Building Democracy in the 21st Century: Common Ground for Trusted Elections

foreign [Music] [Music] group coordinator and a member of the student Advisory Board here at the Dole Institute welcome to the Dole Institute of politics and thank you for attending today's program discussion groups are made possible by the Newman Zone foundation and this program is presented in partnership with the Carter Center we'd like to thank everyone at the on the Carter center team with a special thanks to Avery Davis Roberts and Maria Cartier today's program will be live streamed and available on our YouTube channel you can also access videos of past adult Institute programs by visiting our YouTube channel anytime you may be also you may also be able to find this session on C-Span in the coming days after the program we will have some time for audience questions if you have a question you please raise your hand in a student worker with a microphone will come to you for virtual viewers please send your questions to dull questions at ku.edu please ask just one brief question the Dole institute's mission is to Foster civil and respectful discussion around important and often difficult topics please phrase your questions with this in mind and ask just one brief question before we begin I'd like to remind you to please turn off your cell phones and now please join me in welcoming former Dole fellow and editor of the Wall Street Journal Jerry seibe thank you it's nice to be back in Kansas back at the Dole Institute and nice to be out of Washington frankly it's always true um and it's nice to be here with these folks because the size of the churn out here probably is Testament to the fact we have some really interesting and important people here to talk about a really interesting important topic and I want to introduce you to them first and then we'll launch into it and in the finest dual Institute fashion we have a Republican and a Democrat and me neither so that's good um uh Brad raffensberger the secretary of state of Georgia a republican has served as Georgia's Secretary of State since 2019. in that time he's overseen Georgia public records and Georgia elections including the highly publicized U.S Senate runoff elections in 2020 and 2021 and this presidential race in 2020 that you may have read about and that he wrote an entire book about at least the part uh Brad won re-election himself in 2022 after a contentious Republican primary he's also the owner of tendon is that I say that right Systems LLC especially Contracting and engineering design firm with nearly 150 employees Maggie Toulouse Oliver a Democrat has served as New Mexico Secretary of State since 2016. as Secretary of State Oliver has modernized New Mexico elections and advocated for reforms to increase transparency and Maggie's also the former president of the National Association of secretaries of state and serves on a number number of government commissions and Civic boards and please join me in walking in welcoming both here and I just also wanted to note that Scott Schwab your Kansas secretary of state has also joined us here today so thank you um so we are we obviously gather here at a moment when our democracy and its norms and its institutions are under pressure perhaps more pressure than we've ever witnessed in our lifetimes we did not have a peaceful transition of power after the 2020 uh presidential election which is the Hallmark of a healthy democracy millions of Americans still don't believe or at least say they still don't believe the results of that 2020 presidential election a former president actually suggested suspending the Constitution so that he could be returned to office these are not normal things and the question is what do we do to restore the confidence in the Integrity of our electoral system and that's what we're here to talk about today these two guests are grappling with that question every day on the front lines of democracy and so I think they have found ways to start answering that question so one of the ways you guys have found to start answering that question is where I want to start which is you both signed the candidate principles for trusted election statement that was pioneered by The Carter Center about a year ago and has now been picked up by a lot of other organizations and let me just quickly tell you the principles that are in that statement honest process civil campaigns secure voting sorry responsible oversight and trusted outcomes and trusted outcomes in this statement means this make claims of election irregularities in accordance with the law and acknowledge the legitimacy of outcomes after the results have been certified in all contestations decided so let me ask you East for stars and Brad I'll start with you why did you decide to sign this candidate principles for trusted elections and did it make a difference for you in your state in your own election well I think that if you're the cook you ought to be happy with your cooking and so we have the rules in Georgia and I wanted everyone to know that we're going to have honest and fair elections and if I lost I wasn't going to be bellyaching about it accept it and maybe come back again or just hang it up and find something else to do but I think that was really important and I wanted people to have trust I understand that it took a major shot after 2020 but we actually really goes for us goes back to 2018 when Stacey Abrams lost by 55 000 votes and didn't concede that that was disruptive at this level then when a president you know does something it just ramped it up by you know I don't know what power it was exponential but I think as people didn't understand that we trust the process and this if the results are calculated it'll be fair and it'll be accurate and we'll abide by it and we expect other candidates to abide by it as well Maggie I I agree with all of that I think it was this was an easy pledge for me to sign because it's already the way I personally the the personal values and ethics that I hold about uh myself personally and also engaging in campaigning and um so I think I Believe As Leaders we ought to lead by example um so I agree with everything Brad just said I think you thought you're going to find that we do agree on an awful lot um so there probably aren't going to be a whole lot of fireworks between us today which I think is is a good thing um we need more we need fewer fireworks not more um but you know for me too as a candidate you know if I want other people to behave this way if I want other people to engage in civil discourse in their campaigns if I want other people to accept election outcomes and to your point and that pledge it also talks about you know there are legal processes that any candidate in any state and they look a little bit different maybe in every state but can engage in in order to you know if there are legitimate questions about the conduct of an election if there are legitimate issues that need to be examined by a court after the fact Etc that can happen and and we're not saying nobody can do that but what we are saying is you know the sort of the just casting or painting with a broad brush oh this this election was rigged you know it's the the elect the machines are rigging the vote whatever you know there's so many different versions of of the same frankly lie out there um but to not engage in that and I thought that was really important you know you both endured plenty of controversy in 2020 obviously Brad you got a call from the president of the United States uh pressuring you to quote find 11 870 votes so he could win the state of Georgia which you write about in some detail in your book and Maggie your state was challenged in court by the Trump campaign even though Joe Biden won by 11 percentage points in New Mexico over 100 000. yes but but it didn't stop there because you both faced controversies again in 2022 Brad Democrats objected to a new election law that was put in place and claimed it was a voter suppression law Jim Crow 2.0 I think was the phrase and you Maggie there was a conservative County in your state that refused simply refused to certify the election results because County Commissioners thought that the Dominion voting systems had fixed the vote I want to ask you both about those but let me start here with you Maggie because um I'm wondering what those experiences leave you thinking about the current state of the debate and in particular Maggie we saw what happened yesterday in which Dominion of voting machines won a 785 87 million dollar uh uh settlement with Fox News because their claims that the Dominion voting systems were rigged turned out not to be true question is is this debate over Dominion voting systems over now as a result of that settlement or not I I wish it were I mean I think this goes a long way I hope that the people who are paying attention and and I think they're you know we use the term election denier some of us you know I think they're they're folks who who have have trust in our election system who who deny the truth of the outcome of the 2020 presidential election election deniers so I hope those folks who are maybe on the fence and and genuinely curious genuinely don't know um because they're hearing things from both sides I certainly hope that the Dominion settlement goes a long way because part of that settlement it's not just Fox paying out uh you know three quarters of a billion dollars to a private company it's the admission that they knowingly spread lies about the systems that both of our states use to conduct elections that being said unfortunately I think that this notion that the election in 2020 was rigged and that our elections are not to be trusted has taken such deep root with a certain part of our population that it it is going to take much more than that unfortunately and I don't know what we we have these conversations a lot what will it take to get folks back on the side of trusting our election process that that is exactly what we are trying to figure out every single day and Brad you know you the voting in Georgia in 2022 appeared to come off very smoothly Democrats did quite well they hung onto that senate seat but you still face charges that the new election law in your state was suppressing votes what what's your response how are you answering people who continue to question whether Georgia is doing it right well we think we are doing it right I was telling the students back there that probably all the good stuff you like is stuff that we wrote in our office but we just had to keep a low profile because if that got out then they probably would not vote for it because at that time my name was mud but we wanted to make sure that we had some changes and updates to law number one is we now have photo ID for any form of voting in Georgia we've had photo ID for in-person voting for probably about 15 years now but now if you want to vote absentee we do it through a driver's license number we're real ID compliant so that's photo ID now when I talk to my bipartisan rotary group I can I can be honest with it I might tell them we actually copied Minnesota you know and because Minnesota is on the left side of the aisle but when I talk to others the tea party groups Republican groups I tell them I say Minnesota and Nebraska and I'll throw in Kansas so they know that okay we got both and then I say Texas even copied us but what people don't realize we we had been sued by both Republican party and Democrats on signature match because they said it's subjective well I'm an engineer I think they're right and so we said let's take that off the table we'll use objective criteria and so that's really important we're also a member of Eric the electronic registration information center which was not part of that but now it's taking some shots from people but we can update our voter rolls objectively because we don't pull people off by saying that they don't live here anymore we find out that they actually have moved to another state that's a member of Eric so it lets us have cleaner you know voter list and we think that's important we added a day of early voting we'd have two Saturdays of early voting and what we found on those those second Saturday you know who was voting on there middle class people with middle class jobs people that couldn't get off Monday to Friday and so they could then come out and vote Saturday we thought that was a great thing and so we had record turnout we have record registrations and we had record participation and now we just followed that up this year with our General Assembly we now have mandated by law that you can get time off to vote if you want to vote early and why that's so important for us in Georgia is that we don't have 65 percent of our voters are voting early with 17 days about 30 percent then are voting on Election Day and about five or six percent are voting no excuse after devoting so people like to vote in person in Georgia and so that's our preference other states have different preferences but we give you lots of options but we want you to know we're going to honest and fair elections and just like that line that goes right down there every County election director they're charged with doing their job don't look left don't look right just do your job follow the law follow the Constitution it's the candidate's job to win elections that's not our job our job is to follow the law but let me draw you out Maggie on this because you don't have voter ID in your state correct we don't require a government-issued photo ID in person to vote so is Georgia wrong to do that folks like to draw us into this debate and and make us sort of pick on each other well I don't see I don't see you doing that so that's excellent um you know because it's it's one of those hot button issues right it's it's what we call a wedge issue in American politics right so you know let's let's get people on either side of this this wedge and and try to force it um if if it works you know for me philosophically my bottom line is are is it a barrier to participation are people able to vote under the system and if it works in Georgia then that's great you know in my state we don't see it as a we see it as a solution to a problem we're not seeing we don't we don't have the same kind of you know subjectivity challenges that secretary raffensberger was talking about we don't see a rash of people trying to impersonate others at the polls in fact it's an incredibly um high risk low reward act to to get charged with a felony on the odd chance that the one vote that you cast is actually going to change the outcome of the election that being said um you know what works in a state is and we're seeing robust participation and look at all the other things you know Georgia is doing um to to Really encourage that voter participation and make it easy for folks to vote and I think that's a great thing yeah um you know Brad I was going to follow up on one thing you mentioned which is the Stacy Abrams precedent and you you talk about this in the book that that's where this started in Georgia to some extent um is this really a bipartisan problem this idea that I'm not going to accept the results of the election if I'm not happy with them or is it really mostly a problem in your party frankly and Stacey Abrams is the outlier well I think that you've seen it on both sides of the aisle but like I said when the president of the United States of America the most powerful position elected position we have in this country and then we are the world leader and so it's the most powerful position in the in the world now they can ramp things up to a whole different level and when they have 80 million Twitter followers and we had about 40 000 maybe 45 000 on a good day it's tough to compete against that we felt like the Swiss Army you know going up against the best of the American Military it might be good but you know they can just swamp the boat and so that's kind of the issues that you have it's just at a whole different level but it's not based on honesty and that's at the end of the day it's it's a core issue it's basic honesty Integrity character and those are Kansas values and those are American values those are Western Pennsylvania values because those are my dad's values and those are Georgia values those are American values those are just Eternal values and we need to you know get the get the train back on the tracks with those values and once we have the value systems in place and we won't tolerate people deviating from the norm then I think things are going to work out but I think until we really figure that part out I think that we're whistling in the wind well but I want to go there because the the broader question that hangs over this isn't what you went through in 2020 or 2022 but how do you get the train back on the tracks how do we get past this moment and take the question off the table what is what steps do do the United States of America need it's these people right here the voters need to hold people that run for office accountable and say we won't put up with that and you just don't vote for them and you expect a certain standard and so that really gets back to accountability and the voters do figure it out so I've never doubted the goodness of my fellow Georgians and I bet you you know Scott here he never doubts the goodness of his the average kansans because people are good just about all over the country I've never gone to a place with my wife that we just said these are nice people here and so Americans are just great people they're good honest decent people they won't put up with it so don't put up with it expect a higher standard Paul writes about that in his book in Titus about what he expects of the overseers and the community and that's what you need to be demanding for who holds office from city council to the state house to the president United States of America and I think the good news is that we we saw that in 2022 right Brad was re-elected in Georgia right which was awesome [Applause] uh I I ran against uh an election denier in my state and I was re-elected right around the country thank you yeah Scott oh my gosh you had what that fun primary too right so so so look I mean for the most part I mean they're they're you know there are some exceptions out there right and we still do I mean there there's a vocal minority um that are in elected office um that are still continuing to perpetuate um The Myth at the 2020 election was rigged or stolen or something like that but that's the question why does that persist I mean if you took a poll we've done it at the Wall Street Journal and I'm still part of the Wall Street Journal polling operation you still have a significant share of Americans mostly almost entirely in the Republican Party who say it wasn't fairly decided how does that continue and what do you do to turn that around if anything I mean I think it's a couple of things I think it's first of all it's time right I mean if you if any rough patch in American history three we have managed to collectively get through it and it doesn't mean that it was pretty in the process but we have managed to collectively get through it with time with intentionality so a lot of the things our states are doing the the voter reform uh work that that Brad did in Georgia the work we're doing in my state if you look around at other states they're they're they're all doing more to increase the level of transparency in the process one of the things that we're doing is we're encouraging folks especially those who have questions or doubts about the election process to get more involved to serve as poll workers to work you know temporary jobs to even just be an observer for a day at your polling location on behalf of a political party or nonpartisan group like common cause so I think the more that we're able to integrate folks and really bring them in and also do these things like post-election audits things that are done to verify and double check I mean gosh in Georgia you guys did three I think full hand recounts of the 2020 ballots or something like that um you know both both a complete recount and then the audit the more of those things we can do I hope that the really the hurt the bad feelings and that's where I think it really stems from right just people being really unhappy with the outcome and to Brad's point you know the fact that you've got this incredibly loud megaphone right that has just continued to to to bring up those hurt feelings over and over and over and over and over again if we can kind of get past the point in time where that's happening on a daily basis and and we are getting there it's just it's slow and we're in the middle of it and it's hard to see it's hard to see where we end up right now if you had to pick a couple of things Brad that could be done to get past this moment back on the tracks not in Georgia but around the country what would those be I don't know if I have a quick and easy answer on that I think I've just pretty laid it all out it gets back to the individual character that you're looking at from a candidate in themselves but we do encourage the transparency is very important and one of the challenge we had with the county election directors is they're so honest and they just don't understand why do I have to have all this transparency of course I'm honest I know you're honest everyone knows your product but there's not a lot of trust out there so it's like make sure you know that you don't have sheetrock on those walls that they're actually Glass Walls let people look in on the process and encourage people to become poll workers the number one thing that we need are more poll workers all the time and it really once you work through the process so it's really engage more people in the process but then also as I go out and I talk all the time to you know Community groups I've been you know I was in south Georgia early uh in the week also in North Georgia talking one to a chamber group the other one to Rotary groups but Community groups and just really getting the message out taking questions from anyone every anywhere just like we'll do here tonight and if you really take people's questions and then you respond to them don't blow them off and give them a respectful answer sir they have the answer they may not like what you've said because of what's in the answer but they do have the answer are they listening yeah I think they by and large you know I went to a tea party meeting in North Georgia and for a one hour lunch and I was there for like an hour and 45 minutes and one of the ladies what she wanted she wanted to receipt and I thought well when we do with a paper ballot it doesn't mean you get a receipt because the ballot stays in The Ballot Box the reason you don't get the receipt is so it stops your boat buying and she didn't never really understand that but I understood where she she was expecting that but she didn't still like that answer but at least I addressed it with her and doesn't mean she has to like it but I'm just going to have an honest conversation with her and she had an honest one with me yeah you know you you mentioned the need for more poll workers um which I get there's also another factor in this equation we haven't touched on yet which is intimidation of people who work on elections intimidation of people like you and you I know you each have your own horror stories about intimidation and threats you've gotten that filters all the way down to poll workers so two questions for each of you um how big a problem is that in terms of getting people to work on elections so they run smoothly and and can be efficient and secondly what can be done to stop intimidation of people who do what you guys do and what the people who work for you do which is to try to run honest elections what what can be done first of all how big a problem is it I mean I think it's a real problem I think in a place you know you know there were some were some issues with folks in in Georgia and in in really those Battleground States uh throughout the country that we saw in 2020 which which by the way news flash are going to be the same Battleground States uh in 2024 more than likely um so we didn't have those issues as much during the course of the election or in the immediate aftermath of the election of my state as they did in Georgia and places like Nevada and Michigan Pennsylvania Ohio or not Ohio anymore Ohio is not a no it's not a real estate anymore but you can tell my brain is still in uh 20 years ago but anyway um so I think it's a big issue I think it's situational but I Am Naturally concerned about the folks that are working the polls and and that our staff and that our volunteers at the county level in my state and so we just passed a bill in my state to sort of answer the second part of your question uh that really increases the penalties for intimidation harassment and threats of violence against anybody who is working an election whether it be the Secretary of State down to uh you know somebody who works the polls maybe just one day because we we are hopeful that that will you know really discourage the the behavior from getting any worse well obviously we've had intimidation of our election workers in Georgia I guess Ruby Freeman and you know mother daughter team that you saw in Fulton County and also a gentleman that was working in Gwinnett County and that's really when Gabriel Sterling you know our chief operating officer probably had the speech of all speeches when he went to the podium and he would just you know basically spoke with a lot of passion and I was just so proud of what he said behaved himself I'm glad I didn't do it because I'm a contractor and I don't know what I would have said but I just said what needed to be said called people out if you want to lead lead and Lead appropriately and so it has been an issue we even had in Bartow County which is an 80 20 County some of the poll workers were followed home it was at 80 percent president Trump County and that doesn't make sense and so we had that type of thing I do believe that there should be additional penalties for anyone that threatens poll workers election workers because if you think about it I don't know what they pay here in Kansas maybe we need to get their pay up here Scott it's about it's it's like a hundred and fifty dollars you know it's a nominal amount of money you know per day you know some some counties can only afford 110 so it truly is public service and so they're doing this many of the people are retired and this is like something to give back to their communities and that is to be rewarded and esteemed and really just you know elevated and so I think there should be additional so but in that period between 2020 and 2022 given how much the intimidation was publicized in Georgia did you have a fall off in people who were willing to do this we still actually feel you know we had enough people and that was just really the counties worked very hard on Recruitment and so I was really proud of the effort of our County election directors and we've been coming along our counties run elections just like they do in most other states so we've been coming alongside of our election directors to give them that support moral support you know pat on the back just to encourage them to continue to do the great work that they do and do you think do you think there is more that could be done nationally on this front or is this really a state issue I don't like the FED uh the idea of federal takeover of Elections but I do think that we should have poll worker protections at a federal level well if the states won't do it yeah yeah you I I just agreed today to sign on to a piece of bipartisan piece of legislation that's co-sponsored uh by Senator Klobuchar Minnesota we're talking about Minnesota a lot here today um the federal election protection worker act and you know I don't know what its chances are but I you know I I agree I think um you know when it comes to you know threatening election officials that are engaged in conducting Federal elections um there I think it is appropriate to have Federal penalties for that behavior do you you you would agree with that I think that we need to make sure that there are penalties so that it's a deterrent because these people that have volunteered to be a poll worker also take an oath of office they're putting their hand and they're swearing that they'll be faithful the constitution of their state and to the United States Constitution and so it's really like jury duty it's like being almost like a law enforcement officer I think that there's certain positions should be protected against any type of coercion or intimidation so let's look forward a little bit I mean you've both been through two elections in 2020 and 2022 which were conducted in this kind of pressure cooker environment that we've been talking about there's another one in 2024. um what elements of this uh pressure cooker that we've been talking about do you think or fear will still be there in 2024 and which ones do you think maybe we've gotten past maybe maybe you can start Maggie I'll start with the positive I mean God willing we will not be conducting an election during a roaring pandemic that you know not only had the public health implications that it had but just you know created such a you know toxic polarization you know who I call me naive and I guess I am but I never would have thought you know that that a Public Health crisis would have created the the political you know partisanship that it did but um so hopefully we don't have that factor to try to operate under and a lot of I think the challenges and the issues that arose out of 2020 arose out of the fact that states were locked down that people were in their homes that people were closing their businesses right I mean there was just so much emotion and tension going on um so that I think is going to be a pressure valve you know release valve on some of the challenges that we had in 2020 however the the effect of the lies and the Miss and disinformation that or spread about the the outcome of the 2020 election they have taken I think even deeper root at a local level so we may not even see the exact same Playbook on the national level in terms of just sort of calling an election rigged but now we have these homegrown like in my state we have this homegrown organization that's sort of going around to all the local County officials and saying you know your your machines aren't you know counting things correctly you know the selection is rigged and so dredging up new stuff let me Dory on that who's who is doing that exactly we have a local homegrown pair of activists uh uh that have sort of just decided that they're election experts and the uh one of them is an engineer but but but isn't it unlike our engineer here on the stages and isn't actually an election expert has just sort of self-declared right and so they're you know they're going around and they're making graphs and you know creating charts that look you know very legitimate and you know trying to sort of you know it's sort of a traveling Road show uh of you know our elections aren't valid and so I mean in States like mine and and mine isn't the only state that's dealing with this type of kind of like I say homegrown situation it's going to have its its own flavor everywhere and are they being believed as they do the road show in some places yes and you mentioned Otero County yeah you know the county that last summer refused to certify their election that that was sort of their that was their high point you know that was one of the first counties they hit and raise these questions and issues and then look what happened well is Otero County going to be using Dominion voting machines yes they her every voting system in New Mexico is a Dominion voting system same with us yes yeah okay yes how timely that you're here yes I wonder why they picked us you don't get a share of the settlement though right yeah I was going to say we should all get free voting machines you know like wouldn't that be nice that talk a little bit Brad about what you think what's going to carry forward and still be problematic in 2024 and what have we maybe left on the roadside between 2020 and now from the standpoint of this was an off year for us so legislatively our law is pretty much fixed for next year I don't know if there you could do anything of any major sorts we know what next year looks like from the standpoint of the law one of the things that's a practical matter we use ballot marking devices so you actually make your selections and then it prints out a ballot so we just want to get the 30 pound battery packs instead of the 80 pound just makes it better and easier for election workers but we want to make sure the counties will be prepared for the uh we expect we had 5 million in 2020 we expect that it'll be more than that people are just engaged in the process we're seeing percentage of voter participation going up every cycle for the last 10 to 12 years now so we're seeing that so we just want to prepare the counties and look at the precinct side how many machines do you have so the throughput that we get keep the line short because by state law lines have to be shorter than one hour and we think that's a good thing so we'll be working on that have a smooth process yeah so let me throw out an idea that I've suggested in columns a couple of times as far as I know nobody else has taken me up on it but maybe you guys will but um do you think it would be possible for the two political parties to produce jointly um a kind of set of best practices for conducting elections now elections are state they're 50 50 election systems state by state in this country and I get that but what if there were a set of best practices that both parties agreed upon that would at least maybe start to take this question of election Integrity off the table and I say this because maybe I'm naive and you look on your face suggests you think I'm naive but uh no but I mean it is a fact that every elected official in the country derives his or her legitimacy from this very system so why wouldn't they have an interest in nailing down the Integrity of that system because it serves their own integrity I think there are a number of us I think it would have it would just out of necessity have to be extremely Broad and I think it really is going to end up you know if we do end up doing such a thing which I don't I would never call you naive I just think that you know I know like the three of us and we have some other colleagues um you know that that we can have these conversations and we you know we can come to the table together unfortunately there there are other colleagues on both sides that are they're not in that space they don't want to do that um it just for for political reasons and um you know they may even sort of know like yeah this would be a good idea but for political reasons they won't come to the table so I don't think that's possible but I think if anything were to come of it I think just um kind of going back to the The Carter Center pledge right you know that that may be a place where we can have some increased participation and and some increased um you know bipartisan agreement well but to your point when we had the Carter Baker commission many people aren't aware of that but President Jimmy Carter sat down with former Secretary of State James Baker and so now you have the Carter Baker uh you know centers and uh they they get together and do talk about this but they they issued a report bipartisan report and they said this is all the things we agree on and then they said and this is what I think and this is what if so they didn't agree on some of the issues but they brought in people from both sides of the aisle so they brought in state reps they brought in U.S you know Representatives U.S senators secretaries of state but and then research what is the best practice and so you would talk about photo ID or talk about no excuse to actually vote talk about mail and voting but it developed a template for Best Practices so we're here is what we agree on here's what we don't agree on but they did it in a way that was very respectful and then you have to understand that you do have mail-in States so those are primarily the west coast states plus Utah and a few others and then other states do things a little bit different so I think it's almost at a point from the 2005 or 2006 presidential bipartisan commission maybe we need a 2020 420 it might be five but it probably after 24 but to have bring people together because it'll take a couple years to really jaw bone on this and work and grind to get something that we can both you know say this is the body of the port we carry on and then we'll have things we just have differences of preferences respectful disagreement yeah it's like like President Carter did with Secretary of State Baker yeah that's a good point I just have a couple more questions and I'm going to open it up to to these folks um but you mentioned I think Maggie the the covet the pandemic and I've always thought that as you suggested the the pandemic which either compelled or at least subpushed states to change the rules on the fly a little bit was one of the reasons that there was so much anxiety about whether the rules were being followed in 2020 because they did kind of change on the run a little bit the flip side of that though is I I have this feeling but you guys are the pros that because of that experience we'll never go back to voting the same way that we did when I was first 18 and voted for once so we'll never go back to everybody's got to vote on Election Day and everybody's got to vote in person and you have to have an extreme excuse to get an absentee ballot are those days gone forever and that's one of the reasons we're in this new frontier that we're talking about yeah I think the genie the genie came out of the bottle academic was that we saw massive participation in the election on a level that we'd never seen and then we basically saw the the midterm election uh counterpart to that in 22 right so just tons of people because you love the president because you hated the president because you love what your state government was doing or your local government or you hated it we're turning out in record numbers and are turning out in record numbers and the reality is and I will tell you I I spent 10 years as a local election official Running elections in the largest jurisdiction in New Mexico so I know this firsthand um you cannot in in today's environment you cannot conduct a single day of voting from 7 A.M to 7 P.M in in-person polling places and accommodate all of the voters in your state anymore you just cannot do that um so I I do think that uh you know some of the changes that were made to and you know make it easier uh for folks to vote by mail make it easier to vote in person you know the expanded early voting that Brad was talking about they're doing in Georgia and um making it making it easier to count accurately your absentee ballots and things like that right I do think those things are are going to be permanent so no no going back well in Georgia we actually didn't change anything all those laws were in place we had no excuse absentee voting in place since 2005. it's putting it along by Governor Sonny Perdue who the first Republican you know Governor that we had irony of irony so there it was the only thing that when we had a state of emergency what we did is we sent out absentee ballot applications for the first primary and the reason we did that was so it was a uniform process everyone got one that was an active voter so that the political parties wouldn't swamp the boat campaigns with a swamp so you would have had four or five at your house send them all back in because you didn't think it heard anything and the county only had one person working there two people because they were really down on staff but that's that's the only thing we did we kept all three options open so people could vote and then obviously the numbers were higher so what's really changed in Georgia is the option people choose to exercise right exactly but and so in the first primary we had 35 to 40 percent of people voted absentee come in the fall it was down to about 20 percent already had dropped because people felt more comfortable but that was their own free will choice so I don't think uh I just think next year will be more of the same but we we people know what to expect now so let me ask my final question it's a very general one but having been through these uh these wars are you confident or pessimistic about the state and the fate of our democracy let me ask you to go first I'm very confident because I'm just confident in people because at the end of the day I read the end of the book and I know that the good always wins and I just believe that more people are good than aren't and so I just leaned into Luke Bryan he's from Georgia so most people are good and I just think also another Tim McGraw country western song but be humble and kind I think if you're humble and kind and you're you know just you know lean into the good it's all going to work out but I also understand that right now we're going through this economic disruption we have a political cycle that's ending it's the very end of the Reagan cycle so people are looking for what's the leadership and both political parties I think are looking for that next Generation leader and both political parties haven't found that yet and as a republican I hope we do but I know that that's going on then economically we're coming out of this cycle looking for the next cycle who knows what that'll look like and so that just creates a lot of social stress I understand we are polarized but I'm really hopeful about America because sometimes we doubt ourselves but we never needed doubt ourselves it's a great country with great people and we'll get through this and we'll get through this together I think it's a good point because people lose sight of the fact that the country is very not only bitterly divided but evenly divided it's a 50 50 country and that creates a lot of pressure in and of itself on the system but and I and I think that that is a a perfect point to dovetail on which is that by necessity uh you know we we can either we can either fight each other we can work together right and I think there's a lot of fighting of each other going on and I really do think that a lot of the conditions that Brad just talked about you know this this sort of transitional place that we're in as a nation the economic stretch stresses the the post-covid sort of realities that we're all dealing with I think are are making it particularly hard it's a hard time it's been a hard time the last few years in America I think we need to acknowledge that and yet we are still we're still together we're not you know we're not having the easiest time of it you know there's a lot of fighting a lot of arguing a lot of lies and miss and disinformation it's like kind of like a bad marriage um now that I think about it uh but look you know I agree with Brad and this is the thing right we we we agree on so much more than we disagree on we are so much more like each and every one of us as individuals than we are different from each other as Americans I also I I am I am the eternal optimist I get pessimistic at times but I also believe in this country I also believe in our Collective ability to get through these hard times and get out on the other side and you know why because we have done it before we have done it before and we can do it again and it's just really hard right now so you're telling us this is a phase and it will pass I hope this is the teenage years yeah I do or those who never got out of the teenage years um all right I want to open it up to you I'll repeat the uh the ground rules that Heidi so uh aptly uh described at the outset here which is um there'll be a couple of students with microphones uh raise your hand and I'll call on you wait till the microphone gets to you stand up if you could so everybody can see uh as a reminder that a question is a question that has a question mark at the end it's different from a speech um and um please keep in mind the tradition of Civility and and respect that the Dole Institute stands for so who wants to get started right there thank you I really appreciate you being here and I too agree that I think we've got a good election system in this country there's some things that are not good about it so first an opinion part of part of I think the problem is our primary system it's designed to make the Extremes in either party I don't care whether you're Republican or Democrat the primary system is kind of designed to work in favor of the radicals pick a side I don't care what can you as Secretary of States do to help change that system to make that more reflective of what the people want rather than what the radicals want I'll I'll start with that because it's actually something I think about a lot I think that's a fair point um and every State's a little bit different in terms of how they conduct their primaries in my state we are one of the last vestiges of the the quote-unquote closed primary so we don't allow folks to vote in our primaries that are not registered members of that political party and I have four years been arguing that we need to open them up because they're in particular there are so many races where the ultimate outcome is decided in the primary Jerry you and I were talking about this earlier because you know a district is so heavily one party or the other that that is really where the only choice lies so I think that's at least one thing that we can do is start opening up and bringing more participation into our primary elections well fortunately Georgia is actually what's called an Open Primary state which means you can just you know show up and vote and after I won my primary without a runoff you know some people are fussing about that and they said well he went because Democrat support that's not true I remember Republican but I also my numbers were even higher because if you look at what I did is I started reshoring back lost Republicans and so just like I believe manufacturing means coming back to America I think Republicans need to come back home and we were losing them over the last cycle and it really started around 14 then 16 then 18. bit by bit and I have a friend and I lost him you know probably I think it was 18 sometime he started voting on the other side but his wife a couple years sooner but you started bringing people back and so I'm not afraid of having open primaries because I want to have a message that is going to broaden our party because elections are all about expanding your base when you become a Statewide elected official once you have you know that charge your job is to actually grow the base yes you have your political leaning but you also want more people think I like the way that person leans that way I never thought I'd might be a Republican and bit by bit Reagan did other people have done it likewise they've probably have done it on their side it'll let them worry about their politics I don't worry about mine on that but I believe in the open primaries really helps that so that people have just an opportunity to vote for the person they think is the best person you know that represent those values in that position I'm curious are either of you fans of ranked Choice primaries which is when voters list their order of preference or jungle primaries in which everybody runs in the same primary regardless of party I I will say I'm I'm ranked Choice curious and I am supportive of it um at a at a local level in our non-partisan races in my state in fact we do and I'm trying to encourage more municipalities because you know in the nonpartisan races in particular you know we had a a city in New Mexico where 10 people ran for mayor on the same ballot right and so you were going to end up with somebody winning with you know potentially like 11 of the total vote right something like that so um you know I think it's interesting you know I think there is also an argument to be made in in states where you do have like single party dominance that you know you're not necessarily expanding you know the options to voters when you do a jungle primary or something like that that's actually looked at and considered right now Georgia is a runoff State and I am the world record holder of runoffs I've got four of them and so and you loved everyone but uh the counties they would like us to do away with runoffs because they just wear them out you know come November they then flow right after Thanksgiving and so they're saying we don't care how we're not going to tell you how to do your job General Assembly but so the general assembly is kind of digging into that so I'll let them do their work yeah okay uh will you have one back there and then we'll go here next okay hi uh I have a two-part question for secretary raffensberger on concrete actions and awards so you say you're proud of adding the second Saturday voting and yes that was a great part of that law but weren't you the one who half a year ago issued a guidance which tried to prohibit it in this runoff which was later blocking call I'm sorry which was later blocked in court so did you change your mind and second is you said accountability is important and you testified before Fulton County grand jury but many of your colleagues including Senator Graham and Governor Kemp tried to fight their sub pianists do you think they're wrong and hurting accountability okay can I get that first question again it was about the guidance uh which you in November you said that because of Thanksgiving there shouldn't be a voting correctly after it and it was later blocked in court yeah the Attorney General uh had an opinion that whenever we have a question of law we go out to the Department of laws which is the attorney general and what he said is that we had a state holiday the Friday after Thanksgiving and you can't have election following a holiday so it's really we were already blocked according to attorney general so that'd be Thursday Friday and Saturday and so we followed you know the Attorney General's guidance so went to the court and then the judge made a ruling and he said otherwise and so that's now settled law and we followed the law uh to the second part subpoenas uh subpoenas when I'm subpoenaed I show up [Laughter] [Applause] all right um admittedly it gives security challenges but where are we from internet voting oh wow well because of all the lawsuits we had from the Stacy Abrams camp we had a lot of lost lawsuit cases and I was talking to a professor about that one day I think he went uh from Pennsylvania University I forget which one Pittsburgh but anyway he was a subject matter expert and I asked him that question and he looked at me and he said Brad it won't happen while we're still doing our jobs but as soon as we age out and this man was in his 70s okay give me a break here buddy but anyway uh what he was really saying the younger generation you know the people that are under 30. he says that's how they've lived their whole life and they're just not going to put up with it he said but we don't have the security protocols in place yet so he thought it was probably like 10 years or somewhere in that range but it will happen once you have the security protocols in place I I agree we're we're not there yet and I think the the preface to your question admittedly there's security challenges that is the that is the Crux of the issue and I think at the end of the day you know um Brad talked about how you know there are 100 paper ballot state in Georgia I'm 100 paper ballot stayed in my state you know the it's a low-tech solution to Modern challenges and problems with elections which is that you know if you don't trust the outcome of the election you can always go back to that paper record right that that physical you can hold it in your hand you can look at it with your human eye you're not you're not trying to read code and you know guess whether it has vulnerabilities and whether it could be hacked or you know whether a vote could be changed right it's right there in front of your face so I think um you know there may be some options coming down the pike and and to the extent that they are used I think that that it's going to probably be pretty um pretty minimal at first you know overseas and Military voters you know folks like actually you know underway on a submarine for you know days on end months on end right those kind of folks that we can try that with first because there are going to be folks that do need those options but not yet good question yeah others right here hold on a second she's coming I'm a okay I'm a little nervous about speaking because everybody in the room probably knows more about elections than I do but in Kansas a couple of years ago it's my understanding that uh a law was passed or there was an opinion put forth that um uh made it a felony to impersonate an election official it has had a a very chilling effect the League of Women Voters doesn't do voter registration drives in the community and others groups that would like to do that have been discouraged from doing that are you familiar with that and what is your opinion of a law like that since I'm not familiar with it and I'm a stay in my engineering Lane on that one but I'm going to let the Secretary of State yeah put him on the hot seat right there let's not answer that one respect to stay tonight um sorry to hijack your show I said I wouldn't do this um in Kansas the we introduced a bill to update some laws on security like we regulate poll books and things just to make sure everybody's using the consistency system on the floor of the Senate a senator put on an amendment saying you cannot act like it was secretary of state so I am not breaking the law right now YouTube [Laughter] um two it said you can't impersonate an election worker and that is in federal court well when there's an election law whether I wanted the law or not according to statute I have to be sued and so that is currently being litigated in court and I or a state court I think I've got like four lawsuits on this on this bill because and they're all the provisions that I'm like how did that get in there um but that that's kind of where all that has come from is the legislators come up with ideas and they get stuck in the bill and the governor signs them and I get sued and it's not subtle law is what you're saying others right there Heidi well glad we had you here Scott I believe so and I've always I mean let me just caveat that by saying like I'm I'm a weirdo I mean I I was watching presidential debates when I was like eight years old um may have had something to do with why I do what I do for a living I don't know you can be the judge of that but I absolutely do and and I think I think that you know and and you're you're a a reporter I mean you work for media institutions and I think we see data after every presidential debate that shows the needle gets moved yeah yeah I agree I think there should be more debates than they really have because when you have just two debates what can you really cover probably one of the most important thing that the president United States really is responsible for is foreign affairs military defense of our nation because that's right in the original Constitution and we really don't haven't talked about that we've been talking about other issues and then obviously I think we need to talk about middle class values what are we going to do about where the middle class is right now because they've been stuck for a long period of time so what is your policies for that it'd be great to have conversations with both sides once they've kind of windowed that out but also from both sides when the Republicans have their primaries the Democrats are having theirs so you can sort through which is the representative you want from you know your particular flavor but then when they're out there and when you have one or debate or two debates I don't think it really gets to that I think the more that you can get in front of the American people and those opportunities I think it's better because then the Americans citizens can make an informed decision and it really gets to see the make of the person that you'd actually would put in the highest Office of the land so good question thanks get back there will I was wondering considering that Dominion lawsuit was settled what do you think the public is losing for not getting to see that testimony you have a good answer you you have a great answer on this actually Brad well already before it even got there though a lot of the the depositions just a second but could everybody hear that question okay let me just so I think the question was what has been lost by the fact there was a settlement in the Dominion Fox lawsuit meaning the testimony won't ever now be heard correct and so in that settlement the Fox News Corporation that's agreed to pay 787.5 million dollars you know to dominion and so that's been settled but we already know that there was you know facts made you know findings of fact you know in the case so that is actually settled law because once the judge said these are the finance of facts Fox did not dispute them that's right and so that means those are the findings of fact and so you can look at the depositions they'll be out there their public record that's not been sealed and then now Dominion's been out there talking about it so you know what the truth is and the truth is is that those machines actually recorded everyone's vote the truth is the machines did not flip the votes so the truth is those were the results in the states that used those machines now Dominion was not used in everywhere but I think one of the reasons we got focused in on is that 100 of our counties use the many machines and we were obviously a Bellwether State you know we were a swing state so that really had two issues going on there New Mexico uses Dominion also so that was it was just a way to kind of focus in and scapegoat one company that's right but it is there it's been settled and we just hope that the information gets out and we know it'll get out on CNN and MSNBC [Laughter] but I don't know if Sean Hannity and Carlson will be carrying that tonight they were talking about the about the the big news of the day well as a structural engineer I was very interested in that here and there was actually one in a savannah a third floor of a courthouse and that's interesting too you didn't work on that no no they're almost an old building but we do structural upgrading too so come to a second but I brushed past one thing yeah uh Heidi you want to bring up here um we talked about Dominion voting machines and you both said earlier that you both use them both States it didn't sound like you've hesitated at all about continuing to use Dominion voting machines am I right not at all yeah and and we you know for for almost a decade when I when I was starting out as an election official we had a different system in New Mexico and it was just it was problematic we you know just a challenge to you is a challenge not that they not that they didn't count votes correctly but they were just frankly wonky machines that didn't work very well and Dominion the Dominion machines have been excellent and the company so neither of you has wavered in I think that's one of the challenges we have is someone starts taking shots and people start buckling it's yeah no a couple years ago man coming out of a place for lunch you just kind of hey Brad yes yeah yeah I like your gumption and I hadn't heard that word for a long long time but it's not like I'm trying to pick battles with anyone but you know I know the law I know the facts if the machines weren't accurate then I would say oh we made a mistake no the machines were accurate we did a forensic audit of the machines and the results were the results I think I'll just stay sitting I think your gumption was great as well what can we do to make sure that we have correct factual information coming to the people of the United States as we have seen the use of sophisticated propaganda techniques in the last Administration whose name I don't want to say I'll I'll invoke uh you know something Brad said earlier you all can help with that you know I think we you know whether we're very active or very you know not very active in social media but it's not just social media it's also talking to our friends our neighbors our family right pushing back we were having this discussion with the students earlier um you know it's we're in a trust but verify right kind of world where you know if you see information that's too good to be true or too bad to be true it probably isn't true right and so I think you know even for myself right I I always need to make sure that I if I see a headline or something and I read you know a single article about something I think okay this sounds really bad or hey that sounds really good I'm gonna double check this a little bit more because before I start sharing that espousing my own opinion on it making sure other folks sort of see the same thing I want to make sure that what I am sharing and talking about and thinking about is accurate I have to check my own biases and my own sort of core value beliefs before I start you know putting something out there and I think that's just that that's a hard thing for us to learn how to do to just stop and go hmm is this completely accurate but we all we all of us that are doing any sort of you know discourse on social media or even just with our our friends and family members and relatives that's something we all need to to work on and get a little bit better at I think I think uh I think everyone should read probably a couple different newspapers you don't have to read every single article but uh I tend to read our local newspaper Wall Street Journal and I think that kind of balances out I know that I'm going to you know get a business perspective maybe a conservative perspective our local newspaper and we're going to listen to radio if you got serious on your car you know if you put on Fox News great put on CNN great and a little bit of both and then throw in a little bit of Bloomberg so you can watch what the markets are doing to your 401k but uh but I I think it's they really balance it my dad just brought us up to he says Brad you can't believe anything you read in the newspaper read between the lines come up you know you gotta think for yourself and so we were always taught to be independent thinkers in our family and and so we had a bipartisan upbringing and you know I like one of my sisters she's like me and I have another sister that you know she's on the other side of the aisle but families are like that but it's okay it's just people come to different conclusions but know the facts and then draw your own conclusions um uh so I think we've got time for two more questions why don't we do will back there and then Heidi we'll finish up here after the 16 and 20 presidential elections there were questions raised about the the viability of the electoral college system and whether or not we should change that since both of you since that would require a constitutional amendment it would be very tedious since both of you are uh election officials in your respective States and have your finger on the pulse so to speak of the of the states both legislators and people is that something that is going to come up uh in in the future I don't I don't foresee in the near or middle term future um an amendment to the Constitution there is the national popular vote compact initiative and compact that I believe is maybe one or two states away from going into effect my state is a is a member as of about I want to say 10 years ago or so and what that would do is basically because the states determine how they allocate their Electoral College votes that they agree those who are members of the compact once it goes into effect once there's an um enough states with enough electoral votes that they would agree to allocate their State's Electoral College votes to the popular vote winner National popular vote winner I don't know if that is likely to be to get this all the states it needs in the near future that's what I know what about the possibility of States taking it upon themselves to do what Nebraska does for example in a portion delegates by congressional district as opposed to winner take all Statewide seemed plausible that's more likely to happen in the near future I don't know I don't believe it'll happen in Georgia but uh the power that the federal government doesn't have is reserve to the states so that's a state's decision but I'm very cautious before tinkering with the Constitution and the advantage of the Electoral College is that you really then have to run a national campaign you just don't have to run one in all the big cities and in Georgia we do have a rural versus Urban you know separation and a lot of angst that you get that the people in the rural areas don't feel like they have a voice well just imagine when you have states that feel like they don't have a voice it's just not healthy for the country and so I think when you have to run a Statewide campaign all of a sudden so Ohio used to be you know a Bellwether State well now it's Republican now we are we're getting a lot of love they're coming to Georgia now spending their money but they're they're trying to win but I think that's really healthy that you've have people running Nationwide because you want to be the president of the entire nation for all the people even though you may have your particular leaning but that's really important people want to feel that they're being heard that their voice matters good point last question this is back to the question about how to deal with intimidation of election workers and you both mentioned that uh penalties for that have been increased but I'm wondering were there any convictions under the law that existed in 2020 for the many examples of voter election worker intimidation that happened at the end select you know if you increase the penalties it doesn't matter if nobody gets convicted that's where I'm coming from on that my understanding is so since 2020 there has been a federal FBI doj task force that's been put together that is charged with you know sort of collecting the data on on these instances uh and initiating prosecutions where appropriate and my understanding is it's been pretty slow going I think at our conference last summer they said they had something like six Pro six Active prosecutions going on so it's taking time because it this is like an emerging issue right that they really haven't grappled with before um and and that frankly our states haven't really I mean when have you ever heard about you know except in very rare instances you know poll workers or election officials being threatened intimidated and harassed you know it's this this is a new issue so I I am hopeful that we will be seeing some prosecutions coming out of that it's just it seems to be taking a while so yeah any any did anybody raise the possibility with you in Georgia for example post 2020 of Prosecuting people for intimidation uh it's not happened in Georgia but what we've had is civil lawsuits you know coming out of that and uh one of those was Ruby Freeman for defamation actually uh and they got one settlement already and perhaps when you hit them in people in the pocketbook that's the best way to start some of that but it is like you know Maggie was saying it's an emergency emerging issue and so now the challenge you have is the legal cycle is always going to be slower than the political cycle the political Cycle Works on every 24 hours the legal cycle that took it took Dominion here it doesn't last that long anymore three tweets and you're done you know so it's like yeah got it um well listen you know I asked the question earlier about whether uh our friends here uh Maggie and Brad are optimistic are pessimistic and I got to say that having this conversation with them makes me more optimistic so thank you both for doing that and for showing us um and and thank thank you all for being here because I think to Brad's point when people show up it shows that they're going to take an active part and that's part of the answer to all these problems I I would just note that next week There's an interesting event here at the institute on April 25th the Dole lecture with Senators Trent Lott and Tom daschel will be here in Partnership and in true bipartisan spirit and I hope people can make it out for that as well meanwhile uh enjoy the windy evening out there and thanks for coming up and thanks again to you both foreign [Applause] [Music] foreign

Channel: The Dole Institute of Politics

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Keywords: Dole Institute, Dole Institute of Politics, Politics, University of Kansas

Id: PjuZnZmxBZQ

Length: 71min 20sec (4280 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 20 2023