The partnership with the Stimson Center and enables to put on that dignity is like this. I have a very simple job this morning to introduce our moderator for today, larry jacobs professor of walter and Joe Montville professor study of politics at the department of Political Science at the university of minnesota. He also directs the tenor for this study of politics and governance and he is a prolific author and scholar in writing and some of the most important issues of the day. In the last year or two where he has authored books i can think of unfettered power, Health Care Reform in american politics in an important study on politics and Public Opinion as well. We are delighted to have the university of minnesota and to serve as moderator of this panel. The floor is yours. Thank you very much. A lot of people know dean sorts for the service and the diplomatic corps and im here from minnesota to tell you hes also announced the ending dean. Seen a tremendous rise in funding for scholarships for students come the scholarship of our faculty and engagement with the community. We are here to talk about one of the most important issues as they moved into the last two and a half weeks in the three weeks of the election, which is the concern about half of american now say they think voter fraud is something going on. We have an allstar Panel Hearing part of my job is to get out of the way so they can speak. The shape man who is the director of the program was started at the Humphrey School, the program for excellence in Election Administration and part of that is a new Online Program for training folks who want to become Election Officials. Is the first on my program of the sort in the country. Before coming to the Humphrey School worked as a nonexpert on election law. We are delighted to have witnessed him a patrick is currently a fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center. She worked at the federal Compliance Officer and was a member of the press than commission on elections. Thanks to both of you for being here. What should start off and make sure we know what were talking about. What is raking as you see it . Do you want to start . I think its really critical in this discussion because we are seeing a lot of variety in the news to distinguish exactly what we are talking about here. So there have been reports of breaking, reports of hacking and those are two very separate and distinct things we will talk about both this morning. I really want to focus first and foremost on the rigging allegations. The other thing is really critical to consider as well is that there have been discussions about the election of the system as a whole. We really need to be cognizant of the fact that there were two real channels here we are talking about. One is Voter Registration and Voter Registration databases and systems that with our eligible voters and also the mechanisms that are used to cast and capture and tabulate our votes. I think it is important to first of all lay out the background work. When we talk about reagan, reagan is the free determination of an election before it occurs or some sort of action thats going to take place in order to influence the outcome of that election in a way they dont necessarily in hand. You dont have good commercials that certainly can sway an election or influence the outcome of elections. What we are talking about here is malfeasance and exactly what that means. I think tammys got it right. When you think about elections in this country, reagan focuses on the very narrow piece of real estate that is the polling place. Theres a great line attributed to lots of people but its actually Tom Stallworth that democracy is not in the boat and its an accounting. Reagan at least in theory occurs when something breaks at the counting station where there is some sort of split between the duly cast ballots of voters in the tabulation of the results. When we think about rigigng and what we want to talk about today is whether theres something going on with bad backs by somebody to interfere with the process going from a duly cast ballot to a ballot certified result. Lets pick up on just that issue. What evidence is there that rigging and neither respects the scientists actually going on . I would argue that there really isnt any sort of evidence that this is happening. The other thing that i think is really important to talk about is how this has been brought into the public conversation is specifically about the president ial election. We need to talk about a national scale. There are instances where there are some broke actors that have done bad things. But the majority of those types of instances in local elections well have some might vote buying a semicasting an absentee ballot that is not their own. It occurs occasionally and rarely in local elections but with ever seen it happen in a largescale national election. I would argue that there are known vulnerabilities and Election Administrators to note those vulnerabilities are and has both mitigated as well as trained their workers, their staff as well as all the Stakeholder Groups and others what to look out for to make sure that it doesnt. The list of things that people worry about in terms of socalled rigging, who are dead. How is that possible . Weve got impersonation or with god mexicans sneaking over the border in casting a ballot. Can you get a sense of what we know about those incidents . A lot of what you just mentioned ties back to Voter Registration. In order for anyone to receive the ballot, they have to have registered with the exception of a few places that have election day registration in which case they can register at that point. So if youre talking about individuals who are ineligible for any reason, citizenship, age, only 15 but related disaster, thereve been saying all the rock the vote where they are in a state where disenfranchisement is not restored to raise. The help america vote act requires when a registrar of voters received a Voter Registration form that it goes through a verification with other state agencies. The sorts of things are checked and verified. Its very difficult for someone whos not an eligible director to burst of pharmacy get registered because of these. And then you have to in fact perceive the ballot. If youre talking about requesting a ballot to be mailed to someone, many states require signature verification. So you may well easily be able to obtain someones personal information on facebook. It may be much more difficult to obtain what the signature looks like in order to receive a ballot, cast a ballot and have the signature verify a second time and have it actually be cast. Doug chapin, you are an expert on election law with folks around the country and local level on elections. You work with officials by pretesting are those helpful in terms of picking up in detecting wholesale rigging voter fraud that would change the outcome of an election . Absolutely. Thats a nice followon to attend had to say about the process. I often talk about the polling places. It is a black box in the traditional sense you cant see inside. There actually is a fairly lengthy process that begins weeks, months before an election whereby Election Officials are testing an retesting different parts of the process. They are doing checks on the registration list. They are guaranteeing requesting to read open to the public test of their Voting Machines, and ends in many jurisdictions there are opportunities for people to be observers, legal, well behaved observers at the polls. The elections dont end on Election Night. We go through a process called canvassing before we certified the vote. In many states including minnesota, you have a procedure called postelection auditing. Weird to be markup into the election screen numerous times throughout the process. While tammy notes you can have small disturbances that happened at the local level, the kind of wholesale outcome altering conspiracies if you will better being discussed right now would be so improbable as to be impossible given the number of times that we check and verify the process. Theres a great line that came out during the arms debates in the 1980s. The russian phrase which means trust but verify. Election officials stressed their voters, but they verify the process numerous times said that both they and the voting public can have confidence the outcome is what the outcome should be. I would just add that its also noteworthy to consider exactly what the numbers were talking about here. If youre talking about jurisdictions that conduct elections in the United States between eight and 10,000 depending whether including Voter Registration which i would, then its more 10,000. 10,000 jurisdictions. Some of them run by republicans, some democrats. All of the employees, all of them have workers are onsite election day workers that many states require you to have a complement of Party Affiliations within the board traditionally and historically used to be ds and r. s with the growth of independent or nonaffiliated voters come in many states have had to adjust their statues in order to allow for unaffiliated voters to still participate in the boats. You have a complement within the polling place to keep an eye on what is happening and is recommended to take a sworn duty in her mouth at the beginning of election day to uphold the constitution. Not a lot of people have to take a sworn to before they take their job duty for the day and theyll take it very seriously. Doug chapin. Obviously the red and blue country everywhere but many parts of the country. I think theres some trepidation on both sides of the aisle among voters that when you get to it deep blue state or you get to a deep red state that despite the fact patrick has mentioned that the partisan are able to work their way and stuff the ballot box or allow individuals to register who are not actually eligible. If that something weve seen in america . I dont think it is. At the risk of being redundant, repetitive, we have lots of opportunities in the system to check that its working the way it should. The vast majority of Election Officials in this country, its possible it they are part of these at your thumb literally or figuratively over the letter that follows their name and not be able to tell their Part Assembly name. Many of these Election Officials do have very strong policy positions and we can talk about differences between the parties if you like, but examples of that kind of thumb on the scale inside job are aware existence because again you cant get away with it because it will be detected by all the different checks throughout the process. Who worked in florida. For people thinking about elections, florida 2000 part of conversation. I was in arizona but i see where youre going with this so its okay. Was florida in 2000 example of partisanship . I would say to answer the question you asked a dog in a different way and answered questions just ask, the last of the partisan steps are registering voters that are not eligible. I would say the exact opposite is in fact the case, that people who are eligible electors are having obstacles put in their path in order to her in her dissipate. I am a Firm Believer in fax and data and so in 2004 in arizona, we had a Voter Initiative password voters had to document proof of citizenship before they could registered to. There was no longer a sworn affidavit was no longer relevant. Tens of thousands of people who registered that did not provide documentation. The vast majority of them were able to do send documentation and could registered but some are not. Many of them were elderly and no longer have a valid traverse license or birth certificate. I would say that there are more statutory and legislative factors in the hopes of ensuring that no one who is ineligible can register sometimes at the cost of preventing eligible a lack to us from participating. Thats a policy question people have to decide. Is it justifiable to prevent an american citizen eligible in every way to exercise the franchise if in fact it allows some strict rule that insurers no one is able to register who is ineligible. Just to be clear, the voter i. D. Law in arizona and efforts elsewhere is directed at one type of issue related to this big concept of rigging. Individuals trying to impersonate a voter or an individual whos not eligible to register. Correct. This is sometimes folded in a secure rock, but its from the perspective of view while in the trenches or have been in the trenches, this is a pretty narrow solution. I guess i want to jump in. Was in. With the two dozen election in florida and in dimple of partisanship run amok. The answer is no. I think it is true that the two parties have very different views on election policy, democrats had to worry more about access for them in the worst possible outcome is somewhat otherwise eligible and unable to cast a ballot. Republicans tend to worry about the integrity of the system. For them the worst possible outcome is somewhat ineligible and still able to cast a ballot. Election officials come at the very differently. In that environment would happen in florida as much about the other tensions we have in Election Administration. There you had a secretary of state who happened to be a republican who had responsibility for but not necessarily authority over election offices, some of which are run by democrats in the county Election Officials and most of florida. So while those two groups might have seen the problem very differently, it was as much about the lack of fit between what the state requires that was the issue and the fact that youre the dean the leader of the free world and parties since literally across the country are physically flooding courthouses and election offices. There was the system itself partisanship run amok. The answer is no. There are folks who are convinced that there is a front often involve a decoration that we just dont know about, that is going on in the kinds of issues you raise. Thats fine. It is so rampant in that are detecting systems are just not taking it up and we are blind to it. What about this kind of issue of rampant situation of voter fraud that would not be detected and we change the outcome of an election. I think were better than that. If there was that timothy and action taking place, we would know about it. The reason i feel that way is because theres meticulous oversight and elections are ongoing in the state. The officials are using the equipment, laying out their ballots multiple times a year. If there was something widescale and prevalent, we would definitely know about it. His documentation of chain of custody, security access to the physical machines themselves. The machines are not connected to the internet, so there are air gaps in between the machines you can preclude any sort of nowhere or issues being transported from one machine to the maximum effect in the entire election. Because theyre such observation of the process, i just dont believe its as wide scale or even present at all because i think we would know about it. Many Election Officials have said they been diverted by this attention in the last few months and let a really needed to be doing was focusing on the details because elections are all about the details and ballot rotation and about making sure that the dates right at the top of the ballot. Its things they should be focusing in on and not this other topic and this other object is not that its an important topic because it is but the timing for it is really unfortunate. But i think we are seeing is they are reacting in a way because they are hearing from their voters that there is concerned, lack of confidence in the system because they are continually hearing that there will be a long line but its all good anyway. Governments terrible. Thats incredibly pragmatic. Local Election Officials are even more trained parent. They are putting their inaccuracy test out on periscope. They are putting it on twitter. Their Facebook Live in, the testing of ballots. They are trying to make sure voters know that this is a transparent process and Election Administrators from the side of the aisle are coming out and say you know, stop it because secretaries of state that are republican and the secretaries of state singing this is not the case. We run a good election and people need to have confidence. It sounds like one of your concerns is the rigging and half of america registered voters are being worried about voter fraud is actually starting to have a cost and the officials to do what they need to do to be ready for election day. At the end of the day they will get the job done. I think we may see some miss eggs and things like that for small errors that hopefully will be caught before election day in the last week or so. These are the types of things elections are doing not talking about cybersecurity and i dont want to discount that conversation because its a very important conversation to have. They just wouldve been a better conversation to have last year were even in january or february, did not disclose to an election because that is part of what is impacting a think the voters confidence. What is interesting is yesterday Charles Stuart issued a review, a study he had done. A professor of Political Science at m. I. T. Exactly. And he had done a study back in 2012 and how confident are you about happening naturally. Another survey came up recently thats not exact verbatim question but if im getting this part wrong i read it quickly yesterday for republican birthdays date in the process. Its not having a negative impact so far at least with those surveyed. That is certainly the concern. So that is what we want to make sure we educate the voters on the process and continues. Obviously this will be an ongoing issue. After the election, we will see how each of the candidates of the two major parties respond. Doug chapin, you have the distinction of being one of the most heavily quoted experts on Election Administration when every four years president ial Contest Rules around. Every year you deal with kind of a litany of issues that come up. First off, can you talk about what are some of those issues you would expect to come up this year and are those issues issues that could be tied to some sort of malfeasance breaking or is this just kind of the everyday activity of running a pretty complex system in which many commanding millions of ballot and the cast. Persons were in washington all off the question to follow up on the coals. Three things really quickly. Number one, the polls we see near the congress. In the election system. The interesting numbers charles brought up yesterday play up the degree to which partisanship have begun to affect our election system. Larry and i had an email exchange yesterday. It appears the claim of forgiving arguments about the election system are driving democrats to be more confident in his support about the election system simply because another candidate is being critical of it. Finally and most important is in many ways Public Opinion polling is interesting but doesnt necessarily affect true Public Opinion. Most of you are sitting down here this morning and those of you who are paying onto something. The average american doesnt pay a lot of attention to the nuts and bolts so there is this general knowledge and when you dig into even a little bit, opinions can change awfully quickly. There is overwhelming support for photo i. D. But opponents of the vote, the referendum start digging in the sort of an unofficial of the more you do the less you like. The majority started to the road. They listen to the people who get quoted a lot and i think they understand the process is a lot more secure and reliable. I know we pay a lot of attention to them. I have faith that americans will understand the process better than they do. Having said that, what happens on election day . One of the reasons why i am an election geek and want the work i do and why were trying to bring it to a new generation of students and professionals across the country is because it is this intensely human next periods. We have more than 100 million voters going to polling places dealing with hundreds of thousands of poll workers and the like. In that environment, things go wrong. The machine will break. Therell be a long line. At least one person will take a swing at another person in a polling place on election day and as my friend will tell you, a car will probably drive into a polling place somewhere in america. Stuff happens on election day. Places where the voter list doesnt get to the place on time. The election that overwhelms the physical space at the moment and we end up with long lines. That all goes into what we call misfeasance, mistakes or a human element. Election officials note that will happen and are generally prepared for it more and more in tim and the folks of the Bipartisan Policy Center have been looking at this. They are setting up and monitor what happens in the polls and send resources, in case something goes wrong, things will not go smoothly on election day. Things will go perfect klee, but the outcome is still something we can align on. Even things will not go well, your point is this is not the result of an intentional effort. It is the inevitable glorious result on election day. You are one of the countries experts. Particularly president ial election. It doesnt surprise me and theres a variety of reasons why things go wrong. We went around the country for six months and hold public hearings, Stakeholder Group meetings to find out why do lines for them. Theyve talked to Election Administrators at the local level Stakeholder Groups, academics and voters themselves. One of the things we found out is that we pay a lot of attention to elections and its usually as i mentioned earlier before the president ial election, maybe in the primaries and its been a bit of a roller coaster. But Election Administrators are going to their legislators trying to get legislation for reforms for improvement, for resources, for funding, they dont have the attention they should be given. They are known to cause to ensure around the country and the Election Administration before make the voting experience. Theyre separate forms we know can improve the voting next events in the United States. Many states have picked up those recommendations and will be trying them out. This is the first president ial election and i think that does or not for a lack of trying and if you look at the conference of state legislature, and of reforms are being introduced and passed. We now have more serious about my Voter Registration. We know the efficiencies and that can improve the voter rolls. We have more and more states join crosscheck programs. We know the efficiency is bad. A new stop there. Not everyone here has followed this reforms. Unfortunately the commissions report. I think its very well written and it not written in a jargon is sort of way. Could you flesh out a little bit of some of these things . Certainly appeared we were tasked by president obama to look at 10 different areas and provide a language assistant and voting technologies, of election issues. They came up with the myriad of recommend nations. They were bipartisan and unanimous by the commission. The commission cochairs for bob bauer whos president obamas former general counsel and ben ginsberg who was governor romneys attorney. You see them quite a bit these days. It was unanimous and bipartisan. They want to modernize the process because its on paper. But its really look at how voters are registering, when they are registering, when they keep their information current. When they changed their department of Motor Vehicles that changes their registration. Whether or not thats an imac often are optout. States are revisiting and keeping their Voter Registration rolls accurate. Making sure they are permanent registration. In some states they will cancel an overseas voter at the end of every year which we did not believe was appropriate. Theres a wide variety of recommendations and things as simple as ballot layout and design can be as important and critical in making sure that a ballot is being recorded as the voter intent. Yes, yes, no, no. What am i supposed to do . How many times can i cast the election if its over three, both virtue. There are usability best practices that should be done. In many cases it is in statute that everything has to be all in capital letters. That is the worst possible way to prevent information from the public. There are ways to lessen the lines and make sure there is more integrity everywhere and they are trying to get the reforms passed in many have been successful. Theres still a lot of work to be done. Doug chapin, i know youre an Eternal Optimist and while there has been a pale cost over Election Officials, perhaps unfairly after all these are folks really in the trenches doing the work of democracy. Is there an opportunity as well particularly given where technology is, are there areas where weve had trouble, maybe some of the areas that Tammy Patrick has just listed, things that you talk about during president ial elections where we have the solution through technology and new innovations. Absolutely. You are right im an optimist but thats the only rational way to be in any endeavor. One of the things that i really appreciate about Election Officials and why i like working with them is this commitment to the notion of and provide staff when there are long lines. And about how we lay out ballots and i will point out that our program at the university of minnesota is currently running a course on election design with the centerright civic design. Check us out on not. They worked together and talk to one another about how to get the word out to voters in advance of early voting or what have you. This study one another and learn from one another all the time. As they come into this new more technically involved era with online Voter Registration can be searched c. Ideas about how to protect their online Voter Registration databases when the bad guys out there. We have seen them shared her nation and how to make those systems acceptable to people with disabilities or people for whom english is not their first language. I talk about the election community. That is actually a real thing. This is a group that does that expect to be universally acclaimed in some ways the bricks thrown at them are the grenade catchers of american democracy. Inevitably, they always come together and find a way to identify a solution and more importantly share it with one another in a way that works for voters in the country atlarge. Every problem is an opportunity and Election Officials as an everyday thing. Just to come to this issue about technology, its the future in every demeanor of our life. Does Technology Offer a way for instant on Voter Registration with highlevel insurgency to identify who the person is that his registering and whether they are eligible to vote, which is one of the main concerns of those worried about rigging. We certainly see that. Tammy mentioned the Commission Report with online Voter Registration. That was one area that was maybe not surprising to tammy bacher today was bipartisan. It has been adopted in bright red states, bright blue states. Every shade of purple in between partly because the two parties make it easier to register. The eligibility check whether its a drivers license or some thing else. There are lots of opportunities to make Voter Registration are available. The states have set up some name but the Electronic Registration Information Center whereby states share Registration Data with one another, not just identify people who might not be eligible, but more importantly people eligible but unregistered. They are physically sending an application or giving them an link to an online registration. It is easier than ever to say, to register to vote and just as importantly to check and update your registration. Its easier than ever to find out where the about, whats on my ballot and the rules for cast unit. Technology has made the distance between election offices and voters election offices in voters as short as the distant from earth onto your smartphone. Just to add on to this, the right people are registering and the technology he improves the integrity of the process in the Security Confidence we can have that only eligible citizens are registering in casting ballots . I think yes. Citizenship of mothers are baked into the summit registration and the ability of others or eric or the socalled crosscheck restates pressuring registration list, they are checking the doublecheck them going on all the time in the field. The evidence suggests that confidence in the quality of the list is and should be at an alltime high. I would take it one step further and of course thats absolutely right im very biased for online registration because it started in arizona and has been sent to thats been on my soapbox for over a decade. Im excited to see its adoption. Part of the reason im excited about that is not only does it have all the efficiencies it does mention, but also allows additional security when you have thirdparty Stakeholder Groups, Political Party candidates are registering voters. You can have them registering on paper and handing it to that person and then it may or may not ever get to the election administrator. The voter feels they are registered because they completed the piece of paper and handed it to someone at the clip were. If you have a clip toward you can do just about anything because people trust a clipboard for whatever reason. But instead when you have online Voter Registration and hundreds of organizations that have leveraged online Voter Registration to register the voter right then and there, the information goes immediately and many of the state turned around a data electronically and send it back to the parties in the groups during the registration to let them know the person is duly registered. Start your get out the vote effort. It is good for a Political PartySenate Candidate for the Stakeholder Groups that are out there doing this after. If they could shift their work for them registering voters to getting out the message isnt getting out the electorate, i think they would be thrilled to shift their efforts in that way. When they jump him up really quick. I think that also raises challenges for Election Officials. With the advent of Voter Registration, two things are new to worry about. Number one s. Can the system handle the load. A couple states where they simply cannot, where virginia was Something Like 350 people per second were trying to register online in virginia and that i dare say rivals even American Idol at its peak. States have to be ready for that. The other side of it is the context thats the personally identifiable information. Names, birthdays, last for social, what have you. That is valuable information to people who would steal it for illicit purposes. The challenge for Election Officials isnt necessarily to protect the election process. Its not like getting data is not for elections but its bad to get out of it and so we start to see the department of Homeland Security and states and localities educate themselves and their staff about things like phishing attacks for injection attacks and side doors into their online portals. Im not saying the information is insecure but we have to treat voter data like the absolute gold that it is because it is people who would do bad with it. They have to pick up on the hakim issued. Weve seen hakim of large retail companies. Weve seen hakim of banks. Weve seen hakim recently of Political Parties and campaigns. Should america be worried whether its a wikileaks or perhaps a russian after can hack our Voting System to the registration rolls. Those are two very distinct things. All the examples in the media have had to deal with Voter Registration. Its also important to consider in many states the vast majority of information on the Voter Registration file is attainable very inexpensively for 25 you can get the entire voter roll for the whole state. The name which sounds like nothing unless you have 2 million registered voters it adds up very quickly. So when we are talking about Voter Registration information, online Voter Registration is a little bit of a misnomer. Its an online Voter Registration application process. So it does not automatically give that individual access to the database. It does not automatically put that persons information onto the voter file for that day. Its an application in the same way the clerk entered the data im applying it into the system where it will run the background checks against the department of Motor Vehicles, other state agencies for states that have set up more expensive checks. Its an application process. Additionally, states have redundancies of Voter Registrations filed. If im going to register or going to modify my registration online in most states, what im actually seeing when i put in information and it seeks to see if im registered to find my old address so i can change it. Its actually having a redundant system that either gets uploaded every night or every hour. Its not the system at all. Girl that accessing a duplicate. That is what weve seen in the news. Its also important to note that most state of the voter files, the vast majority to the Political Parties where they get their canvassing doortodoor list. They provided to the candidates. So that is where the information was hacked. It was not hacked at the official election registrars and that sort of thing. Is this the real threat of hacking that totals will be changed and they will come in and pick the winner of our president ial election. You certainly hear that. The answer is no. Again because of all the different ways in which we check and test the system, there may be some people who fear that but i dont think its terribly likely. I wouldnt go that far. Its impossible to change the outcome of an election and remotely. The kind of threats we talk about are the public systems like Voter Registration and even then that is information not outcome. To be worried that somehow a bad act or whether its a state that are part of an actor will interfere to get between the ballots in the outcome is next to impossible if not impossible. The other caveat is to say that they could do so are detected. That is really what is at stake here. Ill play devils advocate. Once a big if given and delete have the voter file in a jurisdiction. Those voters will still show up by request a ballot hopefully theyll turn out and have confidence in the election. When they do so if they are not on the voter file they have the ability to cast a provisional ballot. That jurisdiction will be looking to see why we have a huge influx of ballot. What are the similarities in how these people have their registrations can run the same day at the same time and the voters votes would count because they would track it back through the system. Every system you know which Staff Members even Voter Registration, there are ways we can monitor the system. There are changes capacity documentation. Being able to deal with another type that is critical. The tabulation is also important because everything is so important now. It is very rare and i say that because im not aware of a single jurist diction that has their equipment connected to the internet. The vast majority of state actually have standards and laws that require you cannot have it connected to the internet. And there are protocols in place to make sure that the same sticks thats downloaded the election onto each piece of equipment is used for each type of equipment for a different one for each election. There are a long laundry list. Within one fortunate fortunate outcome of all of this is we are talking about for officials now like ive offered a whole host of calls with secretary of state for Election Officials that the election assistance commission. We would be remiss if we didnt talk about the outstanding role theyve been played in all of this. When the commission that i was on, the president s commission was doing our work, there were no commissioners. We had three of the four for the last couple years and outstanding work to advance technologies to get new standards approved to work on the next set of standards that will really allow for such increase performance of our election in the oncoming years. Now we just have to decide whos going to pay for new equipment because the equipment we are using this aging and the vast majority of Election Officials feel this to be the last president ial election they will be using that they currently have. That is yet another layer of this onion. Some questions from our audience. Before you do that, i want to follow up quickly with you. Given the next generation of Voting Machines that will be coming online, do you think its imperative given questions about breaking, concerns about hacking that would never do machine comes online should have a paper ballot to provide confidence to voters or is that just so antiquated and inefficient that we should move past them. I believe that they are pretty much every single state has some requirement for a paper record for the next iteration of voting equipment that they purchase. Currently there are only a couple of states that dont have a paper record. They have very rigid and stringent testing and audits that occur to assure the validity of the election. We talk about things like stuffing the ballot box. Every jurisdiction does an audit to make sure the number of people who signed in should actually be the same as the number of ballots cast. Everyone does that sort of a balance and then theres other states that do things like audits every further paper record to the electronic record. The voting equipment are looking to have some sort of a paper record and is considered the official ballot passed. Really quickly. Whether or not its paper, every state is to have a system thats auditable and doing a post election on it so that we can make sure the outcome that was reached with the outcome of the ballot support. So right now, paper tends to be the best way to audit whether there is some sort of technology that allows us to independently verify without a paper ballot. The important thing is that the system be auditable and with the ability we actually audit systems. Heres a question from the audience. The question is very good conversation but this is then quite technical. The questioners, isnt the case that the critics of the system we are warning about raking in some of those warning about hacking a birdie done quite a bit of damage by raising confusion, diminishing confidence and casting a pale over the coming election result. Share, i think that is the concern. This is technical because the elections process gets down in the weeds really, really quickly. Its all in the details. It is much easier to make a false claim that is broad and expansive en banc and then have to combat it with actual details of what is going on. I think that is really the challenge we are faced with here. When you have a gui that was recently there was a hearing not far from here on the hill about this very topic and one of the congresswoman said i dont believe the russians or anyone has any intention of breaking her hacking and divert it created chaos by creating the chaos they have in fact been successful. I am just hopeful that plays out to be untrue in the long run on november 9th or later on in the mud hope the Election Administrators will have thanksgiving because thats always the question of whether youll be done in time to have thanksgiving that im hopeful they do. I think that is what we are going to find out if in fact i believe they maybe have underestimated the tenacity of the American Voter and the american electorate because i think that everyone will make sure they understand what their options are. But they have to go to the polls on tuesday, that is what theyll do. If they had the opportunity to vote early, we see record numbers of absentee requests and we are seeing large numbers showing up at early voting sites that ever be opened across the country. Yesterday on the new Something Like 1. 8 Million People. The american elect dribble turn out registering in record numbers. I am an optimist like doug here. It is that really the challenge here that all the kinds of things both of you comment on and try to understand and analyze that come up during elections, stuff happens. Is it now the reality that because we are having a conversation and giving it attention, it is now going to give credence to the idea that its kind of the plainvanilla administrative with the more sinister light. We certainly had some pretty heated rhetoric. Whether or not the charges are false, they are falsifiable. We will have the ability to show the system works the way its supposed to work when stuff happens on election day. We see americans relax in this. I blogged a week ago on the election that voters are voting sooner, checking their registrations multiple times. Theyre going to make sure that their ballot count on november 8th. Yes there is a raised concern that each individual seems to be taking a role in making sure her vote actually gets cast and counted. So am i worried that theres a lot of negative energy . Absolutely. Am i worried they will be proven to be on election day . No im not because we have the data to show it wont be. Let me put you a question that has been asked which is everybody talking about raking and giving it attention given it more credibility than deserved . I have heard this product in the last couple of weeks and i would say that if we werent discussing that, if we werent refuting that, but sometimes silence is legitimizing the stated claim. I think its critical we are out there talking about all of the safeguards in place to ensure that our systems are secure in that there is integrity in the process. But i do hear that on occasion and i understand that perspective. I think that if we are not there, with correct information, that the wrong information will continue to be conveyed and we need to be out there dispelling that. Similar type of question but i want to put in the day after the election when one of the major candidates makes the argument that they lost because the system was rigged. How do we respond to that . Prove it. There will be piles, greens, terabytes of Data Available show that the system worked the way it was intended to work. If one of the candidates goes in the direction of rigging, then your suggestion is go high to the data. Sure. All of the data . It seems to me that its easy talk is cheap and i say probably multiple times a day, im an election geek, i understand that, but when you come for the election system specially the day after election day, you need to have proof. You cant just say the system doesnt work. You actually have to prove it. Elected officials dont have the time or bandwidth to collect the negative. Let me give you an example of the kind of proof that those who are doubters are putting out there. You worked for a few senators in the state and the pew did a study on election rolls and many states hadnt done a good job to keep their election rolls accurate. Now, those who are suspicious of the election system point to that study and say there are 18 million names that are fraudulent on that list. Whats wrong with that . We dont have time to cover the whole thing. But that study was done with the intent of showing how the current Registration System sometimes lags reality with regard to people who have died or people who have moved, large numbers of those registrations are people who moved from one place to another. When you move from place a to place b even if youre on the ball that you need to register your knew address you might not realize that the old address know that you dont live there anymore. Does that create a duplicate record, yes. If you try to vote in both places youre almost certainly be found out. Do people that die remain on the rolls, yes, sometimes the process of notifying election offices of deaths takes more time than it could. But, again, those sorts of things are usually quickly identified. Theres always going to be a lag because we are a nation of many hundred Million People who are constantly moving, Something Like wasnt and six people moves or people tremendous mobility in this country. Voter registration list is always going to lag reality, one of the benefits of online Voter Registration is it gives voters the possibility to both check and update their registrations more quickly and with the help of programs like eric to help states track that movement as well. So is there a lag, yes, does that mean that 18 million death relocated and otherwise fictional people are going to cast ballots on election day, no. I would absolutely agree and i would push back that those are 18 million fraudulent registrations because the vast majority of those are dully eligible individuals who have had the audacity to move, get married. That sort of thing. Many times when people have lifechanging, they are not thinking of contacting supervisor of election or county auditor to let them know that they have moved and we also know that voters believe when they do a change of address at the Postal Service that it updates their address automatically for Voter Registration. And thats not the case in every state. So some states do it that way with national change of address. In fact, the state of minnesota started doing that as well and they found great efficiencies because thats what the electorates are already thinking is happening. Instead of assuming that our population is going to know the nuts and bolts of our election laws, we are having election laws reflect what our the people we service believe the service is. I think that thats important moving forward. So thinking forward to after the election, what would be some concrete feasible reforms that either washington or the states ought to be looking at in passing that would create the reality and appearance in fairness in the election system . I have a long list. So i would say the best place to start is the presents Commission Registration report, of course, shameless plug. But in all seriousness there are a number of reforms there and ive been talking with and i would say that whether this should be a federal effort or the states effort is subject to debate and thats a whole other panel. Everyone should be reviewing the state whether they live and whether or not existing compliance reflect a progressive way of servicing their electorate and what i mean by that is that many election laws were written 50, 60 years ago, they were and theyve been updated over time, but there are certainly still in paper and older processes and procedures that they need to be reviewed. One of the things that ive been mentioning to state legislators is theyre looking at deadlines, it was incredibly necessary to cut off Voter Registration a month, two months in some cases before an election because you had to get all of that information keyed into a system or handwritten into the books and get them for polls on tuesday, for state that is have online Voter Registration, thats an almost instant process to get that updated. If youre using an electronic poll booth at the polling place, you can update that over the weekend before tuesdays election and get it deployed in plenty of time. So there are ways to reflect what we need and what we do in everyday lives. Thats what we need to be talking about and as i mentioned before, the funding because we need to start considering a revenue stream for our elections and its not something that every ten years we decide we need to put a chunk of money into voting equipment and then, you know, have these little gaffes along the way. Its critical that we Pay Attention to it and devote resources to it. Whats your agenda items for Fair Elections . I think we need to up our investment in the American Election system. I think, number one tammy is right, we have to invest money, whether its federal money, whether its state money, whether its some kind of partnership between state and localities, we need to find the way to make the cost of elections manageable for Election Officials so that they dont have to have hat and hand to the legislature every decade or so. I think we should invest in rules and laws, tammy is right that many laws on the books deal with an election system that looks more like 1910 than 2010. We are not thinking about poll books and the like. And finally, i think we need to invest in the community itself. Obviously at the university of minnesota with our certificate and Election Administration we are investing in the next generation of election professionals, but we need to understand that the job of Election Administration has changed. You know, youre not just someone who is collecting and tabulating votes. Someone who has to think of cybersecurity and identity theft, someone that needs to think of a way to lay out a ballot and needs to think about all the different communities in your jurisdiction, language, the job of administration is much more complex both administratively and politically than it ever was. We need to invest of Election Officials that can make for funding, make for improving procedures and do the daytoday work to make sure the process works for their voters. The president s commission that you served on, one of its recommendations was for a concerted effort to create training for Election Officials to create a profession or to support the profession that already exists. Could you say a little bit about that . Sure. Part of what we included had to deal with really what doug just mentioned, recognizing the skill set that you need to be an election administrator and looking at it it at a wide perspective. We know there are states that have programs of Election Administrators. In order to conduct an election you have to go through state certification program. Its a weeklong training. It goes over federal laws, state laws, a wide variety of things that you need to know and what we find that a lot of Election Administrators in some cases they run for office but in others theyre appointed and or are hired on as a job and maybe dont have any experience whatsoever. I speak from personal experience of having no experience in it and its quite a learning curve having an established way for someone to educate themselves on the job, whats necessary, so i will tell you most people do not wake up when theyre 5 or 6 and say i want to be an election administrator. Thats too bad because its an exciting profession. Once elections get in your blood, you dont turn back. Its a career path that runs a gamut of everything that you can imagine, good and bad. Theres never a dull day. No two days are the same and its an exciting and very, very fulfilling and rewarding position. So thats for the election official. But we also recommended to make sure that there are procedures in place to train our poll workers and our other election administrative staff because they train and never have to go to training again which as we know elections change a lot from one election to the next. The laws change, we have litigation, we have procedures that change. So the training piece of it is really, really important. I want to ask you one of the challenges, and im curious what you think of this, which is theres been a lot of conversation about our criminal Justice System that officials in the criminal Justice System ought to look like the communities theyre in. There is enormous generational title wave of folks who were in the election world who are retiring or thinking of retiring, does that create an opportunity to to create a new generation of Election Officials that looks like america . Absolutely. I think that right now as tammy mentioned, most folks didnt wake up deciding they wanted to be an election official. Theres someone who started as a poll worker and was in another area of local government that sort of fell into elections and it got into their blood but we have an opportunity in this country with, i think, the wave of retirement that is are going to be coming in the field. Right now what we tend today is take Election Officials and teach them and how to make polls accessible for people with disabilities, how to reach people with different ethnic or language communities, thats an important challenge. At the same time theres also an opportunity right now to take people from those communities, people with disabilities, new immigrants citizens, folks from racial language in orderric communities and teach them Election Administration look like not just the electorate but the population at large. And i talk about shortening the distance between the voter and the process. In many ways making the profession look more like the population also shortness the distance comfortwise for everybody in the community that the system works for them. So the Humphrey School is dedicated and we are excited to continue the work in the field of Election Administration. So the short answer to your question, larry, is yes. Thank you. [laughter] tammy, i want to circle back to some of the conversations we were having earlier in response to some of the audience questions. One question is what do you think of efforts like registered poll watchers which we you know, a number of states have created. You know, theres concern that does this in some way intimidate voters, is this a strategy to chaseoff eligible voters or do you think of this as quite legitimate and constructive way to create greater confidence of both parties can be at the election site and be part of verifying . So i think the critical distinction here is mechanisms in place for individuals to be observers, so most states have Political Party observers that are credentialed. Theyre allowed into the polling place. Theyre able to observe all the functions in the polling place but there are restrictions on what they can or cannot do. They cant be 6 feet within the voting equipment, they have to talk to the supervisor of the poll workers, those sorts of restrictions but there are observers and they have observing access and there are other observers that will be outside the polling place, outside the limit and they with speak to voters, that sort of thing. Thats kind of the way that many states handle it. So if someone, and i had great value in that sort of observing effort because the jurisdiction i came from we had 2 million registered voters, both of the time we had 1100 polling places, hiring 8,000 people to work the polls. Did they all go to training . No. Did they all Pay Attention at training, not always. Did they sometimes misremember what they heard in training . At times. So having observers there could be very helpful and they will call my cell phone and say, ethel doesnt understand this piece, you need to send a troubleshooter over. That was helpful. If they are uncredentialed individuals trying to flooding places or prevent access and as mentioned i was in arizona, we did that have one election, we had individuals not in my county but down in pima county that had video cameras, they had machine guns dropped on their backs going up to voters getting out of their cars and challenging their right to vote. That, of course, is prohibited by law. Thats where its important that we know who is going to be participating in this observant process, whether or not theyre following the actual process which is wonderful, but if theyre going to be actors going out to the polls to try and intimidate individuals or restrict americans rights to vote thats, of course, incredibly problematic and we have laws that prevent intimidation. It would be important for everyone to know including poll workers, the sanction party observers, voters themselves, if i see Something Like that, what do i notify, who do i call. Thats going to be important that that information is out there so if Something Like that should occur we are able to address it immediately and prevent it from impacting additional voters. So to put a to make this a sharp point, donald trump has been saying at Campaign Rallies weve got to watch the voting places to prevent rigging and other sorts of concerns about elections getting stolen. And if i understand you correctly, and correct me if ive got this wrong, what youre saying, thats fine, come watch, but come in through the process been established by the Republican Party and the Democratic Party to be registered poll watcher in states where that process exists and, you know, become a constructive part of that process but dont come to the polls with an idea that youre going to intervene with voters trying to engage with their constitutionial constitutional right . I would say follow the rule of law. There are laws about this. There are Access Points that individuals can come in and observe in many states. Any concerned citizen should contact their local Political Party and find out what they can do to participate. I will also tell you that many elections get frustrated because they are looking for poll workers. Jurisdiction will see 10 to 15 of the poll workers will cancel. On election day you will have 5 to 15 that wont show up at all. Ive been observing elections in the last couple of years since i left Maricopa County and i observed that one out of seven, in one polling place one out of seven people showed up. If you want to be an observer, thats great. I would challenge that instead be a poll worker, go to the training, find out what the mechanism is but know that youre going to be there and youre going to Service Every voter regardless of party affiliation, youre going to Service Everyone. Youre not there as a point of challenging individuals. If thats the intentions, then you need to revisit the law and understand what your rights are as an observer in the state. I think the interesting thing to watch in the next couple of weeks, weve had concerns in the past or cause in the past for large numbers of people to go observe at the poll, poll watchers, challengers, what have you. My experience has been with very rare exceptions like the one tammy described, those folks often dont show either the result solidifies in advance of election day or its more talk than action. So the one thing that Election Officials, theyll be prepared for those folks to show up on election day but theres no guaranty that they actually will. I know Election Officials are probably more so than ever this year thinking about how they set up lines of communication with their polling places in case someone does show up with either improper attitude or more aggressive than the law or common sense allows, you know, they want to figure out how to balance the desire to keep voters safe but not to drive off voters with the impression of an armed camp at the polling place. But one of the things over the next two plus weeks to watch will be whether or not all of this talk about people at the polls actually comes to pass and experience suggests that it may not. So dont freak out yet . Thats right. Be ready but i dont freak out any way but i think this is worth being prepared for. You would rather be prepared for and not have it in the alternative. Tammy patrick, given your experiences on the watched elections and help run them, what would be your advice to states that are thinking about how to respond to the what we hope will be a very rare incidence of voters being intimidated and being interfered with, what would be the correct procedure for dealing with that sort of unusual extraordinary situation . So i think that Election Administrators all across the country have plans in place, contingency plans for a variety of reasons, whether its an exuberant poll worker, watcher, observer no matter what the instance may be. So they already have plans in place. I would suggest is to make sure that youve reviewed your plans, make sure theyre up to date and make sure they are current with the way in which doug had mentioned the command center, the way in which youre already communicating with poll workers, having your field rovers understand completely what to do in any sort of emergency situation whether its a fire or an Elementary School goes on lockdown or anything can happen. These sorts of things do happen in elections and so there should already be procedures in place. So just revisiting them as we get closer to election, making poll workers are aware, the challenges you dont want to scare off poll workers because i worked through a very similar situation back in 2008 and are poll workers were concerned but i will tell you they were so resilient because they said no one is going to scare me away, no one is going to prevent me from doing my job, i worked at the poll for 30 years, i have worked at the polls for 20 years and i will be there. You can count on me. Its as important to know what the process is and the follow those procedures. Doug, youve worked with the media for a number of years and youre highly respected as a trusted source. Looking at the press and the press coverage of elections and particularly the Administration Elections and thinking about the current context in which the Blood Pressure is up this year on worries about either intimidation or untort action, what would be your reaction to the press about how to cover the administration of the election this is year . I talked to Election Administrators. I think too often reporters reach out to somebody like me and im always happy to talk to them. The people that actually do the work are the people who know the answers and weve had a lot of coverage of the hacking and the rigging, the delays in registration deadline with hurricane matthew. If i had every nickel of every administrator, i would have retired years ago. These folks, they have emails, they actually answer their phones and they love their jobs and love to talk about them. I know that the candidates like to talk. I know that the campaigns have a lot to say, but you would be surprised as to how much people do the work, know about the work and can give context to and grounding in the issues that are being discussed. So seriously, there are thousands, tens of thousands of Election Officials across the country, probably one or more in your jurisdiction. If youre a member of the media, dont just call them in the next three weeks, get to know them between the next elections and how they do the work that they do. Im certainly not going to tell members of the media not to cover whats being said at rallies. Thats part of our political system but make sure you talk to the folks who actually do the work when youre writing your stories or filming your pieces for your readers or viewers. And when you say Election Officials, is there a particular office . Should members of the press be going to the secretary of state, should they be going to county, that you would they be going to the voting precinct . Where should they be heading . My recommendation to find local official, county clerk or what have you. Some state official will know state law but the folks who are the daytoday grenade catchers of America Administration are going to be the local they pick the polling places, they are going to know what the polling place is going to look like on election day and theyre very smart and capable people besides. Did you want to jump in on that . I disagree wholeheartedly. I think its parent to important to know. Its a hard question to answer in terms of who to contact because in some states you have four or five different county agencies that have some role in election process. You might have a recorder thats in charge of Voter Registration and early voting and director in charge of election day, you may have all the combinations thereof. I think that looking at your local county, parish, whatever that jurisdiction, township, municipality in some cases, but i think most people in the media would know and then i do think its important to also reach out to the secretaries of state and i would also articulate follow them on social media, many of them are putting out all sorts of great content that you can use for stories that are positive and that can help inform the electorate moving into election day whether it has to do with what day ballots are being mailed out or when hours are for early voting locations or person absentee and theres a lot of great content out there that you can harvest pretty quickly. The secretary of state in minnesota steve simon just recently used facebook and absolutely smashed the previous oneday record for the number of Voter Registration that was successfully done. So its a good example. Let me ask you, though, about secretary of state because in some states these are partisan figures. The media wants someone who doesnt have in the fight, can someone that runs for secretary of state as republican or democrat, can they be trusted on Election Night to give a fair telling from the perspective on the trenches of elections . They take their role very seriously as a nonpartisan role in the election on election day. Everyone has some sort of partisan angle or perception but everyone tries to check that at the door. Now, there are exceptions to those rules, i think on Election Night and leading up to election day, if you want a statewide perspective that the secretaries of state and state election offices are good places to go to to find out about statewide procedures, legislation, the statewide results are usually accumulated at the secretary of states website or the state boards. This has been an absolutely stunning conversation. Weve covered a lot of the big issues that are circulating and i know for some folks who have been sending in questions. The concern of even talking about it gives creeds to charges that may not be things you have to worry about. I agree with you too. Its been an oppressive conversation. The more you know about, the more confidence the people should have in the system and integrity. We will be counting on you two on the days forward. I want to thank Henry Patrick and doug who run it is certificate election at the university of minnesota, thank you very much. Thank you. [applause] thank you so much. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] voter fraud claims have the potential to resident with many