come to Florida and vote. And we don't,
683
00:41:41.750 --> 00:41:46.150
certainly don't want a non-citizen to register and then perhaps vote.
684
00:41:46.730 --> 00:41:48.769
And so we have to take precautions. And when you
685
00:41:48.869 --> 00:41:53.260
don't and sunshine is placed upon you as an election official,
686
00:41:53.360 --> 00:41:56.760
it's a really bad place to be. Because it may
687
00:41:56.800 --> 00:41:59.440
be no fault of your own, but it has happened.
688
00:41:59.920 --> 00:42:03.699
And now the ramifications are is, you know, you cannot
689
00:42:03.739 --> 00:42:06.659
do anything. The legislature really is at fault here. So
690
00:42:07.039 --> 00:42:09.889
this is my pre-warning to the Congress and to state
691
00:42:09.929 --> 00:42:14.769
legislatures is they should act upon this now so that
692
00:42:14.849 --> 00:42:20.929
your election officials aren't harassed when hundreds or thousands of
693
00:42:21.230 --> 00:42:23.670
folks who shouldn't be voting or on their rolls end
694
00:42:23.750 --> 00:42:30.099
up there. It's my precautionary measure that I suggest. And
695
00:42:30.139 --> 00:42:31.980
so I just think that when you look back, when
696
00:42:32.000 --> 00:42:38.219
the Congress has sort of intervened, 2000 is the most recent,
697
00:42:39.900 --> 00:42:43.869
where we had Bush v. Gore and we had problems
698
00:42:43.969 --> 00:42:49.340
with not only real, but some perceived accuracy problems and
699
00:42:49.360 --> 00:42:52.980
the lack of uniformity. And so I think that some
700
00:42:53.019 --> 00:42:56.199
of this is, you know, you have real issues, some
701
00:42:56.239 --> 00:42:59.639
of it's perceived, but in the event of a major
702
00:43:00.960 --> 00:43:05.360
close race, we're going to have the legislature, the Congress
703
00:43:05.400 --> 00:43:07.619
is going to have to react to that. We see
704
00:43:07.679 --> 00:43:10.500
it with all types of election issues, ballot harvesting in
705
00:43:10.539 --> 00:43:15.420
North Carolina or Texas. You have some big scandal that occurs,
706
00:43:15.989 --> 00:43:20.070
lots of fallout, and then the legislature acts. And I
707
00:43:20.809 --> 00:43:24.809
just think that for election officials, this would be a
708
00:43:26.309 --> 00:43:30.469
law that we could implement. We have provisional balloting to
709
00:43:30.530 --> 00:43:33.579
help sort of those that we're not able to help,
710
00:43:33.639 --> 00:43:35.860
we're able to, all the way to the last minute,
711
00:43:35.880 --> 00:43:39.940
give them the opportunity to provide documentation. And the election
712
00:43:39.980 --> 00:43:44.110
community could do this, not necessarily, obviously, as for 2026,
713
00:43:44.110 --> 00:43:45.030
but for the future.
714
00:43:45.769 --> 00:43:48.230
Yeah, well, as an election administrator, I certainly have to
715
00:43:48.289 --> 00:43:50.769
agree that I would have liked for one more issue
716
00:43:50.789 --> 00:43:53.409
to be taken off the table, because certainly we received
717
00:43:53.489 --> 00:43:57.699
lots of emails asking different questions about non-citizens voting. We
718
00:43:57.739 --> 00:44:01.559
certainly received our fair share of allegations about non-citizens voting.
719
00:44:01.900 --> 00:44:05.219
Of course, the irony is that, as mentioned many times already,
720
00:44:05.650 --> 00:44:08.250
Arizona is one of the few states with a documented
721
00:44:08.269 --> 00:44:10.090
proof of citizenship requirement.
722
00:44:10.429 --> 00:44:12.760
But I echo.
723
00:44:12.579 --> 00:44:16.219
That sentiment, largely speaking. I do want to distinguish, however,
724
00:44:16.239 --> 00:44:19.820
that the important point that you made about Florida, which
725
00:44:19.880 --> 00:44:23.480
was that that was a very real challenge in the
726
00:44:23.519 --> 00:44:27.260
post-2000 election context. We know that there were hanging chads.
727
00:44:27.619 --> 00:44:30.480
We know that there were those little pieces of paper
728
00:44:30.519 --> 00:44:34.260
that were interfering with the tabulation of votes in Broward
729
00:44:34.300 --> 00:44:37.880
County in particular, but in other jurisdictions in Florida as well.
730
00:44:38.199 --> 00:44:41.679
And of course, that prompted the Help America Vote Act. Here,
731
00:44:41.840 --> 00:44:44.389
I worry that it is being done at the behest
732
00:44:44.489 --> 00:44:49.929
of sometimes bad faith actors who are making inaccurate allegations
733
00:44:50.030 --> 00:44:53.909
about the extent of non-citizens participating. And again, if we
734
00:44:53.949 --> 00:44:58.809
want to draft legislation that to close the door completely
735
00:44:58.949 --> 00:45:01.550
on this, then that's a conversation we should have. But
736
00:45:01.570 --> 00:45:04.389
we should be clear eyed about what the situation is,
737
00:45:04.829 --> 00:45:07.880
because I think this is more like saying we're a
738
00:45:07.929 --> 00:45:11.639
candy store that has had two robberies over the past
739
00:45:11.639 --> 00:45:14.699
10 years. And therefore, we're going to hire three armed
740
00:45:14.719 --> 00:45:18.159
security guards to stand out front and frisk everyone who
741
00:45:18.219 --> 00:45:20.079
leaves the store to make sure that they didn't steal
742
00:45:20.139 --> 00:45:23.880
any candy. And so, you know, from a cost benefit analysis,
743
00:45:23.900 --> 00:45:25.820
that might not be something I would want to do.
744
00:45:27.539 --> 00:45:30.539
And so I do worry about that.
745
00:45:30.980 --> 00:45:34.960
And again, if we were talking about confidence, then I
746
00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:38.530
just want some people to start telling the truth. And
747
00:45:38.570 --> 00:45:40.809
I fear that that is a little bit the elephant
748
00:45:40.849 --> 00:45:44.329
in the room for some of these conversations about national
749
00:45:44.389 --> 00:45:48.309
level election administration, legal changes.
750
00:45:49.170 --> 00:45:51.260
Well, let me ask you about that. You know, as
751
00:45:51.320 --> 00:45:56.239
a former administrator in Florida and then in Virginia, One
752
00:45:56.260 --> 00:45:58.260
of the things that concerned me was, you know, we
753
00:45:58.280 --> 00:46:00.940
have a lot of databases for a lot of different things, right?
754
00:46:01.000 --> 00:46:03.949
We might bounce things off, but we really don't, we
755
00:46:03.989 --> 00:46:07.869
don't have in this country a citizenship database, right? We
756
00:46:07.889 --> 00:46:11.309
don't have, we have certain, the SAVE program we talked about,
757
00:46:11.690 --> 00:46:16.230
and our driver's license agencies are not comprehensive because they're
758
00:46:16.269 --> 00:46:19.969
not really, as they all tell you, we're not here to,
759
00:46:20.530 --> 00:46:22.880
we're not here as a citizenship database. We're here to
760
00:46:23.300 --> 00:46:28.570
define status and identities. And so my question is, is
761
00:46:28.610 --> 00:46:32.619
that election administrators really don't have a, we don't have
762
00:46:32.659 --> 00:46:35.920
a database in which to verify something that's fundamental. And
763
00:46:35.960 --> 00:46:41.920
so I'm sort of, we either resolve to fix the
764
00:46:41.960 --> 00:46:44.980
problem or we say, well, it's the best we can
765
00:46:45.019 --> 00:46:48.920
do is to have some states doing it and working
766
00:46:48.940 --> 00:46:53.570
with driver's license agencies that they're, They're not designed to
767
00:46:53.610 --> 00:46:56.590
do this, but they do help election administrators, as you know.
768
00:46:57.269 --> 00:47:02.409
So where do we go from here if not a
769
00:47:02.489 --> 00:47:06.510
sort of a program for each state to implement of
770
00:47:06.570 --> 00:47:07.849
documentary proof of citizenship?
771
00:47:09.070 --> 00:47:11.369
Yeah, well, I think we are a little bit getting
772
00:47:11.409 --> 00:47:15.849
there de facto, not de jure, through the Real ID Act,
773
00:47:16.250 --> 00:47:18.550
which does often have citizenship tied to it.
774
00:47:18.570 --> 00:47:21.389
So, for instance, Georgia is a state that doesn't.
775
00:47:22.840 --> 00:47:25.659
Say, you have to have documented proof of citizenship in
776
00:47:25.719 --> 00:47:27.840
order to participate in Georgia elections.
777
00:47:28.139 --> 00:47:29.960
It just so happens that I think like.
778
00:47:30.579 --> 00:47:36.369
Plus of Georgians have documented proof of citizenship on file
779
00:47:36.469 --> 00:47:40.429
through their state motor vehicle division, through that Real ID program.
780
00:47:40.710 --> 00:47:43.429
But you're absolutely right that that's a decision that we
781
00:47:43.449 --> 00:47:45.429
have made as a country. And I think that that
782
00:47:45.469 --> 00:47:48.309
sort of plays to our civil libertarian legacy, that we
783
00:47:48.349 --> 00:47:54.000
do not have a universal citizenship database within the federal
784
00:47:54.039 --> 00:47:56.119
government or even within state governments.
785
00:47:56.599 --> 00:47:58.039
We can cobble stuff together.
786
00:47:58.079 --> 00:48:00.420
And I think the SAVE program at the federal level
787
00:48:00.760 --> 00:48:03.099
is the best attempt, the best effort to sort of
788
00:48:03.159 --> 00:48:07.360
cobble that together. But I think that's also, again, a
789
00:48:07.480 --> 00:48:10.739
legitimate public policy question of do we want any one
790
00:48:10.800 --> 00:48:16.940
government entity to have a national citizenship database? And maybe,
791
00:48:16.960 --> 00:48:21.460
you know, maybe I think people's level of sort of
792
00:48:21.960 --> 00:48:24.969
concern over this has changed from what it was 20
793
00:48:24.969 --> 00:48:28.190
years ago. And certainly within the Republican Party, I think
794
00:48:28.250 --> 00:48:32.329
it has changed materially. But to make that assessment properly,
795
00:48:32.369 --> 00:48:36.280
we'd have to balance those privacy risks with what we
796
00:48:36.320 --> 00:48:39.820
think the actual harm is. And there I keep going
797
00:48:39.860 --> 00:48:44.139
back to show me the good stuff, show me the proof.
798
00:48:44.760 --> 00:48:47.309
And again, I'll say what I said at the outset,
799
00:48:47.369 --> 00:48:49.010
which is I think this is a little bit the
800
00:48:49.050 --> 00:48:52.329
dog that hasn't barked because President Trump has, boy, this
801
00:48:52.409 --> 00:48:54.760
is important to him. And he's allocated a lot of
802
00:48:54.820 --> 00:48:58.460
federal law enforcement resources to it. And just the yield
803
00:48:58.500 --> 00:49:01.460
has been pretty skimpy so far.
804
00:49:04.360 --> 00:49:06.889
Well, you know, that may be one area of disagreement
805
00:49:06.949 --> 00:49:10.099
we have. I mean, when I... Particularly when it came
806
00:49:10.159 --> 00:49:12.489
to New Jersey and if you go back to Oregon
807
00:49:12.550 --> 00:49:16.869
and Pennsylvania, we're talking about thousands of applicants, usually with
808
00:49:16.929 --> 00:49:19.429
automatic voter registration that were just placed on the roll.
809
00:49:20.219 --> 00:49:26.760
Sometimes it was the mistake of the driver's license agency.
810
00:49:27.710 --> 00:49:33.570
Sometimes it was the applicant, the non-citizen themselves. But when
811
00:49:33.590 --> 00:49:36.269
I talk to people about that, those are significant numbers
812
00:49:36.349 --> 00:49:40.320
where perhaps it could have been mitigated by The individual
813
00:49:40.340 --> 00:49:42.579
themselves saying, I'm not a citizen. I don't want to
814
00:49:42.599 --> 00:49:45.969
be on the rolls. But you find that common. You know,
815
00:49:45.989 --> 00:49:48.889
we don't have a system in place to not only
816
00:49:48.969 --> 00:49:53.170
sort of verify the citizenship of someone who is trying
817
00:49:53.230 --> 00:49:57.110
to maliciously register. Right. Who is a non-citizen is trying
818
00:49:57.130 --> 00:50:00.500
to game the system criminally or intentionally. And those that
819
00:50:00.579 --> 00:50:03.500
are not, that they're accidentally placed on the voter rolls.
820
00:50:04.059 --> 00:50:06.550
And there are consequences to being placed on the voter rolls.
821
00:50:06.610 --> 00:50:09.409
And so in many ways, I think that we have
822
00:50:09.449 --> 00:50:13.929
a responsibility as election officials and as legislators and the
823
00:50:13.989 --> 00:50:17.690
Congress to develop a system that's like, look, you're not
824
00:50:17.750 --> 00:50:21.119
going to be placed on the voter rolls unless there
825
00:50:21.159 --> 00:50:24.420
are certain verifications that have taken place. We now have
826
00:50:24.440 --> 00:50:28.289
the time, you know, It's not going to take that
827
00:50:28.349 --> 00:50:31.900
long to take place. Save is saying it takes 20,
828
00:50:31.900 --> 00:50:36.000
they could do things in 24 to 48 hours. And
829
00:50:36.059 --> 00:50:39.920
so I think that don't we have a responsibility, just
830
00:50:39.960 --> 00:50:42.619
like any other process, I come in to get the
831
00:50:42.639 --> 00:50:45.500
driver's license and I want to make sure I'm a citizen.
832
00:50:45.539 --> 00:50:48.380
If I have my documentation in order, it takes place
833
00:50:48.780 --> 00:50:52.860
that day, that minute. Don't we have a responsibility that
834
00:50:52.949 --> 00:50:56.889
we can do this technically and we can do provide
835
00:50:56.909 --> 00:50:59.670
that opportunity to register to vote, take care of that
836
00:50:59.730 --> 00:51:05.349
so we don't have, you know, ineligible people who are
837
00:51:05.409 --> 00:51:08.070
just here to resign the United States for work purposes
838
00:51:08.150 --> 00:51:12.239
or other, that they don't inadvertently being placed on the
839
00:51:12.280 --> 00:51:16.699
voter rolls because of another voting reform, automatic voter registration,
840
00:51:16.880 --> 00:51:21.199
or just the driver's license process. I think that we
841
00:51:21.239 --> 00:51:25.090
have a responsibility to make sure our processes work And
842
00:51:25.110 --> 00:51:28.329
so what you see in those states where they just
843
00:51:28.369 --> 00:51:33.000
didn't do the work to verify eligibility on the front end.
844
00:51:33.420 --> 00:51:39.139
And that's when you have a series of stories, sometimes non-citizen,
845
00:51:39.179 --> 00:51:44.360
maybe it's, you know, other and other eligible like felons
846
00:51:44.409 --> 00:51:48.409
I talked about earlier. That just really impacts voter confidence
847
00:51:48.429 --> 00:51:52.539
because People see that, not necessarily election officials, and they say, well,
848
00:51:52.579 --> 00:51:55.909
what is going on? They have higher expectations of election
849
00:51:55.949 --> 00:51:59.949
officials than we understand, that we know what the basic
850
00:51:59.989 --> 00:52:04.150
fundamentals are. But they don't necessarily understand why isn't the
851
00:52:04.210 --> 00:52:05.369
government doing its job.
852
00:52:06.929 --> 00:52:10.510
Yeah. But I do want to point, I largely agree.
853
00:52:10.550 --> 00:52:12.389
I do want to point out again, though, that the
854
00:52:12.429 --> 00:52:15.590
New Jersey situation wouldn't have necessarily been remedied by the
855
00:52:15.610 --> 00:52:19.849
Save America Act because these people clicked a box saying
856
00:52:19.869 --> 00:52:22.869
that they were not citizens and that box then switched
857
00:52:23.070 --> 00:52:25.380
over and said that they were citizens. And because New
858
00:52:25.409 --> 00:52:29.619
Jersey has automatic voter registration, they were immediately registered. But
859
00:52:29.679 --> 00:52:33.059
I also want to keep that situation, which is the
860
00:52:33.099 --> 00:52:36.280
worst of its kind that I'm aware of, in perspective
861
00:52:36.579 --> 00:52:42.139
in that it registered improperly 6,600 non-citizens to be on
862
00:52:42.179 --> 00:52:46.409
the New Jersey voter rolls. New Jersey has about 6.7
863
00:52:46.409 --> 00:52:51.670
million registered voters and about 400 of that 6,600 then
864
00:52:51.769 --> 00:52:54.949
voted in an election. And that was improper. They were
865
00:52:54.989 --> 00:52:57.250
not citizens. They shouldn't have been on the rolls and
866
00:52:57.269 --> 00:53:00.940
they shouldn't have voted. But in November 2024, New Jersey
867
00:53:00.960 --> 00:53:06.000
had about 4.3 million people participate in the November 2024 election.
868
00:53:06.519 --> 00:53:09.239
I agree, that's damaging to voter confidence. There's no doubt
869
00:53:09.300 --> 00:53:12.559
about it. I can't exactly tell you how sticky it is.
870
00:53:13.239 --> 00:53:17.510
And another suspicion that I have is that, yeah, that's
871
00:53:17.570 --> 00:53:24.489
damaging to voter confidence. But probably more damaging is Elon
872
00:53:24.530 --> 00:53:29.630
Musk or some other high-profile Twitter account saying something that
873
00:53:29.730 --> 00:53:34.070
is just flatly wrong about election administration or saying that
874
00:53:34.469 --> 00:53:39.550
tabulators switch votes. And as disappointing as that is to
875
00:53:39.670 --> 00:53:44.320
me as a former election administrator, I'm also not going
876
00:53:44.340 --> 00:53:48.719
to legislate away that problem just because it would inspire
877
00:53:48.800 --> 00:53:53.380
confidence in American elections. And so, again, I think that
878
00:53:53.420 --> 00:53:56.940
this is a legitimate public policy conversation. I'll repeat that
879
00:53:57.019 --> 00:54:00.760
I have great sympathies for the idea of documented proof
880
00:54:00.800 --> 00:54:03.500
of citizenship. I think it can be done in this
881
00:54:03.559 --> 00:54:05.800
day and age in a way that is not unduly
882
00:54:05.860 --> 00:54:09.909
burdensome to the individual voter. I'm not sure that's the
883
00:54:09.929 --> 00:54:13.090
way that's reflected in the Save America Vote Act, but
884
00:54:13.170 --> 00:54:15.269
I do think it can be done. But what I
885
00:54:15.389 --> 00:54:19.130
firmly reject is the notion that if we don't have
886
00:54:19.170 --> 00:54:22.869
the Save America Act, our elections are going to be
887
00:54:22.949 --> 00:54:28.849
fundamentally broken. And that sorry to sound like a broken record,
888
00:54:29.289 --> 00:54:32.909
but just is not something that we have data to support.
889
00:54:34.150 --> 00:54:36.010
I need to jump in here because our time is up.
890
00:54:36.570 --> 00:54:38.530
We're now going to proceed to our closing statements. We
891
00:54:38.550 --> 00:54:40.889
go in reverse order of the order that we started with.
892
00:54:40.909 --> 00:54:43.320
So that means, Stephen, you have your two minutes and
893
00:54:43.360 --> 00:54:45.760
we'll conclude with Don.
894
00:54:45.980 --> 00:54:49.900
I think I pretty much just stated my closing argument there,
895
00:54:50.019 --> 00:54:56.730
which is that I don't object on any philosophical basis
896
00:54:57.070 --> 00:55:02.440
to documented proof of citizenship. That's a legitimate public policy conversation,
897
00:55:02.639 --> 00:55:04.980
and we can have a discussion about the pros and
898
00:55:05.039 --> 00:55:08.980
cons to that, the cost-benefit of that, the technicality of that.
899
00:55:09.179 --> 00:55:12.719
Don and I both appreciate that that's very important, all
900
00:55:12.760 --> 00:55:15.380
those things to take into account. We might have some
901
00:55:15.440 --> 00:55:20.880
disagreement about whether or not Save America Act 430 satisfactorily
902
00:55:21.019 --> 00:55:23.940
takes all those things into account, but those are important
903
00:55:23.960 --> 00:55:27.420
things to take into account as would be for instance,
904
00:55:27.519 --> 00:55:33.320
the duration over which it's implemented. But the point that
905
00:55:33.429 --> 00:55:36.889
I want to make is that you can have confidence
906
00:55:37.190 --> 00:55:41.389
in the 2026 midterm election, and you can have confidence
907
00:55:41.550 --> 00:55:44.969
in the 2028 presidential election, and you can have confidence
908
00:55:45.389 --> 00:55:51.090
in the past 2024 presidential election, even though that election
909
00:55:51.150 --> 00:55:55.269
didn't have the Save America Act in implementation, and even
910
00:55:55.369 --> 00:56:00.820
if future elections don't have the Save America Act in implementation.
911
00:56:01.380 --> 00:56:06.539
And that's because the data simply suggests that non-citizens participating
912
00:56:06.619 --> 00:56:10.320
in American elections, while it does indeed happen, is a
913
00:56:10.389 --> 00:56:13.269
fraction of a fraction of a percent. And so I
914
00:56:13.309 --> 00:56:16.489
don't think that it's something that we should be apocalyptic about.
915
00:56:17.090 --> 00:56:19.590
I don't think it's something that merits an address from
916
00:56:19.630 --> 00:56:22.820
the Oval Office, the likes of which allegedly haven't been
917
00:56:22.860 --> 00:56:25.980
seen since the Cuban missile crisis. I think it's a,
918
00:56:27.920 --> 00:56:32.340
let's contextualize this. It's a technical challenge, and I think
919
00:56:32.380 --> 00:56:35.260
we can come up with a technical solution, but let's
920
00:56:35.300 --> 00:56:36.460
not blow it out of proportion.
921
00:56:36.719 --> 00:56:37.440
So thanks very much.
922
00:56:38.380 --> 00:56:40.630
Thank you, Stephen. The last word is with you, Don.
923
00:56:40.650 --> 00:56:44.949
Thank you, Henry. Thank you, Stephen. I appreciate the discussion.
924
00:56:46.079 --> 00:56:48.320
I think that in the end, the question was, is
925
00:56:48.820 --> 00:56:53.360
the Save America Act necessary for election integrity? And again,
926
00:56:53.380 --> 00:56:56.539
I think that what we have is a process and
927
00:56:56.579 --> 00:56:59.449
a system now under the National Voter Registration Act for
928
00:56:59.469 --> 00:57:04.210
voter registration that really was not designed to verify citizenship.
929
00:57:05.070 --> 00:57:08.329
And so the Save America Act is really a modification
930
00:57:08.389 --> 00:57:11.369
to that federal act, which already preempts a lot of
931
00:57:11.409 --> 00:57:15.320
state voter registration law. What we have today is a
932
00:57:15.380 --> 00:57:20.840
very non-uniform and very antiquated process in the states. It's
933
00:57:20.929 --> 00:57:25.250
not designed to verify citizenship thoroughly or comprehensively at the
934
00:57:25.269 --> 00:57:29.090
driver's license agencies. And so we talk about whether or
935
00:57:29.110 --> 00:57:32.590
not we have enough of a problem. We've had multiple
936
00:57:32.650 --> 00:57:37.070
states that have significant numbers of non-citizens that were inappropriately
937
00:57:37.150 --> 00:57:39.730
added to the voter rolls. Then when we have audits
938
00:57:40.210 --> 00:57:43.090
of states with using the same database, you find that
939
00:57:43.400 --> 00:57:47.920
multiple instances of non-citizens being placed on the rolls. So
940
00:57:47.940 --> 00:57:50.739
we obviously know that there's a problem and there's a
941
00:57:50.800 --> 00:57:54.260
warning signs that this could become a larger issue. And
942
00:57:54.280 --> 00:57:56.969
that's why the Congress really needs to act. It needs
943
00:57:57.050 --> 00:58:02.469
to provide uniformity across the states in a uniform manner. Otherwise,
944
00:58:02.489 --> 00:58:05.650
the Supreme Court will continue to take or in courts
945
00:58:05.710 --> 00:58:09.860
to try to find a way to deal with state
946
00:58:09.880 --> 00:58:12.980
laws that are addressing this issue of documentary proof citizenship.
947
00:58:13.559 --> 00:58:17.659
And so that's why I think that the Save America Act,
948
00:58:18.119 --> 00:58:22.269
really dealing with citizenship and photo ID are two ways
949
00:58:22.369 --> 00:58:25.530
to sort of increase the integrity of elections and to
950
00:58:25.590 --> 00:58:26.690
improve voter confidence.
951
00:58:28.030 --> 00:58:28.710
Thank you, Don.
952
00:58:28.929 --> 00:58:29.670
Thank you, Stephen.
953
00:58:29.710 --> 00:58:34.039
And thank you, listeners. Conservative Crossroads will be back again
954
00:58:34.260 --> 00:58:38.179
in two weeks with another program. The topic, has President
955
00:58:38.199 --> 00:58:42.519
Trump been doing enough to advance a pro-life agenda? Take care.
956
00:58:45.360 --> 00:58:45.599
Thank you.